My classes

I am taking 15 credits this semester and so far I feel like I could have taken on a little more. Two of my classes have not had a very large workload to date, but every day I expect the next to be busier.

My main class which accounts fro 9 of the 15 credits is my furniture design studio. Both the first-year and second-year grads meet together every Tuesday and Thursday to present ideas, talk about design, go on field trips, etc. Our assignments differ from the seond-year grads but it is nice to get a taste of what I will be doing next year. To graduate from the program everyone must write a thesis and build a corresponding body of work and the second-years are just starting on that process. For the first years, it is more a time of exploration and I think we are all taking that to heart.

My welding class meets right after my studio on Thursday evenings. So far, the class has been a bit unorganized but I am hoping that will improve as we all settle into a schedule of sorts. The main problem appears to be that there are only four welding stations and about 18 people in the class. I am excited to be able to work with a new material though. By the end of the semester we are all required to build a comfortable, steel chair. I don't really have any ideas yet on what I am going to build. I am waiting I think until I learn a little more about the process. Below is a picture of our first assignment - a 4" steel cube. It is just "pinned" together - although not very well. We will learn how to actually weld it together tonight.




My graduate seminar is entitled Art and Design: Interdisciplinary Collaboration. This is the first time this class is being taught and so far it is a lot of fun. The instructors are two young guys who live and work in New York but teach at RISD in the painting and textiles department as well. They are really excited about the class so it creates a really good vibe. RISD has so many amazing disciplines but due to the technical nature of many of them and also safety issues involved with many of the machines it is hard to work with people outside of your department. This class is trying to provide a forum for that. Every other week we meet in NYC to visit practicioners in the fields of art and design. On the weeks we stay in Providence we will discuss assigned readings and talk about our projects. The readings have mostly been focused on the differences and similarities between art and design and trying to reach a definition for each. We also have a corresponding assigment that deals with the collaboration aspect of the class. We have been put into groups of four and we are required to do or build something - anything - it just has to exist in the real world in some tangible way. My group is made up of a textile designer. sculptor, and a printmaker.