The Art of Critical Making - by Rosanne Somerson & Mara Hermano (Hardcover)

About the Book

Describes the world's leading approach to art and design taught at Rhode Island School of Design. At Rhode Island School of Design students are immersed in a culture where making questions, ideas, and objects, using and inventing materials, and activating experience all serve to define a form of critical thinking - albeit with one's hands - i.e. "critical making." The Art of Critical Making, by RISD faculty and staff, describes fundamental aspects of RISD's approach to "critical making" and how this can lead to innovation.

Book Synopsis

Describes the world's leading approach to art and design taught at Rhode Island School of Design

At Rhode Island School of Design students are immersed in a culture where making questions, ideas, and objects, using and inventing materials, and activating experience all serve to define a form of critical thinking--albeit with one's hands--i.e. "critical making." The Art of Critical Making, by RISD faculty and staff, describes fundamental aspects of RISD's approach to "critical making" and how this can lead to innovation. The process of making taught at RISD is deeply introspective, passionate, and often provocative.

This book illuminates how RISD nurtures the creative process, from brief or prompt to outcome, along with guidance on the critical questions and research that enable making great works of art and design.

• Explores the conceptual process, idea research, critical questions, and iteration that RISD faculty employ to educate students to generate thoughtful work
• Authors are from the faculty and staff of the Rhode Island School of Design, which consistently ranks as the number one fine arts and design college in the United States

The Art of Critical Making shows you how context, materials, thought processes, and self-evaluation are applied in this educational environment to prepare creative individuals to produce dynamic, memorable, and meaningful works.

From the Back Cover

As the world grows increasingly complex and fast-paced, with global issues impacting us all, making, materials, and meaning are critical. The kind of essential knowing that we develop at RISD--informed through our hands, through our bodies, and in the creation of works, experiences, and events--is more cogent than at any other time. Artists and designers hone the capacity to generate something from deep inside ourselves to live outside of ourselves. By residing in the experiential and the physical, and by developing the "hands-on" as a portal of intelligent learning, we confirm the mind as maker and making as a state of mindfulness. We demonstrate how artists and designers are hosts for enduring creative discovery that is self-initiated and actively engaged. In short, artists and designers manifest what has not existed previously--in many cases, what has never even been imagined.
--RISD PROVOST ROSANNE SOMERSON, EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION

I believe that art and design have critical roles to play in innovation in this next century, much like science and technology did in the last. The very methods revealed in this book will drive the new ideas, movements, and solutions that will help us tackle the complex problems of our day.
--RISD PRESIDENT JOHN MAEDA, EXCERPT FROM THE FOREWORD

About the Author

ROSANNE SOMERSON is the Provost at Rhode Island School of Design. A professor for more than 25 years, she has lectured in museums, conferences, corporations, and schools across the world. She has maintained her own studio since 1978 and has exhibited work extensively in museums throughout the United States and internationally including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Louvre in Paris.

MARA L. HERMANO is Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Academic Initiatives at Rhode Island School of Design. Trained as an art historian, she has focused her career on the intersection of art and design, culture, and higher education