I came with the inten­tion of speak­ing about my expe­ri­ence at RISD and wish­ing President Somerson a good tenure here, but all I could write on my sketch­book page was ​“blank page.” I wrote ​“tab­u­la rasa.” I wrote ​“a clean slate.” And I wrote those words sev­er­al times, and I real­ized as I was writ­ing them that that’s how I arrived at RISD.