I was happy to attend an informal gathering of RISD alumni in Korea arranged by Ms. Heather Park who is the president of the alumni club there. Everywhere you go there is a RISD grad that cannot forget their incredible RISD experience and say quite plainly, “I wish I could go back to RISD!” Interestingly enough alum Ki-ho Park, who a couple of decades ago helped to found the Korean alumni club, is now back as a graduate student here at RISD. So RISD can live in your life forever … that’s the way we like it here! Thanks to all for coming on such short notice! -JM

On Sunday The Providence Journal profiled Landscape Architecture Prof. Mikyoung Kim and her design for The Horizon Garden - a small-scale sculpture park with pedestrian-friendly benches and walkways - to be built on the west side of Providence’s Dunkin’ Donuts Center. The park will also feature a sculpture consisting of a perforated stainless steel screen dotted with thousands of button-size pieces of recycled glass. Mikyoung’s proposal has reignited the debate over Rhode Island’s “One Percent for Public Art” statute - which sets aside a fraction of the cost of state building projects for public art - but when constructed will, in her words, make Downcity Providence “more human, more inviting, even more beautiful.”

Gerard Minakawa ’97 ID is taking his love of bamboo to new heights. Literally. The son of Bolivian and Argentinean immigrants, he lives in Bolivia, is a consultant for Aid To Artisans and is designing a sustainable furniture line with indigenous craftspeople.

In April he and his partners at Bamboo DNA built an amazing bamboo installation at the Coachella music and art festival in Indio, CA. At 90 feet tall by 96 feet wide, their Bamboo Starscraper (pictured above) was remarkably strong and structurally sound, rated for 95 mph winds. They also designed a large portion of the backstage environment, which featured palapas and bamboo lighting, among other interesting details. Bamboo DNA has done similar work at Burning Man and other festivals, and next year hopes to take over more space at Coachella. You can also read more about his latest structural bamboo art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Arts’ June events.

Last year Gerard also led a RISD Wintersession class in La Paz, Bolivia, where students worked on developing new products for international markets. You may have also seen (or sat on) his bamboo chairs, which are in use at RISD’s Met refectory. Who knows what he’ll grow next as he continues to experiment with what may be the world’s most flexible sustainable material?

Tino Chow ’09 ID thinks of himself as a social entrepreneur, a thinker and “a trouble-maker.” After running RISD’s participation in the national Better World by Design conference, serving as a Fellow at this year’s TED conference and winning RISD’s Mendelson Community Service Award for his activism, he’s off to make more trouble doing good. On Sunday, Tino hit the road on a two-month, cross-country bike ride to raise money for and awareness of affordable housing needs. Sponsored by Yahoo! and a handful of other partners, he’s doing this Purple Pedals adventure on a teched-up bike he’s calling “Blue Steel,” which automatically takes a photo every 60 seconds, geo-tags it and uploads it to Flickr, where you, too, can check out his minute-by-minute progress.

Little Eva said it in the song: A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul. And that’s what Mark Moscone ‘88 PR, Director of Campus Exhibitions, and his assistant Gunnar Norquist, brought to ALCO (American Locomotive Works) for a reception with President Maeda on Thursday. Mark and Gunnar transformed the undeveloped space with recent work by Hugh Zeigler ‘09 PT, Allison Roberts, MFA ‘09 PR, Greg O’Malley ‘09 PT, Joseph Segal MFA ‘09 TX, Michael Green MFA ‘09 FD, Martin Smick MFA ‘09 PT, and Luke O’Sullivan MFA ‘09 PR, demonstrating that drive and creative energy so unique to RISD. Area alumni, Museum members, and parents turned out to meet President Maeda, hear his thoughts and reflections on his first year at RISD, and ask provocative questions about the future of art + design.

Please take a moment (4 minutes, actually), to watch President John Maeda’s video memo in response to two pieces of legislation being heard by the Rhode Island General Assembly. The first would allow communities to assess private colleges and universities a flat fee of $150 per out-of-state student per semester, and the second would allow cities and towns to collect taxes on property held by these institutions of higher education. As President Maeda points out, under an agreement reached with Mayor Cicilline in 2003, RISD has already voluntarily contributed $7.4 million (or $535 per student annually) to Providence. The proposed student impact fees and property taxes would have a significant impact on our institution – one already experiencing unprecedented financial challenges of its own (note that we are already experiencing salary and hiring freezes, budget and benefits reductions and layoffs).

If you’d like to share your opinions on the matter with the leaders of Rhode Island’s General Assembly, their contact information can be found below:

Representative William J. Murphy, Speaker of the House
Rhode Island General Assembly
State House Room 323
Providence, RI 02903
rep-murphy@rilin.state.ri.us

Senator M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, Senate President
Rhode Island General Assembly
State House Room 318
Providence, RI 02903
sen-paivaweed@rilin.state.ri.us

New (very new) RISD alum Casey Lynch MFA ‘09 SC has just been named a winner of the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award for 2009. Casey and his 10 fellow honorees will participate in the prestigious Grounds For Sculpture fall/winter exhibition, which will be on view from October 10, 2009-January 10, 2010 at the ISC headquarters before traveling to other venues. Their work will also be featured in the October issue of Sculpture magazine and on the ISC website. (That’s an installation shot of Casey’s Sometimes sculpture - above - from last month’s Annual Graduate Student Exhibition.)

Congratulations, Casey!

The experimental work going on at RISD recently caught the attention of The International Herald Tribune/The New York Times, which mentioned it in a recent article referring to the spring semester “g-speak studio.” Taught by Digital + Media faculty member Amber Frid-Jimenez and research assistant Kate Hollenbach MFA ‘11 GD, the studio (actually called Embodied Computation: Design for Fashion, Information and the Body) introduced grad students from different disciplines to the world’s first spatial operating environment (SOE), which allows users to do amazing things with computers by merely gesturing with their hands. The g-speak (g is for “gesture”) SOE is being developed by Oblong Industries, which approached RISD about beta-testing it with art and design students and generously donated one of the first systems to the school. You can find out more about the project here.

With all of the recent press on Bing, it gave me a chance to catch up a bit and try out WolframAlpha (I’m always trying to play catch-up). The “Spock”-like data presentation is interesting, and I definitely prefer it to the B(l)ing-y design style of Microsoft’s new endeavor in this area. Have tried to acclimate to using Ask as it’s only 3-characters instead of 6-characters for Google. Luckily for me I know where “rhode island school of design” is … it’s right here in Providence, RI!

RISD’s Continuing Education program had its Class of 2009 graduation ceremony this evening. Among many of our new CE alums, there I met Mr. Irving Washington who earned his certificate in “Art Appraisal.” I asked Mr. Washington what he was going to use his certificate for, to which he responded, “… to appraise … art.” Congratulations to our many CE alums for their hard work across many evenings and weekends! You did it! -JM