Last night I was able to catch Provost Jessie Shefrin presenting works and introspections developed during three faculty and curatorial sabbaticals: Prof. Paola Dematté, Prof. Ellen Driscoll, and Curator Jan Howard. Ms. Howard presented a history of educating artists on how to draw within the context of pieces in the RISD Museum collection; Prof. DeMatté presented her work in the countryside of China studying a large Buddha and the community in its surrounds; and Prof. Driscoll spoke of the large sculptural works she created as derived from discarded water bottles and thoughts about major environmental shifts in the world. My favorite line from Prof. Driscoll’s talk was where she spoke of how thought is always embodied by the artist’s hands,

… to make that knowledge [of the world] pass through the intimacy of my fingertips [as the drawings she would create]

It made me think of the brain in our head, our heart, and in our fingertips. An artist thinks with all parts of herself.