Creatives, Sushi, and a Self-Serve Tool Bar Converge at RISD Museum
On Thursday night, the RISD Museum hosted Creative Convergence, a public event that featured artists, designers, and curators affiliated with the museum to share their processes and work, along with singer/songwriter Kate Jones, “lite bites and cool drinks,” and a Self-Serve Tool Bar!Located in the Grand Gallery, the self-serve Tool Bar turned out to be a great space for playful productivity. Every table was stocked with wire, paper, scissors, wrenches, and other tools to help bring ideas to life. The bar encouraged attendees to “linger to experiment with unusual materials." This prompted participants to start using their hands to interact with each medium in ways that transformed the 2-D materials into 3-D art
The Grand Gallery also had an incredible menu of small snacks, including pretzel sticks, sushi rolls, mini samosas, and pizza squares. Lemonade and iced tea kept everyone refreshed as people explored the tool bar.
The night featured ten "creatives" scattered at stations around the museum to speak with visitors about their work. One of these artists was Jonathan Meléndez-Davidson, a RISD Master's student in industrial design, who spoke about his work this past summer designing new exhibits for the museum’s European & Medieval Galleries (to be completed in August 2017). The pieces in the collection are going to be moved out and reinstalled elsewhere while that area of the museum is renovated. Jonathan was also responsible for planning the layout of the pieces in their temporary locations while the renovation takes place. At his table, he showed each piece would be arranged through Sketchup mockups of the new exhibit to visually communicate how each piece would be arranged.
In Café Pearl, the RISD Museum’s new café partnership with Bolt Coffee, Aja Blanc (RISD MA 2016, Art Education), Ben Blanc (RISD MFA 2004, Furniture Design), and Asher Rodriqeuz-Dunn (RISD BFA 2008, Industrial Design) spoke about their work designing and outfitting the new café. The newly opened Café Pearl/Bolt Coffee features tan, black, and marble furniture, a bright white neon 'BOLT COFFEE' sign, and a seasonal menu that includes coffee concoctions, including their infamous Espresso Tonic.
The group discussed the process behind their design, which came about after poring over old images of dining spaces in the RISD archives. Ben flipped through their project proposal book, which features 1950s photos from Andy Warhol's visit to RISD and images of The Pit, an old campus diner. Along with those archived photographs, they also drew inspiration from an 8in cube of marble, which they fabricate in their studio.
Asher Dunn, of Studio DUNN in Rumford, spoke about creating the birch and black metal circular tables scattered in the seating area. Displaying wooden and powder-printed prototypes and metal and wood material samples, Dunn described his studio’s approach to furniture and lighting design to visitors. His techniques “all depend on the project, the path of least resistance.” Sometimes designs are hand carved or sculpted out of clay, then translated to a computer-aided design program such as Solidworks. Other times, prototypes are fabricated using a CNC router (computer controlled router) or 3D printed.
Fostering an incredible interplay among students, artists, and new visitors to the RISD Museum, Creative Convergence was altogether a success. The variety of work on display and featured by the artists through one-on-one conversations created an optimal environment for design-based collaboration. Images via The Blognonian, and via.