THE ANNETTE AND DALE SCHUH VISITING ARTIST

Melanie Tallmadge Sainz, an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, is a mixed-media artist, cultural arts educator, and arts administrator specializing in porcupine quillwork and clay mosaics using locally sourced materials. During her visit in 2024, Sainz taught a hands-on workshop in which UW-Whitewater students learned to process foraged materials from the western Great Lakes. Her exhibition, “Boundaries vs. Connections,” explored Indigenous relationships to land, emphasizing connection and stewardship over colonialist divisions.

The Art and Design Department hosted Kiki Smith, in March of 2017. Smith, a prolific artist and printmaker, presented a public lecture and spent the week producing original art prints while students used the gallery as a printmaking lab under the direction of faculty members.

Jiaduo Li, Zong Gu, Guisheng Wang, Wei Zhen, and Lin Xia Jiang, who were hosted on campus in 2018, painted alongside the Warhawk community. Visiting artists, along with UW-Whitewater faculty, hosted a public outdoor paint-along at the UW-Whitewater prairie restoration area along Schwager Road. The artists taught plein-air painting, an impressionistic style done on location outdoors.

Chicago artist Jordan Mozer engaged with UW-Whitewater students in 2022 with his iteration "Love in the Chroma Zone." This project, which incorporates meditations on genetics and the accelerating transformation of ideas about the gender spectrum and sexual expression, engaged students by assisting Mozer with a variety of two- and three-dimensional artworks and creating a narrative environment.

Stefan Sagemeister, a New York based artist, visited UW-Whitewater in 2020. The assigment he gave students was "to touch someone's heart." Sagmeister talked to art and design students about choosing an individual to create a personal piece of art from concept to completion for, in a medium of their choice.

Nick Cave is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. He visited UW-Whitewater in 2018 with a reception at Crossman Gallery featuring the work of students.

Milwaukee artist Della Wells, who visited in 2023, is a self-taught artist, curator, and arts advocate. Wells, who has exhibited nationally and internationally, shared the exhibition, “Of Chicken, Myths & Fantasy: It Is Storied Tales Drives Our Dreams,” which includes collages, drawings and paintings that are about storytelling and together reveal a magical land called Mamboland, where Black women rule and wherein Black women are both self-empowered and uplifted.

Puerto Rican native, Cristina Córdova, is a contemporary artist and sculpting instructor whose work often centers around the social ideas of identity and culture. During her visit in 2025, Córdova encouraged students to explore how our identities interact. The students' sculptures accompanied Córdova's in a Crossman Gallery exhibition.