Alma Matters

Posting about Jessica Hess' work yesterday, Karla Wozniak's last month, and Alex Lukas' (above) in March has made me think about how amazingly far some of my fellow alumni have come in just a few short years. I am so proud to be part of such a creative and talented group, and I thought it would be fun to put together a post featuring a some of my RISD contemporaries that I have been hearing about lately.


I am a huge fan of Woody Shepherd's paintings. I would love to own one someday, when I can get one through my door (they are quite large!).


Jen Corace and I just missed each other at RISD but became friends when I started selling her work in my short-lived retail store a few years ago. Her illustrations and fine art have been getting a lot of press lately, and she is my fiercest Boggle competitor.


It was really fun to see Wyeth Hansen and Ryan Dunn's company, Labor, honored by the Art Director's Club in their Designing Minds series. Both these guys played a big part in designing our yearbook when we were at RISD, which was incredibly cool, and now they're making music videos for Mobius Band, titles for Vh1 documentaries, identities for AIGA... you name it!


When Allison Cole isn't writing and illustrating comics, or designing surface patterns, or selling her handmade goods, she also makes these intricate cut paper pieces of art that I think are wonderful.


The design world has been crazy for Julia Rothman's surface design and illustration work for a while now, and for good reason. Julia also does web work with fellow RISD alumni Matt Lamothe and Jenny Volvovski for Also. You can see her in another Designing Minds episode here, and in the D*S produced series Design By the Book, starting here.


I stumbled upon Jordon Wolfson's work in the Whitney Biennial a few years ago. His conceptual pieces are always very interesting. This one was part of the Biennial and I thought it was great.


Amy Voloshin (nee Eldon) runs the Philadelphia-based textile company Printfresh with her husband Leo, and also sells great screenprinted t-shirts through Moonblood. Amy's wedding was featured in Martha Stewart Weddings last year- gorgeous!


My friend Jane Kim makes the most amazing paintings and installations using recycled construction material. She was selected for the prestigious San Francisco Dump residency this year, and I love all the work that came out of it.


Chika Eustace is probably the first person I met at RISD- she was my R.A.- and I ran into her last weekend at Renegade. She makes really wonderful wallets, t-shirts, and other accessories under the brand Chikabird.


If you read any of the major design blogs, you will recognize David Wiseman's incredible ceramic, metal, and glasswork, such as this gorgeous fireplace. David was also selected to be part of the Cooper Hewitt museum's Triennial exhibition in 2006, and has been featured in numerous home magazines.


Rob Dobi designs t-shirts that I see everywhere I go. His distinctive, bold graphics are always clever, but what I really love are his photographs of abandoned buildings- he really captures something in these places that is both eerie and beautiful. Dobi has also done illustrations for quite a few publications and bands (notably Fallout Boy) over the years.


Katie Vida's paintings are full of the flat colors I love so much. She's shown her work in a number of galleries and is currently in the graduate program at Yale.


I was thrilled to see Matt Fairbank's furniture featured on Design Sponge recently. His unexpected combinatinos of materials and beautifully clean lines are no surprise based on the work he did while we were in school.


Susie Ghahremani has always been industrious, selling buttons, shirts, wallets, stationery, and art, as well as recording music under the name Snoozer. Her work has been featured in galleries all over the country, and I'm never surprised to see one of her illustrations pop up. She currently has work at Giant Robot in Los Angeles and New York.


Jenine Bressner was one of the artists featured in the much-talked about documentary Handmade Nation. Her lamp-worked glass jewelery is really stunning.


Marissa Nadler has become a very successful singer. I was sad to miss her show in San Francisco a couple of months ago (it was during Passover, unfortunately).


You might have seen Katherine Gerdes on Project Runway a couple seasons ago. I thought she was kicked off way too soon; her clothing has always been very fresh, wearable and beautifully cut. I love the button detail on this dress.

Of course there are thousands of very successful RISD alumni out there (and I am sure I am also missing a bunch of my friends here) who weren't my contemporaries, notably Dale Chihuly, Shepherd Fairey, Nicole Miller, Seth McFarlane, Gus Van Sant, The Talking Heads, David Macauly, Francesca Woodman, etc.. You can always find alumni work for sale at RISD/works.