Ripple Effect

Through a Bequest, Susie Matthews MAT 98/MFA 04 CR Establishes a Professorship at RISD

To walk into OVERLAP, the light-filled exhibition space and gallery in Newport, Rhode Island, that Susie Matthews MAT 98/MFA 04 launched in the winter of 2023, is to enter into a place of discovery. Matthews, a ceramicist and textile artist with a background in teaching, has filled the space with works of art and design—paintings, ceramics, sculpture, textiles, jewelry, glass pieces, and more—that engage, delight, and invite visitors to rethink the boundaries between art and craft.

“This is my teaching place,” Matthews says. “A lot of the things I learned in my Master of Arts in Teaching program, surprisingly, come into running the gallery because it really is about educating people. For me, the real goal is to show people things that they perhaps were not aware of or to help an artist articulate their vision and present it.”

As an artist and educator, Matthews, who grew up in Stonington, Connecticut, and New York City, and now lives in Jamestown, Rhode Island, was influenced by RISD faculty like Paul Sproll, the longtime head of the Department of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design, as well as ceramic artists like Larry Bush P 09, Denise Pelletier, and Jacquelyn Rice P 91. She has also seen how challenging balancing a creative practice and a teaching practice can be for her fellow artists.

Now, Matthews has chosen to honor the essential work of teaching by creating an endowed professorship at RISD.

“I realized that, for me, the teacher is the most important part. Facilities and resources are important, too, of course, but if you don’t have good people there teaching you, what do you have?” Matthews says.

To carry out her vision, Matthews joined the Jesse + Helen Rowe Metcalf Society by including RISD as a beneficiary in her will and creating the Susan M. Matthews (MAT 98/MFA 04 CR) Professorship. When fully established, the position can be held by a faculty member working in any discipline at RISD.

While estate planning is a practical necessity, Matthews says, it also offers an opportunity to express one’s values.

“Arts education ripples out,” Matthews says. “If you teach an architect about sustainable design and they then make beautiful buildings that are environmentally responsible, it has a larger effect. We have to keep looking for beauty and hope and also creative solutions, creative thinking.”