Game Changers for Social Change

The second annual Game Changers issue of Metropolis magazine is out, and the list of 12 individuals honored for their pathbreaking work includes two RISD alums: game designer and educator Katie Salen MFA 92 GD and architect Michael Maltzan BArch 85, whose LA-based practice includes designing housing for the homeless (like the New Carver Apartments near Skid Row, whose center courtyard view is shown here).

Salen and Maltzan joined a list of winners that includes Etsy founder Rob Kalin and Design Within Reach President and CEO John Edelman.

“Our class of 2012 is a diverse lot, but its members share an important trait: Their community-based work has broader implications for the world at large, demonstrating the power of design to forge real change,” says Metropolis executive editor Martin Pedersen.

Translating Pro Bono

Pro bono service has been enshrined in the legal and medical professions for centuries. Now thanks to John Peterson BArch 90, the field of architecture has reached a milestone in formalizing its commitment to design in the service of the public good.

This month Peterson’s nonprofit organization, Public Architecture, announced the launching of a new partnership with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) that will encourage AIA members to commit a minimum of 1 percent of their time to pro bono service. The partnership, to be formally launched in May, expands the reach of Public Architecture’s The 1% program, which matches nonprofits with design firms willing to donate their time for projects — like the one above by design firm Gensler, which  re-purposed shipping containers for a Boy Scout camp on Catalina Island in California.

“This partnership is a historic leap forward towards a more comprehensive commitment to creating better environments in all communities,” says Peterson, who recently spoke at a RISD conference on best practices in socially conscious design.

If you’re in New York, keep an eye out for the latest edition of Showpaper, the bi-weekly broadsheet that keeps track of all-ages and DIY musical performances in the NYC / tri-state area. Each issue also features a full-color piece of art and the latest is a drawing by Tim Harrington 96 FAV. Tim is also well-known as the vocalist of indie heroes Les Savy Fav, which he formed in 1995 with fellow RISD students Syd Butler 96 FAV, Seth Jabour 96 IL, Pat Mahoney 95 SC, and Gibb Slife 97 PR.

showpaper:

SHOW P ONE TWO THREE = TIM HARRINGTON ! IT HAS ARRIVED AT A LOCATION NEAR YOU!

showpaper

We received this letter in the Alumni Relations Office recently.  Needless to say, it made our day.  We love you too Annabelle, and hope to see you on campus some day!

We received this letter in the Alumni Relations Office recently.  Needless to say, it made our day.  We love you too Annabelle, and hope to see you on campus some day!

Dean Brian Smith of RISD Continuing Education just gave me our spring catalogue of courses for adults, teens, and children. There’s quite a few offerings there that span a wide array of creative pursuits. -JM

Dean Brian Smith of RISD Continuing Education just gave me our spring catalogue of courses for adults, teens, and children. There’s quite a few offerings there that span a wide array of creative pursuits. -JM

Last Friday RISD honorary degree recipient Kurt Andersen, host of the All Things Creative radio show Studio 360, talked with David Byrne (who did a year of Foundation Studies here in the early ’70s) about the heady RISD days when the Talking Heads were just starting out. 

They covered some of the same ground as in the recently released DVD Talking Heads: Chronology (see vintage CBGB clip above) and Byrne admitted that back then he and band members Tina Weymouth 74 PT and Chris Frantz 74 PT felt the way most ballsy young musicians do – namely, that “the pervasive [music being made] around you is crap and you and your friends are doing the real stuff.”

Now an accomplished writer as well as a musician, Byrne is finishing up How Music Works, a new book due out in September.

The End of the World as We Know It

OK, so if you didn’t quite buy the doomsday predictions that were so prevalent last year, Thomas Quinn 03 GD is banking on the idea that this year’s prediction is a whole lot more, um… plausible?

After all, a mere 5,000 years ago the ever-prescient Mayans picked December 21, 2012 as the true day the world will end. So, with that in mind, Thomas recruited 11 other artists – including Ryan Browne 03 IL, whose cover art (above) captures the spirit of the thing, Matt Moore 03 IL, Maris Wicks 03 IL and the two other RISD buddies whose illustrations are shown below – to contribute artwork for The Apocalypse Calendar.

When not producing work for his friends, Dan Hertzberg 03 IL creates amazing stuff for Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic and more.

Chandler O’Leary 03 GD brings her inimitable style to the calendar and on her great blog talks about how she came to develop this particular imagery for it.

All in all, the 2012 Apocalypse Calendar offers doom and gloom you can definitely stomach on a daily basis.

WHAT FUN! But do they do hills? In the snow?

Peter Treadway 96 ID, a founding partner of JPWORKS in LA and Beijing, has been getting tons of press for spnKiX, a 21st-century version of the ol’ strap-on rollerskates some of us used to buzz around on as kids. And with 12 days still to go, he’s already got six-figure Kickstarter backing.

Talking About Making at the Met

This Sunday Professor John Dunnigan MFA 80 ID will reflect on the history of American furniture design when he speaks at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He’s one of the panelists in a Sunday at the Met series on the art of fine furniture-making, inspired by the Duncan Phyfe exhibition on view through early May.

Creative Navigator

Kyna Leski - Pop!Tech 2009 - Camden, ME

Avid rower, author and professor Kyna Leski, who also heads RISD’s Architecture department, is delivering the keynote lecture today to kick off the Laskey Sophomore Design Challenge at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Kyna is also a principal of the award-winning firm 3SIXØ Architecture in Providence and is somehow managing to eke out time to write a book (and blog) on Navigating the Creative Process.

photo by Kris Krüg

To help fuel their trip to Sundance, RISD’s Film/Animation/Video department is screening two award-winning documentaries by faculty member Mike Majoros tonight at 7 in the RISD Auditorium, including his latest: THIS IS WHERE WE TAKE OUR STAND.

Focusing on a small group of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the documentary will air on PBS later this month. Tonight’s screenings are free but donations are welcomed to help students make it out to the festival in Utah this month.

Meet Michelle Rawlings

I Love You All, Michelle Rawlings

It’s not every day a RISD student gets a solo show at an up-and-coming gallery. This Saturday Empathicalism, the fourth solo show for Michelle Rawlings MFA 12 PT, opens at the Oliver Francis Gallery in Dallas, the city where her father, Mike Rawlings, also happens to be mayor. The show, which examines the role of cultural institutions in shaping adolescence, features inkjet prints like Rawlings’ I Love You All (above).

Here’s a sampling of some great work and exciting moments from last Thursday’s opening of Process, the Foundation Studies Triennial Exhibition. In one of the busy gallery rooms, Assistant Professor Shawn Greenlee 96 PR told me all about the amazing videos made with Photoshop and Processing in his Foundation Studies Design studio. I also enjoyed the opportunity to talk to Assistant Professor Wendy Seller 75 AE about the many students wearing their HAT PROJECTS.

There are more opportunities to explore the Triennial online, but if you can get to Woods-Gerry before it ends on Sunday, it’s most rewarding to see all the inspiring first-year work in person.-BC

Cover Art

Gorgeous work by Arlene Shechet MFA 78 CR is featured on the cover of this month’s Art in America (where even Ai Weiwei didn’t take precedence) and in an accompanying feature article called Buckle and Flow.

A detail from her piece Blue Velvet (2010) is shown below. Arlene also has three shows coming up this year – in New York, LA and Berlin.

RISD ANIMATION ALUM Martha Grant 10 FAV is having fun working on ParaNorman, a stop-motion zombie comedy due out in August from Laika. “It’s going to be amazing,” she predicts. Sounds plausible, especially given the filmmakers’ apt observation that “you don’t become a hero by being normal.”