Arts faculty, staff, students selected as 2006 award recipients

An interpreter of created space, a composer, a theater director, a museum curator of education and a furniture designer will be honored with arts awards at UW–Madison this month.

Honorees in 2006 are:

• Wei Dong, professor of environment, textiles and design, Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom professorship in the Creative Arts

  Dong, a member of the UW–Madison faculty since 1993, has devoted his career to exploring Asian and Western design approaches, especially as they concern human relationships with created spaces. He says that he will use the award to merge the study of physical space and artistic interpretations of space by looking at cultural and built environments of six Chinese ethnic groups.

  The award carries a two-year, $16,000 grant.

• Anne Lambert, Chazen Museum of Art Education curator, Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell Award in the Arts

  Lambert’s 30-year tenure at the museum has yielded a wide array of programs linking the Chazen, the UW System and the community at large. She oversees nearly 100 volunteer docents and has created training programs for them. Working in tandem with Wisconsin school districts and teachers, Lambert helps produce educational materials for student use. She also works with teachers to devise in-class projects related to what students see when they visit the museum. Another collaborative initiative seeks to develop local standards for primary art education to improve use of the museum’s resources.

  Bartell Award winners receive $5,000 from the Bartell family.

• Tom Loeser, professor of art, Kellett Mid-Career Award

  An avowed experimenter with the functional aspects of furniture design, Loeser joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1991. Kellett Awards come with a $60,000 grant, made possible by UW–Madison research licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). Income from successful licenses returns to the UW–Madison Graduate School to fund a variety of research activities, including the Kellett Awards.

• Norma Saldivar, associate professor of theatre and drama, Arts Institute Creative Arts Award

  Currently head of the Graduate Directing Program and producing director of the University Theatre, Saldivar joined the UW–Madison theatre faculty in 1998. She says that she intends to use the three-year, $30,000 award to research regional Chicano/Latino theater companies and artists around the country to document this growing artistic movement. She also plans to develop a curriculum for courses on the history of Chicano/Latino theater, current trends in these theaters, and the playwrights and artists they support. In addition, she hopes to forge connections with active practioners who might visit the campus as guest artists.

  The award is made possible by the Bassett and Evjue Foundations.

• Laura Elise Schwendinger, associate professor of music composition, Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom Professorship in the Creative Arts

  On the UW–Madison music faculty since 2004, Schwendinger has been working on setting to music texts by women authors, including poet Sylvia Plath. So far she has completed two in the series. Her Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom Award will help her finish a third and support a concert premiere and recording of the trilogy.

  The award carries a two-year, $16,000 grant.

• Two MFA candidates, Michele Fields and Miel Paredes, also will be honored with the David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Graduate Fellowships for Women in the Arts.

  Fields will receive the award for her work in scenic design for the University Theatre, including its recent production of “Crumbs from the Table of Joy.”

  Paredes will be honored with an award for her work in metal art, which often includes helmets, trophies and toys to portray “the fetishistic position of animals in contemporary society,” she says.

  The Frank Awards each carry a $1,500 stipend.

All arts awards recipients will be honored in a ceremony on Friday, April 21.