Lesson 1: Open your mouth and repeat infinity times after me, “mom, i need money for.. [insert obscure art supply you will only use once and never again]”

Come first semester of freshman year, your studio professors are probably assigning lists of supplies for class, the costs of which are slightly less (or more?) expensive than a drug habit. That being said, some campus essentials to procure:

Olfa knives: number 1 reason art school is great, knives. in. class. Aight, so exacto knives? high school. Meet the Olfa, the exacto’s older brother–smart, sexy durable steel, with a BA in precision cutting. Each knife comes with a snapoff blade so its like 10 blades in one (enough for slicing and, dicing).

Microns: remember GellyRolls? that glittery sensation of that the mid 90’s that rocked the world of 10 year old girls nationwide? This sophisticated little japanese import is from the same company but with less glitter and targeted towards an older consumer base. Ink comes in your basic black but there are an assortment of other colors as well. What’s great about these pens is the variety of tip sizes (the name “Micron” alluding to the widths of the lines you can make with different pens) and quality of the ink, crisp with a low smearability factor. Also, they last forever- I’ve had mine for 5 years, longer than I’ve kept some friends.. (sadly).

Moleskine: “the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin…” great journals that come in a variety of formats, pages are creamy offwhite and acid-free. join the cult.

Rich Parents: Do you have these? great. moving on–

School ID: Most of you have probably gotten (or will get) a form from RISD asking you to submit a self photo so they can premake your school ID (which will need to be carried on your persons at all time on campus because all doors can only be unlocked through scanners– to keep RISD students in or outsiders out, you decide). Keeping that in mind, some rules of thumb when selecting an picture, and I speak from experience, try to avoid: 1) glamour shots, if your parents have these in wallet size, it’s probably not a good candidate for something you’ll need to show your friends. Unless you’re doing so ironically then by all means go ahead. 2) yeah it’s a school ID for an art school but it’s still a school ID, encased in a 2×3″ square of plastic; that air of nonchalance (brooding or general attitude) you send in with your photo translates to only one thing on our RISD printers - mugshot (mugbook: n. collection of mugshots).

*note: generally, it’s a good idea to send in a photo, leaving the fate of your picture up to the lighting situation at RISD’s card services is usually tragic-but hilarious.

All this is available at risd:store (with the exception of the ID which will be given to you on orientation day), the prices being the cheapest relative to the other art suppliers in Providence. Some say nearby Utrecht on Wickendon Street is a good deal but from what I’ve looked at only literally by a few cents.

from a poor person to about-to-be-poor people, hope that helps, more to come.

A word of welcome to the class of 2012 - from the other end of the tuition bill - you just pimped yourselves out to one of the best art schools in the country (what what), so go ahead- wrap your arms around ya body, somebody, and give a little hug. The governing forces at RISD thought it would be helpful to have a student perspective on here so here I am, blogging to give you the benefit of my (iota more) experience here. My name’s You You (really, yeah), BFA ID 2011 (this major means I don’t like to sleep and like plastic, alot.) and I’m here to give you the down low–

here goes:

eat:
@ school: the Met (cafe-met-eria), Jolly Roger (sammiches), the Break, the Watermark Cafe, the Portfolio (classy-er)

not school: Thayer ($ are ok), downtown (more expensive), Providence Place Mall (a combo of fastfood and restaurants

play:
regular stuff includes music venues (AS220, Lupos), mall, Thayer St, Wickedon St, skating rink, zoo, some stuff to check out downtown are the Big Nazo Labs (huge puppets) and the boutiques (they carry stuff made by RISD alum)

sleep:
you wont depends on what section you get put into (consequently what professors you get), your work habits (you have some?), but generally there’s a lack of it freshman year.

want more detail? some helpful links to frequent:

RISD Intranet: home to the Classifieds, a sweet little blackmarket of goods and services and the Mugbook (stalk your peers!) an online yearbook [note: the Mugbook is password protected, so only people with a risd.edu email address can access it — something to look forward to when you’re assigned your RISD email!]

Daily Jolt: A student-run website, really helpful for everything (sophisticated version of this post). The name is, coincidentally (it’s only a branch of the national Jolt website which serves a network of different colleges) weather related- Rhode Island is the “Ocean State” and apparently all the surrounding water makes it susceptible to weather phenomena (wikipedia), you may also have heard of Lightning Bolt, a noise band started at RISD which used to play at Fort Thunder (now defunct, destroyed actually).

Oh, it’s cold up here so bring a sweater, or five. And hilly, so maybe a sherpa too.

Good luck!