TLAD Facilitates Teachers' Studio Institute

The Department, working with a grant from the Surdna Foundation, is for the second year facilitating the Teachers' Studio Institute at RISD July 22nd to 26th. In this institute, the studio becomes a site facilitated by the three artists-in-residence - David Frazer, Nancy Friese, and Jane Masters - for an exploration of this year's theme GRAND SCALE through critical making, critical thinking, and critical dialog. The institute culminates in an exhibition of teachers' work in RISD's Sol Koffler Gallery.

MA Alumna Awarded $300,000 Innovation Fellowship

Adrienne Gagnon, MA 2008 (Community Arts Education track), Execuitive Director of Downcity Design, was one of two individuals, the other Lynn Taylor, MD, to recently be awarded a 2013 Innovation Fellowship each worth $300,000 from the Rhode Island Foundation.

Adrienne Gagnon (right)

"Adrienne's project, Innovation by Design, will help foster the next generation of Rhode Island innovators by bringing the transformative tools of “design thinking” to students across the state. Her program will send out mobile design labs – repurposed from retired shipping containers – to parks, school yards, and vacant lots in Rhode Island’s core cities, and engage students in free, hands-on design programs that will improve our communities.

Adrienne envisions students working together to design and create structures, products, public awareness campaigns, and other interventions to strengthen their neighborhoods, while also gaining academic and life skills. The Innovation by Design project will develop an online, interactive design curriculum portal that will be available to all Rhode Island school districts, and will also offer a summer institute for teachers on using design thinking in classrooms."

MAT Alumanae Published in SchoolArts Magazine

Congratulations to Sarabeth Berk, MAT '06 and Kristy Scher, MAT '07 on having articles published in the April issue of SchoolArts Magazine that is devoted to matters of ecology. Sarabeth's article "Garden Gone Wild" describes the problem-solving involved in the design and creation of a "children's float for [a] local Independence Day parade."

In her article entitled "The Tote Bag Awareness Project," Kristy describes an innovative project in which her students created designs that were printed on reusable fabric totes and where the designs "promoted a positive change in the environment."

TLAD Alumna to Receive RISD Alumni Award

It has just been announced that TLAD Alumna Tamara Kaplan MA/MAT '00 is to be presented with the RISD Alumni Association's 2013 Art and Education Award at Commencement ceremonies in June. The award recognizes Tamara's longtime commitment to working with teens at New Urban Arts - a Providence-based non-profit that runs a highly successful mentoring program for young artists.

FERRIS CALDWELL MA'12 @ AIB

Ferris Caldwell, MA '12 is represented in the Art Institute of Boston's exhibit "by invitation: Centennnial BFA Alumni Exhibition. The show runs from March 7 - April 14 at the AIB Main Gallery, 700 Beacon Street Boston.