RISD GLASS

Celebrating our second-year MFA cohort in the RISD Grad Show. On view now!

RISD Glass Celebrates our 2026 graduating cohort.

Through deep disciplinary inquiry RISD Glass students develop an individualized studio practice reflecting their unique perspective.

Meet Abby Sunde, ‘26 RISD Glass MFA 

Abby Sunde (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist who predominately works in glassworking, drawing, sound art, and installations. She was raised on Anishinaabe ceded territory of Northcentral Wisconsin and is currently living in Rhode Island. She is a first-generation descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and is also of Scandinavian/European-American descent. 

Sunde’s practice explores the ways in which we might reconnect to the ancestral, embodied knowledge of nature that our minds may have forgotten. Informed by decolonial theory, indigenous epistemologies of relationality and belonging, and land-based pedagogies, she is interested in the cycles of the earth and how those cycles act as tethering points to our histories and the natural phenomena around us. 

Sunde earned her BA in Biology and Environmental Sciences from the University of Minnesota - Morris in 2013. Recently returning to school, she received here AFA in Studio Art at Normandale Community College in 2022, her BFA in Studio Art from University of Wisconsin Madison in 2024 and is currently pursuing her MFA in Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design as a Society of Presidential Fellow and LoveFrom Scholar. 

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Leaf Bodies
Installation of fused glass and traces of fallen leaves
15’x10’

Collective Heartbeats
Borrowed rocks from Anishinaabe and Narragansett lands, Ojibwe, phonetics, sound, time
8’4”x10’6”

Collective Heartbeats (detail image)
Borrowed rocks from Anishinaabe and Narragansett lands, Ojibwe, phonetics, sound, time
8’4”x10’6”

Earth shields
48”x24”
Dirt, graphite, copper foil, and sounds of the earth’s magnetosphere activated by touch

RISD Glass Celebrates our 2026 graduating cohort.

Through deep disciplinary inquiry RISD Glass students develop an individualized studio practice reflecting their unique perspective.

Meet Leah Baron, ‘26 RISD Glass BFA 

Leah Baron is a multidisciplinary artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Currently, Leah works across a variety of mediums including glass, photography, painting, drawing, and various fiber arts. Her artistic practice is inspired by the awe-striking potential of luminous color, the history of mirrors, and her feminine experience. Through creative expression, she explores human emotional and sensorial experiences and her relationship with the Moon and spirituality. She uses pattern, texture, color, shape, and repetitive forms in series in order to create site specific installations. 

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Luminous Spirit
Glass
6’x5’x10’

If I Change The Mirror, Can I Change The Reflected
Glass, Silver
11’x6’

Reflections of Soul
Glass
6’x10’