Artist Talks & Interviews

Jessica Meuninck-Ganger

Jessica Meuninck-Ganger’s prints have been exhibited internationally, included in several private and public collections including Weisman Art Museum, Northwestern Mutual, the Target Corporation and featured in contemporary publications, such as Richard Noyce’s, Printmaking Beyond the Edge. Jessica received an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Lucy Wood Baird

Lucy Wood Baird’s work is about misunderstandings, examined via photographic prints’ precariousness. She holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Baird’s work has been included in exhibitions and private collections nationwide. She was an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Jean Alexander Frater

Jean Alexander Frater experiments with the materials inherent to painting and then integrates other histories, traditions and language into this form. Her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Wexner Center for Arts, Columbus; El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe; Images Festival, Toronto; Possible Project Space, Brooklyn; Ben-Gurion airport, Tel Aviv; Kulturhuset, Stockholm.

Martha MacLeish

Martha MacLeish is currently experimenting with new materials and construction methods—connecting the directness of drawing and painting with the more gradual processes of designing and building three-dimensional forms. She holds an MFA in painting from the Yale School of Art, and is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Creative Core Area at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Tomiko Jones

Tomiko Jones’ photography and multidisciplinary installations explore social, cultural and geopolitical transitions in the landscape, and considers the twin crises of too much and too little in the age of climate change. Her current research, These Grand Places, is a socially-engaged investigation of people and place on public land.

Currently Jones is an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and on the Board of Directors, Society for Photographic Education. She received her MFA in Photography with a Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Meghan Sullivan

Meghan Sullivan's ceramic sculpture is heavily influenced by her research of classical Roman portraiture and its use as a narrative device of power. She questions what is chosen to be preserved, what is valued, and the ramifications of these decisions on future generations as we frame our personal and cultural histories. Sullivan's work reminds us that while portraiture tells a story, that the story has been altered and subverted by time.

Sullivan is originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She received her MFA from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, a post-baccalaureate from the University of Florida - Gainesville and her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. She has been an artist in residence at several studios in the United States and internationally. From 2014-15, Meghan was the Visiting Artist and Adjunct Professor at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida. She is currently the Uihlein Fellow of the Studio Arts for Lawrence University in Appleton, WI.

Shane Walsh

Shane Walsh is a painter who uses collage as a conceptual framework for understanding the legacy of abstraction. He works to re-construct an image of abstraction that feels appropriate to his time and place with a process that involves collage, photography, and digital technology. Walsh creates complex hybrids that synthesize abstract painting and visual languages from 1990’s subcultures.

Walsh lives and works in Milwaukee, WI. He received his MFA from the University of Washington in 2006 and his BFA from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2001. His work has been included in solo and group shows in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, St.Louis, and Miami. He is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery (New York) and by The Alice Wilds (Milwaukee).

N. Sean Glover

Sean Glover is an artist who lives and works in Boston, MA. His artwork uses materials and processes (both new and old) to investigate the histories of objects, labor, and technology. He has experimented with taking fresco painting off the wall, creating it on alternative surfaces such as foam and burlap.

Glover has been the fresco instructor at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture since 2008. From 2013-2015, he was the Visiting Assistant Professor in Sculpture at Maine College of Art. In 2005, he was a recipient of a Traveling Scholars award at the SMFA in Boston, which he used to live in Florence, Italy and San Francisco, California. In 2011, Sean received his MFA at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA and was a recipient of a Blanche E Colman Award in 2012 and an Artist Resource Trust Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation in 2013. He has exhibited in San Francisco, Boston, Galway, Helsinki, New York, and Miami.

Emily Scheider Berens

Emily Scheider Berens is an artist and educator living in Milwaukee, WI. Emily has a passion for ‘Tra-Digital’ media; her studio practice meshes traditional drawing and printmaking techniques with an array of digital imaging and collage processes. She has exhibited and taught workshops regionally, and is a faculty member within UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts.

Wendi Turchan

As an educator, Wendi Turchan’s goal is to help students find their way, not her way. She guides them toward their individual motivations while also asking questions that lead to new modes of thinking. Wendi’s paintings explore connections between home and the landscape. When not making work, she enjoys hiking, as well as tending to her houseplants, which all have names. Her favorite is Carol, a giant split-leaf philodendron. Wendi earned her MFA from University of Oregon and teaches at UWFond du Lac.

Dan Nauman

Artist-Designer-Blacksmith Dan Nauman has been forging since 1979; professionally since 1993. His work is forged primarily of steel, but also bronze, stainless steel, and copper. His designs reflect current and classic styles in gates, railings, furniture, lighting, door hardware, fireplace equipment, and sculpture. The notable places where his metalwork resides include: The Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, and Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee, WI, the Executive Residence in Madison, WI, the former estate of Harvey Firestone, Jr., in Akron OH, Bjorklunden Lodge in Baileys Harbor, and The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay. Nauman was an editor and graphic designer for two international magazines published by the Artist-Blacksmith Association of North America from 2015-2019. He also teaches, lectures and demonstrates the art and craft of forging nationally.

Dave Beck

Dave Beck talks about his latest project, an art video game titled Tombeaux. This interactive experience investigates the convergence between cultures and the environment across a few hundred years of midwestern American history.

Dave Beck is a practicing 3D digital, game, and new media artist and designer, living in Wisconsin. He is the recipient of the 2010 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge Award, given by the National Science Foundation. Beck's artwork has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, National Geographic, the journal Science, and the book GameScenes: Art in the Age of Videogames.

Jie Qi

Jie Qi is a multi-disciplinary artist and entrepreneur based in Tokyo. She is currently project assistant professor at the University of Tokyo as well as cofounder and CTO of Chibitronics, which produces educational toolkits. Jie holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from the MIT Media Lab.

James Connolly

James Connolly is a video, sound and new media artist, instrument builder, educator, and museum worker. He teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is the Collection Manager of the Roger Brown Study Collection

Dan Mackerman

For over 25 years Dan Mackerman worked as a production artist making sculptures, animation, backdrops, and murals for opera, theater, television, cinema and department stores. A long list of clients includes some recognizable names: Disney, Buena Vista, Animal Planet Television, The Minnesota Opera, Prince, Marshall Fields and Macy's. His work as a production artist occupied six months of each year, and he spent the other half as a fine artist. Learn how his work in one area influenced the other.

Kristy Deetz and Edward S. Louis

The Singular Adventures of Rabbit and Kitty Boy is a new book featuring intriguing paintings by Kristy Deetz, accompanied by charming and satirical stories by Edward S. Louis. Join us for an inside take on the paintings by Deetz and a reading by Louis.

Kristy Deetz is a Professor in the Art Discipline at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay. Her extensive exhibition record includes national and international venues.

Edward S. Louis is the pen name for E. L. Risden, a Professor of English at St. Norbert College who has over 20 books of scholarship, fiction, poetry, and translation.