NEWS
Click here to download the application for the fifth cycle of the Suitcase Export Fund.

The Suitcase Export Fund was created to increase opportunities for local artists to exhibit outside the four-county area and to provide greater visibility for individual artists and their work as well as for Greater Milwaukee. The Fund is open to practicing artists residing within the four-county area who want to export their work for public display. Support is provided in three areas: transportation of the work (packing/shipping/ insurance); transportation of the artist; and promotion in those cases where the artist is required to provide their own promotion. The maximum grant available to an individual is $1,000. In its first three cycles, the Fund has provided assistance to forty-nine individual artists and one artist collective working in a range of media and exhibiting throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe and Asia.

The Suitcase Export Fund operates on an annual cycle, disbursing awards in response to demand until the funds for that cycle are exhausted. The 2007 cycle begins on December 4, 2007. A total of $10,000 is available.

Out of the Suitcase II, a companion exhibition of work by artists selected from among those who won Suitcase Awards in 2005 and 2006 will open at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) with a reception from 5-9 pm on Friday, October 19, 2007 (gallery night) and will remain on view through December 15.

For further information:
Polly Morris
Peck School of the Arts
414.229.6771
pmorris@uwm.edu

2006 Cycle
2005 Cycle
2004 Cycle
2003 Cycle

2006 CYCLE - top

ABOUT THE 2006 AWARDEES
In its fourth cycle, the Fund provided assistance to fifteen individual artists. These artists—one of them a Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow—work in a range of media. Their exhibitions took them to locations throughout the United States and to Thailand, Switzerland, Vietnam, Germany and Argentina.

Beki Borman and Katie Musloff both shipped work to the 10th Annual National Juried Art Exhibition at the Baker Arts Center in Liberal, Kansas.

Brian Carlson traveled to the Recoleta Center in Buenos Aires for the 6th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Corpoliticas/Body Politics in the Americas: Formations of Race, Class and Gender. There, he and artist Fahimeh Vahdat installed Handwriting on the Wall/What Will Befall Her and invited participation in an interactive performance, La Traca Luminosa, that drew attention to the violence suffered by women and children.

Kyoung Ae Cho’s solo exhibition, "Tranquil Moment," was part of Mind & Body, the Surface Design Association International Textile Conference at the Belger Arts Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The exhibition remained on view for a month at the Center.
Lawrence D’Attilio will exhibit twenty-eight color photographs at the Hanoi Fine Arts Museum alongside those of Vietnamese photographer Tran Khoc Khanh. D'Attilio spent three months in Hanoi in 2006 on an artist residency, and will return for the exhibition installation and opening.

Paul Druecke celebrated the 10th anniversary of A Social Event Archive (a collection of snapshots contributed by the public) at Aurora Picture Show in Houston, Texas. In addition to attending the exhibition commemorating the anniversary, Druecke was able to offer a digital presentation of the complete archive and to produce a catalogue.
Sonji Hunt transported work to Fort Smith, Arkansas for her first solo exhibition, "Bundles and Icons: A Dialogue of Color, Shape and Texture," at the Fort Smith Art Center. Hunt was on hand for installation and the opening.

Laura Ibbotson participated in "Into the Heart of the Southwest: 20 Painters Interpret Forbes Trinchera Ranch" at the Forbes Gallery in New York City. The exhibit was the culmination of a national competition sponsored by American Artist Magazine and Forbes; Ibbotson was one of twenty artists selected for a residency at the Forbes Trinchera Ranch in Colorado. Three of her paintings were chosen for the exhibition and the Suitcase Fund enabled her to attend the opening.

Yevgeniya Kaganovich created an installation of sculptural body extensions at the Quirk Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.

The Suitcase Fund sent Shelby Keefe to Florida, where she participated in the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, a juried outdoor fine art show.

Gregory Klassen exhibited nine large paintings in a solo exhibition at Galerie Jurgen Kalthoff in Essen, Germany. He shipped work and attended the opening.

John Riepenhoff premiered his installation, John Riepenhoff's Experience, at the Angstrom Gallery in Los Angeles. The Experience is a head-sized gallery at the top of a ladder that showcases Milwaukee artists, one at a time, on a miniature scale. The first artist to show in the LA Experience was Peter Barrickman, a 2003 Nohl Fellow.

Richard Taylor exhibited his sculptural reliefs in a solo exhibition at OK Harris Works of Art, New York.

Steven Wetzel, a 2005 Nohl Fellow, screened two works, Men's Hockey and In Part a Treatment of Success, the latter completed during his fellowship year, at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. He also gave a talk on his work and art practice in the university's Department of Media Arts & Design.

Christopher Willey created a site-specific installation for an international juried exhibition, "contained art", at galerie sei-un-do in Zurich, Switzerland.

2005 CYCLE - top
In its third cycle, the Suitcase Export Fund provided assistance to sixteen individual artists and an artist collective. These artists—three of them Nohl Emerging Artist Fellows and one a Nohl Established Artist Fellow—work in a range of media. Their exhibitions took them to locations throughout the United States and to China, Austria and Canada.

William Andersen, a 2004 Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow, participated in a four-person group exhibition of young artists from Milwaukee at the MUST Be Art Center in Beijing’s 798 Art Area. The area is a popular and controversial space for exhibiting contemporary art in China. Andersen created a large installation of the paper cutouts, paintings, photography and video he accumulated while traveling for a month in China.

Greg DuMonthier’s attended the opening in Tallahassee of Road Show, a national juried exhibition that included his work, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University.

Nicholas Frank brought the “Nicholas Frank Public Library” to Locust Projects, a nonprofit alternative space in Miami, Florida, for On Platforming. The exhibition brought together artists who create structures and frameworks within which others can work.

Jean Roberts Guequierre exhibited fifteen paintings at her solo show at the James Watrous Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin.

Steve Hough and four of his large-scale works traveled to the Dust Gallery in Las Vegas for Ultraflux, a two-person exhibition. While in Las Vegas, Hough was able to meet local collectors, museum curators and art journalists.

Darryl Jensen exhibited “Fight Flight,” a large-scale diptych photo lithograph, at Off the Wall, the annual juried Mid America Print Council Members Exhibition. The exhibition took place at the Eugene E. Myers Art Gallery at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow (2004) Frankie Martin received support for her first solo exhibition. Martin will perform at the opening at CANADA in New York City.

Colin Mathes created new work as part of Hotel Pupik 06, an artist residency program in Schrattenburg, Austria. His drawings and site specific works were exhibited in an international group show at the conclusion of the residency.

Jim Muraco screened his film, Wisconsin Born & Bred, The Entertainers, at the first Beloit International Film Festival.

For her solo exhibition at Department of Safety in rural Washington, Micaela O’Herlihy created a site-specific mural in which she placed her drawings and paintings and projected two of her video pieces.

Suitcase funds enabled Josie Osborne to ship her mixed media box constructions to the Carrera Gallery at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida for a group exhibition, and to collaborate with the other artists on a promotional brochure.

Kristopher Pollard transported himself and twenty ink drawings to a solo exhibition at the Upstairs Gallery at Subterranean Books in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sonja Thomsen shipped three photographs to Resonance, the 11th annual juried group exhibition organized by the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle, Washington, and she attended the opening.

Lynn Tomaszewski participated in Incidental, a group exhibition at Gallery Co in Minneapolis. She showed six large digital prints.

Fahimeh Vahdat performed and gave a gallery lecture at the opening of her solo exhibition at the Forum Gallery at the Brookhaven College School of the Arts in Dallas, Texas.

The White Box Painters (Shana McCaw, Brent Budsberg, and 2003 Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow Mark Escribano) traveled to Calgary, Canada to install a solo exhibition and perform as part of that city’s ArtCity Festival. You can visit their project at http://www.thewhiteboxpainters.blogspot.com/.

Jason S. Yi, a 2005 Nohl Established Artist Fellow, used his Suitcase award to transport work to The Fuller Projects, an alternative gallery space at Indiana University in Bloomington. While there, he gave a public lecture and critiqued the work of graduate and undergraduate students.

2004 CYCLE - top
In its second cycle, the Suitcase Export Fund supported nineteen artists exhibiting from Madison to the Republic of Georgia.

Paul Amitai, a 2003 Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow, was invited to exhibit Westward, a two-channel video piece, at the Soap Factory’s “Multiplex” festival of film and video in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Marina Broere shipped eleven paintings to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for a three-woman show at Gallery JaJa.

Paul Calhoun exhibited his photographs alongside those of Georgian photographer Gia Chkhatarashvili at the Goethe Institute in Tbilisi and at the Modern Art Museum in Batumi, Georgia. Calhoun traveled to Georgia to participate in workshops and lectures.

Rob Danielson created a sound installation in Madison for the Wisconsin Film Festival. The installation was located in a plaza and open for public viewing.

Raoul Deal and Marc Tasman participated in “dis-placed,” a group exhibition at the Chocolate Factory in Phoenix, Arizona. Tasman exhibited documentation of a performance entitled Relics of the Chocolate Messiah and Deal exhibited three large drawings. Both artists attended the opening.

Joan Dobkin traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to install Safer for “A Warlike People: Victims or Perpetrators?” at the Monorchid Gallery.

Mark Escribano, a 2003 Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow, created a site-specific installation for “Gigantic” at the Soap Factory Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Bridget Griffith Evans and three of her paintings traveled to the Workhorse Gallery in Los Angeles as part of the “Luckystar Traveling Exhibit,” a group show of Midwestern artists.

Kristin Gjerdset sent 23 paintings and drawings to the Mariani Gallery at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley for “The Nature of Trees,” her first out-of-state solo exhibition.

Gary John Gresl transported more than 20 sculptures to the Porter Butts Gallery at the Wisconsin Union in Madison for “Earthly Things and Mnemonic Devices,” a solo exhibition of his work.

Douglas Holst traveled to Portland, Oregon to create a site-specific wall painting for “Fresh Trouble,” a group exhibition.

Richard Knight attended the opening of his solo exhibition of paintings at the Robert Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan.

Faythe Levine had a solo exhibition of her felt wall hangings at the Here Gallery in Bristol, United Kingdom.

Laurence P. Rathsack celebrated his 85th birthday at the Neues Museum in Weimar, Germany where he attended the opening of “Transmission,” a show featuring more than 20 of his watercolors, a sculptural installation by his former student, Liz Bachhuber, and works by her students.

Liz Smith, a painter and Nohl Emerging Artist Fellow in 2003, participated in a group show at the Byron Cohen Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri.

Fred Stonehouse traveled to New York City for the opening of his solo exhibition at the Howard Scott Gallery. The exhibition included twenty new works: paintings and works on paper.

Della Wells traveled to the Kentuck Festival in Northport, Alabama, where she was invited to display her work alongside more than 300 folk and visionary artists.

Stephen Wetzel screened three video works at the Detroit Film Society and participated in the discussion afterward.

2003 Cycle - top
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts and Visual Arts Milwaukee! (VAM!), announces the completion of the first funding cycle of the GMF’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Suitcase Export Fund for Individual Artists. Created to help visual artists with the cost of exhibiting their work outside the four-county area (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington), the Fund fully realized its goals in this first cycle, providing assistance to fourteen artists, increasing opportunities to exhibit outside the local area and providing greater visibility for individual artists and their work as well as for Greater Milwaukee.

According to one artist awardee: “Milwaukee needs to retain creative people and by providing funds to alleviate some of the financial burden of showing work I firmly believe that the Suitcase Fund is contributing to the overall creative health of the city.”

The Suitcase Export Fund operates on an annual cycle, disbursing awards in response to demand until the funds for that cycle are exhausted. The current cycle began on December 1, 2003 and the final awards were made in April, 2004. Requests were considered periodically and a total of $7500 was allocated to fourteen visual artists from Milwaukee, Waukesha, and Ozaukee counties. The group included well-established artists as well as those at the start of their careers: Fred Stonehouse, Ariana Huggett, Xav Leplae, Karen Gunderman, Stephanie Barber, Rina Yoon, Steve Hough, Mat Rappaport, Roy Staab, Frankie Martin, William A. Suys, Jr., Travis Graves, Nate Page and William J. Andersen (see below for details). The awardees work in a variety of media, from film to ceramics. Priority was given to artists with exhibitions outside of Wisconsin, and the Fund supported exhibitions in locations throughout the United States and as far away as Austria and China.

According to the awardees, the Suitcase Export Fund filled a variety of needs for local artists. Being on site to install work properly is important to most artists and indispensable to those working in the areas of installation and site-specific art. The opportunity to attend openings, where artists can meet with collectors and distributors and make critical connections with gallery owners, was cited repeatedly as a significant benefit. The Fund also created opportunities to expose work in new regions and to new audiences, to meet other artists and see their work, and to sell work. In particular cases, attendance at openings led to new projects: participation in Art Chicago for Steve Hough; a possible collaboration between William Suys and the Sante Fe Symphony.

Although the Fund did not directly support residencies or ancillary activities, artists took full advantage of opportunities to make new work, deliver gallery talks, and participate in symposia at their exhibition sites.

The Suitcase Export Fund is open to practicing artists residing within the four-county area who want to export their work for public display. The Fund provides support in three areas: transportation of the work (packing/shipping/insurance); transportation of the artist; and promotion in those cases where the artist is required to provide their own promotion. The maximum grant available to an individual is $1,000. The Mary L. Nohl Fund also supports an Individual Artist Fellowship Program, the Arts Education Partnership Program, and the Visual Arts Programs and Projects.

About the Awardees
Fred Stonehouse showed recent works on paper at the Howard Scott Gallery in New York City, December 4, 2003-January 3, 2004. He was able to attend the opening: “Being present at an opening is always a good idea. It presents an opportunity for an artist to meet his collectors, network with other artists and spend time face to face with dealers and critics.”

Ariana Huggett traveled to Utica, New York for an exhibition of 26 of her paintings at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute, December 12, 2003-January 24, 2004. While there, Huggett presented a slide lecture on her work to students and gallery visitors. “It was an opportunity to gain exposure to a new audience in a different part of the country.”

Filmmaker Xav Leplae was invited to show his film, I’m Bobby, at the Sundance International Film Festival in Park City, Utah, January 15-25, 2004. As a result of the screenings, I’m Bobby is currently traveling to festivals across the United States and Canada.

Ceramicist Karen Gunderman was one of ten national and international artists selected to exhibit in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts exhibition, “Biomimicry; the Art of Imitating Nature” at the Herron Gallery, Herron School of Art, in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 3-April 3, 2004. She exhibited two works, “Parting” and “Integuments,” and participated in the NCECA conference.

Filmmaker Stephanie Barber curated “Objective Complement,” a show of 14 Milwaukee artists and filmmakers at the Zoolook Gallery in New York City, March 10-April 6, 2004. The show was part of an artistic exchange with New York artist Soon-Hwa Oh, who curated an exhibition of New York work at Milwaukee’s Jody Monroe Gallery in December, 2003.

Rina Yoon exhibited ten large-scale drawings and prints in an invitational exhibition entitled “Figure and Psyche: Four Artists Plumb the Depths” at the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery of the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, March 13-April 18, 2004. She was also able to present a slide lecture on her work and participated in a panel at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as part of their Women’s Art Institute lecture series.

Painter Steve Hough attended the opening of a group exhibition that included his work at Kontainer Gallery in Los Angeles, March 27-April 24, 2004. Hough’s participation led to his inclusion in the gallery’s Art Chicago booth where they sold four of his works. Kontainer Gallery now formally represents Hough.

Mat Rappaport participated in “Index @ Post,” an invitational group show at the Post Gallery in Los Angeles, March 27-April 24, 2004. He created a site-specific video installation using four screens and eight audio sources to “immerse the viewer in sound and image.”

Roy Staab exhibited five large Epson prints of environmental water works and created an installation for his solo show at the non-profit ecoartspace gallery in Beacon, New York, May 8-July 10, 2004.

Frankie Martin created an installation at Little Cakes Gallery in New York City, May 28-June 25, 2004. The “Airbrainz” installation integrated sculpture, music, drawing and performance. A 7” recording was released by the gallery as part of the show.

Painter William A. Suys, Jr. traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a residency and to show his work at the Peterson Gallery beginning May 28, 2004.

Travis Graves exhibited two sculptures in the 59th Juried Exhibition at the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, Iowa, May 8-July 18, 2004. He used Suitcase funds to transport and install “In Balance #5,” a 20-foot long sculpture, and “In Suspense #3.”

Nate Page was invited to participate in a residency and international group show at the Hotel Pupik in Schrattenberg, Austria, this summer. Page is planning to create site-specific works for the exhibition, which opens July 16, 2004. Hotel Pupik offers an opportunity “to develop relationships with other international artists that will benefit me as an artist as well as bring diverse influences back into the Milwaukee art scene.”

William J. Andersen will travel to Beijing, China, this summer to take part in the Red Gate Gallery Residency Program and mount a solo exhibition of his work in their Pickled Art Centre. The program will enable Andersen to “work side by side with important Chinese artists, curators, writers and academics as well as visiting artists and scholars from around the world.”

For further information:
Polly Morris
Peck School of the Arts
414.229.6771
pmorris@uwm.edu