Birthday Party, Solo Adventures, and New Classes…
January 28 - February 22:
I’ve been working on shifting my updates from weekly to one to two a month just as my schedule gets busier again with the spring semester. Here’s an update of what I’ve been doing for the past month or so.
At the end of January, I decided to throw myself a birthday party because my birthday falls within all the holiday chaos. It was a lovely celebration! My roommate, Kira, made the posters and I hung them up all over campus. I had my dinner at RISD’s main cafeteria, and the staff did an amazing job decorating and making me feel special! They even decorated the center table with handprinted decorations and McCoy pottery because I mentioned that my mom always decorated with them. Afterward, we headed back to my apartment for some cake Livia made and a piñata. It was such a lovely celebration and I felt so loved!
I’ve also been going on lots of solo adventures. I’ve been enjoying driving to the ocean and hiking along the cliffside, meditating, and even taking a quick trip to the mountains in north Massachusetts. I stayed at an artist retreat in North Adams and just used my time to decompress and reset myself before the start of the spring semester. I spent my time painting, listening to music, cooking, and visiting art museums. I adventured around Mass MoCA and they had so many great exhibitions up to look at and get me inspired to create.
Abby came up to visit for a weekend as well. We went to an artist's market, thrifted, cooking, and did a goat cuddle. I love visiting Gather Farms and seeing all the baby goats and always leave feeling so full. I’m so happy Abby and I live so close to each other that we are able to do quick weekend trips.
This past month I have also ended my wintersession semester and started my new spring classes. Towards the end of wintersession, I spent a lot of my time writing and working on my finals for my Contemplative and Women Artists classes. I’ve never really loved the liberal arts classes that RISD offers, but I feel like I am finally getting into courses that I am interested in learning about. I’m about to little over a week into my spring semester classes and have been enjoying them as well. I am taking ‘American Ways of Death’, ‘Objects, Things, and Stuff’, ‘Color as Content’, ‘Junior Seminar’, and ‘CAD to CAM’.
So far in American Ways of Death, we have been doing a lot of readings on the colonization of America and looking into the funeral practices of Indigenous peoples and cultures. It had been a pretty reading-heavy course, but I have enjoyed it so far.
Objects, Things, and Stuff is also an interesting course where we look at objects and analyze how stories are told through them and humans’ relationships with them. I tend to make and use object imagery frequently in the work I make so I thought this would be a good class to take as research for my practice.
In Color as Content, we had demos on enameling. I have been so excited to get back into enameling since I first started messing around with it in middle school. I have been working on all of my color samples of the various techniques we have learned and I have been getting really into it. I can definitely see enameling integrating into my practice more consistently.
Junior Seminar is a class that helps us dissect, learn, and figure out our practice as artists before we go into our senior year. We have had so many interesting readings, questioning our relationship to jewelry as makers and of wearers. I’m really looking forward to learning about more artists and readings to help me figure out who it is I want to be as an artist.
CAD to CAM is probably my least favorite course, but I know it will teach me good skills. We are continuing with 3D modeling programs and mold-making, but expanding upon it. Our first assignment is to model a bell charm from the 80’s. We will then 3D print a mold from recycled plastics we have been collecting and then plastic inject the molds to get our charms. The fun assignment is helping me get through the 3D modeling part of the assignment haha.
This past week we had the closing reception for the Jewelry Triennial show. I had three of my pieces selected to be in the show, so I was excited to see them with everyone else’s work! It was a wonderful evening with so many beautiful pieces!
Overall, I am excited about the semester ahead, just hoping that it warms up soon! I don’t think I can handle the cold much longer. I hope you all have been staying warm and have had a lovely February!
Love, Sophia
