IN MEMORIAM

Agate Nesaule , Latvian-born teacher and accomplished writer, passed away on June 29, 2022 in Madison at the age of 84. Her memoir, A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile, won the American Book Award in 1996 and was described by Tim O’Brien “a heartbreaking yet inspiring memoir of tragedy and healing, of war and recovery.” She also published two novels: In Love with Jerzy Kosinski and Lost Midsummers: A Novel of Women’s Friendship in Exile. She was on the faculty for over 30 years at UW–Whitewater where she co-founded the women’s studies department and received many teaching awards. She was a passionate social activist and advocated for women victimized by war. She loved reading, music, flowers, and spring. Agate Nesaule was a beautiful spirit who lived life to its fullest.

David Rhodes , acclaimed novelist, passed away on November 10, 2022, in Iowa City at the age of 75. He lived in a farmhouse in the Driftless area of Wisconsin most of his adult life. He published his first novel, The Last Good Deal Going Down, in 1971, followed by The Easter House and Rock Island Line. In 1976, he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, after which his books went out of print. He continued writing, and his early novels were reprinted with the 2008 publication of Driftless, his fourth novel, for which Harvard Review placed him among “the highest rank of American writers.” He published two more novels, Jewelweed and last year’s Painting Beyond Walls. David Rhodes met the end as he lived, with grace, generosity, and humor.

Art Against The Odds

There are an estimated 41,000 people incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons, and more of them are making art than you might imagine, often without support, formal programs, materials, or instruction. They make art because it helps them survive incarceration. Art Against the Odds is an exhibition of 250 works by 65 currently or formerly incarcerated artists from Wisconsin’s state prisons and correctional centers. The exhibition, at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, was organized by the Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art and curated by gallery owner and director Debra Brehmer and gallery manager Paul Salsieder. There are many surprises in Art Against the Odds: the quality of the work, the range of materials and innovation, the desire to communicate. But most astonishing is how these works of art provide evidence of the human spirit’s refusal to be extinguished. Work ranges from pencil drawings to a five-foot sculpture of a Ferris wheel made from 902 pieces of printer paper. Because incarcerated people are hidden from view, their humanity is often lost in statistics. Art Against the Odds is a venue to share their voices, visions, and ideas with the outside world. Art Against the Odds defines the act of art-making not only as a creative pastime but as a lifesaving tool of self-definition and self-determination for those who have been removed from society. After it closes at MIAD in March, the exhibition will tour the state, including stops in Manitowoc and Green Bay.

—Debra Brehmer

Interactive Mural Is A Landscape For Discovery

Wisconsin artists Alicia Rheal, Sharon Tang, and Amy Zaremba created an interactive mural entitled “A Landscape of Wisconsin Discovery,” as a celebration of the diversity of Wisconsin scientists, featuring known historical and contemporary scientists as well as anonymous figures representing the many scientists who have been “historically unrecognized, underrepresented, or lost to the inequities in the sciences.” The mural also includes nine QR codes that viewers can scan to take them to a website with information about the dozen scientists depicted in the mural and about unidentified figures representing unrecognized minority scientists. The scientists depicted include Bassam Shakhashiri, founder of the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy and an Academy Fellow.

The figures in the mural are set in a landscape of visual patterning that represents scientific themes that include environmental sciences, medicine and health, data science/machine learning, microbiology/ microbiomes, scientific tools, and organization of ideas. The mural was created in partnership with the Illuminating Discovery’s Science to Street Art initiative at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the Morgridge Institute for Research, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. It was installed during the summer of 2022 to inspire people to explore and engage in science and is on display in the first floor atrium of the Discovery Building in Madison.