Story and photos by Ted Hyngstrom, Division of the Arts

Raleigh Savage usually spends her semesters investigating the inner workings of the human brain — studying concepts such as neurons, axons, and dendrites, with little time to learn about much else. 

But in her final summer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the neurobiology major is branching out into arts-elective Art 448: Screen Printing. The course is one of 25 offered by the UW Art Department during the summer term, giving both art majors and non-arts students greater flexibility to complete coursework. 

For one month, Savage — along with seven other students — is earning two credits learning how to hand-press images, colors, and designs together into screenprints. She says she initially chose to take the course to try fields outside of her STEM norm, and to return to her performing arts high school roots.

“I really missed being around art and people who like to do art,” Savage says.

Savage also wanted to use extra summer time to explore topics beyond neurobiology. According to course instructor Christie Tirado, a recent UW MFA graduate herself, that’s part of the reason why she builds the summer curriculum with varying majors, interests, and abilities in mind — encouraging students to bring their own unique interests into the classroom.

“That’s the nice thing — it’s a special topics [class], so it allows for students that are non-art majors to come in and actually be able to create with screen printing,” Tirado says. “It’s structured more on what they are coming in with, [and then] engaging off of that.”

A metalsmith gets a head start on fall

Coming into the summer, Maddie Waggoner  — a rising senior and D1 swimmer — had already taken ceramics, painting, and drawing courses, but still needed a 3D-art class to complete her Art, BS degree requisites. She likes summer classes for their small class sizes and more one-on-one time with course instructors, and decided to enroll in Art 448: Ringmaking.

In teaching faculty-member Matthew Mauk’s weeklong class, students spend four hours per day crafting metal strips into shiny, cabochone stone rings. Waggoner is enrolled in Mauk’s Art Metal I class this coming fall, so she decided to take his ringmaking class this summer, jumping at the opportunity for a head start.

“It’s four hours for five days. I’m like, might as well get ahead,” Waggoner says. “Plus I get to make rings I can keep for the rest of my life.”

A photographer develops her family history through printmaking

Jami Balicki wears many hats. 

A graduate student studying photography, her work spans a wide variety of subjects, from small-scale community storytelling to commercially commissioned portraits. The photographer most recently shot for the Urban Indigenous League, a grassroots, nonprofit organization that supports the intertribal native community of Milwaukee.

Yet Balicki is artistically accomplished in more ways than one: For the third consecutive summer, Balicki is adding Art 448: Screen Printing to the mix. 

In the three summers that she has practiced screenprinting, Balicki has come to love the medium. She says print techniques like color-grading and layering intertwine into her photographic process, while simultaneously teaching her how to do away with self-criticism. 

“As someone who’s always in their head conceptually with photography, I feel like it’s helped me be really decisive on, ‘You have to pick this ink and do this layer,’” Balicki says. “Or, ‘You messed up, so you learn from it, and you can do it differently and kind of adjust.’”

Her repeated interest in the course stems from an earlier, unexpected discovery. While exploring the Wisconsin Historical Society archives in Artist as Researcher, a graduate seminar focusing on art research, Balicki — a descendant of the Oneida tribe — stumbled upon a photograph of her great-grandmother, one of the first Native American women doctors in the nation. 

Now, she’s honoring her grandmother’s legacy by incorporating the picture into a print she’s working on in the class — making her experience more than just ink on a page.

“I can have a little bit more agency over some of the photos and prints, since it is a family member — distant, but — yeah,” Balicki says. “I feel like my screenprints are really personal, whereas my digital photography is more public. I like having that intimate relationship with it.”

From the search for a deeper understanding of personal history to a return to artistic roots, Balicki — along with Savage and Waggoner — exemplify three different summer arts experiences. 

Yet that which ties them together — their participation in the creative boost of the arts — will impact and enhance their journeys both on and off campus for years to come. 

Ted Hyngstrom is a student writer and photographer for the Division of the Arts.