News @ the Peck School of the Arts

Art Faculty featured at Milwaukee Public Theatre's Champions of the Arts Celebration

Milwaukee Public Theatre will host its Fourth Annual Champions of the Arts Celebration on Thursday, May 23 at Turner Hall Ballroom.

The event features a talk on Arts in Education by Art & Design professor Raoul Deal. Raoul will be introduced by Kim Cosier, head of the Art Education department.  The event also includes a social hour, other guest speakers, music performances and a silent auction.

Tickets are $35 and can be purchased at the door. All proceeds will benefit Milwaukee Public Theatre’s Cultivating Community public art projects in collaboration with Milwaukee Mask and Puppet Theatre: Make-A-Parade Workshops and neighborhood arts residencies, Milwaukee Latino Carnaval, Summer of Peace, Walnut Way Harvest Day Parade, Food for Thought Workshops and Residencies, “Out to Lunch--the Fresh Food Variety Show” and more.

Learn more at Milwaukee Public Theatre. 

Integrating art in all subjects

From the Milwaukee Public Schools web site.

In March, Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts teamed up with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Art Education program to integrate art education in a variety of classes. Three groups of UWM students visited Roosevelt to work in social studies, science and language arts classrooms. The goal was to integrate what was being taught in the classroom with the discipline of art, using a life-centered theme and essential questions.

One of the classrooms that participated in this program was Ms. Macchia's third-hour language arts class. The art education students from UWM, Ms. Gonyer, Ms. Stoewe and Ms. Dahlen worked with Ms. Macchia to support her lessons on persuasive and creative writing through art. Roosevelt students were introduced to and encouraged to explore the theme of identity. Students investigated contemporary artworks by Hank Willis Thomas, Banksy and advertisements to investigate how identity is formed and displayed to convey cultural understandings about people and groups. During lessons, students used writing to further explore the topic and describe their own identities. Once students had their own stories and messages to share, they created their own poster advertisements about their narratives, using printmaking techniques. Narratives spoke to how they could shape the world, making a positive impact on others.

Take 5 with Jim Plaisted of the North Ave. BID: CRE Guide

By Sean Ryan
Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee
May 16, 2013

Jim Plaisted since 1999 has been executive director of the East Side Business Improvement District, which centers around East North Avenue in Milwaukee...

...Plaisted answers our questions on these new developments, other businesses moving to the area and the district’s image as a college neighborhood.Q: How and why are you working to change perceptions of the East Side as a college neighborhood?...

A: We are promoting some of the positive aspects of living near a university. Traditionally, university neighborhoods tend to be the most energetic and eclectic in nature. It’s where new ideas emerge, talent is groomed and where there’s a demand for things like an art house cinema, specialty shops, coffeehouses and restaurants like Beans & Barley. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts in the Kenilworth Building has a great impact on the neighborhood. It buzzes with artists, music and film students, animation wizards and theater people. They get their fuel from this neighborhood, and in turn they energize the area.

But there’s more to the East Side than students. There’s a whole population of university faculty, young professionals and longtime residents that call the East Side home. They also have a strong influence on the businesses that are attracted to our commercial area. It’s no accident that Whole Foods chose this neighborhood for its only Milwaukee store....

Visit The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee to read the full article.

Gullah culture, danced at UWM

By Tom Strini
Third Coast Daily
May 16, 2013

A picture of Ferne Caulker, at play on a beach in Sierra Leone as a little girl, hangs on a lobby wall over part of her late mother’s collection of ceramic figurines — salt shakers and such — that depict African Americans in stereotypical ways. A picture of her late father, looking sharp in a business suit, isn’t far away from a photo of Lorenzo Dow Turner, one of the earliest scholars of African-American history.

Those who attend the first of Caulker’s “Sweet Grass Project” shows Friday and Saturday (May 17) will see all that and more in an exhibit on the way into the Mitchell Hall Chamber Dance Theater at UWM. Within they will see 14 dancers, drawn from the African Dance track that Caulker pioneered in the UWM dance department and from her Ko-Thi Dance Company, perform a 40-minute piece steeped in the Gullah culture of the coastal islands of Carolina...

Visit Third Coast Daily to read the full article.

Emmons is new dean of UWM's Peck School of the Arts

May 16, 2013
BizTimes

Scott Emmons has been named dean of the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

Emmons, a professor of music education, joined the UWM faculty in 1992. He has served as interim dean of the Peck School during the 2012-13 Year of the Arts at UWM, a celebration of the Peck School’s 50th anniversary.

“Scott is a solid citizen of this university and has already demonstrated his commitment to UWM students, faculty and staff, and to the Milwaukee arts community,” said UWM Chancellor Michael Lovell. “I have every confidence in his ability to lead the Peck School of the Arts forward.”

Read the full article at BizTimes. 

Emmons named dean of UWM's Peck School of the Arts

By Karen Herzog
May 15, 2013
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Scott Emmons, a professor of music education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1992, has been named dean of the Peck School of the Arts.

Emmons has served as interim dean of the Peck School during the 2012-'13 Year of the Arts at UWM, a celebration of the Peck School’s 50th anniversary.

“Scott is a solid citizen of this university and has already demonstrated his commitment to UWM students, faculty and staff, and to the Milwaukee arts community,” UWM Chancellor Michael R. Lovell said in a prepared statement. “I have every confidence in his ability to lead the Peck School of the Arts forward.”

Read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

 

Art & Design faculty Allison B. Cooke showing 5 paintings in Ireland gallery show

Art & Design faculty Allison B. Cooke is showing five paintings at the Higher Bridges Gallery in The Drawing Box, an exhibition curated by Outland Arts.

The Drawing Box is an experimental socionomic drawing project connecting artists from all over the world. The Drawing box is a social network / facebook (secret group) founded on the 27th December 2012. The group was formed by Outland arts member Diane Henshaw to create an open 'but private by invite only' forum for circulatory discussion about contemporary drawing with artists Andrew Crane, John Crabtree and Patil Rajendra, all of which had a collective synergy within their artistic practice. Quickly the group grew to a membership through word of mouth of close to 100+ artists.

The group decided to experiment with a spontaneous drawing exhibition plan and many of its newly formed membership are now creating five new works each scaled to A5 and participating in this inaugural mail art project under the auspices of the Drawing Box, in whatever mode of drawing that might be.

Show details:

Opens: May 16 from 8pm. Continues to June 4, 2013.
10am – 4pm Monday to Friday and 11am – 3pm Saturdays
The Higher Bridges Gallery
Clinton Centre, Belmore Street
Enniskillen
Co. Fermanagh BT74 7BA
N. Ireland

FILM FACULTY - Work by Iverson White and Portia Cobb included in Wisconsin 30 Exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum

The photograph Joy’s Window by Film faculty Iverson White, and a digital photograph from Portia Cobb's Land Rich series, titled Booga's Hip Boots, will be included in Wisconsin 30, an exhibition in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Schroeder Galleria from June 14-September 8. The exhibition features 30 works by Wisconsin African American artists and parallels the survey of contemporary art 30 Americans that will also be showing at the Milwaukee Art Museum at that time.

30 Americans showcases works by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. This provocative exhibition focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture while exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy and community across generations.

For more information, visit the Milwaukee Art Museum online.

UWM Springdances: Meet Maria Gillespie

By Tom Strini
Third Coast Daily
May 8, 2013

“I’ve been wondering if who I am depends on where I am and who I’m with,” Maria Gillespie said, at an interview Wednesday on the topic of the Springdances show, which opens Thursday at UWM.

Gillespie, the newest member of the UWM dance faculty, contributed a new work to the show and is its artistic director. The Nashville native came to Milwaukee in September, after 16 years in Los Angeles and several in New York before that. Classical questions of constructs of identity loom large in Gillespie’s mind just now, as she strives to redefine and balance her professional and personal life.

“When you come in as an outsider,” she said, “you have to make clear who you are, and make it clear again to yourself. It’s like looking in the rear-view mirror and saying, hey, that’s my identity back there.”

Visit Third Coast Daily to read the full article.

Designing Apps Leads to Launching a Business

By Beth Stafford

UWM News

May 9, 2013

About Hunter Ruth

Degree: BFA, Design and Visual Communications, Peck School of the Arts

Hometown: Lakeville, Minn.

It’s a Fact: He’s never eaten a salad.

From his freshman year of high school, Hunter Ruth knew what he wanted to do. Inspired by a teacher, Ruth focused on becoming a graphic designer and creating video games.

“I definitely benefitted from knowing what I wanted to do,” Ruth says. “That’s the hardest decision you have to make in college. But at UWM, I learned right away that there was much more to the graphic design field than I thought.”