TEACHING
My teaching in Printmaking and Book Arts centers on welcoming, student-centered, and process-driven learning that engages students to discover their own voice. I introduce foundational skills in printmaking, papermaking, and book arts through traditional and contemporary approaches that connect technique to meaning. Students engage in experimentation, collaborative themes, peer critique, and pritnmaking research that expands their ability to translate ideas across media.
As they advance, students deepen their mastery of specialized processes and explore hybrid, installation, time-based, or community-engaged applications of print. I encourage cross-disciplinary connections within the studio arts and across campus, fostering a culture of collective knowledge, curiosity, problem-solving, and shared innovation.
Leadership, professional practice, and community engagement are integral to our larger curriculum in Art & Design. We prepare students to thrive as artists, educators, and creative contributors beyond graduation. My goal is to ensure each student builds confidence, agency, and a lifelong commitment to creative inquiry within a dynamic and evolving field.
Courses Typically Taught
ART 291 Intro to Printmaking and Book Arts (3cr.)
Introduction to basic studio practices, skills, and materials including plates, presses, inks, and image processing.
ART 608 Art and Design Internship (3cr.)
Provides structured opportunities for art students to earn credit for skills and professional experience gained working in galleries, museums, studios, arts organizations or art businesses.
ART 391 Intermediate Printmaking: Intaglio (3cr)
Continuation of Printmaking & Book Arts with focused studio investigations in specialized print media and book arts techniques.
ART 391 Intermediate Printmaking: Relief (3cr.)
Continuation of Printmaking & Book Arts with focused studio investigations in specialized print media and book arts techniques.
ART 495 Advanced Printmaking: Intaglio (3cr.)
Advanced development in Printmaking & Book Arts with focused studio investigations in specialized printmaking media and book arts techniques.
ART 495 Advanced Printmaking: Relief (3cr.)
Advanced development in Printmaking & Book Arts with focused studio investigations in specialized printmaking media and book arts techniques.
ART 501 Studio Research, Practice, and Portfolio (3cr.)
Development of advanced concepts in contemporary studio art practices leading to production of capstone projects. Should be taken in a student's penultimate semester.
ART 502 Undergraduate Classroom Assistant (3cr.)
Student classroom experience as an assistant to the course instructor in a closely-monitored mentoring situation.
ART 601 BFA Project and Exhibition (3cr.)
Further development of studio investigations leading to a final project for BFA Exhibition.
ART 608 Art and Design Internship (3cr.)
Provides structured opportunities for art students to earn credit for skills and professional experience gained working in galleries, museums, studios, arts organizations or art businesses.
Development of New Courses, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
2019 - 2020
Printmaking and Book Arts course name, content, and sequence changes:
ART 291 - Intro to Printmaking and Book Arts
ART 391 - Intermediate Printmaking and Book Arts: subtitled sections (Intaglio, Lithography, Relief, Screenprinting, and Book Arts and Letterpress)
ART 495 - Advanced Printmaking and Book Arts: subtitled sections (Intaglio, Lithography, Relief, Screenprinting, and Book Arts and Letterpress)
ART 495G - Graduate Printmaking and Book Arts: subtitled sections (Intaglio, Lithography, Relief, Screenprinting, and Book Arts and Letterpress)
Created new content and subtitles when courses pivoted to online during the pandemic:
ART 391/495 - Intermediate/Advanced Printmaking and Book
Arts: Drawing for Lithography (in collaboration with C. Brinich
Langlois)
ART 391/495 - Intermediate/Advanced Printmaking and Book Arts: Arts: Drawing for Intaglio
2013 (proposed and let the program in South Korea, only in 2016, we added Japan)
ART 297/497 - Study Abroad: Korean and Japanese Paper and Paper Craft Studies
2012
ART 591 - Portfolio: Print and Narrative Forms
Print and Narrative Forms Area Program Change
Sarah Liz Lothian / BFA 2025
The Rhizome of Existence: Order, Chaos, and Connection
The Rhizome of Existence: Order, Chaos, and Connection is a body of work that investigates the interconnectedness of human nature, consumerism, and the systems we create and inhabit. Through this work, I examine the delicate balance between micro and macro, seeking to locate myself within the larger framework of existence. The circular form serves as a central motif, symbolizing repetition, community, and the cyclical nature of life. Each circle embodies recurring patterns and systems—human-made and naturally occurring.
Incorporating elements from photography, painting, and fiber arts allows me to expand upon the foundational principles of print. Crochet offers a meditative, healing, and tactile mode of Connections—both literal and metaphorical—are vital. This approach requires surrender—welcoming unpredictability as I push, pull, and mold chaotic processes, uncovering a calm and inherent order within.
This installation relies heavily on the delicate interplay of tension and care, reflecting a personal urge to better understand myself and the world around me. In an increasingly fragmented world, this work is a response to disconnection. It asks how we can rebuild what has been frayed—how we can weave care and intention back into our collective experience. Through art, I pose questions about sustainability, responsibility, and the deep interdependence that binds all life on our planet Earth. This project is both a personal journey and a communal call—to slow down, reconnect, and reimagine a world where every action is made with care, and every thread matters.
Ellie Hogan / BFA
2025https://www.instagram.com/glug0il/?hl=en
Ellie Hogan is an artist working in painting and printmaking whose work depicts the interiors of abandoned and decaying homes. Hogan has a passion for experimentation in material application, merging this with an interest in diagrammatic “drawing”. Hogan’s process is driven by using alternative application practices, abstraction, and a great deal of play to create a representational image. Throughout the body of work, pattern and texture are created through stamping, stenciling, and image transfers of flat patterns that eventually come to life through loose layers of light and shadow. These techniques allow Hogan to play with depictions of reality and form puzzles of discerning the flat from the dimensional. The result is a pictorial space that is actively undergoing construction through the painting and drawing process, while simultaneously expressing decay. This material expression and visual unbecoming of a recognizable home space intersect with the narrative concepts of dilapidation and decay, creating visual and material metaphors for the description of loss and deterioration.
The subject is fixed at the crossroads between human sentimentality and memory, mortality and decay, and a passion for history and current events. The work is created with contexts of economic, social, and natural disaster in mind; specifically pertaining to impacts of housing crisis, economic inequality, consumption and displacement. Hogan’s work navigates these ideas through the portrait of a person’s home and personal objects, with their presence removed entirely, raising questions such as, “What causes a person to leave everything behind?” or “What happens to our belongings when they are no longer ours?”
Beth Lemerand / BFA 2024
https://lemeran3.myportfolio.com/
Beth is a Printmaker and Fiber artist from the Chicagoland area. Her parents both work in technical theatre, and gave her the opportunity to learn how to sew at a young age. She moved to Milwaukee to study printmaking and fell in love with combining printmaking and fiber techniques. Her inspiration lies within the rich history of quilting and fiber based craft practices, with printmaking used as a vital tool for her to further explore pattern, texture and repetition within the context of contemporary fiber arts.
Beth Lemerand received her BFA in Studio Art with a focus on Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts. Lemerand was a year-long resident artist at Anchor Press, Paper & Print and she has work in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Golda Meir Library Special Collections. She is a current member of the House of Rad, an artist collective located in Riverwest and the Menomonee Valley.
Julia Scheckel / BFA 2020
https://www.juliascheckel.com
Julia Scheckel is a printmaker and illustrator based in Milwaukee, WI. In college, she fell in love with printmaking due to its blend of illustration and her passion for working in the photographic darkroom. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art with a concentration in Print and Narrative Forms from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2020. She is the Shop Manager for Anchor Press, Paper & Print. This non-profit is dedicated to running a community printmaking studio in Milwaukee, WI.
Scheckel's most recent solo exhibition was held at Gallery 224 in Port Washington, WI to show the work that she completed during her year long residency with the ARTservency program. Her first Solo exhibition was held in the summer of 2022 at the Pump House Regional Arts Center in La Crosse, WI. It showed woodcuts and screenprints from the previous two years that explored how she connects friendships to a walk in the woods.
In Art and Design’s Graduate Program, faculty guide students in developing their visual language by providing the skills and knowledge to succeed as professionals. Core courses in philosophy, critique, and research support the development of each student’s individual studio direction and written thesis. Each specialization in Studio Art is interdisciplinary, and students either focus on one specific studio discipline or combine multiple areas of research. This integrated approach aligns with contemporary practices, modeling what it means to be a prolific studio artist. In support of the department’s core vision, I mentor MA and MFA candidates as they develop conceptually rigorous practices that address the social and ecological contexts. Through printmaking, book arts, and expanded media, students explore sustainable methods, collaborate with community partners, and engage transdisciplinary research. I integrate civic partnerships, public scholarship, and environmentally conscious studio practices to prepare them to confidently lead through creative, socially engaged, and environmentally responsible practices.
Courses Typically Taught
ART 900 Graduate Studio (3cr.)
Ongoing critique of individual studio research in students' chosen medium(s). Emphasis on developing and maintaining interdisciplinary dialogue. Studio research, individual, and group critiques required.
ART908 Advanced Research - General (1-4cr.)
Independent studio research.
ART 909 Independent Reading and Research (1-4cr.)
Independent reading and research relative to scholarly issues in art.
ART 994 Advanced Research - Printmaking (1-4cr.)
Independent work and research in printmaking, bookmaking, and experimental narrative.
Typically, my annual graduate teaching load (considered departmental service) includes advising 1-3 first year grads, serving on 2-5 committees, and supervising anywhere from 10-14 independent study credits.
I am in the faculty rotation for teaching ART 900. My Art 900 sections have historically enrolled between14-16 students. This course calculates as one course in a teaching load.
Teddy Dean Lepley III / MFA 2023
https://teddylepley.com/
Originally from a small town in northeast Indiana, Teddy Dean Lepley III is a printmaker and book artist currently based in Milwaukee, WI. They earned their MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2023, following a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from Ball State University in 2019. Teddy now works as the full-time Printmaking Lab Technician at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and enjoys adjunct teaching when possible. Outside their day job they are a resident artist at the House of RAD. Additionally Teddy serves on the board of Anchor Press, Paper & Print, Milwaukee's own community print shop located at the House of RAD.
Teddy’s work is autobiographical, exploring their relationships with people, places, and objects through the lens of their queer identity. Their artistic practice reflects their journey of 'becoming' queer, drawing from personal experiences of shame, joy, and self-acceptance. In their woodcut, “Getting Ready,” Teddy captures a selfie of the outfit they've chosen for a night out, navigating their self-expression amidst the private space of their apartment and the virtual realm of the mirror. This process allows them to experiment with clothes, makeup, and accessories, embracing the playful, messy journey of self-discovery.
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. Contreras was the 2019 Gathering Art, Stories and Place Artist-in-Resident with the Milwaukee Public Library where she published a 200 edition box set of artists’ books, Artist in the Library. From 2022-2023 Contreras was the Community Ambassador for the Milwaukee Women’s Art Library(MWAL), she helped gather artists’ papers helping to build the MWAL archive. She is a board member at Anchor Press, Paper and Print and The CR8TV House. Contreras is a resident artist at The House of RAD, a creative collective of artists and she is managing Studio Tlacuilo + Library which is an artist’s book library established in 2022. Contreras is the Spring 2024 Artist in Resident at the Villa Terrace Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Geo Rutherford is an artist, author, and educator whose work explores the eerie, fascinating, and often overlooked stories of water. Her work has been featured in museums, bookstores, and literary festivals across the country, and she frequently speaks about the intersection of science and art. She is best known for her work that addresses the Great Lakes. Her Tiktok account took off when she started her popular “Spooky Lakes” series in October of 2020. Today, she has over 2 million combined TikTok followers and frequently receives messages from teachers and parents who appreciate her educational content that inspires kids to explore science, history and environmental causes. She is the author and illustrator of Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Unusual Lakes that Dot Our Planet and the Spooky Lakes Coloring Book, and the creator of Spooky Lake Month, a popular video series with millions of views on TikTok and Instagram. Her videos investigate shipwrecks, toxic lakes, unusual ice formations and other strange hydrological phenomena, blending science, history, and storytelling to captivate a global audience.
A former art educator, Geo holds a BFA from Eastern Michigan University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her graduate thesis show, which she exhibited in May 2021, focused on the Great Lakes.
Geo Rutherford / MFA 2019
Jay Fox / MFA 2015
Jay Fox is an artist, printmaker, and book maker living in Fort Smith. Jay received his B.F.A. in printmaking from the Savannah College of Art and Design and M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Jay has taught in and maintained printmaking, letterpress, book arts, and papermaking studios at Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Penland School of Craft, and Florida State University Small Craft Advisory Press. He is currently the director of book arts at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith.
Graduate Thesis Commttee Membership
2024-present
Andrea Salzman, MFA candidate, thesis committee, Major Professor
Corrigan Eckert, MFA candidate, thesis committee, Major Professor
Aaron Boyd, MFA candidate, thesis committee, member
Liya Du, MFA candidate, thesis committee, Major Professor
2023-2025
Tanner MacArthur, MFA thesis committee, member,
Rachel Sanders, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2022-2024
Thomas Romero, MFA thesis committee, member,
Emmanuel Guerra, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Kristy Lisle, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2021-2023
Teddy Dean Lepley III, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Georgina Rutherford, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2020-2022
Celeste Contreras Skierski, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Ariel Romano, MFA thesis committee, member
Rachel Davis, MFA thesis committee, member
2019-2021
Amber Van Galder, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Darcy Guenterberg, MFA thesis committee, member
N. Adam Beadel, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2018-2020
Jeff Zimpel, MFA thesis committee, member
Leah Schretenthahler, MFA thesis committee, member
2017-2019
Adam Stoner, MFA thesis committee, member
Madeline Martin, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2016-2018
Matthew Kuhlman, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Claire LaFontaine, MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2015-2017
Austin Boechler, MA/MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Ethan Krause, MA/MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Kayla Massey, MA/MFA thesis committee, member
2014-2016
Helene Fischman, MA/MFA thesis committee, member
Broc Toft, MA/MFA thesis committee, member
2013-2015
Jay Fox, MA/MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
2013-2014
Chadwick Noellert, MA thesis committee, Major Professor
2012-2014
Corbett Toomsen, MA/MFA thesis committee, Major Professor
Joseph Grennier, MA/MFA thesis committee, member
2011-2015
Brian McGuire (Film), MFA thesis committee, member
2010-2012
Yoko Hattori, MFA, thesis committee, Major Professor
2009-2011
Nirmal Raja, MA/MFA, thesis committee, member
Gregory Martens, MA/MFA, thesis committee, Major Professor
Andrea Avery, MA/MFA, thesis committee, member
Graduate First Year Advising Membership
2025-2026
Dan Atkinson, chair
Neb Berry, chair
Meranda Garcia, chair
Cameron Pina, chair
2024-2025
Liya Du, chair
2022-2023
Andrea Salzman, member
Corrigan Eckert, chair
2021-2022
Rachel Sanders, member
2020-2021
Kristy Lisle, chair
Thomas Romero, member
Emmanuel Guerra, chair
Barbara Miner, member
2019-2020
Teddy Dean Lepley III, chair
2018-2019
Geo Rutherford, chair
2017-2018
N. Adam Beadel, chair
Darcy Guenterberg, member
2015-2016
Matthew Kuhlman, chair
Claire LaFontaine, chair
2014-2015
Austin Boechler, chair
Ethan Krause, chair
2013-2014
Broc Toft, member
Helene Fischman, member
2012-2013
Chadwick Noellert, chair
2011-2012
Madeline Martin, member
Jay Fox, chair
Corbett Toomsen, chair
2009-2010
Yoko Hattori, chair