Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Tom Weis
Second Advisor
Johanna Barthmaier-Payne
Third Advisor
Aspen Golann
Abstract
This thesis takes the form of a wooden box containing an archive of fragments – scanned notebooks, sketches, photographs, emails, journal entries, and other materials – that trace a year of embodied, process-based inquiry. Rather than presenting a linear argument or a polished final product, the work reflects a nonlinear, exploratory methodology grounded in making, wandering, and self-reflection.
Born within the context of the 2025 Sustainability Design Lab, an interdisciplinary initiative at RISD examining the material culture of wood across design fields, this project documents the artist’s evolving engagement with green wood as both material and metaphor. Through practices such as carving, foraging, reflective writing, and time spent in the woods, the work explores themes of embodied making, self-doubt, material curiosity, and the role of community in sustaining a creative practice. It also investigates ideas of presence, play, place, and attention as conditions for learning and transformation.
Ultimately, this thesis serves as a record of showing up, again and again, to the messy, nonlinear process of learning to trust yourself through uncertainty, curiosity, and the support of a caring community.
Recommended Citation
Lietuvninkas, Vija, "Rooted in Embodied Making: A Notebook on Process" (2025). Masters Theses. 1519.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1519
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Art Education Commons, Art Practice Commons, Industrial and Product Design Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Sculpture Commons