Course Description

This course is meant to be a space for you to examine and deepen your relationship to the field and your own practice through readings, discussions, and presentations.  The readings are meant to expand your perspective on the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, to define its particularities and concerns in relation to the discourses of the contemporary art world.

Together we will explore a series of seminal theoretical texts, seeking ways to relate them to our own practice.  Through these texts we will encounter a series of themes and historical perspectives that are crucial to the field of jewelry, while also delving into fields and areas of inquiry, that have not commonly been related to our field, but perhaps should or could be.  Our aim is to get a historical and interdisciplinary perspective on where we are as artists/makers today, how we got here and where we could go from here. The course aims to bring up critical questions on why we make, whom we make for and the meaning of our practice beyond the studio and the jewelry and metals world.

This is a chance to practice your skills in connecting theory, reading and writing to your work and to build a vocabulary and ground of reference around your ideas, interests and intentions. It’s a chance to take part in an intense discourse around your field, which you might be asked to do many times in the future of your career.

The Wednesday meetings will adopt the form of a reading/talking circle. Your role in the group is important and the success of our conversations will be based on your participation and engagement. We will all take turns in presenting and leading the discussion and also examine what “research through practice” might mean for us, by exploring some ways of connecting theory and making. 

Sep 30, 2009

Session in Special Collections Drawing Room RISD Library

Assignment: 

Spend one hour drawing ornaments from selected books in the Special Collection. Choose one that intrigues you and imagine yourself as a student at RISD one hundred years ago. That’s most of what they did back then...  

According to the thrilled librarian we where the first class to make use of the Special Collections in this way. How come something that was so central and taken for granted as a main activity in art/design education no longer has any place. Shall we thank Loos for this, or are we missing out on something? Is it important to study composition and is there a universal "law" to how "good-looking" ornaments are structured? 
















































I was thinking - We can’t talk about ornament, without studying them for real! 
Also as a way to use our practice as research in an addition to the readings, writings and discussions. 

Does drawing things helps us to understand something about them, or at least look at them more closely?

If you want more ornaments - Visit the Swan Point Semetary over by Black Stone Boulevard on the East Side. It´s full of amazing old grave stones and the nicest "parks" in all of Providence. 
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1 comment:

  1. CourtneyOctober 1, 2009 at 5:53 AM

    I think that is does help us to understand them more clearly as well as appreciate the time, effort and talent that went into them. It was also really great to see the different patterns and design that crossed over different cultural styles, like the scalloped edges (a personal favorite.) found in Indian metalwork as well as modern Western ornament.

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