Friday Fives: Jocelyn Rice (Black Earth United + Design Museum Everywhere)
December 02, 2021
Most Fridays we give #highfives to a different designer from our extended family of PNCA students, faculty, alumni, and guest lecturers. 🙌🏾🙌🏻🙌🏽 This week, we're featuring award-winning apparel designer and visionary creative force Jocelyn Rice. Jocelyn joined us on 12/08/21 for our Design Lecture Series (See recording at the end of this Q+A!).
Parent, ceremonial designer, and outdoor futurist Jocelyn Rice is the founder and CDO of BLACK EARTH UNITED and creator of The Through Line conference. Jocelyn is also the Design Director of Thought Leadership for Design Museum Everywhere, and was a 2017 Ski Magazine Gear of the Year award winner. In 2021 she joined the board of Built Oregon, a group dedicated to helping the state’s consumer product founders.
Graphic Design department head Kristin Rogers Brown spoke with Jocelyn in November, 2021.
via @blackearthunited instagram
Q: What do you do to get “unstuck?”
A: Scream as loud as I can, Sweat as hard as I can, Laugh as much as I can, Do something that scares me, Talk to my mom, Dance outside in the rain, Take a walk in my P.J.s at night with my kid while we listen to an audiobook, Ride my bike, Chase the sunrise, Sit in silence.
Q: What feels vital to the future of design, to you?
A: I believe with all of my heart it is vital for the future of Design to look to anthropology, sociology, cosmology, and zoology for guidance. I also hope that in the future, design fields will adopt some kind of self-awareness model for designers. Being aware of one's own character and feelings can provide designers with the knowledge and skills to self-reflect, understand their own emotional and cultural intelligence and understand how other people may perceive us and how we perceive others. Armed with that knowledge, we can create incredible things together.
via @blackearthunited on instagram
Trust your dopeness.
Q: What music (or podcasts) are you listening to, or what are you reading right now?
A: Music!!!! Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (on Vinyl). Thundercat: It is what it is. Toni Jones: I see me Mantras.
Podcasts!!! Audio Dharma, The Read, The Ron Burgundy Podcast
Books!!!! Chimpanzee Politics by Frans De Waal and Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
"Farwalker" via Black Earth United shop / "This is outdoorsy too"
Q: What is one thing you want to learn right now?
A: I'd love to learn French and/or Spanish (Peninsular Spanish). Paris and Barcelona are two of my favorite cities in the world (so far). If I had a superpower, it would be to speak every language in the multiverse! Lol...so being tri-lingual is fo sho on my list of things to learn.
Accessories and apparel for you to be at home in the outdoors. (featuring @artbylucas illustration)
Q: What advice would you give your former self?
A: Trust your dopeness.
* * * * *
Hear more from Jocelyn in conversation with students and faculty by watching her edition of our Design Lecture Series (above), recorded on 12/08/21. Talks in fall 2021 are in person for PNCA students, staff, and faculty, and open to the public streaming FREE with registration. Co-hosted by PNCA Graphic Design and FISK, with special faculty guests from PNCA Design.
See more from Jocelyn on blackearthunitedpresents.com, or follow @BlackEarthUnited and @Jocelynr.rice on instagram.
Follow along with our #fridayfives on instagram @pncadesign.