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February 25, 2005
Wisconsin welcomes you
Dear friends,
Here we are in America's Dairyland, having a wonderful time. Wish you were here! Don't worry, we'll bring you back a cheese hat.
So we visited the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison yesterday, and I like it a lot. The art department is on the top two floors of a crazy building that's like a doughnut, with lots of concrete and lots and lots of stairs. The whole campus is on kind of a slope; I can see that living here I could develop some pretty ripped calves really quickly. The campus is right on a lake, and look:
These people are ice fishing. In the four years that I've been living in Canada's Sun Parlour (yes, they really call it that!) I have become somewhat of a wimp about the cold weather. This town is a little farther north than the part of Ontario I grew up in (in Huron County, about 20 minutes inland from Lake Huron). I would really have to harden myself to the cold again to be able to live in a town where ice fishing happens right next to the campus. Ugh.
I liked the people I met in the art department, and the facilities look pretty good--the ventilation is much better than what I'm used to (I'm currently in a school where up until last year people smoked cigarettes in the litho studio, and we only had press high ventilation put in a year ago). The graphics area supports more types of printmaking than I currently have access to; it just occurred to me now that I didn't see a papermaking facility--I'll have to look into that. They seem really open to cross-disciplinary practice, which is important to me; printmaking is my main area but I certainly don't want to be limited to that, especially now that I've begun incorporating prints into larger installations and bringing textiles and sound to the work: I need to be in a place where that kind of work is supported and it looks like this is that kind of place.
I spoke to the secretary, who painted me a rather bleak picture of the funding situation. I'll need to apply for jobs in other departments to increase my chances of getting one that comes with a tuition waiver, as this is the only way I'll actually be able to go to grad school. Since I'm a "foreigner", it will be illegal for me to have a job anywhere other than the university, and I don't have the money to pay my own way. But I'm not going to worry about that just yet, I'll just start applying for teaching and project assistantships and hope for the best.
Wednesday night we stayed over at our friends Tom and Ghita's place in Chicago; today we're visiting with Michael and Merouda in Milwaukee. Michael makes these amazing television sets:
I want one.
Merouda has joined the WIP challenge, so I'll have to make her drag out all of her WIPs for me later. Maybe after the two year grandson goes home would be best.
Here's one more picture from UWM:
Posted by jodi at February 25, 2005 01:28 PM | categories: school
Comments
I love it. You so need to go to a school with crazy colored chairs in the snow. You could have a carzy winter tea party, minus the ice fishing. Hey Simon has a job interview at Sick Kids in Toronto. It may be that you end up South of the border right when we are heading back to the great white North. Have fun visiting the rest of the schools, wish you were droping by here :(
Posted by: Krista at February 25, 2005 09:15 PM
As someone who hails from Minnesota (right next to WI), that sad, snow covered sight is not unfamiliar. As a fairly recent transplant to the South (NC), I've developed an aversion to really cold weather. However, you really do appreciate summer, spring, and fall!!
Posted by: Kyla at February 26, 2005 08:50 PM