Raid the Database 3

Heather Leigh McPherson Artist "Raid the Database with Heather Leigh McPherson" is the third installment in an ongoing project in which artists bring new curatorial perspectives to the museum's extensive collections.

Reading Inscribed Letters from Roman Macedonia

Graham Oliver RISD Museum’s important Greek inscription dates to the period when Rome dominated the Eastern Mediterranean. It was set up probably in 137 CE, during the closing years of the Emperor Hadrian (reign 117–138 CE), whose message to the Macedonians is reproduced on the stone. What interests me here is the way those letters have been inscribed, how we study those letters, and what this object can tell us.

Still Life

Lilibeth Leon Student Voices As a curatorial intern for the Contemporary Art Department at the RISD Museum during the summer of 2016, I was introduced to the in-depth experience of museum work. One of many tasks given to me was rewriting the labels of selected art pieces. As excited as I was to write labels, the writing process was intimidating for many reasons. One reason was that I never had written labels before. With a limit of one hundred words, I was forced to condense my research and ideas into a brief summary.

(Re)tracing the Silver Seaweed: A Maker's Process

Lillian Webster College How To Student Voices Studio Notes Sustainability and the natural world Artist This salad spoon and fork set, made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company ca. 1885, is named after the coastal town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. Replete with intricately detailed shells, seaweed, and sea creatures—including small fish and tiny crabs—these two sea-encrusted utensils were my point of inspiration for a set of five brooches. In the following article I will describe some of the basic processes used to create my Narragansett-inspired jewelry

Exhibition Design

Intermission Portfolio In December of 2016 the RISD Museum needed to deinstall its European Galleries in order to renovate them. In order to keep the objects on view during this project and accommodate them after their removal, the museum decided to put them in the galleries dedicated to major, temporary exhibitions, titling it Intermission.

Analog Gifs

Alexandra Poterack College Happenings A student-run workshop generates quirky and creative digital animations.

From Flax To Finish

McKenzie Everett College How To Student Voices Embroidery samplers are inextricably linked to an image of colonial America: farmhouses waved sheets of linen like flags of surrender, with fields of flax extending beyond, as far as the eye could see, in a place where girls as young as seven were set to the task of stitching out alphabets and Bible verses. This is the picture of the age of homespun.

Inuit Printmaking and the Concept of Purity

Hannah Gadbois College Student Voices This article explores the concept of purity in criticisms of Inuit prints by briefly introducing the history of printmaking in Cape Dorset and looking at 1970s Western art historians' expectations of Inuit art.