From August 2023 to July 2024, we will highlight 50 of Wisconsin’s amazing artists and their work here.
Thank you for celebrating the Wisconsin Arts Board’s 50th anniversary with us!
July 17, 2024
DAVID HB DRAKE has been called a “gentle troubadour” and an “elemental folksinger”. The waters of the Great Lakes flow in his songs, feeding the rich Wisconsin prairie where his music takes root. His love of the earth, of good work, and of each other blend in an evening of original writing, traditional songs, and works by contemporary singer/songwriters in the folk tradition. Read More.
July 3, 2024
Mai Zong Vue is a storyteller, folk singer/performer, cultural trainer, and educator. Her work has been well-known to the WI Arts Board since 1997, when she began conducting field work in the Hmong community and led a group of Hmong artists to participate at the Wisconsin Folklife Festival in Madison, a celebration of Wisconsin’s sesquicentennial of statehood. Read More.
June 5, 2024
From Havana to Chicago to Milwaukee to the call of the Chequamegon National Forest wilderness, Sara Balbin’s natural surroundings have shaped her artistic journey. The dynamic seasonal changes of Balbin’s natural world are the inspiration for creative problem solving in her home-based Dragonfly Studio in Drummond, WI. Read more.
May 22nd, 2024
Symphony D. Swan-Zawadi epitomizes versatility, intentionally blending roles as an interdisciplinary artist, storyteller, archivist, educator, and community advocate. With a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a graduate degree in Educational Leadership from Cardinal Stritch University, Symphony’s journey is driven by a profound belief in art’s capacity to address complex societal issues. Read more.
May 8th, 2024
With over 30 years of Fine Arts teaching experience, Craig A. Knitt is an award-winning filmmaker and co-founder of the Wildwood Film Festival, held for 19 years in Appleton, Wisconsin. While he’s contributed to several feature films, his focus lies in short films, where he delights in playing with audience expectations. Craig is also a published writer/artist, stage performer, improviser, and comedian, drawing from a lifetime of immersion in the Realm of Stories. Read more.
April 24th, 2024
Mollie B, the multi-instrumentalist, award-winning vocalist, and host of the Mollie B Polka Party TV show, has been performing music all her life. Mollie started her career performing with the Jim Busta Band when she was only a child. Through hard work and dedication, Mollie now performs nation-wide to live audiences, as well as TV productions and the movie screen. Read more.
April 10th, 2024
Andrea Herkert is descended from a family who immigrated from Telemark, Norway which makes her art very personal. She holds a degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison with majors in Art and Art History. These disciplines have served her well as she sought to master the art of Rosemaling with its rich cultural history and strong ties to classical art. Read more.
March 27th, 2024
Deb Neuman has been involved in music endeavors her entire career. She has taught music and creative movement for children and adults in a variety of settings in both the Madison and Menomonie areas, including children’s music classes and K-12 music as a substitute. Read more.
March 13th, 2024
Sarah Kreuter is a woodcut artist whose prints feature detailed abstract patterns. Inspiration for these patterns come from observations of similarities within ourselves and the environment in which we live. All prints are hand pulled onto thin Mulberry paper and made in limited edition quantities. In addition to being a working artist, she is also an elementary art teacher. Read more.
February 28th, 2024
Tricia Roberts is the Executive Director of the Sheboygan Theatre Company. A native of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, she attended Millikin University to study theater and graduated from Lakeland University with a teaching degree in English in secondary education. Read more.
Cody Cottrell – Tekayanalow^naśe
February 14th, 2024
Cody Cottrell is a multidisciplinary Oneida artist living in Green Bay. His work ranges from illustration, logo design, murals, carving, and sculpture and metalwork, including two current public installations on the east side of Green Bay. His sculpture Laolaó, depicting a large stainless steel hummingbird, can be found along East Shore drive by the creek running towards Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary and is currently for sale. Read more.
January 31st, 2024
Katie Schutte was born and raised in Ohio. Her artistic practice involves combining crochet, a fiber technique, with materials and processes associated with painting, sculpture, and metalsmithing. Her work has been shown across the US and virtually. She currently lives in the Driftless area of southwest Wisconsin with her husband and a clowder of cats. Read more.
January 17th, 2024
Eliza Skenandore, a proud citizen of the Oneida Nation. With a talent for raised beadwork and a passion for preserving the cultural heritage of the Oneida People. Her artistic repertoire extends beyond raised beadwork, with a wide range of traditional crafts, such as pottery, basket making, and the creation of regalia pieces. Read more.
January 3rd, 2024
Terry Meyer is a self-taught artist, working for the past 50 years in several mediums, including silk screening, wood/steel sculpture, clay, oils, watercolor and acrylics. He currently works with watercolors and oils out of his 5 Mile Creek Studio and does sculpture (steel) at his Main Street Studio. Read more.
December 20, 2023
Christina Peterson, an expert in both digital and traditional mediums, creates breathtaking, nostalgic, and gently macabre pieces of artwork. Her designs are truly inspired. She also creates smaller, more portable art, such as prints, stickers, magnets, pins, tote bags, and more. Read more.
December 6th, 2023
Born in rural southwestern Wisconsin to Norwegian American parents, Ron Poast grew up surrounded by a variety of regional musical traditions. His grandfathers on both sides and his father were fiddlers, playing Norwegian styles as well as rural country music popular at the time. Read more.
November 22, 2023
Lavanyaa Surendar, a WI Arts Board Master artist and South Indian Classical Dancer, is the founding President of Ziksa-An Art Forum, which connects artists through professional channels and helps art thrive. She is also currently on the board of Wisconsin Dance Council serving the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Read more.
November 8, 2023
Julia has been weaving ever since she can remember; her earliest experience was using a potholder loom given to her by her maternal grandmother. In her late teenage years Julia turned to weaving as a healing tool. It is part of her family history in Germany and Romania. Read more.
October 25, 2023
Green Goodies (GG) is a rising portrait artist and content creator based in Madison, WI. While struggling to find relief in 2021 from a new diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder, GG turned to painting. Read more.
October 11, 2023
Weeya was the first Native American artist featured in the Capital One Gallery in D.C. In 2017 her artwork was used for The National Congress of American Indians Conference’s brochures, pamphlets, website, and throughout the conference on booths and displays.
September 27, 2023
Mary Lou Krase finds beauty in the discarded and the battered. Recycling was instilled in her while working as an art student at UW-Madison making paper from rags under the guidance of Professor Walter Hamady.
September 13, 2023
Dale Whittaker is a year around Madeline Island resident that likes to capture the natural moods and beauty of the Apostle Islands in watercolor. He spends as much time in the woods and on the water listening and seeing as he does painting. Read more.
Francis ‘Anakwad’ Montano
August 30, 2023
Anakwad (Frank Montano) is a master Woodland flute maker and performer. As a Red Cliff Tribal Member, he is dedicated to preserving his Ojibwe culture through traditional dance, flute, storytelling, and teachings. Read more.
Kärin Kopischke
August 16, 2023
Kärin is a Door County-based costume designer for theatre and opera. She earned a BM in Piano Performance and a BA in Studio Art from Lawrence University, where she now teaches Costume Design & Construction.
July 10, 2024
Abigail Sharp is an interdisciplinary artist living in Madison, Wisconsin. They enjoy creating intensely worked-over surfaces, using the sometimes obsessive relationships between people, materials, and images as a visual touchpoint for explorations of queerness. Read More.
June 26, 2024
Aria Rose loves capturing the beautiful banality of everyday life. Working with terracotta clay, she focuses on alternative finishing methods; dipping pots in a white slip so that she can draw, paint or carve unique designs on each piece, resulting in handmade pottery with a touch of nostalgia, and a nod to your grandma’s china you grew up with. Read More.
June 12, 2024
Celeste Contreras Skierski is a Xicana – Indigenous artist who works in mixed mediums to share stories of ceremony, palimpsests and memory with reflections of identity. Her work includes illustrations, print, book arts, fiber arts and animation. Contreras is a lecturer at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts where she earned a Master of Fine Art (MFA), in 2022, focused in Print and Narrative Form and holds a BFA from Alverno College, 2018. Read More.
May 29th, 2024
Kayla Bauer’s art practice works with photography, text, and archives to examine nostalgia, memory, and the multiplicity of histories. Currently she is pursuing a Special Committee PhD: Practice Based Research at UW Madison. Broadly interested in the art of wandering and examinations of the urban, she is studying San Francisco and the effects of urban renewal policies on its cultural landscapes. Read more.
May 15th, 2024
Jason Houge (b. 1979; United States) uses photography to witness and document the events and experiences of a life lived today. He is best known for his social documentary photography, environmental portraiture and work with feral cats. His research draws from personal interests and past traumatic experiences to create compelling and haunting photographic stories within a broad range of topics including human rights, civil unrest, health care, hunger, music and the arts, scientific discovery and the environment. Read more.
May 1st, 2024
Gabriela Jiménez Marván (Gabriela Marván) was raised and born in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Having a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and a specialty on Media Design she started studying sculpture in 2016, under traditional cartonería artists (similar to paper maché) and a contemporary artist from Cuernavaca. Gabriela’s style fusions both traditional techniques and a contemporary and experimental touch on her colorful and expressive pieces.. Read more.
April 17th, 2024
Babette’s work is exhibited extensively. As a youth, she exhibited at the Centre d’Art of Port au Prince, Haiti. In the United States, her work has been shown in Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, Iowa and North Carolina. In Wisconsin, her paintings have been shown, both in solo and in group exhibitions, in Milwaukee, Appleton, Green Bay, Spring Green, and in numerous venues around Madison. In 1998, she discovered the pleasure and power of expressing herself with clay, making sculptures which are informed both by her African roots, and by the work of the pre-Colombian people of Haiti, the Arawaks. Read more.
April 3rd, 2024
Amanda Reavey is an Emeritus Poetry Fellow at Black Earth Institute and the author of Marilyn (The Operating System, 2015), which won the 2017 Best Book Award in Poetry from the Association for Asian American Studies. Read more.
March 20th, 2024
April Stone, an Ojibwe Black Ash basket maker from the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin, has been working with black ash since 1998. She spent one year studying a basket in use before attempting to weave her first basket in the spring of 1999 and ended up falling in love with all things connected to this craft including live harvest and log processing of raw material into usable splint for weaving. Read more.
March 6th, 2024
Dr. Øverby is also the host and executive producer of the annual State of Wisconsin Tribute and Ceremony Honoring the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the oldest state celebration of Dr. King in the nation. He has formed and conducted numerous music ensembles throughout his career and performed as a concert artist throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan. Read more.
February 21st, 2024
Nancy is drawn to Rosemaling because it is a part of her heritage. She is the granddaughter of an adventurous sailor who sailed around the world one and a half times before jumping ship in Australia, her grandmother traveled to the United States, by herself, at the age of 23. The palette that Nancy uses in her Rosemaling echo’s the colors found in the shimmering clear coastal light of the west coast of Norway. Read more.
February 7th, 2024
Ferne Yangyeitie Caulker is the Founder and Executive Director of the Ko-Thi Dance Company, Wisconsin’s oldest African American arts organization. Ko-Thi, founded in 1969, is dedicated to the preservation and expression of the performing arts from the African Continent, Caribbean and United States. She taught at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee beginning in 1971, where she was a Full Professor in the Peck School of the Arts’ Department of Dance until she retired as Professor Emerita in 2016. Read more.
January 24th, 2024
April Harris is the President and founder of the Black Arts Council of Racine and owns an art studio, Art by April Unlimited. Ms. Harris is also an award-winning artist and a graduate of Leadership Racine. Her art has been displayed in numerous art galleries in the southeastern region of Wisconsin, and northeastern IL. Read more.
January 10th, 2024
Julia Stryker North’s passion for the arts and acting blossomed at a young age. Participation in stage productions in high school and education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gave her a foundation for her current work not only with PCT but also through involvement in many productions at StageNorth in Washburn, Wisconsin as an actor, director, teacher and stage manager. Read more.
December 27, 2023
Kyoung Ae Cho is a fibers artist who is engaging in a conversation with nature, respectfully incorporating natural elements, recycled matter as well as low-valued materials, mostly which she has gathered. She earned her MFA (1992) from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and her BFA (1986) from Ducksung Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea. Read more.
December 13, 2023
Karen Ann Hoffman has been beading peace, beauty, and meaning through her Haudenosaunee Raised Beadwork since the 1990s. Haudenosaunee Raised Beadwork (also known as Iroquois Raised Beadwork) is unique to the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, characterized by lines of beads that arch above the textile surface for a three-dimensional effect, typically sewn onto velvet. Hoffman is a respected national leader in this art, known for reimagining existing forms to expand their significance for today and the future. Read more.
November 29, 2023
Katherine Steichen Rosing explores environmental issues and invisible forces in forests and watersheds through vividly-hued paintings, intricate mixed media works, and immersive installations. Read more.
November 15, 2023
Born on Milwaukee’s South Side, under the shadow of the Polish Moon, (a term of endearment for Allen Bradley’s clock), raised by her grandmother, who cared for a wild crow named Edgar and created rag rugs from old dresses and nylons, Paula’s work mirrors her grandmother’s ingenuity. Read more.
November 1, 2023
SeonJoo Oh, the creative force behind So Cool Crafts, brings the ancient Korean art of paper manipulation to life through meticulous craftsmanship, fashioning intricate paper creations like tulip bouquets and soaring cranes.
October 18, 2023
Stacey Steinberg received her BFA in fine arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2004. With a focus on two-dimensional works, including drawing, mixed media and printmaking, she creates narrative work dense with material and image. Read more.
October 4, 2023
Angela Smith is a self-taught Rootwork practitioner and fiber artist living in Milwaukee. Rootwork is an African American folk art and form of traditional medicine that emerged from the social and spiritual practices of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the American South. Read more.
September 20, 2023
Vesile Yilmaz is a traditional ebru artist (Turkish art of water-marbling). Steeped in ancient tradition, Vesile takes pride in performing this unique form of art using authentic ingredients and centuries-old techniques. Read more.
Lizzie Tripp
September 6, 2023
Lizzie Tripp trained at Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy, and attended summer intensives at American Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet.
Helen Klebesadel
August 23, 2023
Helen R Klebesadel is an artist, educator and arts activist best known for the large-scale watercolors she creates addressing woman-centered and environmental issues in the studio she maintains in Madison, WI.
August 8, 2023
Mary Alice Wimmer is a Madison-based artist working primarily in watercolor painting and silverpoint drawing. She was one of the original Wisconsin Arts Board members in 1973, and served a total of seven three-year terms on the board between 1973 and 2003 under six different governors. Read more.
50 Years of the Wisconsin Arts Board 