Making

Like most things over the past three years, I should have known studying abroad with RISD would be different. No matter how much I heard about college before September 2009, I found that RISD did things differently. The Architecture department the following year - a little quirky. And now a semester abroad in Rome: unlike most abroad experiences I've heard about. But it is precisely these differences that remind me each day why this is right for me.

 The biggest difference I have noticed over the years between RISD and other art/design schools, and most universities in general, is the emphasis on understanding and processing through making. I have spent the past week exploring monotyping for my individual project (printmaking). I am generally interested in the systematic overlaps of agriculture and economy, both historic and contemporary stories in Italy. On one side of my desk, I have very numerical, fact-based word maps regarding land usage and communal impact over centuries. On the other side are experimental prints of abstract shapes and marks, of time and space. I intend to eventually compile a big fat book of the two, illustrating my harder lined research with abstract prints. I am contemplating how to juxtapose image with text in order to best convey my argument.

Monotype Prints

Word-Mapping

Regarding the argument, only once I began making (prints and other visual models) did I begin to understand what I was trying to say. The fact-based, analytical research was fine, but it left me saying...so what? Those thoughts become meaningful when they are contextualized and visual. Only then do I begin to care more about them, and consequently others here do, too. Then I have invested some part of myself in the research.
I am exploring a sort of information architecture, a world where facts and images collide. And behind all of the facts are millions of stories and lives that have existed over millenia that require consideration and acknowledgement.

Now for a little tangent, but I think it relates.
Paula Scher, the first female principal at Pentagram, says, "Design isn't quite that simple. You don't just make something, have people go 'Ooh!' and you're done. What generally happens is that the reason you have to make something at all comes from some very complicated problem or issue that involves lots and lots of people that are afraid and jealous and suspicious, so before you even get to make the thing you really have to suss out the lay of the land so you can get everybody over all the stuff that's upsetting them, so they can be prepared to get excited about it."

I am still in the sussing out stage. However, the prints are beginning to resemble things I have made in the past and I am able to make old connections as well as new discoveries. From all of this, I am aiming to compile an anthology referencing the social architecture of agriculture and green economy in Italy. Italy is in the midst of a historical transition between localized farming and a larger, mono-plant system; my goal is to set up a way to understand that transition and thoughtfully respond to the contemporary changes, informing the future shifts the region will take.

My daily life in Italy is informing all of this work. In art history we recently visited Ostia Antica, the main port city of ancient Rome. Today we ventured to explore Medieval and early Christian Renaissance work, and next weekend we head to Florence. Here are some photos from the week. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Ostia Antica

Villa Borghese

Kevin Walz studio visit

Basilica dei SS. Cosma E Domiano, c. 500 CE