My Last Wintersession at RISD…
February 10, 2026:
My last Wintersession at RISD has flown by! This year, I took a Nonfiction Reading and Writing course to focus more on my writing and getting those muscles warmed back up. Every other class meeting, we came prepared with 2-4 pages of writing, along with our thoughts on the assigned writing for the day. It was so lovely getting constant feedback on how to further expand upon dialogue and storytelling. By the end of the course, we had 20+ pages of writing, seeing drastic improvements from the first week through the last. Not only is it encouraging to see tangible growth and learning, but it was nice to have time specifically set aside to think and write about things I usually put to the side.
Each Wintersession thus far, I have set out to learn a new skill during the 6 weeks, and this year I took up upholstery. I found a workshop in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday evenings at Holyoke Art Center. It was a bit of a drive, and I did have to miss out on Wednesday evening dollar burgers, but it was well worth it! I met so many sweet older people and built a nice community. By the end of the workshop, I even convinced one of the ladies to give me all her chair scraps to turn into something else. I learned how to take apart and reconstruct the innards of a chair, and then decided to make some blue tape fabric to reupholster it with. I’m not sure how durable it will be, but I’m curious to see the wear.
In mid-January, I took a quick trip down to Brooklyn to visit my friend Abby. Unfortunately, the weather did not agree with us, stirring up a big winter storm and canceling most of the trains back out of NYC. We still managed to have a good time. We walked around chilly Central Park before heading to one of my favorite museums in New York, The Folk Art Museum. They had a wonderful quilt exhibit up. We then met up with our friend Quoc from Interlochen and went to Cooper Hewitt to check out what they had there. It was so nice to catch up with Quoc and check in on post-grad plans. I sadly had to cut my trip short and miss a concert we were planning on attending to catch a train back to Providence before I got stuck.
I got home just in the nick of time! Overnight, it ended up snowing 16 inches. It doesn’t sound like a lot to Michiganders, but people here aren’t used to having to deal with that much snow at a time. It was so fun seeing students sledding down the big hills around campus and building sculptures. My friends and I are still having fun frolicking in the snow, soaking up our last winter in college.
When I’m not outside in the snow or in writing class, I have been in my studio experimenting. I didn’t have to put any pressure on myself make physical, finished pieces, but more of an emphasis on material exploration. I’ve been experimenting with turning blue painter’s tape into a fabric-like material. I’ve been embellishing, sewing, taping, sanding, and stuffing to figure out the limitations of the material. It’s been a lot of fun.
I’ve also been putting a lot of my focus on applying to jobs and residencies for post-grad. It takes a lot of patience, time, and trust that things will work out. It’s always hard to receive rejection letters, but it’s an important part of the process and makes me want it even more. It will all work out.
As I’m writing this, I’m on the train from Baltimore back to Providence. I headed back from visiting my friend Brooke for a long weekend before the start of the spring semester. I’ve been so excited to visit her! We went to Interlochen together, as campers in 2018, and have kept in touch since then. She graduated last spring from the Maryland Institute College of Art in painting. It’s been so fun to see what she has been doing these last few months post-grad. She has a 1-3 year residency at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore with her own studio/apartment.
We spent a lot of time just talking at coffee shops, working on job applications, and watching movies. We met up with some of her friends and some of my virtual friends, whom I met for the first time, for some drinks and dancing. It was a lovely time! Sunday evening, we of course had to hit up a classic sports bar, get some good fried food, and beer to watch the Super Bowl. I don’t really care much about the football, but I really enjoy watching all the ads and the halftime show. This year’s halftime show with Bad Bunny was so incredible and something I think we all needed to see during this upsetting, frustrating, and hopeless political climate. “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.” Read that again.
Yesterday, Brooke and I drove down to Washington, D.C. for the day. In the fall, I heard about an exhibit at the Smithsonian, focusing on arts and craft in state fairs, and I knew I needed to see it. It took us a few tries to find the right museum, but we had fun exploring the others we stumbled into, like the Natural History Museum. Due to Trump’s construction on the east wing of the White House, many of the landmarks were hard to get to. We still managed to see the Washington Monument and the White House from afar. The State Fair Show at the Renwick Gallery was so amazing. Well worth dealing with all the unnecessary construction. The curator of the show went around to midwestern state fairs and found local artists to exhibit. It’s so awesome to see a big-name museum like the Smithsonian showing works of working-class people, making and using techniques that are underappreciated.
This Thursday, I start my final semester of RISD before graduating. It’s definitely bittersweet. I have loved my time in Providence, and I’m looking forward to what this semester holds.
Stay safe, stay warm, be kind. Talk soon.
Love, Sophia
