By Kari Dickinson

When Professor Emerit Laurie Beth Clark retired this past spring after more than four decades on the faculty of UW–Madison’s Art Department, she didn’t want to celebrate her own accomplishments. Instead, she wanted to recognize the hundreds of students she mentored throughout her career.

That decision launched her on a months-long effort to reconnect with the more than 200 students whose graduate committees she served on. She was able to locate all but 40 of them, and roughly 110 have agreed to contribute to a new exhibition this fall.

“The show is about them,” explains Clark. “I’m using my retirement not to celebrate me, but to celebrate what happened to their lives. I cannot take credit for their accomplishments. I had the honor of serving on their committees.”

The exhibition, “How We Got It Together,” will take place Oct. 12-18 across three galleries in the Humanities Building (455 N Park St.) and Art Lofts (111 N Frances St.). It explores a question that has been central to Clark’s work as both an artist and educator: What is the value of studying art, and how does it prepare people for rich, creative lives?

During Clark’s four decades at UW–Madison, she taught studio courses in video, performance, and installation art and many graduate seminars on topics in visual culture and performance studies, while mentoring generations of graduate students across disciplines.

While most of the featured alumni earned Master of Fine Arts degrees in the visual arts, others earned PhD and MS degrees in fields including agroecology, art history, design studies, interdisciplinary theatre studies, Spanish, Portuguese, and Theatre and Drama. Their lives have taken them across 17 states and around the world, including to Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan.

Their contributions include paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, installations, performances, videos, and more. “Really every medium,” Clark says.

But the exhibition goes beyond art. Clark also wanted to recognize the many paths alumni have taken after earning their degrees. To that end, the exhibition will feature “life posters” celebrating other forms of life work, from books published and businesses owned to gardens planted and children raised.

Many people who earn arts degrees never become professional artists, Clark notes. Instead, they go on to run arts organizations, teach, lead nonprofits, or use their creativity in entirely different fields.

“This is what I think the show is really about,” she says. “What does it mean to earn a degree in the arts, and what happens afterward?”

On the exhibition website, participating alumni offer many answers to that question as they reflect on the paths they’ve taken and describe the lasting impact of their UW–Madison education on their creative and professional lives.

“My education at UW–Madison … helped me understand that art does not belong exclusively to one medium or professional identity,” reflects Mo Chen, who earned an MFA in 2022 and now is a senior product designer at Baidu in Beijing, China. “Moving from art and design into the technology industry was not a departure from my earlier practice, but a way of carrying the same methods of observation into new materials and systems.”

“I still rely on what UW–Madison taught me,” Chen adds. “To remain curious, to ask questions, to make room for uncertainty, and to continually reconsider the relationship between people and the world through design.” 

“My experience at UW was transformative, both artistically and personally,” says Michael M. Hammerman, who graduated with an MFA in 1991 and now lives in Chicago. “The ideas, conversations, and challenges I encountered there continue to inform the way I think, create, and engage with the world.”

“How We Got It Together” coincides with the annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, “Get It Together!” which will take place Oct. 15–17 in Madison and explore the many ways people come together through art. (The exhibition’s title, “How We Got It Together,” playfully echoes the conference theme.)

Installed chronologically by graduation year, the exhibition spans three galleries in two campus buildings. It begins with alumni from the Class of 1986 in Gallery Seven of the Mosse Humanities Building, continues starting with the Class of 1999 in the Art Lofts Gallery, and concludes with the Class of 2026 in the Art Lofts Backspace Gallery.

A reception will take place in Gallery Seven on Friday, Oct. 16, from 5–9 p.m., and in the Art Lofts on Saturday, Oct. 17, from 5–9 p.m.

Conversations with the participants will also take place on:

• Thursday, Oct. 15, 12:30–2 p.m. (Gallery Seven)
•  Friday, Oct. 16, 12:30–2 p.m. (Art Lofts Gallery)
•  Saturday, Oct. 17, 12:30–2 p.m. (Backspace Gallery)

Learn more about “How We Got It Together.”