RISD

New Associate Professor of Printmaking Megan Foster is inspired by “weird science” and the everyday.

When she was interviewing for a full-time faculty position in Printmaking – her major department when she was a student at RISD – newly hired Associate Professor Megan Foster 00 PR was asked to envision her “dream course,” a class for advanced students that would incorporate new technology with traditional printmaking techniques. She proposed a studio in which students would create stop-motion animations using multiple handmade prints and a scanner, a technique that’s become quite popular in the printmaking world.

“I’ve always crossed disciplines in my teaching and my own work,” Foster says, “and I’m excited to work with RISD students. I’ll be teaching at a level I couldn’t reach anywhere else.”

Since Foster earned her BFA in the department, she has returned regularly as a visiting critic while teaching full-time at the City College of New York and working as a master printer at Columbia University. A staunch believer in RISD’s hands-on approach, she says that “people outside the fine arts world still rely on those who can make things with their hands. Printmaking has always been a medium that pushes technology and mass production,” she adds, “but it’s coming back around to limited editions and specialized techniques like etching. And there’s a lot more respect for the medium in the larger art world today as well.”

Click to read more…

The last time newly hired Associate Professor of Sculpture Lisi Raskin was as disturbed by the political landscape as she is now was when she was a kid growing up during the Reagan/Cold War era. Her work has been focused on fears of war and terrorism since the World Trade Towers collapsed under attack on 9/11 – soon after she moved to New York – and she continues to turn to her artistic practice to “figure out a creative way through,” noting that “performance and objects are good outlets.”

For 10 years Raskin created large-scale architectural installations referencing the Cold War-era fallout shelters, bunkers and missile silos she visited “on a magic carpet ride” starting in 2003. “That Cold War militarized palette is everywhere,” she says. But once she began questioning the purpose of this work several years ago, she “lost the desire to create things [she] didn’t want to see in the world.”

Click to read more…

At RISD Illustration major Yuko Okabe 17 IL has learned that being a good illustrator is not just about developing and expressing your own voice, it’s about reaching out and communicating with others. As a summer Maharam STEAM Fellow, she’s using her character development talents to reach kids at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) who are dealing with mental health issues such as anxiety and hyperactivity.

“Children respond to stories,” Okabe points out. “The project I’m working on uses storytelling to help psychotherapists and other caregivers communicate with kids and teach them different skills related to executive function and other cognitive behaviors.”

Okabe has teamed up with game developers at Neuro’motion, a startup that works closely with clinicians in BCH’s Department of Psychiatry, to contribute to a biofeedback game for children aged 6–12 that helps them regulate intense emotions via therapeutic coping skills. When young players follow the game’s narrative, their heartrates are monitored as they face increasingly difficult challenges. They can see how high their heartrate is rising by looking at a gauge on the screen and can only move up to the next level by staying calm enough to keep their heartrate below a certain number.

Click to read more…

Newly hired Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Keetra Dixon is thrilled to join the RISD community, almost star-struck at the notion of working side by side with some of her all-time favorite designers. Despite many years of experience as a practicing professional, she sees herself as a novice when it comes to “blending learning, making and teaching into a unified studio practice.”

Dixon traveled to RISD from Alaska last year to lead Urging Osmosis, a graduate workshop in Graphic Design that encouraged students to focus on methods rather than results. “It was all about process,” she explains, “taking on methods used by designers they emulate and learning by openly exploring those methods.”

The experience was as educational for Dixon as it was for students. “I’m not looking for a lot of nodding when I’m teaching a class,” she says. “I’m looking for a conversation. Students at RISD are phenomenal: hardworking, on point, willing, smart and engaged in active dialogue. That’s a community I want to be a part of.”

Click to read more…