“I’m rarely attached to outcomes. That’s a very boring way to go about things.” Todd Oldham
lower right: photo by Miles Crist
“My work is completely process-oriented,” Oldham said at an exhibition-related event with Wendy Goodman, design editor at New York magazine. “I’m rarely attached to outcomes. That’s a very boring way to go about things.” All of Everything has given him a wonderful opportunity to reflect on an exciting creative period in his life, Oldham told the overflow crowd. “I didn’t realize what I was really working with at the time, but in hindsight I do.”
and interior artworks are original thread compositions that create a conceptual link between the content and the book as an object. Though we finalized the design digitally, there was a back and forth between handmade and digital processes in order to create finished pieces that marry the material depth of the artworks and the material used to present them: the book in the reader’s hands. Each project we work on, regardless of medium, starts with the hand and maintains the handmade energy of Oldham’s fashion practice. Whether rebranding the studio, developing a website or creating new packaging concepts, there’s a constant conversation between analogue and digital approaches. This year the studio will be launching a wholesale brand of children’s art supplies, designing an artist’s book and working on a film, among other projects. It’s this dynamic revolving door of ideas and Oldham’s core commitment to the mark of the hand that continue to draw new creative talents into the studio and make the RISD graduates who work here feel at home. —Nora MacLeod 11 TX For more about Oldham’s studio and team, go to toddoldhamstudio.com.
As a visiting critic in two Fabric Silkscreen studios last spring, Todd Oldham worked with more than 30 Textiles majors—“artists who were pretending to be students,” as he describes them — to embellish 18 yards of muslin used in this RISD Ensemble dress (above). The piece takes center stage in All of Everything, a riotous retrospective of Oldham’s fashion from the 1990s that continues through September 11 at the RISD Museum.
Tony Longoria (left) and Todd Oldham with their in-house design team: Greg Kozatek 10 IL, Nora MacLeod 11 TX, Joseph Kaplan 11 GD and Karin Kunori 10 GD.
// RISDXYZ
spring/ summer 2016
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