Graduate Print I will focus on the notion that Printmaking (and its constituent processes/techniques) are a hub within the visual arts. Students will experiment with a multitude of print processes that branch from drawing (a logical creative starting-point between Printmaking and Painting), and form extensions into the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, and even video. Processes covered will include; drawing fluid/screen filler, screen monotype, image transfer, drypoint intaglio, and various other forms of monoprint. Assignments will require experimentation with each new technique and projects will require the individual exploration of these techniques and application to each students' personal studio practice. Demonstrations, presentations, and group/individual critiques will supplement all work time.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Open to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

Graduate Print I will focus on the notion that Printmaking (and its constituent processes/techniques) are a hub within the visual arts. Students will experiment with a multitude of print processes that branch from drawing (a logical creative starting-point between Printmaking and Painting), and form extensions into the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, and even video. Processes covered will include; drawing fluid/screen filler, screen monotype, image transfer, drypoint intaglio, and various other forms of monoprint. Assignments will require experimentation with each new technique and projects will require the individual exploration of these techniques and application to each students' personal studio practice. Demonstrations, presentations, and group/individual critiques will supplement all work time.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Open to Graduate Printmaking Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking

Advanced and basic topics in the physical sciences are explored in this class. An overview of space-time and the expanding universe is followed by topics in: light quantum, the atom, and quantum physics. Other topics include wave-particle duality, gravity, time, black holes, and the special and general theories of relativity. Then we examine the unification of physics through the emerging result of (super) string theory which in spite of the incompatibility between general relativity and quantum mechanics harmoniously unites (and also requires) these conflicting theories. The already non-intuitive dimensions of space-time beautifully expand in the quantum geometry of string theory.

Elective

The goals of this course are threefold:

(1) to explain how the natural world works, and how humans physically change and are changed by some of its processes

(2) To emphasize how society understands, evaluates and confronts the dangers posed by these natural processes

(3) To encourage students to view the unique sets of problems caused by flooding, earthquakes, tsunami, climate change and other earth functions as challenges demanding intelligent and creative solutions that they are equipped to deliver.

Case studies of recent natural disasters and design solutions will be discussed, and students own creativity and concepts for potential design solutions will be employed. No prior science background is required.

Elective

This course, taught by zoological medicine veterinarian Dr. Lucy Spelman examines how we interact with animals-both domestic and wild-and how, in turn, these interactions affect us. Each week we focus on a different species, working our way up the taxonomic tree from corals to gorillas. We study the animal's basic biology, including its anatomy, natural history, and ecology. We consider the role it plays in human society, including as companions, as food, and, as sources of medicine and spiritual inspiration. We study how human activity is affecting its health and the ripple effect on our own health. We explore how agriculture, climate change, emerging diseases, habitat loss, hunting, and trade are driving many species to extinction. In the process, we discover that while many human-animal interactions are positive, many more are problematic, and that although we have solutions for most of these negative interactions, we often fail to implement them. Examples include excessive antibiotic use in cows, the continued loss of wetlands threatening frogs, and, the increasing number of coyotes favored by urban landscapes. We explore some of the underlying reasons for this inaction. In their final project, students identify a problematic human-animal interaction and explore solutions.

This course is designed to encourage you to explore the range of biological complexity in the animal world, the many ways we interact with animals, both domestic and wild, and, the scientific basis of the interconnectedness of health. You will also have the opportunity to explore solutions for problematic human-animal interactions; it is possible to live in balance with animals if we make informed decisions. The material presented will challenge you to learn more about animal classification, zoology, ecology, food animal science, veterinary medicine, public health, and conservation biology. For your final project, you will research a problematic human-animal interaction, explore potential solutions, and create a work of art or design that inspires others to take action.

Elective

Has the unfathomable diversity of insects ever fascinated you, but left you wondering where to begin? This is a basic course in entomology for the natural historian and artist. All orders of Class Insecta will be introduced, with both field and lab components whenever possible. Basic insect morphology and ecology will be covered for most orders, with opportunities for artistic rendition and use of both live and dead specimens as models. Students will learn basic insect anatomy and taxonomy for the identification of insects to order-level. Elements of insect ecology will infiltrate everything we look at, in both the field and the lab. Emphasis will be placed on the major orders (beetles, flies, butterflies/moths, etc.); the minor orders will be covered to varying degrees, but this can be adjusted according to the class consensus. Coursework will include field collecting trips, observation and drawing of specimens using a microscope, identification quizzes, and a course project that will emphasize the creation of materials for educational outreach. Additionally, students will finish with their own curated insect collection identified to order-level (or beyond, if student desires).

Elective

This immersive interdisciplinary RISD Global Summer Studies course is for art and design students interested in studying symbiotic relationships in the bushveld ecosystem of South Africa as inspiration for their creative practice. Students will combine art and science to gain a deep understanding of the intricate connections among animals, fungi, and plants and their conservation value in a well-studied biodiversity hotspot that includes Kruger National Park. On location for three weeks in South Africa, this course will be co-taught by longtime RISD faculty member, scientist Dr. Lucy Spelman (Senior Lecturer/HPSS) along with a teaching assistant. Students will learn from botanists, ecologists, professional wildlife guides, traditional ecological knowledge holders, and wildlife biologists. They will also have the opportunity on location to create/make new works of art, design, and writing informed and inspired by their understanding of the many deep connections within nature and their conservation value. 

Registration is not available in Workday. Students must complete an application through RISD Global Summer Studies. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required for all RISD students. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Additional information including deadlines and travel costs can be found on the Global Summer Studies website.

Afterschool Special adds another layer to the MFA Sculpture curriculum in relation to the work done in Graduate Studio and Graduate Critique. The class will be divided into 2 six-week sections taught by an artist and a curator. Through these differing and connected perspectives, students will develop a deeper understanding into the ways that art is displayed, viewed, contextualized and experienced. The course will explore the many roles that the artist plays in society in addition to elaborating the ways that visual art influences contemporary thought through the history of curation and exhibition-making.

The course will consist of lectures, discussions, group critiques and one-on-one studio visits. The first half of the semester will focus on professional practices in the field of fine arts. Students will be introduced to a variety of resources and skills necessary in preparing for upcoming and future opportunities such as residencies, granting applications, and fellowships. There will also be discussions about maintaining post-graduate art practices and cultivating thriving creative communities.  The second half will focus on curation with emphasis placed on current trends and shifts in artistic and curatorial production, theory, and criticism. Students will examine case studies of a range of curatorial practices and consider examples of artist curated shows. Both sections will involve the topic of exhibiting works in various spaces such as galleries (artist-run, for-profit, university, etc.), museums and alternative art organizations. 

Enrollment is limited to 2nd-year Sculpture Graduate Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

“Any attempt to understand an artistic medium through the lens of technology alone is futile and counterproductive,imposing limits on the conceptual understanding of the work. Good art is always both deeply rooted in and at the same time transcends its medium.”
-Christiane Paul
 
This course will explore digital design and fabrication within the context of contemporary art, design and architecture. Through a series of technical demonstrations and assignments, connections will be made between CAD/CAM software, fabrication technologies and the physical world. Additionally, the course will explore digital fabrication as it relates to traditional sculptural processes such as mold making + casting, metalworking and woodworking.
 
This course, although technical in nature, is not technical in spirit. Our goal is not the mastery of any one software application or fabrication technology, but instead an understanding of how to effectively leverage digital processes and tools in one’s studio.
 
The semester will be divided into a series of assignments, each exploring various approaches to digital design and fabrication, and will culminate in a final project blending digital fabrication with an existing project and/or research interest.
 
You will leave this course with the ability to model complex geometries, to collect and process 3D scan data, and to output using additive fabrication equipment. We will utilize the resources of RISD at large, but will focus on highly accessible, open source digital fabrication tools available within the Sculpture department.

Elective

This course is structured according the notion that artists can use what is on hand to research and craft simple solutions to the complex physical, mechanical, and technical problems that must be routinely addressed in their making practices. This material and process based, hands-on, research studio will be structured in response to the issues that the advanced fine arts student is grappling with on a regular basis. Many of the issues that arise in the process of making provide the opportunity to transcend perceived material-based boundaries and thinking. Some of the questions this course attends to include: How do you defy gravity? How do you generate the hidden components required to physicalize the thing we can see in our mind's eye? How is the magic we need to create our work scalable to the resources we have readily available? Example working processes include: mig welding, tig welding, casting for prototyping, woodworking, and mold making.

This course is open to junior, senior and graduate-level students. Please contact the instructor directly for permission to register.

Elective

Time-Based Objects is founded in the legacy of sculpture—tracing the expansion of the discipline from discrete objects to the realm of installation, performance, and durational practice. This course will re-imagine the role of objects through multiple vantage points such as how they are used, manipulated, and instrumentalized towards new ends. While rooted in the tradition of theatre, the course draws on costumes, props, and sets as sculptural propositions in their own right—examining how objects carry meaning, embody narrative, and activate space. Students will explore the performative capacity of objects through projects, lectures, presentations, process critiques, and improvisational exercises.

In this course we will consider time-based methods as sculptural form. Informed by conceptual art, dance, social practice, and video installation, we will learn and engage with the experimental precedents that have shaped our current understanding of sculpture. Students will consider not just what an object is, but what it does, and what it becomes when set in motion.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Non-majors may enroll pending seat availability. Students may use the 'Request Course Section Prerequisite Override' task to request permission to register for the course.

Elective

This course will teach the advanced skills and processes necessary to achieve reliably repeatable results in casting and mold-making. Students will gain material literacy beginning with a limited range of mold making products in the Platinum Silicone and Gypsum Cement families. This skillset will provide the necessary confidence to expand into the broader range of flexible and rigid mold making products to suit individual student needs. Students will learn key methods to achieve successful multi part flexible molds, with a specific emphasis on silicone rubber products. Direct modeling materials such as Castilene and Magic Sculpt will be demonstrated as companion products for making rigid semi-permanent mold ready objects. The proficiency gained in this studio course will enable students to problem solve mold-making challenges, such as complexity and scale, multi part molds, repeatable production of multiples, and planning for larger and more advanced mold-making and casting projects.  This procedural knowledge will assist in various purposes in a studio practice such as the need for repetition, durability, economy, and sustainability. This course is intended to assist, augment and enhance ongoing studio work for all students as they workshop their emerging studio practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Elective

What is the meaning of contemporary? What is the meaning of critique? What are models for sustainable and ethical artistic practice? What is the role of the artist in contemporary culture? These are but a few of the frameworks we will use to explore an array of new tools for thinking, feeling, perceiving, and analyzing the textures of our inter-subjective environment. Together, we will address the challenges implicit in the willful consideration of what exists beyond what we think we know; beyond what we have been told is true about our chosen field as artists. We take up this exploration through a selection of readings, films, lectures and class discussions. Some of the discourses we engage include the relationship between politics and aesthetics, critical race theory, myriad feminist theories, theories of institutional critique, and methods of radical practice in contemporary art.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

What theories and methods concerning political, historical, and artistic languages do artists rely on to inform their practices? How are you and members of your cohorts approaching aesthetic form in your own practice? What is the language being used in and around the work you are creating? How can we as a community create space to refine these messages within our work? What role does the method of critique play in this collective investigation? 

Graduate Sculpture Critique is a discussion-based, collaborative critique seminar that makes space for multiple voices and ways of being in community; foregrounding and supporting the burgeoning artistic practices represented in the grad cohorts. This course centers community building, supplemental reading, group and peer-to-peer critique, and other dialectical methods that foster an intellectual and artistic intimacy among cohort mates. Here we build a foundation that supports risk-taking, question-asking, and the reimagining of predetermined boundaries. Students are asked with great intention to expand the discussion around intersectionality, interstitially, and interdisciplinarity and how the space between things comes to bear on the method of critique.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

What theories and methods concerning political, historical, and artistic languages do artists rely on to inform their practices? How are you and members of your cohorts approaching aesthetic form in your own practice? What is the language being used in and around the work you are creating? How can we as a community create space to refine these messages within our work? What role does the method of critique play in this collective investigation? 

Graduate Sculpture Critique is a discussion-based, collaborative critique seminar that makes space for multiple voices and ways of being in community; foregrounding and supporting the burgeoning artistic practices represented in the grad cohorts. This course centers community building, supplemental reading, group and peer-to-peer critique, and other dialectical methods that foster an intellectual and artistic intimacy among cohort mates. Here we build a foundation that supports risk-taking, question-asking, and the reimagining of predetermined boundaries. Students are asked with great intention to expand the discussion around intersectionality, interstitially, and interdisciplinarity and how the space between things comes to bear on the method of critique.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

Building upon the independent work accomplished in Junior studio, students are expected to generate self directed work supported by in-process critiques, formal critiques, and individual meetings. Faculty and peer feedback will help students clarify their objectives, fine tune their technical abilities, and develop a strong working practice. Students are expected to hone their creative problem-solving skills and engage in a high level of dialog and work. Throughout the fall, students will practice integrating their source research into their studio practice. An increased and rigorous integration of contemporary art, critical theory, and criticism is expected. The visiting artist lecture series is a vital component of this course.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Students in the MFA program pursue individual work under advisement of resident faculty, visiting artists and critics. This tutorial experience has been organized to nurture student work toward a set of goals and outcomes through routine conversations with faculty and their cohort. The priority is to assist students with recognizing new objectives in their practice.  Faculty work with students to develop new or hone existing skills to set priorities and meet  goals and deadlines. At the MFA level students will experience a deeper sense of individualized mentorship.  While advising students on the material aspects of their work, faculty will simultaneously  guide students toward new conceptual, theoretical and or philosophical frameworks for their work. 

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture

The Fall semester of Junior year represents a crucial pathway out of the sophomore experience and into independent, self-directed work in sculpture. Junior Sculpture Studio, together with Research Studio, is designed to support student’s individual interests and incorporate the multifaceted and highly personalized condition of artistic research with studio methodologies. The semester will consist of two major critique sessions, alongside various demos, assignments, artist talks, and work sessions that direct students’ conversation and growth within the studio. The work sessions will consist of artistic pursuits specific to individual practices, formal small and larger group critiques, and 1 on 1 and small group studio visits with faculty, teaching assistants and peers. The sculpture department’s visiting artist lecture series is a vital component of this course and allows insight into the practices and work of professional artists. Additionally, a curated selection of material, and personally collected archives, digital and physical as well as various forms of media will prompt deeper investigations into artist practice throughout the semester, exploring the very nature of how to explore, research, and investigate the world around you.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

The Fall semester of Junior year represents a crucial pathway out of the sophomore experience and into independent, self-directed work in sculpture. Junior Sculpture Studio, together with Research Studio, is designed to support student’s individual interests and incorporate the multifaceted and highly personalized condition of artistic research with studio methodologies. The semester will consist of two major critique sessions, alongside various demos, assignments, artist talks, and work sessions that direct students’ conversation and growth within the studio. The work sessions will consist of artistic pursuits specific to individual practices, formal small and larger group critiques, and 1 on 1 and small group studio visits with faculty, teaching assistants and peers. The sculpture department’s visiting artist lecture series is a vital component of this course and allows insight into the practices and work of professional artists. Additionally, a curated selection of material, and personally collected archives, digital and physical as well as various forms of media will prompt deeper investigations into artist practice throughout the semester, exploring the very nature of how to explore, research, and investigate the world around you.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Students in the MFA program pursue individual work under advisement of resident faculty, visiting artists and critics. This tutorial experience has been organized to nurture student work toward a set of goals and outcomes through routine conversations with faculty and their cohort. The priority is to assist students with recognizing new objectives in their practice.  Faculty work with students to develop new or hone existing skills to set priorities and meet  goals and deadlines. At the MFA level students will experience a deeper sense of individualized mentorship.  While advising students on the material aspects of their work, faculty will simultaneously  guide students toward new conceptual, theoretical and or philosophical frameworks for their work.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Sculpture