For Yorùbá-speaking peoples in West Africa, cloth is equated with their most precious possession, children.

It's impossible to know exactly what happened in prehistory, but we archaeologists have excellent tools to help us.

John Steuart Curry's images of the circus provide us with an insider's look at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1930s.

Understanding historic frames and how to care for them can be a complicated matter.

Artist Anya Ventura explains the context behind an audio tour and printed guide that she and Anther Kiley created illustrating episodes from the lives of seven objects from the Museum's galleries. Their 2012 work "Fragments" was one of the winning projects in the RISD Museum's annual *Sitings* competition for site-specific installations by RISD degree candidates.

RISD Museum summer intern Alex Goodhouse talks about Locally Made, Design the Night, anchor buttons, and confetti cannons.

This past summer, with a focus on design thinking, the students were asked What is useful? as a starting point for their group design.

Exploring the process and context behind "Shake Some Action", a work created by Pawtucket artist Lynne Harlow.

Designing furniture for the installation "School House Long House" in the exhibition "Locally Made", designer Simcha Davis looked to Shaker craftsmanship to match the spirit of the space. Download her design.

This fall the RISD Museum Lucy Truman Aldrich Porcelain Gallery reopened with its cabinets filled with engaging figures and a diverse array of tableware. Comprising nearly 180 objects from the museum's collection, this new installation focuses on the role that porcelain played in eighteenth-century life.

Construction with Central Anchor is an image that I return to frequently with students in K-12 classrooms and in the RISD Museum.

The man in this painting lived in the same era and region as some of colonists seen in this gallery.

In this durational performance, artist Becci Davis attempted to repair the ancestral wounds of American history, through a series of deliberate gestures.

The RISD Museum’s 2009 acquisition of the Richard Brown Baker collection included two drawings by the English artist Howard Selina—Cowboy Hat (1974) and Two Boots (1974)—carefully and precisely rendered drawings in graphite on paper of well-worn, utilitarian garments.

A jade lithophone from 18th-century China offers insight to the significant role of ritual music in ancient China—as an essential part of state rite to assert the legitimacy of reign.

RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.

The woman in Frank W. Benson's Lady Trying on a Hat has always been a character who caught my eye during visits to the Museum. From her averted gaze to the contrast between her white dress and the black hat, she is poised to play the lead role on the stage that Benson created.

Dubbed a travel coat by artist and designer Christina Kim, this is a garment made for journeys long and far, both real and imagined, for traversing territories in the mind as much as in the physical world.

Using a questionnaire, curator Peter Selz—and the artists he queried—helped define a movement.