“Love is our highest purpose,” noted design visionary Bruce Mau in delivering the Commencement keynote at last Saturday’s ceremony. “Work on what you love and starve the things you do not respect. Protect your time and your mind and give all that you can of these great treasures to the work you love the most.” The Canadian designer was addressing the approximately 700 jubilant art and design graduates who collected their hard-earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the 2014 commencement event.

Mau’s message of love was the centerpiece of Commencement 2014, a raucous celebration marked by boisterous brass-and-percussion numbers courtesy of Providence’s Extraordinary Rendition Band, festive decorations that transformed a huge plain vanilla hall in the Rhode Island Convention Center into a colorful installation and a series of inspiring speakers from on campus and off, including RI Congressman David Cicilline and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. To set the tone after the informal, New Orleans-style processional, Tony Johnson 93 SC, RISD’s director of Intercultural Student Engagement, belted out a campy musical rendition of protocols about exit signs and cell phones, accompanied by interplanetary electric guitarist Skyjelly (aka Office of Information Technology Analyst Rick Lescault).

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