Featured Faculty Friday-Michael Flanagan
Mar 1st, 2013 by Ann Ricca
Our Featured Faculty for this Friday just recently curated two exhibits, Prints on Prince and [New Generation], at the Crossman Gallery in the Greenhill Center of the Arts. He’s a long distance runner and he’s been to both Germany and Mexico. Have an idea who it is? It’s Michael Flanagan from the Department of Art and Design! Read on to learn more about him.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I am an army brat and grew up on military bases around the country and also spent four years in Germany when I was in high school. My undergraduate school was Kansas State University and graduate school was Northern Illinois University.
Q: What do you do at UW-Whitewater?
A: I am the director of the Crossman Gallery and teach World of the Arts and Basic Art classes.
Q: What is your favorite thing about UW-Whitewater?
A: I find the university to be a very friendly place; it’s easy to get to know faculty and staff members across the campus.
Q: What are some of your hobbies?
A: I’m a long distance runner and have completed 14 marathons; my wife and I also collect art, mostly works on paper, but also ceramics. We have quite a few folk and outsider pieces in the collection as well.
Q: If you could have any superpower what would it be and why?
A: I always thought being able to fly would be cool – it would cut down my commute time.
Q: What’s the best thing that you have ever done that you suggest others try?
A: I think finishing my first 10K (6.2 miles) race was a blast. It’s very doable. Finishing my first marathon was a lot of fun, but it took a fair amount of time to train.
Q: What’s your favorite movie? Book?
A: I always like the movie, The Commitments, it’s about an Irish soul band. I liked Stephen Ambrose’s book Citizen Soldiers about the second World War and the sacrifices troops from the US made.
Q: What is your best advice for students?
A: Stay in school, go to class; it pays off in the long run.
Q: What’s one thing that you want people to know about you?
A: I really like what I do; I find the gallery a good place to keep myself entertained and I hope others enjoy the exhibits as much as I do.
Want to learn more about him? Flanagan’s bio is below.
Michael Flanagan is currently the Director of the Crossman Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he has been working since 1995. In addition to managing the gallery, he teaches a General Education class and a basic art course in the Department of Art and Design. Flanagan is a member of the Board at the Walker’s Point Center of the Arts where he chairs the Exhibition Committee.
Flanagan has travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico with colleagues from UW-Whitewater to help establish a working relationship with the art department at la Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca (UABJO). They successfully set up an exchange exhibit with the University; examples by faculty, current and former students from Oaxaca were displayed in the Fiskum Gallery in the University Center along with another group displayed at the Whitewater Cultural Arts Center. The follow up exhibit took UW-Whitewater faculty and student work for a display in the UABJO art gallery in October/November of 2009. Plans are underway for a second exhibit at the Museum of Oaxaca Artists and an exhibit on our campus of examples from the many print shops and tallers in Oaxaca in 2011.
He presented “University Museums and Galleries in the Community,” for the Midwest Museum Conference and published an article under the same title for the Midwest Museum Association News Brief. He has also exhibited his own work at the Common Wealth Gallery in Madison, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Gallery 218, the Crossman Gallery at UW-Whitewater, and Walker’s Point Center of the Arts.
Flanagan also does some artwork himself. It can be seen in the Crossman Gallery’s latest exhibit Prints on Prince and [New Generation]. Go and see if you can try and find it!
Thank you for being our Featured Faculty for this Friday Michael Flanagan! Check back next Friday to see our next Featured Faculty!