Rhode Island School of Design

Risd CE class a waste of money!
The teacher is a grad student who could care less about preparing for the class. Almost everytime he has used the last 10 minutes of class to explain the «important» stuff. As it’s a ceramics class, it just doesn’t make sense. Each class my classmates are more frustrated with this guy and the lack of help he provides. The «teacher’ did a demo and walked off without even showing us the finished product and what we should be aiming for. If we ask to move forward with a demo he just says he’ll be covering it near the end of class. We had brought all these supplies from home (like bags and bags of stuff) and it was so frustrating because literally waited until 20 minutes before class ended to start demoing. If we ask to start earlier he says he’ll be covering it later. Classes are very disorganized, he’s not clear and I even overheard him talking about how easy it is to just show up and «be here» once a week. And even that is too difficult — he has missed a class and left the TA in charge. She’s awesome but she wasn’t prepared understandably. When he got back and my fellow classmates asked questions about glazing, he laughed in this weird way and said, «You should have already done that last week.» and it became so awkward when 3 or 4 of my classmates started to frown and tell him «No. We weren’t shown anything, Can you please show us how to glaze? Like, can you show us right now?» At that point he picked up a plastic tub and pretended to stick it in a glaze bucket. LOL. One star for being able to use a pottery wheel.
RISD CE office — get your shit together. I’ve heard of and experienced problems with keypad access, getting basic info about classes, contact info for teachers.

I have already a couple of degrees (i.e. a Masters and a Postgrad. Dipl.) from abroad and am a working artist, but three years ago, ridden by the devil or in a moment of confusion, it seemed a good idea at the time to add yet another (US) Masters to it and was checking into possible places where that should be done. Went here to an opening day interested in sculpture as the school ‘has a good name’ (whatever that may mean) and as I was intrigued by the work of the sculpture prof. and the association they glued onto poor Kiki Smith, I think she is somewhat helping out in the etching class or at least they make it sound like she does.
OH MY.
The introduction in the morning reminded me strongly of a presentation of one of the first modernized lunatic asylums to the court in the 1800’s. There were seats lined up, a more or less stylish and rather nervous speaker and across from the «audience» (!) a row of seats, soon to be filled by each one grad student of each class. They would then all show their tricks, just seemingly had not so much to say at all apart from how much they love each other (one girl suggested to come her to study if you wanted to get married) and how very close Rhode Island is to NYC.
Later one toured the classes, lead by a very snooty yet good looking sculpture student, who first of all presented his own work currently on display in a mini group show in the foyer. The work there, some called it the «best art school in the country», looked all uninteresting and his particularly I recall his as a visual mix of various well-​famed sculptor’s work into one.
He claimed the reason for doing his Master’s at RISD was to get a «well paid teaching position» he wouldn’t get without the abbreviation MFA in front of his name.
Even later on he had little to say why this school was really worth the money and definitely could not proof it in his work.
Making friends is all nice and good, but I can do so elsewhere too without the fee, maybe less posh friends, admittedly, and having paid employment after completed studies is great too, although if that is what you’re after maybe you should not study art to begin with but become a teacher or better software designer.
The sculpture prof was clearly more enticed by my looks than whatever art I possibly had made or wanted to make in his course and he urged me to sit right next to him, which is a compliment, thank you, keep in mind I do like his work!, but when I mentioned I made sculptures from the material CLAY he almost started crying and said then I had to go over to the ceramic class.
My protest against that mentioning that my work had much less nothing to do with what people regard as ‘ceramic’ and that I incorporate other materials too made no difference. He clearly was sad, but rule is rule.
Pigeonholing artwork based on the media it is made from it is very VERY old-​fashioned and brings us back to the old discussion of the difference between ART and CRAFT, where in contemporary art this make no longer sense one should hope.
I went over to the ceramic class and spoke to the prof there, a very hyped up lady who looked at my work together with another person who ran a little pottery in NJ producing wheel-​thrown functional ware, mainly small bowls in turquoise, her reason to go to RISD was her accountant had encouraged her that she «almost had a business going there» with her bowls. She mentioned she wanted to change and do community work, specifically murals with children.
That is great, great, great, but again you need no RISD course to do that.
Ceramic prof enthusiastically told us ‘you are both excellent candidates for this course!‘
I had never heard of her, then checked her work which seemed some sort of 3D Jackson Pollock from clay, fair enough, only it had not changed since over a decade.
Film. The film prof I met some time later on being coincidentally in a project together. As noticed in various reviews by others (i.e. «rate my professor») as well as witnessed live has no message whatsoever despite his over and over crammed out of the drawer way back then Academy Award nomination. No myth: he really doesn’t know how to operate a film camera, but that seems fine as he then simply makes a phone call to God who explains to him what to do. Oh dear, but that’s the guy that will ‘teach’ you.
I have actually never once noticed any art that was made by a recent RISD graduate or professor that was taking my breath away.
This is the art school for people who have nothing to say.
If for whatever reason you want a school that is very prestigious and has a ridiculously elitist flair to it this is for sure your best bet to get a ticket to the East Coast High Society. You may possibly get a chance to marry into it and you will be working with plenty profs that also got there by connection rather than merit.
If you want to work hard and do real research in an open-​minded and challenging environment to clarify and enrich your artistic concerns go to MICA maybe.

A wonderful art school for people looking to study art, but for Unilocalers there is a wonderful art museum open to the public. In addition, if you are in the area, some of their dining hall cafes are open to the public and trust me their food is not your average dining hall food its actually a high quality a food and not all that expensive.

The museum is a great place to visit — found a couple of Monet’s and Picasso’s hanging on the wall.

AKA «Rhode Island Social Disease» … in a good way.
The green-​haired unwashed students scare and disturb many of the unwary Providence citizens. They fornicate, they look weird, they smell weird, and frequently act weird. You put the students from Brown and RISD together and you have a very vital part of what makes Providence cool. Some of the wildest graduations happen at RISD. Amazing costumes and Rube Goldberg contraptions parade across the stage.
The museum is a hidden gem. Most people sadly pass it by, but in size and scope it is one of my favorite museums.
Five stars for breathing life into a shirt-​n-​tie city. For the funky bars and clubs and graffiti and garage bands, I toast RISD.

Okay, so this review could be miles long, but I will sum it up as briefly as possible:
1. The best art school in the country. Because of its exemplary museum, setting, faculty, students, programmes and culture. It isn’t difficult to be amazed at the work of the people associated with RISD.
2. You gotta be ready for it to really get the most out of it. There are rules and their are expectations, but you can and should do your own thing while learning whereever you can, and you will be rewarded for it, even if it goes against the rules.
3. The resources are there, and are around you even if you can’t find them at first, and sometimes you gotta bring a serious grease gun to get the gears moving. The freedom that this school provides also requires maturity to accept.