Honoring a Commitment to Art and Equity
Family and loved ones of Maddy Parrasch 19 PT establish a travel fund in her memory.
Maddy Parrasch was a gifted artist and inveterate traveler who immersed herself in RISD’s creative community. Although she started college elsewhere, all signs pointed to RISD.
“Maddy’s drive to make art was overwhelming,” recalls her father, Franklin Parrasch P 19. “She thrived in ceramics and drawing classes at her first college—so much so that her teachers told her she should go to RISD. She took their advice.”
“Maddy’s fully invested engagement with RISD began with her application. The drawing contraption project she produced—replete with motor and multiple paint-spurting tubes—was imagined and engineered with complete conceptual and emotional commitment,” says her father. “We still have the ‘automatic’ drawing it produced that was part of her application.
Above: Maddy Parrasch, Untitled, 2018. Ceramic tiles on wood, 31" x 32 1/2" Photo Courtesy of Safe Gallery, New York.
“Once she arrived for summer orientation classes, she immersed herself in the RISD community and immediately formed bonds with some of the people with whom she would become the closest to for the rest of her and their lives,” he adds.
Tragically, she died in a car accident in December 2018, only six months before she would have graduated from RISD. In the aftermath of the devastating loss of their daughter, her family found a special way to honor her life and legacy. They established the Maddy Parrasch Travel Fund, which has grown thanks to the generous contributions of scores of friends and family members.
“She was forever curious about the world around her—be it a new neighborhood in a city in which she was living or a remote corner of the globe. She loved the act of travel— experiencing different cultures, languages, and hearing and absorbing new perspectives,” says her mother, Suzi Parrasch P 19. “She was thrilled to travel to Rome for RISD’s European Honors Program, which was a formative experience. Seeing the frescoes in Florence, the Giottos, the Tintorettos, the Caravaggios, were life-altering experiences that informed her art in many ways.”
“We came up with the idea of the travel fund knowing how much travel influenced our daughter’s thinking, her art and just her way of being. We want Maddy’s legacy to be the opening up of new worlds for other RISD students and to help them gain all that she did through travel.”
As soon as travel is again possible, the fund will begin providing financial support to students who wish to take part in RISD travel courses
If you would like to contribute to the Maddy Parrasch Travel Fund, please visit engage.risd.edu/MaddyParraschTravel or call toll-free: 844 454-1877.
