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For students (or alums) looking for an evening jog in 30-degree warm weather I look forward to seeing you at 9PM tomorrow (Monday, March 16) in front of the Quad/Public Safety for a short jog around the RISD campus. -JM

Last week I visited the RISD Graphic Design Senior Show among other events I hope to report on sometime this week. By coincidence a few weeks ago I was looking to connect with graduate students as I heard on campus that the number one rumor about me among that population is that, “John doesn’t go to graduate exhibitions.” Indeed, my schedule hasn’t allowed me to go to every possible event on campus. But I’m always willing to try in some shape or form. So once I heard of this rumor and because there were no exhibition openings that evening, I went to see graduate students instead. There’s always a great conversation to be had on campus.

If you are in the Providence area on April 11 please be sure to stop by RISD’s campus to experience the very first “What We Do” where many here at RISD will join to understand what we all do. Wouldn’t it be great to find that out? I think so. And if you can’t come to Providence, it will be broadcast from the whatwedo.risd.edu site I understand. ‘Tis the magic of students. -JM

The current issue of I.D. magazine investigates designs “Inspired by Nature” and includes a fascinating piece on our Nature Lab’s incredible collection.

The magazine sent three leaders in their fields - interaction designer Philip Worthington and product designers Todd Bracher and Anna Rabinowicz - to RISD to find inspiration among the 80,000+ specimens.

Check out “Natural Selection” to see the resulting designs - based on the themes of air, land and sea - including a coral-inspired colander and swim fins. You can even download Worthington’s flight-simulating application that originated in the patterns generated by flying butterflies and dragonflies. (And don’t miss that the article’s photo are by alum Jeff Barnett-Winsby MFA ‘06 PH).

Earlier this month, when President Obama announced his latest choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, John Sebelius ‘06 IL wasn’t worried about his mother’s chances of getting confirmed. As the well-respected governor of Kansas and former insurance commissioner for the state, Kathleen Sebelius is known to have “a wonkish understanding of health policy” and to be an experienced leader who knows how government works.

John was last in the news himself because the board game he designed as a student at RISD caused a minor stir when he started selling it last year through his company Gillius Inc. Earlier this week, The Washington Post asked him if sales of the off-color prison-themed game had spiked since the announcement that his mother might join the president’s cabinet. Responding from his home in Lawrence, KS, John said he doesn’t expect a run on the “niche-market” game. “The correlation will always be there because she’s my mom, but no one’s pushing that as an angle. I’m definitely not. We both recognize she has a job to do and I have a job to do.”

Fred Lynch [’86 Illustration], Senior Critic in Illustration, just sent in some fantastic news about two of his colleagues.

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Faculty member Chris Buzelli [’95 Illustration] has won a Silver Medal for Advertising Illustration at the Society of Illustrators 51st Annual Exhibition. Chris’s painting (in animation, above) was created for the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam and is on view through March 29 at the Museum of American Illustration in New York.

Also, as Fred reports, facuty member Jon Foster [’89 Illustration] won a Gold Medal in the Comics category of Spectrum’s 16th Annual Juried Competition of Contemporary Fantastic Art. Jon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer illustration (also in animation, above) will appear with the rest of the honorees in Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (Underwood Books, October, 2009).

Congratulations to Chris and Jon and thank you, Fred, for letting us know!

I went on my run around RISD campus this morning to sort of clear up my mind. By doing so I tend to remember things I’ve long forgotten. For instance the name “Adrian Forty” popped into my mind as I began to think about the history of design. And then I recalled his book, Objects of Desire, as being one of the first texts I encountered on the field of design.

Forty successfully positioned the seductive aspects of design in the consumer market of the 20th century. But given what I encounter on a daily basis with students and faculty on campus, as well as the many entrepreneurs and change agents around the globe, the idea of “design” in the 21st century is *very* different from the last century.

My opinion may change later, but I have a quick thought for today. In the 20th century, design was about beautiful objects. In the 21st century, design is about beautiful change. Seek significant and meaningful change in something today, and make the world more beautiful in the deepest way possible. Thanks, -JM

I greeted the many parents on campus today for the Parents Council meeting and was excited by their energy and pride for our RISD. Parents Council Co-Chair Erica Di Bona ran a spirited meeting, and former Co-Chair Todd Zimmerman (directing traffic in the photo above) is living proof that RISD Parents Council is a lifelong engagement. Thank you to all the parents who came today and for your help in making our RISD yours too. -JM

World-acclaimed artist Xu Bing, perhaps best known for his playful text-based installations and thought-provoking commentaries on communication and culture, will visit RISD on Thursday, March 12 to speak about his multidisciplinary work at an open presentation in the RISD Auditorium. Xu’s sometimes controversial work is well-known around the globe and he has lectured extensively in the US, Europe and Asia. Having lived in the US from 1990 to 2008, the artist recently returned to China to serve as vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

A Book from the Sky, the breathtaking installation from the late 1980s that brought Xu international fame, featured hundreds of beautifully bound books and giant scrolls filled with thousands of unreadable calligraphy characters – forming a new and unique language. Since then the MacArthur Award-winning artist has produced a phenomenal number and range of provocative works that are now part of the permanent collections of such major museums as MoMA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Art Museum of China, among others. Don’t miss the opportunity to see Xu Bing’s work when he speaks at 7:30pm on Thursday, the 12th, followed by a Q&A session.

As part of the 2009 Silk Road Project residency at RISD, students were treated to a fascinating presentation by recent graduate Henrik Søderstrøm [RISD 2008, Furniture Design] on Wednesday, March 4. The multitalented designer was selected from a national pool of applicants to create the sets for Layla and Majnun, a new opera production by Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble that makes its US debut on March 6 at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Søderstrøm discussed the millennium-long history of the story of the Azerbaijani opera, which is known and treasured throughout the Middle East and probably influenced well-known Western tales of doomed lovers – Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde. Taking inspiration from delicate Persian miniature paintings, he explained, he developed pairs of painted panels that frame the performing musicians and reflect the story’s theme of the separation of halves. Francesca Lohmann [RISD 2008, Printmaking], a printmaker and calligrapher, also talked about the elegant script she created for lettered panels that appear throughout the production.

The artists’ talk was punctuated by brief performances by Silk Road Ensemble musicians who will take the stage on March 6 at Providence Performing Arts Center and throughout the US tour of Layla and Majnun. Earlier in the day, these musicians (along with Yo-Yo Ma) had conducted a workshop for local high school students studying a special Silk Road-inspired curriculum. Developed by FirstWorks Providence and hosted by RISD, the program explored the connections between cultures through social studies, geography and the arts. Academics aside, the high-energy teenagers gathered in the RISD Auditorium were clearly having a blast at this unique opportunity to work with world-class musicians.