This year, our applicants had the option to use the following prompt for one of their essays:  • Look around. Imagine! You have the opportunity to eliminate one thing from existence. What is it? Tell us how the absence of this thing would change the world and why you made the choice you did.

Out of curiosity, I kept an informal list of the things people wanted to eliminate.  Here is the resulting wordie–the largest words are the ones that were used the most often:

I find it so compelling that the number one thing that our applicants wanted to eliminate was fear, followed closely by intolerance.  Ever the idealist, I can’t help but feel that our incoming freshman class will help support each other in moments of fear, and will strive to oust intolerance from the world.

Now, if only we could do something about those darn mosquitoes.

Questions?  Comments?

email me:  lking@risd.edu

Lucy King, Assistant Director of Admissions

The final deadline for freshman applications is upon us, and confusion abounds!  Is it a postmark deadline? A received by deadline? Are you open on Sunday?

Hopefully I can dispel the panic and confusion once and for all (or at least on this piece of things).

First of all, February 15 is a receive by date–we want to receive all of your application materials by this date.  This is not a postmark deadline.

As it happens, the deadline falls on a Sunday, and the next business day is a national holiday.  What this means for you is that you have two extra days to get your materials to us!  Make sure we have all of your materials by February 17th.

Finally, a story:  Last year, on February 14, a student was on her way to mail her drawings to RISD.  As she walked down the stairs, carrying one of the drawings, she tripped and spilled cough medicine all over the drawing.  She called me in complete hysterics.  I reassured her that a drawing with cough medicine on it would be fine, but she wanted to re-do the drawing completely, so we gave her an extension on the deadline.

We want you to be able to complete your application, so if some kind of craziness happens and you need an extra few days, give us a call.

Lucy King, Assistant Director of Admissions

Contact me at lking@risd.edu

With less than 3 weeks to go until the final Freshman Deadline, panic is in the air about the three assigned drawings.  I get questions every day on my facebook group about ideas, media, size, and more.  Here are some of my responses:

“Velum yes, glue no:) Have fun!”

“You can certainly do a drawing of altered paper for the two sided drawing, but you still have to do an additional altered paper drawing. Nice try though ”

“You can alter the paper to make any form you want with any materials you want, but the drawing of the altered form should be 16 by 20 inches in graphite on white paper. Have fun with it!”

“Bigger is fine. Don’t worry about it. We start to worry when they are smaller than the required size. Breathe. ”

“Water with the graphite is fine.”

“That sounds great. I can’t wait to see the result!”

“You should consider the whole area, but you don’t have to draw on every square inch. Have fun! Easy for me to say, right?”

Over and over again, I say “Have fun.”  I can only imagine how illogical this advice must seem to someone who is completely stressed out about the admissions process.  Have fun.  Have fun.  Am I crazy?  How could anyone possibly have fun with any part of a college application?  College admissions is far too serious, right?

Well, it is serious, and I don’t want to try to diminish that seriousness in any way.  But here’s the thing, most artists create their very best art work when their minds are open, when you feel free to let your inspiration take hold of you and lead you.  Putting yourself in that head space to do these three drawings will be really hard, but is absolutely critical.  The best drawings that we see are always the ones where it’s clear the student loved doing them.

So how do you get to that head space if you’re completely stressed out?  First of all, breathe.   Okay, the next step is to think about what you love to draw.  What’s your favorite subject?  What’s the thing that you would draw without any assignment at all?  The final step is to take that thing that you love to draw, and somehow incorporate the assignment into it.  Say, for example, you love to draw fruit.  You love setting up bananas, pears, oranges, and other organic edible things in still lifes.  Arrange the fruit in the spokes of a bicycle wheel, or in a shape that roughly approximates a bicycle, or in the shadow of a bicycle, or in a bicycle helmet, or on a plate with a drawing of a bicycle on it, or…well, you get the idea.

We’re trying to get a sense of your unique creative perspective in these drawings.  It will be different from person to person–illustrators and sculptors draw in completely different ways, but both perspectives are still valid and wonderful.  Your perspective will emerge as you draw, without any effort on your part, provided you do a drawing that you love.

I hope this helps, but if you still have questions, ideas, or panic attacks, please contact me any time.

Lucy King, Assistant Director of Admissions

Contact me at lking@risd.edu

On Friday I had the terrific opportunity to sit in on a freshman final critique.  The class was 2 Dimensional Design taught by Todd Moore.  For a final project, these freshmen were asked to create a large painting that encompassed everything they had learned this fall.  I have known Todd for a long time, and have always appreciated his intelligence, sense of humor, and pragmatism, so it was a real treat to be part of this crit.

The studio is on the top floor of the new Chace Center–truly the penthouse of the building, with amazing views of the downtown of providence.  The sun was starting to get low in the sky, and the whole room had a kind of dreamy cast to it.  Todd welcomed me warmly when I walked in, and I was delighted to see the faces of many students I had worked with last year.

I was immediately struck by a massive painting of a man falling through empty red space.  Come to find out, the painting was done by Jeffrey, whose work I had reviewed last year in his high school.  At the time, I had advised him that he was somewhat object fixated, and that he might consider doing some three dimensional work.   Still object fixated, but using the layout of the page in a really dramatic way, Jeffrey has plans to major in Film/Animation/Video, which will certainly put to use his flare for the dramatic and his understanding of 3 dimensional space.

Seeing the students in the context of their RISD classes–so at home, and so eloquent–is the best reward any person in admissions can possibly have, so here’s to the class of 2012!

Lucy King, Assistant Director of Admissions

Contact me at lking@risd.edu