Setting the scene — on campus and on an easel

Chancellor Biddy Martin may usually leave the office around 5 p.m., but her day is far from over. Inviting alumni, friends, students, donors and others into her home at Olin House is a way for her to continue the business of being the chancellor.

As event coordinator for the Office of the Chancellor, Georgene Pomplun makes it possible. She manages nearly everything in the chancellor’s schedule occurring outside the normal work day — and occasional daytime events as well — so the chancellor and her guests can concentrate on the business at hand.

“Because of Georgene, the chancellor can leave campus at 5 p.m. and welcome people to her home for an event at 5:15,” says Becci Menghini, Martin’s chief of staff.

Since joining the chancellor’s staff last August, Pomplun has created dozens of events for community members and special guests. From a quiet Olin House dinner with student leaders to a holiday party in the Great Hall with hundreds of faculty and staff members, she directs it all using skills honed during a 35-year career in design and art direction.

Though Pomplun’s Bascom Hall office is quiet and spacious, it is still located on what might charitably be called the “garden level.” Because the building follows the swells of Bascom Hill itself, her windows are small and high, letting in very little of the landscape outside. Still, in typical style, Pomplun has managed to bring the outdoors in. Behind her desk hangs a large giclee print of the Washburn Observatory, surrounded with the lush greenery of summer.

This painting reveals the other side of her life: Outside the office, she is perhaps best known as an acclaimed oil painter. The Observatory painting is just one of her many vignettes of campus, painted en plein air — completely outdoors — with a traveling easel and palette. Camp Randall, the Allen Centennial Gardens and more have all served as her subjects.

“I am an art director by vocation and a painter by passionate avocation,” says Pomplun. “Designing and planning an event is problem-solving, just like painting. It’s always a challenge to solve a problem in a different or unexpected way. That’s really the fun for me.”

Pomplun finds herself drawn to oil painting because of its tactile nature. Because it dries more slowly than other types of paint, an artist can work and rework layers over time. The deep colors and nearly three-dimensional character adds to the paintings’ depth.

In a way, the same holds true for event planning. As details fall into place, she marries the underlying foundation of what she has already set up with the ever-changing schedules, weather and other unpredictable elements to create an enjoyable final product.

“I scout for events just as I scout a location for a painting,” she says. “You start planning events and paintings the same way. Is it going to be full of excitement? Is it going to be more serene? What’s the feel or tone we want? I have a mental file of where I’d like to come back and work, and I edit as I move forward.”

A strong visual sense often comes in handy on the job, as Pomplun controls everything from food and flowers to how furniture or other physical components might be arranged. As with a location shoot, she starts by convening a production meeting with all of the players. Instead of a shot list, she uses an event sheet, laying out what is needed and what the timetable might look like. “Clients” include the UW Foundation, the Center for the Humanities, hosts of a welcome reception for visiting dignitaries or a review meeting for the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates.

“Georgene brings a great sense of creativity to her work. She also relishes the fact that she gets to be front and center during the planning but in the background when the event actually happens,” says Menghini. “Not all of us get to experience that unique role where you can sort of duck behind a door and watch things happen close up.”

In addition to working with local vendors and community leaders, Pomplun is also well known in the Madison area for the civic approach she takes in her painting. She has donated her art to many fundraising auctions, supporting causes such as breast cancer recovery and public television. In several instances, her art itself has been used as an award, with commissioned paintings going to recipients of TEMPO Madison honors and the Governor’s Award.

In December, she received a statewide honor. Readers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel chose Pomplun’s “Country Winter,” a painting completed last year for a recent show at the Fanny Garver Gallery, to grace the paper’s front page on Christmas Day. Thousands have shared the view from Pomplun’s kitchen window: a snow-covered barn and silo, split-rail fence posts and arching shadows from unseen maples.

Pomplun usually spends one day eachweekend painting. She loves setting up her easel outside near her rural farmhouse. Since moving to Wisconsin 15 years ago, her painting style has moved from the precise style she learned through formal training at Chicago’s American Academy of Art to a more relaxed style reminiscent of Wisconsin’s rolling hills.

Through it all, she feels lucky to unite her day job with her passion. After years in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, she is grateful for the flexibility her current position offers, planning to take vacation time for an extended period of painting. By communicating to different audiences — from client to guest, or from her own vision to that of a patron — she brings a personal touch to everything she does.

“I’m so honored to share my work this way,” says Pomplun. “My mom always said, ‘You spread crumbs upon the water and they come back as loaves of bread.’ Now, you can’t expect that, but you never know what you’ll receive back.”