Student Spotlight: Grad student recreates scenes from Romeo and Juliet handmade dolls
Addie Bushnell, Arts Reporter
May 11, 2020
Just weeks before spring break — when the University of Iowa made the decision to move the remainder of the spring semester online — graduate acting student Luli Gomez was performing as Natasha in the UI Theatre Arts Department’s production of Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Her experience would so...
Student Spotlight: UI hockey player balances passion for sport and music
Megan Conroy, Arts Reporter
April 30, 2020
From the basement of his family home in Illinois, hockey player, musician, and UI accounting major Mikey Fontana described what his “new normal” looks like in a COVID-19 pandemic-era world. The basement recently flooded, making the now-carpetless space a haven for acoustics and rich sound. It is...
Student Spotlight: UI grad student explores space, time, and sound
Jenna Post, Arts Reporter
April 27, 2020
Guitars suspended in midair and a band playing in an inflatable bubble is an unusual sight at the University of Iowa, but graduate student Jacob Jones brought that vision to life despite COVID-19 changing their plans last minute. Jones’ intermedia performance, Space-Time (Space Lime), was orig...
Student Spotlight: UI artist creates music and paintings from themes of liberation of the self
Madison Lotenschtein, Arts Editor
April 19, 2020
On March 6, University of Iowa BFA painter and musician, Mary Bozaan, decided to do the unthinkable: host a live stream performance of her unreleased EP, Young Grub, on a pornographic website. Wearing a wig to protect her identity — and performing as her alter-ego, Ariella Nice — she projected ...
Student Spotlight: UI playwright turns to livestreaming their writing process online amid COVID-19 outbreak
Josie Fischels, Arts Editor
April 5, 2020
Should one find Cameron Speta streaming on Twitch, they might be surprised to find that the UI senior and playwright isn’t always playing Overwatch as the category title suggests — they’re typing on a Word document. According to Speta, the technique helps them to hold themselves accountable to wr...
Art student tells visual stories through comics
Madison Lotenschtein, Arts Editor
March 29, 2020
A pencil-drawn image of a girl looking down a hillside toward a cow laying on its side sets the scene of a comic strip drawn by Sabrina Claman, a B.F.A. drawing student at the University of Iowa. The comic depicts the story of a girl trying to help her father’s cow because one of its horns has go...
Student Spotlight: UI painter embeds queerness into Catholic spaces through artwork
Madison Lotenschtein, Arts Editor
March 11, 2020
Paint supplies, cardboard, and scraps of paper lay strewn across B.F.A painter David Michael Petersen’s workspace, as though an artistic twister had come through his corner of the Visual Arts Building. Wearing black jeans, a black sweater, and holding a ceramic coffee mug, Petersen joked that ...
Student Spotlight: Kelsey Turnis uses art to explore environmental crises
Addie Bushnell, Arts Reporter
March 5, 2020
Kelsey Turnis is only in her first year at the University of Iowa, but she’s already making waves in the Iowa City art scene. Turnis, who hails from Cedar Rapids, is comfortable in several mediums, including ink, watercolor, and acrylic. A set of her ink drawings, which features the skeletal forms...
Geometrical landscapes and foreboding futures: Drew Etienne’s inspirational artwork comes to life in his small studio
Ashley Dawson, Arts Reporter
February 27, 2020
Unspecified, peculiar beauties that pop into the mind are what inspire Drew Etienne, a second-year graduate student at the University of Iowa, before he begins a new drawing. “There are these mysterious, inorganic objects that just keep hanging around for unknown reasons,” Etienne said. Instead of be...
Painting in pink: UI student artist paints drunken mannerisms with a pink pop
Ashley Dawson, Arts Reporter
February 19, 2020
Annika Wahlberg didn’t like creating art at first. In fact, the University of Iowa senior was annoyed when she learned art classes were a requirement to complete her art history major. But after her first few classes, she fell in love. “I’ve always liked art, but I thought I wanted to be...
Student Spotlight: UI art student captures unconventional themes through storytelling
Sarah Stortz, Senior Reporter
February 12, 2020
Liv Harter knows how to capture an outlandish story, whether it’s through her camera, illustrations, or her own words. Regularly contributing her artwork to Fools Magazine, the University of Iowa student said she was encouraged by one of her friends to attend one of the publication's meetings her s...
Americana performer Rosanne Cash coming to Hancher
Samantha Murray, Arts Reporter
February 6, 2020
On Saturday, four-time Grammy award winner Rosanne Cash will come to fill Hancher Auditorium with her Americana-style music. Rosanne Cash, the eldest daughter of country music star Johnny Cash, has carved out her own space in the music industry through decades of work that draw upon the roots of distinctly...