The DNA of Our XYZ: RISD by Design

Natural instincts, and other magical gifts.

Being a RISD grad (pronounced RIZZ-DEE) is like dropping the Harvard bomb into casual conversation at a cocktail party: the music stops with a sudden scratch of a needle across a record (you remember those, right?), like the person opposite you has just spied spinach caught conspicuously between your front teeth, as is now deciding whether or not to tell you the truth about your appearance based on your relatively new, and brief, acquittance. How to proceed? Alarm, dread, surprise, or maybe a kind of slow-creeping dawn of recognition widens their eyes, and those are just the people who know the truth about who we are.

I do not (nor have I ever) resemble a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, just like I don't resemble the stereotypical, movie version of an artiste, or the square-framed, shy, passive-aggressive, arrogant, know-it-all book designer, like your average, working class, boogie-down New Yawker, or your typically self-righteous Catholic girl, though I am, in fact, all of those things: an artist, a book designer, a native New Yorker, a person of faith, and that's just scratching the surface. Like my ethnicity, the story of who I am is not the Dummy Guide to the Self or a CliffNotes version of reality, though I am far from pretentiously complex, nor purposely difficult to pin down, like some pompous hipster living high on the hog in Williamsburg (look it up).

Nature, and also, design.

Through time, I found myself to be exactly who I think I am, and that my experience at RISD was exactly what it was supposed to be: hard, brutally hard, and not something I would ever contemplate doing again, because my purpose was (and is) to go out in the world to share my work and my vision as a leader in the world, and as a woman of the world. It was a "one of a kind" type of thing, just like my time as a student was.

I now see my time there as something akin to the cinematic version of the combined Harry Potter books: a magical sort of place that doesn't actively seek out students (nor should they, because RISD has the lowest acceptance rate in the world), but simply draws to it the beautiful and gifted like another type of magnet, that Sorting Hat of Potter fame. As much as I didn't "fit" in (and who would, at such an extraordinary place?!), I found over time that I am exactly what they wait for at RISD: a type of intellect that can cross barriers, jumping lightly over divides to make previously unseen connections, building almost impossibly beautiful bridges seemingly out of thin air.

Human animals, and other topics of interest.

Because, just like one of my professors admitted, we are this era's Leonardo da Vinci's (and every era's ever after), as we always have been, and we always will be: not easy, not trendy, not "alternative" for the sake of a short term sale, but rather to become enduring, lasting, classic, innovative, a type of forever that's also human and achievable. It's kinda like being the stuff that books are made of: once bound and sewn by hand, then printed on paper by a press with movable type, and now rendered into a computer programming language for the Digital Age. Yeah, like that.  Come, see for yourself.  http://issuu.com/risd/docs/risdxyz_spring2014_final_single_pag#

Revolutions in the making, and other brilliant feats of typesetting.

Beauty: Make-Up Free Marie

Tired, make up free me looks OK (with help from cleavage).

I was surfing Twitter last week, and I noticed a story about celebrity women without make up that freaked me out. They're not new stories, and of course, the shots were by paparazzi in a quest to catch these particular celebs at their worst, (women famed for their beauty), either in poor lighting, or very early in the morning, or just leaving the gym, or when they weren't dieting for a role. Jesus. The "with" makeup and "without" shots were gruesomely different, with the exception of one or two woman, most notably Kim Kardashian, who looks great naturally. I've written about my public stance on cosmetics before: I'm not against them at all, I just don't want to get caught out looking like a circus clown in plain clothes, or a drag queen on her day off. I blame overzealous Photoshopping production artists pushed by ad execs as much as I do the photographers, though. You have to be complicit with sort of thing to airbrushwoman into all irrelevance with regards to her day to day life.

Me, the morning of this piece, minutes after waking up, make up free.

As it so often does, pop culture lead me back to myself, to take a good hard look. I know I look great at 43, I know I look great without make up, I know I'm photogenic, and I know I 'm an exception to most rules, but I'm also a woman, vulnerable to the same harshness of society's gaze as any other woman walking the streets, and I've heard it all: "She's plain" to "She has, like, these little bumps all over her face that you can see if you talk to her up close" overheard by me as a bridesmaid to my soon-to-be sister-in-law. Yay! She ignores me mostly or takes weird passive-aggressive snipes under her breath when she leaves the room. For the record, my skin DOES have bumps, and pores, and some fine lines, and sometimes blemishes, just like all human skin does. It doesn't not have the excessive skin damage of say, a sister-in-law who thinks that tanning cures all her ills. Sorry, girl. I'm pale and I know it. But by knowing who we are really well, it prevents other  people's insecurities from getting under are skin, and that's the most valuable advice I can give any girls out there struggling with the crap thrown at them when they dare to look through a fashion mag: to thine own self be true, and the rest are just haters.

Me in natural light, with pores, bumps, blemishes, and some fine lines.
I'm wearing cover up set with powder, mascara, cream blush, & lip balm. 

So, in the interest of honesty, I shot myself in different lighting conditions, with makeup and without, while still trying to get a nice looking pic with good color, clarity, good composition, etc. And it really is true, I honestly prefer myself without make up because my dark eyes pop out against my skin tone, which gives me what I think is a unique appearance, one that holds the key to my ethnicity and cultural make up. I also train fairly regularly in gyms or dojos, and if there's one thing I know for sure, it's this: if you have even a bit of oily skin, the quickest way to ugly break outs is sweating profusely in make up. It's just so gross, plus it gets on my gi, and that stresses me out more. I may leave cover up on a raging blemish out of deference to my sparring partner, but even that I dislike. I wash it ALL off before I train, and I wash my face again afterwards, going home with a clean face. 

Diffuse light gives a warm glow to the skin that's favorable.

 It's one of the times when I feel most like myself. In professional settings, I prefer to wear make up because it helps me either blend in or knock 'em dead (like war paint), depending upon whichever effect I need to perform for that day. I famously took the summer off from cosmetics at one publishing house early in my career; it gives my skin a chance to air out, plus I get freckles, a little color that I find appealing, and my hair lightens up in the sun. Instead of saying kudos, the art director looked at me and noted I looked "surprisingly well". He's not exactly my biggest fan, but like I wrote, because I actually like myself, I can withstand just about any barb someone throws my way. Wanna-be photogs be warned: not only can I shoot better pics than you armed with just my iPhone (and ruthlessly critique said shots like an art historian in print), I fight, too. Let that sink in, and don't let me catch you behind a bush. When the lights go dim at the end of the day, who are you? Do you like what you see? Do you wake up looking at a stranger in the mirror, or simply like yourself?

Overexposed (highlights are blown out, losing some detail), though still showing some fine lines on the skin that make it realistic as a portrait.

Curly-haired, and you've accepted it? Same: http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/curls/.