risd e-views

the brilliant line

Few have mastered the exacting language of lines like Renaissance engravers, who pushed their art to astonishing technical heights in developing one of Europe's first reproducible art forms. In the RISD Museum's new exhibition The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650, curator Emily Peters shows how great innovators such as Albrecht Dürer and Agostino Carracci learned from each other during this feverish period in the history of the medium. To help explain why their breakthroughs were so remarkable, contemporary engraver Andrew Raftery, an associate professor of Printmaking at RISD, demonstrates each step of the process in a video made to accompany the show, which opens on Friday and continues through January 3.

video | 4 mins in foundation studies

Remember your Foundation year? This week 445 new first-year students are about to dive deep into the RISD experience through Foundation Studies - check out this video to relive the experience.

in the news/on the blog

» Richard Merkin, 1938-2009
alum, professor, painter, writer, friend, raconteur, bon vivant and spirit

» RISD's Changents
Sami Nerenberg '07 ID and Nate Bastien MID '10 work for the environment

» Getting a DIGICATION at RISD
alums' course management system brings critical thinking and making to the web

» Lenore Tawney Scholarship
fund to support students in Textiles Department

» Henry Dietrich Fernandez
Renaissance scholar/senior lecturer in Architecture and Interior Architecture dies

» RISD + AS220
Printmaking Department and alums at work in local gallery's print shop

» our.risd.edu
read all of our posts about all things RISD

from alumni relations

Next month's RISD by Design programming offers thought-provoking discussions on Making the Most of Creative Connections and Critical Thinking + Making: The Essence of RISD, along with events to help you reconnect with each other - like a "show & tell" session in the Tap Room and a semi-impromptu "café" in The Met, where alumni and students can talk about and share their work. It's not too late to register online and even if you can't be there, you might appreciate this RISD by Design animation, courtesy of Melinda Rainsberger '04 FAV.

On RISD by Design eve - Thursday, October 8 - grads from the Class of '04 living in Boston, New York and San Francisco are getting together at local bars to toast their 5th reunions. Since young alumni might not have the resources to travel to Providence for the weekend event, we thought we'd help them connect with each other locally and compare notes on life after RISD.

Designer Matt Grigsby '05 ID, a sustainability expert and co-founder of ecolect, visited campus earlier this week as our 2009 Orientation guest speaker. Matt introduced RISD's newest students (freshmen, transfers and grad students) to what's in store for them and spoke about his own work advocating for green design and sustainable living.

As the economy thaws, why not take advantage of new opportunities by hiring creative talent from RISD? It's easy (and free) to post full- or part-time jobs and offer internships via our Artworks database. You'll access a unique pool of skilled artists and designers and support the RISD community at the same time.

on campus

When Brett Windham MFA '10 SC and Kat Hodges MFA '10 PR stood outside their studios hotly debating the relative merits of two Modern Lovers songs, they suddenly realized they should curate a show together. This is a Show about Rock and Roll, which opens on Thursday, September 24 with a 6-8pm reception at the Gelman Student Exhibitions Gallery, presents "a collection of work by artists who are musicians, artists who just wish they were and artists whose work echoes in the in-between."

You have just over a week - until September 26 - to catch Representing the Wild: 19th and 20th-Century Illustrations of Birds and Animals, a summer exhibition in the Fleet Library at RISD curated by Special Collections Librarian Laurie Whitehill Chong '70 IL. Based on beautiful books on loan from the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, the show also features nature drawings by RISD students made from the 1930s through the 1960s, along with taxidermy specimens from the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab.

Former MoMA curator Robert Storr, now dean of the Yale School of Art, will be at RISD next month to deliver the Museum's 2009 Gail Silver Memorial Lecture on Thursday, October 8 at 6:15pm in the Chace Center's Metcalf Auditorium. You need to reserve a seat in advance by e-mailing Pam Kimel or calling 401 454-6505.

RISD Exhibition

jecca MFA '03 PH
Orange County Center for Contemporary Art
Santa Ana, CA
through September 26

RISD Exhibition

Keith Hollingworth '59 CR
Gallery A3
Amherst, MA
through September 26

RISD Exhibition

Mary Jane Begin '85 IL
Salley Mavor '78 IL
Cheryl Kirk Noll '77 IL
Alison Paul '05 IL
Rebecca Walsh '00 IL
URI Feinstein Providence Campus Gallery
Providence, RI
September 17-30

RISD Exhibition

Peter Barrett '90 PT
Dorsch Gallery
Miami, FL
through October 3

RISD Exhibition

Laurence Young MFA '79 PR
Powers Gallery
Acton, MA
through October 11

RISD Exhibition

Robert Thornton '52 PT
Bert Gallery
Providence, RI
through October 16

RISD Exhibition

Jed Fielding '75 PH
Andrea Meislin Gallery
New York, NY
through October 17

RISD Exhibition

Marianna Williams '12 PT
Sacred Heart Cultural Center
August, GA
through October 30

RISD Exhibition

Emily Chang '75 PT
exhibition graphics + catalogue: Shani (Tow) Parsons '00 GD
Museum of Chinese in America
New York, NY
September 22-March 14, 2010