UTK Printmaking News
This annual newsletter celebrates the professional and life achievements of our students, alumni, faculty, and staff. We are proud of our record of creative activity, having been ranked among the top printmaking programs for more than 25 years. We are also proud to be part of our overall MFA program, which was ranked this year as #7 among public universities by U.S. News and World Report. We hope that you enjoy this online edition and encourage our alumni to keep in touch.
UTK Printmaking alumni are encouraged to stay in touch through our social media, including the UTK Print Facebook Group and our UTK Print Instagram account. We also encourage you to let the UT Alumni Association know about your activities. To learn more about our activities, we encourage you to visit our UTKPRINT YouTube Channel, which includes technical demonstrations and lectures by our visiting artists, faculty, and students. This resource is not only an educational tool for our students but currently has 800 subscribers. You can also hear broadcasts of many of our visiting artist lectures on the UTK School of Art Vimeo Channel. We are proud of our legacy of making and teaching and encourage you to visit our webpage on the history of printmaking at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
The past year was typically active for our program. With the support of the Haines-Morris Endowment, in November we hosted a week-long visit and workshop with pop-up book artist/photographer Collete Fu. With Fu we created a four color CMYK screen printed pop-book! All components of this project were cut out by hand, printed, and constructed with students, faculty, and staff participating.
In April we hosted Canadian-based master printers Jillian Ross and Brendon Copestake of Jillian Ross Print known for their collaborations with South African artist William Kentridge. Working with them, our eight graduate students created a 4 x 8 foot etching on steel plates depicting the Tennessee River in Knoxville. The project was presented as part of the Cattywampus Puppet Council’s Parade and Block Party held at Suttree Landing in May. Their visit was made possible through a generous donation from Jeff and Debbie Chapman.
We are also thrilled that Joel and Yann Dryer have established two endowments. The $26,000 Joel and Yann Dryer Student Printmaking Award Endowment and the $100,000 Joel S. Dryer Printmaking Endowment will help to fund awards and scholarships for outstanding undergraduate and graduate students, in addition to equipment and materials purchase, travel expenses for students to attend residencies and conferences, support for visiting printmaking artists, and various programming. Etai Rogers-Fett was selected to receive the inaugural award.
This past year our Printmaking Showcase Gallery opened in the fall with “Autumn Showcase,” with an exhibition of prints by our graduate students, faculty, and staff and the Drawn from the McClung Museum Portfolio, which was first presented in 2015 when we hosted the SGC International Conference.
Our linkage with the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland has been in place for more than 18 years. In September we hosted Barbara Skalecka and Iga Budzik and this May our graduate students Hannah Jordan and Mable Ni were able to spend a month in Poland as guest artists. In September we will host two students Oscar Francuz and Zofia Kolinska.
Finally, we are saddened to report that Calvin Custen (MFA ‘88) passed away earlier this year. Honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1972, Calvin went to college on the G.I. Bill, when he enrolled in his first printmaking classes at Frostburg State University in Maryland. His MFA thesis was about his older brother who died serving in the Vietnam War. Following graduate school, Calvin worked for a few years as the printmaking technician at the University of Wisconsin and later at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has been a regular attendee of SGCI Conferences, a member of the SGCI Board, and was in San Juan at our reunion last year.
Alumni News
B. J. Alumbaugh (MFA ‘16) operates Cryptic Press, pursuing letterpress projects and freelance design work. Three years ago, he acquired Retrospect Vintage Store on Central Ave. in Knoxville as a platform for bringing culture to the masses. He also continues to create experimental music, performing around the Southeast.
Laura Atkins (BFA ‘96) recently retired as director of marketing and sales at the Horticulture Lighting Group, based in Maynardville, Tennessee and is now working regularly in her art studio.
Bryan Baker (MFA ‘03) operates Stukenborg Press based in Grayson, GA near Atlanta. He is making art, custom printing, and providing private lessons. He remains active with book arts, print, and zine fairs that have been happening in Athens and Atlanta. Bryan recently began teaching small letterpress workshops at the Chastain Arts Center in Atlanta. He is also active with the Atlanta Print Makers Studio, serving on their board and teaching letterpress classes and workshops. The past few years he dresses in period attire from 1827 and conducts printing demonstrations at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum.
Gabrielle Barnhart (Buuck) (BFA ‘18) is the co-director of West Fifth Studios, located in Old North Knoxville.
Sukenya Best (MFA ‘07) works as the “On the Road Coordinator” for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, traveling around the Commonwealth of Virginia with the Artmobile. She attended the Chateau d’Orquevaux Artist and Writers Residency in Orquevaux, France for two weeks earlier this year with 26 other artists from around the world. During the residency she created 7 large-scale drawings in her assigned studio. This summer she presented her work in a one-person exhibition in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Ali Bhimani (BFA ’20) graduated from a master’s degree in Muslim Society and Civilizations on full-scholarship from the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) based in London, UK with a joint degree in postgraduate studies for reflective teaching practice from University-College London (UCL).
James Boychuk-Hunter (MFA ‘15) is the Technical Coordinator, Department of Art and Design, University of Alberta. He is working on a collaborative project with fellow artist Richard Boulet that consists of text-based relief prints and metal objects combined with textile elements.
Craig Branum (BFA ‘10) works at Cooper Union in New York City where he is the JAMF Administrator, responsible for administering the software (Jamf Pro) used to manage the Macintosh computers. He also serves as a Senior Academic Support Technician managing the “Media Lab,” where much of the 2D printing takes place. This lab also provides access to computers, scanners, and other equipment for students to utilize.
Zoe Brester-Pennings (MFA ’23) is a Professor of Practice in Printmaking at the Cleveland Institute of Art and has recently been elected as Contingent Faculty Representative for the CIA Faculty Senate. This spring she had a solo exhibition at Waterloo Arts titled Buck Soft, featuring an assortment of handmade quilts and prints. She is spending her summer organizing the third edition of “Pinkmaking,” a pink-themed print exchange, and working on her mail club.
Deborahmae Broad (MFA ‘80) retired from teaching at Minnesota State University, Moorhead, in 2003. She continues to make prints in a studio in a remodeled barn. She has exhibited recently at the Rourke Museum’s “Annual Midwestern Invitational Exhibition: Outside the Lines” In Moorhead, Minnesota. She is preparing a new work for an exhibition in 2027 titled “Three Printmakers Walked Into a Bar” with two of her former students.
Danqi Cai (MFA ’23) completed her third year on the tenure track at the University of Arkansas, where she teaches in Foundations. This year, she co-taught a grad-level J-Term course in Spain on the art of the Americas, immigration, and diaspora. Her collaborative paper/print series with Yangbin Park was exhibited at The Morgan Conservatory (Cleveland, OH) and the IAPMA Paper Art Biennale in Silkeborg, Denmark, and presented at two conferences. Her first curatorial project, Shifting Tongues at the Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO), was reviewed in Sixty Inches From Center, and she was interviewed in Burnaway. She was a Denbo Fellow at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and an Artist-in-Residence and Jarislowsky Award recipient at the Banff Centre. Back home, she received a faculty fellowship to co-lead Papermaking for Collective Wellbeing, a yearlong initiative exploring hand papermaking as a tool for community connection and healing, which will commence this fall.
Gino Castellanos (MFA ’24) taught printmaking, drawing and art appreciation part-time last year, and is now pursuing work as an electrician, which he has found rewarding. Helen, his wife, is 9 months pregnant and will have a baby boy which they have decided to name Marcos. He continues to make art which he often gives away to friends, family, and interested strangers.
Deb Chaney (BFA ’01), a Tamarind Master Printer, lives and works in La Force, France and Upstate New York, collaborating with artists and printing alongside her husband, a fellow collaborative printer, Stéphane Guilbaud. This year’s focus was building their publishing business and participating for the second year in the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair as D&S Fine Art Editions.
Mary Climes (MFA ‘21) has joined the faculty at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA as an Assistant Professor in Studio Art for Fall 2026. There she will be teaching drawing, printmaking, and digital art. She has loved living in the Twin Cities with fellow UTK alums Conor McGrann and Lila Shull, making prints at Highpoint Center for Printmaking and going on walks in their neighborhood. She will miss them very much.
Muriel Condon (MFA ’22) teaches part-time at Helena College, Helena, MT and in the education department at The Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts (including Printmaking on Clay). Last summer she co-organized a residency at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts with Anela Ming-Yue Oh titled “Pinch/Pull” for artists working with ceramics and handmade paper. Earlier this year she was an artist-in-residence at Cow House Studios in Wexford, Ireland, which she highly recommends. She continues to collaborate with Lila Shull (MFA ’19) with a two person exhibit at the Peter Paul Luce Gallery in Cornell College, IA.
Eleanor Dickinson (MFA ‘07) is an independent artist in Little Rock, Arkansas, creating works informed by her world travels, recently to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangkok. She teaches classes for youth and private lessons in her studio.
Tim Dooley (MFA ‘98) is a Professor at the University of Northern Iowa. Tim and his colleague Aaron Wilson create various collaborative projects involving printmaking and other media as Midwest Pressed. They recently completed two large commissions through Moberg Gallery for a civil engineering firm in Omaha. They also completed a second large scale commission for Smartbox US which finished up in September of 2025.
Maria Dore (BA ’18) completed her MFA this spring at Georgia State University. This summer she will be teaching at Georgia State University and attending a residency at the Hambidge Center, thanks to a fellowship from the Georgia chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
46 x 96 inches, 2026
Callie Farmer (BFA ‘10) is an artist and educator whose work centers on painting and printmaking processes, including relief, intaglio, cyanotype, and chine collé. She currently teaches drawing, painting, and printmaking at Fayetteville State University and is passionate about helping students develop both technical confidence and personal voice in their creative practice. She has three boys Calvin (9), Declan (4) and Elliott (1).
Helen Farmer (BFA ‘06) lives in Greenville, SC and devotes most of her time to raising three girls Ila (12), Flora (10), and May (8). Helen is a certified Master Gardener through Clemson Extension which lets her teach the public about plants, specializing in butterfly gardens, in particular spreading knowledge about host plants for caterpillars and pollinator magnet plants. She is currently revamping /starting from scratch the Summit Drive Elementary School butterfly and vegetable garden space, which has not been touched since 2006. They plan to provide fresh food options as well for families in need to coincide with the giving of canned goods throughout the year. She has some studio work at Greenville Arts Metropolitan Arts Council.
Ben Fox-McCord (BFA ‘09) works at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville University Printing Services and continues to make art pursuing drawing and screenprinting. Along with his wife Natalie McLaurin, they are active parents to Clementine (age 7) and Bettie (age 5).
Eliza Frensley (MFA ’25) is based in Nashville, TN. She was the recipient of the 2025 Frogman’s Graduate Student Scholarship, receiving a full scholarship to attend Frogman’s Print Workshop, present an artist talk, and exhibit her work at the University of Iowa Gallery E148. Eliza was the Winter Resident at the Print Art Research Center (PARC) in Seoul and a 2026 Artist-in-Residence at Naughty Muse Studios in Busan, South Korea where she presented her prints at Space Rora Gallery in Seoul. This past June she was a resident at In Cahoots in Petaluma, CA and received the In Cahoots Fellowship in Printmaking.
Shannon Ferguson (MFA ’26) will begin a full-time position teaching printmaking at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, GA this fall. Her work has been included in the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition, Original Prints, and Cimarron National Works on Paper.
Jamie Gannon (BFA ‘87) is a Chicago-based artist and graphic designer. His recent works involve digital manipulations of his photographs of vernacular architecture. He presented a one-person exhibition “Specific to Site: Mapping Time and Place,” at the Ludington Area Center for the Arts this summer in Ludington, Michigan.
Robert Gaston (BFA ‘89) founded Gaston Design Inc. in 1996, producing high-quality dinosaur replica casts. His fabrication facility is in Fruita, CO, in the heart of the American Southwest’s Dinosaur Triangle. His work has been featured at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta. He organizes traveling exhibitions including “Mexican Roots,” and “Bizarre Headgear.”
Jessica Gatlin (MFA ‘17) is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Rich Gere (MFA ‘92) is a Professor of Art at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Last year, Rich stepped away from a twenty-three-year career in administration, during which he served as either department chair or director at three separate institutions. After returning to the faculty, he has presented on educational leadership at the annual SECAC Conference in Cincinnati, currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Printmakers Studio, and has exhibited in Atlanta; Puerto Rico; Ecuador; Bethlehem, PA; and Madison, WI. He is also preparing work for an upcoming exhibition at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, CA. UAB Profile
Gregory Graham (MFA ‘82) lives in Saint Paul, MN and is now represented by Lowry Hill Gallery in Minneapolis, MN where he will have a solo exhibition January 16 – February 27, 2027.
James Greene (MFA ‘06) is a Customer Experience Librarian and Zine Librarian at the Jacksonville Public Library in Florida, specializing in crafting public arts programs and events. Through his work as a public zine librarian and comix creator, James Greene remains a dedicated advocate for printmaking and publishing. His recent projects include an exhibit of screenprints entitled FULL BLEED in Jacksonville, FL at The Unicat Jax, where he collaborated with fine art printmaker George Cornwell and comix creator Thony Aiuppy. He’s currently in production on The Windlords of Io-Wah Book Two: Lizard Brains. The previous Windlords book, Toll Road, was supported by a 2025 City of Jacksonville Individual Artist’s Grant. This year Greene has a 6-page comic included in a hardbound collection of semi-autobiographical stories set in New York City called REAL LIFE COMIX: Only In New York (2026, Cosmic Lion Productions, 212 pages, 2026) He’s also completing the saga of his titular character Larry Loathman on Substack and in minicomix form. In October 2025 James wed writer and stand-up storyteller Erica Susan Saffer, who has recently signed with an agent at Trident Media Group to shop her novel Love and Loss on the Lido Deck Greene serves as a co-founding organizer of the Duval Comics and Zines (DCAZ) Fest in Jacksonville, where he’s preparing to transition to a board role to continue fostering DIY creative spaces in Florida. Whether through organizing live comix readings, teaching, or appearing at zine festivals, he remains committed to the democratic nature of the print medium. His son Deo has completed his first year at FSU where he is studying Molecular Biophysics. His son Eli is transferring to FSU to continue studying Anthropology and Art History. You can view his work at James Greene Comics. @jax_comix_core
Leslie Grossman (MFA ‘12) is based in Lansdowne, PA – just outside Philadelphia and taught a course on paper marbling at the Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts in June.
Susan Harrison (MFA ‘97, sculpture concentration) is based in Louisville, Kentucky and just retired from full-time public school teaching and now will be a full time artist in residence at Brick Street Art Studios. She was awarded a Gottlieb Scholarship to attend a creative wood bending workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in June, which was a coming home of sorts as she instructed in the Community Outreach program 1995-1997 while a graduate student at UT Knoxville. What made it especially meaningful was one of her workshop buddies, Walker Westbrook was a graduate of UT Architecture.
Jennifer Haston (Leach) (MFA ‘05) resides in Nashville where she is the Visual Arts Coordinator for Friends Life Community, which provides opportunities for teenagers and adults with developmental disabilities. An avid gardener, she also leads gardening classes at FLC. She has a one-person exhibition this September at Elephant Gallery in Nashville. @jennifer_haston
Justin Helton (BFA ‘07), owner of Status Serigraph for the past 20 years, creates design and poster work for a variety of national and international clients in the music and entertainment industry, including officially licensed prints for clients like the Grateful Dead, South Park, the Miles Davis Estate, and Dave Matthews Band. He is currently working on some new projects for Chris Stapleton, Wu Tang Clan and John Coltrane’s 100th Birthday. You can view his work at Status Serigraph.
Jace Hermanto (BFA ’23) is in his thesis year at Arizona State University, where he will be awarded an MFA in Spring 2027. Jace also works as a research assistant for ASU’s Pyracantha Press, which houses the largest collection of type at a higher-ed institution in the US. Recently, he was awarded the Nathan Cummings Summer Travel Award to fund a research trip, which he will use to see Javanese wayang kulit, an ancient puppetry practice that has inspired his work, this summer. He also recently contributed work to an exchange exhibition that will travel throughout Spain.
Dan B. Hood (BFA ‘2015) is based in Chicago, IL where he is the Lighting Director of the Historic Smartbar night club, and is currently focused on music production, deejaying, and nurturing new talent and sounds with the Label and Event series Research and Development (www.rndchicago.net). During their summers they work as a Technical Audio Production Manager for music festivals such as WHOLE (Berlin) and Interdimensional Transmissions’ - Return to the Source (Detroit). He continues to have an interdisciplinary life practice of creative problem-solving and sharing what they’ve learned with others. You can listen to his music at Dan B Hood on Soundcloud and follow what’s new on most social media @danbhood for more happenings check out Sound Death Cult.
Mark Hosford (MFA ‘01) is a Professor of Art at the Vanderbilt University. Mark and his colleagues in the department presented “Resonance: Vanderbilt University in Venice” taking place simultaneously with the 61st Venice Biennale. You can view more of his work at Spot Color Press.
Jade Hoyer (MFA ’16) is based in Northfield, MN, where she teaches at Carleton College. This past year, Jade enjoyed a school year of art-making and travel while on a pre-tenure sabbatical. She exhibited new work exploring Filipino weaving techniques and the archive in a solo show as a McKnight Fellow at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking (Minneapolis, MN). She spent time at Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA) as an artist in residence, where she created a site-specific installation, Colorways, in collaboration with the institution’s Talcott Greenhouse and Botanic Garden. This summer Jade was an artist-in-residence at Constellation Studios (Lincoln, NE).
Anthony Huang (MFA ’24) recently completed his second year as a full-time faculty member in Printmaking at Dallas College, Dallas, TX. This spring he presented Soft Ruin, a solo exhibition exploring sculpture, installation, and spatial experience through the lens of memory and landscape. His work was also featured in exhibitions including Journey North (Latino Cultural Center), Legendary Encounters (Final Form), and Hyperlocal V (Atelier Gallery). At the 2026 Nocturne Public Art Festival in Frisco, TX Huang presented a public installation derived from a body of work first developed during his graduate studies at UT Knoxville, continuing his exploration of the relationship between printmaking, installation, and public space. Later this year, one of his installations will be included in a year-long outdoor exhibition at the Jung Center in Houston, TX and he will participate in an Art Print Residency in Barcelona, Spain. Huang continues to explore the intersections between printmaking, sculpture, installation, and public art.
Gaby Hurtado-Ramos (MFA ’25) is teaching printmaking workshops at the Houston Art League and the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. They are a member of Box 13, an artist-led gallery and studio space in Houston’s East End. Gaby had a one-person exhibition at Box 13 in Houston. They made a poster for the Texas Archive of the Moving Image as part of their zine project highlighting LGBTQ+ Texas history.
Raluca Iancu (MFA ‘15), has been on sabbatical for the past year, spending significant time in Japan, Berkeley, CA (at the Kala Institute), Venice, Italy, and Rome, Italy. She wrote an article about the experience for the Boston Printmakers Newsletter. Raluca was recognized with the 2026 Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement, College of Design, Iowa State University; the Lindquist Purchase Award, 2026 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition, National Juried Exhibition, Bradbury Art Museum, Arkansas State University, AR; and received a research grant, “From Fiber to Image: Handmade Paper and Contemporary Printmaking in Japan,” from The Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, Iowa State University. She also received an additional university research grant on Cotton in the Curriculum for the use of waste denim in teaching papermaking in art and design. She continues to be active with multiple one-person and group exhibitions and conferences, including IMPACT 13 held last fall in Ontario. You can hear an interview with Raluca on André Zadorozny’s The Unfinished Print: A Mokuhanga Podcast, 26 March 2026. Finally, in August she married Paul Bruski in Montreal.
Gareth Jones (MFA ‘94) is a Senior Lecturer in Design Media at the Institute of Creativity and Innovation, which is a partnership between the University for the Creative Arts (United Kingdom) and Xiamen University, China.
Elizabeth Klimek (MFA ‘97) resides in Damascus MD teaching K-4 art at the Damascus Christian Homeschool Co-op, happy to still be cancer-free. In recent years, Liz has made watercolor paintings for fellow cancer patients, and the radiology department at Johns Hopkins University Hospital and gives them to patients currently receiving radiation treatment. They are very supportive and she is very thankful they have given her this connection.
Yas Kumagai (BFA ‘93) is a senior manager at Art Front, Tokyo, where he has been working for more than 30 years. In addition to an exhibition program, Art Front provides comprehensive art consulting and related services. Yas oversees the Artworks Division, a department that connects artists’ creative practices with a wide range of business sectors, responsible for projects ranging from public art commissions in urban redevelopment projects to art consulting and project implementation for office buildings, residential developments, hotels, and other facilities. View examples of recent projects. Art Front also plans and produces socially engaged, community-based regional development art festivals throughout Japan and in parts of China. The 6th edition of the Setouchi Triennale held last year involved the Malaysian art collective Pangrok Sulap who also came to Knoxville for a project with UTK Faculty and students in March 2025. By coincidence, they discovered that they both had connections to Knoxville, and had a lively conversation about studying printmaking there. Yas has also assisted the study-abroad program of the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville over the past three years.
Shaurya Kumar (MFA ‘07) is a professor in the Department of Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kumar is finishing up his five-year tenure as the Chair of Faculty at SAIC, an elected five-year position voted by all full-time and part-time faculty. In this role, Kumar established and oversaw programs for faculty development as teachers, as practitioners and as researchers for over 770 faculty and organized over 82 workshops and trainings. He developed systems and processes for mentoring all faculty, designed new faculty orientations, department chairs training and onboarding, promotion and tenure processes and overall directs all full-time faculty hiring procedures. Kumar’s monographic exhibition “Living without the Gods” was shown last year at the South Asia Institute in Chicago, IL and his book was released earlier this year with essay contributions by renowned critics and historians including Dr. Bill Brown, Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture at University of Chicago; Dr. Richard H. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Bard College; and Dr. Arshiya Lokhandwala, one of the most renowned curators based in Mumbai, India. Kumar was also honored by Newcity as one among top 50 creative practitioners of the region. Kumar’s work was also showcased in various exhibitions “On Absence” at The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery at John Jay College of Criminal Justice; “Shape of Time” at Nature Morte gallery, New Delhi, India; “Japanoise” at Lakeeren Contemporary in Mumbai, India; and at art fairs in Mumbai, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. His upcoming exhibition includes “Return, Resist, Reclaim: Repatriation and Iconoclasm in South Asia” at the Taragaon Next museum in Kathmandu, Nepal and a solo feature at the next India Art Fair in New Delhi, India. This June, Kumar concluded his project “Chicago Immigrant Creatives” that was supported by a grant by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The grant helped organize over nine workshops, convenings, panels and community-based discussions aimed at professional development and providing structured mentorship programs for South Asian American artists. In addition, Kumar is curating a posthumous survey exhibition of a Chicago based artist and photographer Mukul Roy at the National Indo-American Institute that is due to open in late July 2026. Kumar will be on sabbatical for AY 2026-27 and will be spending his year in Mumbai with an appointment as a “Professor of Practice’ at Somaiya University, where he will lead the design of the entire curriculum and degree programs for a School of Art that is due to open in 2030.
Lauren Kussro (MFA ‘06) is an Associate Professor of Art and the Program Director for Art and Design at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in Houston, Texas. laurenkussro.com
Noah Lagle (MFA ’23) is teaching printmaking and foundations part-time at both University of Georgia and University of North Georgia. He is also co-founding a publishing project with his wife Caitlin La Dolce, making zines, pamphlets and artists books in collaboration with other artists.
Nancy (Becker) Laemlein (MFA ’81) retired from an academic career in the arts and then IT systems (University of Tennessee and University of Rochester) in 2016. Living in her native Finger Lakes, NY, she is an independent artist, now painting in gouache.
Emmy Lingscheit (MFA ‘12) is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In the past year Emmy taught a two-week printmaking workshop at Penland School of Craft and exhibited new work in the show “Another Place: Storymaking the Entangled Prairie,” at Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL. A series of illustrations she was commissioned to create were published in the book Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods, an anthology edited by Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug which is published by Princeton University Press. It advocates for a shift away from annual monocultures like corn and soy toward diverse, long-living crops.
Chance Losher (BFA ’12) regularly sets up his art at concerts and festivals across the Midwest and Southeast regions of the USA as “Professor Rainbow.” Some highlights include festivals at Red Rocks in Colorado and The Caverns in Tennessee where he displays his art alongside some of his favorite bands as well as internationally renowned artists. You can also find his work in local art and craft markets in Knoxville.
Abigail Lucien (MFA ’17) is an Assistant Professor and Head of Sculpture at Hunter College in New York City. Lucien is also on the faculty at the Ox-Bow School of Art. They are currently presenting Blood of the Earth, a one-person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago curated by Irene Sunwoo, the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design. The exhibition opened on June 18 and will be on view through January 25, 2027. This year Lucien has also presented one-person exhibitions at Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York, NY and the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA. Recently Lucien also participated in the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s Art/Industry Foundry Residency Program in Sheboygan, WI. Last year Lucien presented a one-person exhibition “Under Other Skies” at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD. Their work has received favorable press in The New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Burnaway, The Nasher Sculpture Center Magazine, and Frieze Magazine. @abigaillucien
Lee Marchalonis (MFA ‘03) is a Lecturer II at the University of Michigan’s Penny Stamps School of Art + Design. She also runs a stone lithography and bookbinding studio in Detroit. She has collaborated on printed editions with many artists, including: Hernan Bas, Alison Bechdel, Lesley Dill, Henrik Drescher, Nina Katchadourian, Charles McGee, Mario Moore, and Sabrina Nelson.
Tim Massey (BFA ‘85) retired four years ago from SUNY Brockport and has set up a woodshop and print studio in south Knox County. He is active with Indivisible Knoxville as Artistic Director and also Coordinator of the I-K Bridge Brigade Team. As a fund-raising project he screenprinted nearly 200 bandanas for Indivisible Knoxville projects. Tim is also working on a new series of drawings.
Daniel Maw (MFA ‘10) will begin his 16th year of full-time teaching in higher education this fall. In addition to teaching, he also enters his 6th year as Esther and John Clay Fine Art Gallery Director at Laramie County Community College where he curates, organizes, and installs 8 exhibitions a year. Most recently, he developed the art department photography course and maintains drawing, sculpture, and foundation courses as well. He lives and makes art in Ft. Collins, CO.
Ashlee Mays (MFA ’20) is the Director of the Museum of Infinite Outcomes. Alongside their public exhibits and community programs, the museum organizes exhibitions. Aligned with this work, Ashley is a “Garden Educator” at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum
Conor McGrann (MFA ‘21), lives in Saint Paul MN, and works as the Digital Studio Arts Technician at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where he oversees the operation of the college’s printshop and photolab. This past year he has wrapped up a two-year restoration of an antique Reliance Handpress. The process involved lead remediation, refinishing, and the construction/fabrication of a tympan and frisket (from bur oak grown, felled, and milled on campus).
Sara Marie Miller (MFA ‘11) is living in Boulder, CO working as an artist, herbalist and postpartum doula. She teaches a couple workshops each month about art, plants, and wellness, and hosts a regular podcast called “Thyme in the Studio.” You can view more of her work at Aid Zea Arts.
Emmett Merrill (MFA ’20) along with his partner, Sam Mendoza founded Twin Hound Print Shop, a fine art printmaking studio in Kansas City’s West Bottoms neighborhood. In the last year, Twin Hound hosted multiple workshops, held seasonal openings, and collaborated with over a dozen artists, both local and visiting, in the publication of their work. Twin Hound also put on the second annual Seeing Double Printmaking Expo, inviting 20 artists from across the Midwest to show their work and participate in public demonstrations. He also had one-person exhibitions at Friend of Mine Studios in Louisville, KY and Tech Artista at Washington University, St. Louis. Emmett works as an adjunct professor at the Kansas City Art Institute (where he received his undergraduate degree) and looks forward to teaching printmaking in the Fall there.
Emily Minnie (MFA ‘03) and Josh Minnie (MFA ‘04) co-own and operate The Pattern Farm, a wallpaper company based in Iowa City, IA that specializes in collaboration with artists and designers to create custom wallpapers for residential, commercial, and artist installations.
Guen Montgomery (MFA ‘12) is an assistant professor of art at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana where she is active in mentoring graduate students, university service, and is teaching subjects ranging from printmaking to sculpture.
Heather Muise (MFA ‘00) is an Associate Professor of Printmaking at East Carolina University. In the past year her work won Best in Show at the SGCI Member’s Juried Exhibition in Lubbock, Texas and an Honorable Mention at the Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition in Yashinogawa, Japan. She was interviewed by Miranda Metcalf for the Hello, Print Friend podcast, episode 258.
Ashley Nason (MFA ‘99) is a practicing artist living in Loveland, Colorado creating works for commercial spaces such as REVE, Boulder. She participated in the biannual “Month of Printmaking” in Denver and northern Colorado through the Center for Visual Arts, Denver and Space_Space Gallery, Boulder.
Daniel Ogletree (MFA ‘14) teaches printmaking and drawing as a part-time instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the College of Southern Nevada. Beyond the classroom, Daniel directs a gallery and artist-in-residence program at Clark County Wetlands Park, where he has cultivated a thriving community of artists across all skill levels united by a love of the natural world. The program’s highlights include an annual plein air painting invitational, a county staff and volunteer exhibition, and rotating temporary outdoor installations. Daniel and Kay Leigh Farley (MFA ’16, time-based art) share their adventures outside the studio with their son, Paul, and dog, Laika – spending their free time hiking and camping together.
Lindsey Orrin (BFA ’18) and her partner are Flamgu, travelling in a large, painted box truck to preform live painting at art and music festivals where they sell their work. This summer she was at festivals in Aspen and Breckenridge, CO. @flamgu
Jessica Owings-Crouch (MFA ‘04) resides in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her family. She runs an independent and occasionally collaborative venture, The State Park Press, a letterpress and fine art studio, and is a board member of Fort Collins Reads, a local non-profit seeking to enrich the community through reading.
Jen Poppen (BFA ’93) completed her MFA from the University of New Mexico following her studies at Tennessee. She is a mother, artist, and art educator in rural Ohio where she teaches K-5 art. Several of her illustrations were recently published in a children’s book and she has completed different murals in her rural community. @poppenjen
Dana Potter (MFA ‘20) finished her first year as an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the Hite Institute of Art + Design, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. Potter is co-organizer and graphic designer for Open Air Media Festival, a film and video art screening, which premieres in three cities across the Midwest and Southeast (Iowa City, IA; Greenville, SC; and Louisville, KY) this May and June 2026. Potter exhibited work this year at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Greenville, SC; Cressman Center, Louisville, KY; and Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN. Potter continues as User Experience Designer for Fortepan US, a digital-first vernacular photo archive.
Tatiana Potts (MFA ‘16) teaches at Western Carolina University. She continues to work with her students on children’s books in collaboration with Cherokee learners. Riparian Ecosystem (Volume 6) has been selected as a winner of 41st Annual Mary Ellen LoPresti Art Publication Award for excellence in art publishing for the copyright year 2024. The article and video about this book project was created by Anya Petrone Slepyan who also featured the project in her podcast episode “Preserving Cherokee Language 10 Books at a Time” on The Daily Yonder. The project was also was featured on NPR West Virginia radio show Inside Appalachia. The book was also exhibited at McClung Museum at UT Knoxville in 2025, and at East Carolina University in 2026. Tatiana’s book The Stories by Mooney (Volume 4) was purchased for the Special Collections and Archives by Virginia Commonwealth University. She presented a one-person exhibition at the Montevallo University, Alabama and participated in the co-curated regional exhibition “A State of Printmaking” at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. She also showed her artist books at the Artistikamente gallery in Pistoia, Italy, at the California Society of Printmakers, Triton Museum of Art, and Printed page V at Denver, Colorado. This summer she taught a bookmaking class at Paper and Book Intensive, Oxbow, Saugatuck, Michigan.
Lisa Renz (MFA ‘07) has moved to Tampa, FL with her husband, Nathaniel, and is homeschooling her son, Winston, while also continuing to make art.
Katie Ries (MFA ’10) completed her first year as a new assistant professor and foundations coordinator at East Tennessee State University. In September, she led a workshop for the Tennessee Environmental Educators Association on binding field books for observational drawing. In October, she presented her paper “Draw Together: Community Practices While the World Burns” on a panel organized by fellow UTK art alumni Jessie Van der Laan-Delaney and Alice Stone Collins.
Clifton Riley (MFA ‘13) lives in Houston, Texas, where he works at RS Industrial Arts, a custom fabrication firm, and continues to make prints and drawings.
Bethany Robertson (BFA ‘10) is a lead designer for Google focusing on user interface (UI) design.
Jennifer Scheuer (MFA ‘14) is an associate professor at Purdue University, and received tenure in Spring 2026. Scheuer exhibited her works in several solo exhibitions this year at the IMPACT Printmaking conference in Trois Riveres, Canada, Iowa HealthCare at the University of Iowa, and Illinois Central College. Her artwork was curated in Parallel Worlds, at the Heritage Auction House in Chicago by the Services to Artist Committee for the College Art Association. This summer she has a second exhibition of artist books and prints opening at Iowa Healthcare in Medical Gallery B at the University of Iowa. She is teaching Boxmaking at Frogman’s Print Workshops in July. Scheuer exhibited her artist books at the Codex Book Fair in February and is creating work at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts this summer. This year Scheuer received a $5,000 award through the IMPACT Critical Thinking Pilot Program to support her teaching.
Sarah Shebaro (MFA ‘08) is a multidisciplinary artist, printmaking instructor, designer, illustrator, and DJ based in Knoxville, TN.
Jason Shoemaker (MFA ‘11) is a web developer for Spadefoot Media based in Knoxville and continues to make art in his home studio. He and his wife, Lauren are parents to their three-year-old Zooey.
Roxanna Shohadaee (BFA ’11) is the founder of habRitual Studio, which is an experiential production, interdisciplinary design and immersive art studio based in Emeryville, California. Clients have included the Burning Man Project, Planet Home, and UC Irvine.
Lila Shull (MFA ‘19) recently took a full-time position working for a Native-owned contractor as their marketing/proposal coordinator in St. Paul, MN. It’s a wonderful opportunity to apply her design skills, and creativity towards a company whose mission she believes in. They build schools, culture centers, hospitals and casinos on tribal land across the country. Lila was awarded the 2026/2027 McKnight Fellowship in Printmaking. Generous support includes an unrestricted $25,000, access to Highpoint’s state of the art studio space, an exhibition, and a fully funded artist residency among countless other benefits. Lila also received a grant through the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. This foundation gives monetary support and encouragement to feminist writers and visual artists who identify as women, cis-women, trans-women and/or nonbinary creatives.
Veronica Siehl (MFA ’10) lives in Chicago, IL, where she works in UX design. This June, she led a Guest Artist Workshop at Campfire Printing Press, Sun Prints: Cyanotype + Urban Flora. The previous August contained travels to the UK, with standouts including museum and gallery visits as well as independent research. During a rare book appointment at the Linnean Society, she spent an afternoon with three volumes of Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843–1853). With cyanotype playing a central role in Veronica’s practice since grad school, and having taught many workshops using Atkins’ work as a thematic lens, this experience was both a personal and professional highlight. You can also learn more about her UX experience on UX website.
Hannah Skoonberg (MFA ‘14) is an associate professor of art at Santa Rosa Junior College. This year she was able to take a sabbatical and travel to Japan for the Mi-lab 5-week mokuhanga printmaking program. She has also been approved to go back to Japan for the advanced mokuhanga program next summer.
Josh Smith (BFA ‘98) presented “Destiny in New York” at David Zwirner Gallery in New York, featuring his recent series of Grim Reaper bicycle paintings. In conjunction with the exhibition, Smith partnered with the Bicycle Film Festival for a special group ride and artist talk celebrating the project and bringing together New York’s cycling community. Smith also maintained close ties to Knoxville by designing a poster for the 2026 edition of the Big Ears Festival. Beyond his visual art practice, he released Mixed Signals on CD in January and, in March, saw his first album released on vinyl. He was also included in UNFOLLOW, a major group exhibition organized by Falcon NYC, alongside a wide range of contemporary artists. Looking ahead, Smith will present a solo exhibition at Eva Presenhuber in Zurich this September and has several new collaborations currently in development. @joshiejosho
Keely Snook (MFA ’16) is an Emmy-winning designer, interdisciplinary artist, and freelance puppet builder. She is a member of IATSE (United Scenic Artists Local 829) has worked on projects for organizations such as the Jim Henson Company, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, Sesame Street, Coca-Cola, Avenue Q, Netflix, Apple TV, Disney, and the TV show Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. She lives in Bethlehem, PA teaching printmaking at Pennsylvania State University-Abington and recently started as Manager of Art Operations at Bucks County Community College.
Kelsey Stephenson (MFA ‘16) is an Assistant Lecturer in print and art foundations at the University of Alberta and serves as President of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists (SNAP). This August she was awarded a Leighton Studio Residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Recent exhibitions include “Rift Systems: Unrooted Transformations,” an exchange portfolio organized and curated by Nastassja Noell, Tatiana Potts, and Lynne Hudson shown at Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, and “ImMigration,” Musée des Cultures du Monde, Nicolet, QC, Canada (part of the IMPACT conference for printmaking programming and exhibitions).
Jennifer Stoneking-Stewart (BFA ’05) teaches in Hamblen County, TN. She leads a successful AP Art and Design program at Morristown-Hamblen High School East. She lives in Talbott, TN.
Baxter Stults (MFA ’19) serves as the multimedia communications specialist for the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design, where he focuses on graphic design, photography, and videography for the college.
Haley Takahashi (MFA ’23) has accepted a full-time position at Colorado State University as an instructor of printmaking and studio manager of Photography and Printmaking. She is actively participating in a multitude of print exchanges and giving technical demos.
Jason Terry (MFA ‘92) retired as a Professor of Art and Chair of the Humanities Department at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin after the college discontinued its operations. He is currently teaching 7th-grade English Language Arts and Science teacher at Ashland Middle School in Ashland, Wisconsin. He received a grant from the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council to take a week-long workshop in sculptural needle felting at Textile Center in Minneapolis.
Jessie Van der Laan (MFA ‘09) has been name Dean of Humanities at Walters State Community College, where she continues to serve as an Associate Professor of Art. Her work was featured in the The Red Branch Review, an art and literary magazine supporting the arts in Appalachia. She will have a pop-up installation, while the wind, at Tri-Star Arts in Knoxville this August and will chair a panel reflecting on collage and contemporary practice at the SECAC Conference this October. She lives with her husband, two children, and dog in Knoxville, TN.
Jeanne Voltura (MFA ‘96) has worked for the city of Las Vegas, Nevada for more than 20 years, and is now retired overseeing the city’s gallery programs.
Chloe Wack (MFA ’24) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Foundations and Time-Based Arts/Cinema Studies in the School of Art at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Crystal Wagner (MFA ‘08) is an Assistant Professor of Art, Foundations Coordinator, Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, CO and is represented by Mirus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA/San Francisco, CA/Denver, CO, Kirk Gallery, Denmark, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth TX. Through her recent collaborations with engineer/designer Logan Luckey, they are creating large-scale sculptural installations and immersive environments that integrate MIDI-driven lighting, motion, sound, and environmental sensors to create dynamic, responsive environments inspired by natural systems.
Ericka Walker (MFA ‘10) is an Associate Professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. This last year she completed another large-scale rural mural with the help of a $12,000 Arts Nova Scotia production grant and three intrepid assistants. Walker collaborated on new art works with Master Printer Laine Groeneweg of Smoke Stack Studios as well as Myles Calvert and Brig Bogue as part of a residency at Alfred University’s Institute for Electronic Arts (IEA). Walker was one of ten finalists in the Print Center Philadelphia’s 100th Annual Competition. Additional highlights include a one-person exhibition at the Lawrence Center in Lawrence, Kansas and the featured artist in The Royal Botanical Garden’s Annual Exhibition, Of Wonders Wild and New. Walker’s recent works have also been included in Resilience, a curated exhibition at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, MN; The Biennale Internationale d’estampe contemporaine in Trois-Riviere Quebec; and The Guanlan International Print Biennial in Shenzhen, China. She is currently making eight-foot wide woodcuts in the squirrelled away time between parenting four and seven year old children with her partner.
Johanna Winters (MFA ‘18), who previously taught at Indiana University, recently accepted a tenure track faculty position at Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA where she is developing an interdisciplinary time-based sculpture curriculum. HAAG CYKELL, an ongoing collaborative shadow theater performance created with Iowa–based interdisciplinary artist Sarah Minor, was presented at Day Party, a new media festival in Iowa City. The work explores contemporary themes of isolation, longing, the Midwestern landscape, and the gendered experience of aging. Winters’ short film HOWW TO WAYT screened at the Wide Open Experimental Film Festival in Oklahoma City this April and was featured this July in GRRL HAUS CINEMA’s program Soft Magic: 12 Short Films Rooted in Ritual, Folklore, the Body, and Ancestral Memory in Berlin. This summer she was an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
Erin Wohletz (MFA ‘21) is the Assistant Professor of Art – Printmaking at the University of South Dakota. This year they had solo exhibitions at IPSO Gallery in Sioux Falls and the Oak Room Gallery at the University of Northern Colorado and a two-person exhibition at Constellation Studios in Lincoln, Nebraska. They were a visiting artist at the University of Texas, Permian Basin, the University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Additionally, this summer they will be teaching photolithography at Frogman’s Print Workshop in Iowa City.
News from the Printshop
Elysia Mann (MFA ’17), is the studio technician for 2D programs in the School of Art, serving printmaking, photography, painting and drawing. She is active with community-engaged programming and is a resident artist at Relay Ridge in Knoxville.
In the Fall our graduate students presented a group exhibition “Pressure Points” at the TVUUC Gallery in Knoxville. During the 2025-2026 academic year our graduate students presented five one-person exhibitions (not including MFA shows) and participated in 43 group or juried exhibitions, including 10 national-level exhibitions.
Faculty News
J. Leigh Garcia served as juror for PrintHouston’s Press Forward exhibition in Houston, TX and gave a papermaking demonstration, Cricut® Cut Stencils, at the North American Hand Papermakers’ Conference in Minneapolis, MN. Additionally, she exhibited her work in Michoacán, Mexico; Chicago, IL; Sedalia, MO; Seattle, WA; Austin, TX; Staten Island, NY; Waco, TX; Knoxville, TN; and as part of the Nexo Entre Raíces exhibition at the Janet Turner Museum of Printmaking in Chico, California. She ended the school year a month early to welcome her and her husband’s second baby boy, Denton Luís Ryan.
Beauvais Lyons completed his third year as Divisional Dean for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. He exhibited at two different one-person exhibitions last fall in Indiana; “The Association for Creative Zoology” at Purdue Universality in West Lafayette; and “See to Believe: Circus Orbis” at Art Link in Ft. Wayne. His work was included in “Expanding the Field: New Ideas in and Beyond Print,” organized for the California Society of Printmakers at the Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA. Beauvais chaired a session on “Anthropomorphisms” at the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), Cincinnati, OH; on “Connecting Campus Initiatives Through Arts Programing” at the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS), St. Louis, MO; and presented “The Repatriation of a Centaur” for the session “Intersections of Art and Law,” at the College Art Association, Chicago, IL. In June he taught a workshop on pop-up books at Shakerag in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Althea Murphy-Price recently concluded an incredible year-long sabbatical, made possible by the generous support of her departmental colleagues. This dedicated time allowed for extended studio work and significant international travel, including a research trip to the British Museum in London and participation in the Artifacts of Black Culture Conference in Crato, Brazil. In the studio, she completed two new large-scale, 3D-printed sculpture projects for the Hunter Invitational V at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga (January 31 – April 26). She also completed an IEA artist residency at Alfred University in February. Other highlights from the year include serving as a visiting artist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign—hosted by Emmy Lingscheit and Guen Montgomery—and spending precious quality time with children and family. Ida (14), will begin high school this fall, and Emery (11), just started middle school. altheamurphyprice.com
Koichi Yamamoto led a workshop last summer with Honolulu Printmakers in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. That same time, the collaboration exhibition with Sally French was presented at Haleleʻa Gallery in Hanalei, Hawaiʻi. His work was also included in several juried exhibitions, including the “29th Parkside National Print Exhibition” at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside and the “Third Coast Biennial” at K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi, Texas. In February, he was invited as a speaker and presenter at Print Austin in Austin, Texas, and delivered a virtual lecture for the AART 2nd International Anadolu Art Symposium in Turkey. In March, he was a visiting artist and gave public lectures at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His kite work will also be included in invitational group exhibitions at the Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese, North Carolina, and at East Carolina University. He will be exhibiting and taking part in the Visualizing Climates of Health symposium in Edmonton, Canada this September. @koichi_yamamoto
