Each May, the UW–Madison Division of the Arts celebrates artistic achievement, recognizes service to the arts, and supports arts research by bestowing the Creative Arts Awards. The call for applications and nominations was released in early fall with a deadline in December. Seven awards are open to a variety of arts practitioners, researchers, students, staff and faculty from any area including arts academic departments and programs. This includes Art, Art History, Arts Administration, Communication Arts, Creative Writing, Dance, Design Studies, Music, Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies and Theatre and Drama.
Awards are split into three categories: Faculty Arts Research, Staff and Faculty Arts Outreach, and Student Arts Research and Achievement. Applications and nominations for these awards are juried by a panel of six previous recipients of the awards and campus arts research administrators.
“The Creative Arts Awards are integral to recognizing and supporting the research excellence generated by UW–Madison artists,” stated Christopher Walker, Director of the Division of the Arts. “Each of the honorees expands artistic knowledge within their specific discipline and advances the Wisconsin Idea.” Walker encourages staff, faculty, students and community members to attend the award ceremony on May 10, 2022 and thanks the donors who make the awards possible as well as members of the 2022 Creative Arts Awards Selection Committee, including Peggy Choy (Dance), Laurie Beth Clark (Art), Wei Dong (Design Studies), Florence Hsia (History), Dan Lisowski (Theatre and Drama) and Scott Teeple (Music).
Further information about the recipients and their projects may be found online.
Faculty Arts Research
Creative Arts Award
Beth Nguyen, Professor of Creative Writing
Project title: Layaway
Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts
Emily Arthur, Associate Professor of Art
Project title: Birds as a Baseline: 100 Years of Our Changing Landscape
Marianne Fairbanks, Associate Professor of Design Studies
Project title: Weaving as a Form of Building
Staff and Faculty Arts Outreach
Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell Award in the Arts
Baron Kelly, Professor of Theatre and Drama
Project title: Fences
Edna Wiechers Arts in Wisconsin Award
Jennifer Angus, Professor of Design Studies
Project title: A Was for Aphid, B was for Bug, C was for Cicada
Adriana Barrios, Center for Design and Material Culture
Project title: Pernicious
Emily Kammerud, Department of Pathology
Project title: It’s Okay to Look
Baron Kelly, Professor of Theatre and Drama
Project title: Fences
Student Arts Research and Achievement
David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Graduate Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts
Magdalena Sas, D.M.A. Cello Performance
Project title: Chamber music works by Reena Esmail, Akshaya Avril Tucker and Asha Srinivasa
Lyman S.V. Judson and Ellen Mackechnie Judson Student Award in the Creative Arts
Undergraduate awardees:
Sophia Abrams, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Department of Afro-American Studies and Department of Art History
Ana Tinder, Mead Witter School of Music
Graduate awardees:
Cole Bartels, D.M.A. Trombone Performance
Carlos Ortiz, Ph.D. Candidate Spanish and Portuguese
Mengmeng Wang, D.M.A. Composition
Graduate Student Creative Arts Awards
Praveen Maripelly, M.F.A. Candidate of Art
Project title: Prayog: An Interdisciplinary Place
Molly Mattaini, Ph.D. Candidate of Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies
Katherine Norman, Ph.D. Candidate of Educational Psychology
Kailea Saplan, Ph.D. Candidate of Curriculum and Instruction
Project title: Teaching Artists and Antiracism in Out-of-School Time Theatre Programs
Lindsey Meekhof, D.M.A. Candidate in Vocal Performance
Project title: Staging Don Giovanni in acknowledgment of the “Me Too” Movement
Lianne Milton, M.F.A. Candidate of Art
Project title: Matrilline
Henry Obeng, MFA Candidate of Design Studies
Project title: The Trail
Derick Wycherly, M.F.A. Candidate of Art
Project title: M.F.A. Exhibition
Donors that support the awards include the Anonymous Fund, the Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell family, Suzanne and Roberto Freund, Bassett and Evjue Foundations, Edna Wiechers Arts in Wisconsin Fund and Emily Nissley.