Category: Faculty Story

As the 2026-27 school year begins, the University of Arizona School of Art welcomes director Jeff Beekman and six other new faculty and staff members:

• Andrea Allen, Assistant Professor
• Kerri Conlon, Assistant Professor
• Isabella Shey Robbins, Assistant Professor
• Pete Froslie, Professor
• Nicole Dvorak, Academic Advisor
• Andrew Schroeder, Technician

Here’s a look at the school’s new faces.

Jeff Beekman

Position: Director, School of Art; Professor, Photography, Video & Imaging

Bio:  Beekman took over as director of the School of Art on July 1, bringing nationally recognized leadership as the school nears its centennial in 2027. He came to the U of A from Florida State University, where he chaired the Department of Art since 2023 and held other roles since 2013, including associate chair and director of Foundations and BA programs. As a community steward, he received an Emerging Arts Administrators Fellowship by the National Council of Arts Administrators. Previously, Beekman taught at the University of Oklahoma, Georgia Southern University and the University of New Mexico-Gallup. He received his BFA from the University of Florida and his MFA from the University of New Mexico. As an artist, he has focused his work “on our relationship with the landscapes we occupy,” including lens-based projects in recent years. He has exhibited broadly across the U.S. and internationally at venues in New Zealand, Australia, China, South Korea, Hungary, England, Ecuador, Italy and Vietnam. In his work, Beekman has explored human and environmental trauma, including the “Florida Coastline Project” and the “Battlefield Project,” which photographically explores conflict sites in the U.S. Civil War with archival photos of soldiers projected upon the battlefields where they fought and fell.

Quote: “I have a deep love for the American West. Joining a school the caliber of the University of Arizona and working with a faculty as dynamic and well-respected as those in the School of Art is truly exciting.”— Jeff Beekman

Website and Instagram: https://jeffbeekman.wixsite.com/home and @jeffbeekman

Andrea Allen

Position: Assistant Professor, Art & Visual Culture Education

Bio: Allen comes from Michigan State University, where she was an assistant professor of Art Education and the undergraduate program coordinator. She is an interdisciplinary artist-educator and scholar specializing in social justice art teaching, identity development, and decolonial methodologies in visual arts education and research. Her scholarship has been published in leading art education journals, including Studies in Art Education and the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. She has presented her work at numerous state and national conferences and serves as program chair for the Inquiry in Visual and Performing Arts Education Special Interest Group within the American Educational Research Association. Allen has over a decade of teaching experience spanning community arts centers, museums, and K-16 classrooms across Texas, New York, Japan and New Zealand. She earned her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Art Education from the University of Houston in 2023, where she also completed her MEd and BA in Broadcast Journalism.

Quote: “In my teaching, research and artmaking, I draw from the concept of nepantla, a Nahuatl term meaning ‘the place in the middle,’ as articulated by poet-activist Gloria Anzaldúa. From nepantla, my identities as Mexican, Filipino, American, Woman, Artist, Scholar and Teacher interact to challenge my internalized beliefs about what it means to embody these roles.” — Andrea Allen

Website and Instagram: andreaeallen.com and @teetasdoodles

Kerri Conlon

Position: Assistant Professor, 3D & Extended Media

Bio: Conlon’s large-scale sculptural installations fuse the ornamental with the structural to explore the intersections of construction, both architectural and cultural, investigating how identity and space are shaped by structures that are at once physical and ideological. 

She received her MFA in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art in 2019 and her BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. She has exhibited nationally, with recent solo exhibitions including Permission Structures at Cal Poly University Art Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA and Upholding at Bass and Reiner in San Francisco, CA. Her work has also been shown in New York, NY; Providence, RI; and Ferguson, MO. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Lighthouse Works Fellowship (2023) and the Fannie B. Pardee Prize for Excellence in Sculpture (2019).  

Conlon was previously a Lecturer in the Art and Art History Department at Stanford University. She is the co-founder of Hunt Projects, a shared studio space in San Francisco that provides artists with private studios and a communal wood and metal shop for material exploration and dialogue. She has worked in academic shop spaces since 2007, teaching students the conceptual and technical skills necessary to translate ideas into physical form.

Quote: I believe that making is a way of knowing and fosters agency in students through hands-on engagement with materials and processes.” — Kerri Conlon

Website and Instagram: kerriconlon.com and @kerriconlonstudio

Isabella Shey Robbins

Position: Assistant Professor, Art History

Bio: Robbins is a Diné scholar, curator and educator from Cameron, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. She received her PhD in the History of Art and American Studies departments at Yale University in May 2026. Her dissertation, “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space and Transit in Global Contemporary Art,” considers how artists engage with their own communities and others within and across the settler states of the U.S. and Australia.Guiding her research are questions related to definitions of Indigeneity, and the intersections of mobility, diaspora, and global Indigeneity.

She recently completed the second and final year of her prestigious Chester Dale Fellowship in Washington, D.C., with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts — the National Gallery of Art’s world-renowned research institute. Robbins has held curatorial positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the Cantor Arts Center, and has taught contemporary art history and theory courses at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Robbins earned a BA in Art History from Stanford University and an MA in Public Humanities from Brown University. She serves as treasurer of the Diné Studies Association.

Quote: “(My) dissertation more broadly considers the meaningful engagements of specific places and their peoples, symbols of Indianness, and the repetition of cultural and aesthetic practices by artists.”

Instagram: @isabella.shey

Pete Froslie

Position: Professor, Photography, Video & Imaging; associate dean for research and graduate studies, College of Fine Arts

Bio: Froslie, whose research focuses on the intersection of human-made technological systems, art and culture, is also the new associate director of AI and the Arts within the University of Arizona’s Office of Responsible AI. He has long been fascinated with the relationship between global political and economic structures and emerging issues of climate and environmental change. He joins the U of A from the University of Oklahoma, where he was associate dean for technology and grants of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, the Director of the School of Visual Arts, and Professor of Art, Technology and Culture.

He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt) and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada-Reno. As part of his art practice, Froslie’s recent work includes three expeditions to the Arctic Circle in the Svalbard archipelago in 2017, 2019, and 2024. 

Quote: “You can feel the energy around the arts at the University of Arizona. The Arizona Arts community engages urgent environmental and social questions, and there’s a genuine commitment to interdisciplinary work.” — Pete Froslie

Website and Instagram: froslie.net and @petefroslie

Nicole Dvorak

Position: Undergraduate academic advisor

Bio: Dvorak previously was an academic advisor at Pima Community College in Tucson and Columbia College in Denver. Before that, she taught World History and Reading in the Orange County Public Schools District in Apopka, Florida. She received her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Teaching from the University of Central Florida. Nicole was born outside of Chicago, but moved to Orlando, Florida, when she was in the third grade.

Quote: “I consider teaching and academic advising to be closely related. There are many transferable skills of teaching that carry into the academic advising world, such as student mentoring and counseling in both academic and personal capacities, using data to drive practices, and helping students navigate their educational journeys. Both careers are rewarding as my main goal is helping students be successful and achieve their goals.”

Instagram: @nicole_dvorak

Andrew Schroeder

Position: Technician for Print, Publishing and Book Arts

Background: Schroeder grew up in Nebraska and received his BFA in Printmaking from the University of Nebraska, before getting his MFA in Printmaking and Photography from the University of Minnesota. Initially torn between art, geography and sociology, he studied printmaking at Nebraska under Karen Kunc, “who showed me that visual art could be the umbrella under which I could explore all three,” he said. For the last three years, he was the College of Fine Arts photography lab manager at the University of New Mexico. Among his previous roles, he was a program coordinator at the University of Arizona Faculty Center and at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Quote: “I’m thrilled to join the School of Art because this role lets me combine my passion for technical practice with my love of typography and printmaking. I want to dive into the extensive and incredibly diverse collection of wooden and metal type in the letterpress area, ensuring students and faculty can fully leverage it while also researching the typographic history of these objects. I’m also eager to expand our workflows using the Risograph, especially developing methods for reproducing photographs via halftones on the machine … something I’m excited to learn and share with the community. … My approach to this role is about facilitating art-making and helping students produce their best work.”

Website and Instagram: andrewschroeder.net and @eigengrau_photo

Dr. Geneva Foster Gluck, a School of Art adjunct instructor and alumna, has received a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award along with six other University of Arizona faculty members for the 2026-27 academic year.

Foster Gluck will be based in Spain’s Catalonia region from September to May to develop a creative research project that combines energy humanities with applied art, theater and scenography as tools for promoting behavioral change related to climate change.

As part of the Fulbright Postdoctoral Research Award, she’ll work with environmental scientist Maria Heras at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona on a series of immersive art and educational encounters that coalesce research questions and findings unique to Spain’s progressive energy, as well as the entangled legacies of colonialism, energy systems and cultural transformation.

“This was my first (Fulbright) application … and I really look forward to working with Maria and with all the great energy and sustainability projects that are taking place in Spain,” Foster Gluck said. “By taking an interdisciplinary approach to energy humanities, theater and design, my research contributes insights into our daily interactions with energy, diversifies perceptions of energy and devises actions for generative possibilities on a warming planet in the form of public-facing, immersive and interactive experiences.”

She has explored similar environmental themes specific to Tucson and the borderlands in projects such as her site-specific performance “Inheriting the Void” (2026), at the base of Tumamoc Hill, and “Interactive Batteries” (2024) in the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” exhibition at the school’s Joseph Gross Gallery.

U of A has long Fulbright history

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. State Department’s flagship cultural exchange program that supports U.S. scholars conducting research or teaching abroad for up to a year. Since 1954, more than 300 Fulbright Scholars have represented the University of Arizona at institutions around the world, including seven in 2026-27 and seven in 2025-26, when U of A was named a top Fulbright producer and tied for fourth in the nation.

Since 2024, Foster Gluck has taught “Career Development for Artists” at the School of Art, where she received her BFA in 1999.

“I really enjoy teaching … and find it very satisfying to think about how to have sustainable arts practices, while expanding creative culture, such as art-as-research and community engagement,” she said. “Each semester is very different as each cohort of students brings new questions and perspectives on making a living as an artist.”

During her time in Spain, Foster Gluck will continue to teach her career development class online.

“I look forward to sharing some of what I learn about how Spain supports artists, its creative culture and economies,” she said. “The online format will also give me more time to work one-on-one with students and to support their unique visions and aims.”

Immersive theater, circus skills part of BFA years

During her undergraduate time at U of A, Gluck became a core member of Tucson-based Flam Chen Pyrotechnic Theatre, where she was responsible for introducing aerial circus skills and interactive sculpture into the company’s performance repertoire. Flam Chen performed at New York City and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals in 2001 and 2002.

After Gluck earned her M.A. in Scenography at the University of London in 2003, she went on to work with some of the UK’s most successful contemporary and immersive theater companies, including Fevered Sleep (2003), Marisa Carnesky (2004), and SHUNT (2005), before establishing her own company, Sugar Beast Circus, in 2007. The circus received professional acclaim, including the Jeunes Talents Cirque Award (2008), a residency at The Roadhouse (2010), a Circus Futures award (2011) and a premiere at the prestigious London International Mime Festival (2012).

“My work centers on immersive event-production, creative research, and material storytelling to explore a range of topics and experiences often grounded in decolonizing, feminist, and ecological approaches,” Gluck said. “I use a range of creative practices including performance, prop-making, video and sound installation to explore the connections between ways of knowing, environment and embodied experience.”

In 2020, Gluck completed a practice-led PhD program at Arizona State University titled, “Performing the Electrical or My Heart is an Electromagnetic Chamber: Scenographies of Power, Ecology and Speculative Practice.” Her research integrated performance studies, spatial theory and energy humanities to consider the ways that new knowledge is created and shared through artist led projects.

Now based in Tucson, Gluck is co-founder of Snakebite Creation Space, a platform for supporting performance, installation and process-based work in Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico. Her other shows included “Magnetic Chamber” (2022) at Pidgin Palace Arts, and “Battery Maker Museum” (2020), a month-long installation and nomadic storytelling project at the MSA Annex in west downtown.

Tumamoc project involves community

In early April, Gluck presented “Inheriting the Void,” a performance-installation and video essay, at the base of Tumamoc Hill. Loosely based on Gluck’s experience caring for her mother during her rapid onset of dementia, as well as larger themes of the climate crisis and mental health, the performance invited community members to scan a QR code on their phones for a 15-minute audiovisual story, using headphones.

She invited visitors to witness a speculative interaction between a bear and a ventriloquist that asks: “On whose behalf do we speak? What is the relationship between memory and knowledge? And who or what speaks through our actions?”

“I thought it was going to be much more of a traditional performance, but I was really pleased with the way the ‘narrative’ divided across the live installation, the site and the video essays,” she said. “I have used phone technologies before for site-specific and nomadic storytelling, but this was a little different, and the ways that the audience engaged with the work was really fun to see.”

The event was made possible by a MOCA Tucson Night Bloom Award and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

• Artist’s website: www.genevafostergluck.com
• Instagram: @genevagluck
• Story about Maria Heras: “Art can help us reconnect with ourselves, with the environment, with otherness”

Internal support is available for prospective Fulbright Scholar and Specialist applicants. For more information, contact Danielle Barefoot, dbarefoot@arizona.edu, associate for International Research Development and the university’s Fulbright Scholar liaison.

By Dr. Ilayda Altuntas

(Editor’s note: Reflecting on the Saturday Art School as a dynamic site of learning, mentorship and community, Altuntas first published this essay in the National Art Education Association’s Spring 2026 newsletter. An assistant professor in Art & Visual Culture Education for the School of Art, she is chair of the Seminar for Research in Art Education, or SRAE.)

On Saturdays, our campus at the University of Arizona feels unfinished. The lights are on, but the energy hasn’t arrived yet. The roads are empty, the air still. Opening the art studio at 7:30 a.m., there’s always a split second of doubt—and then the day begins. For years, Saturday Art School has been part of my professional life—I’ve moved through Saturday Art School in stages—first as a preservice teacher, then as a classroom instructor, later as a supervisor, and now as program coordinator.

Each role changed what I paid attention to, and in doing so, changed how I understand art education. As a teacher, my focus was the child in front of me. As a supervisor, I listened for how others were learning to teach. Now, as coordinator, I hold the broader structure: I oversee curriculum, supervise preservice teachers, teach when needed, manage enrollment, coordinate events, place students in classes, and handle the logistics that make the program function. What might be several positions elsewhere converges here, requiring both pedagogical vision and sustaining the program’s structure.

I still remember the early mornings as a beginning teacher: tables waiting, art materials untouched, fluorescent light pooling in the corners of the room. Then the shift—conversations, laughter, footsteps, the sound of paint lids popping open. I didn’t yet have the language for what I was experiencing, but I felt it: Teaching was not simply delivery of content. It was relational. Sensory. Affective.

Over time, I began to understand what many of us in art education come to realize: The classroom is not static. It breathes. It absorbs. It echoes. Teaching requires attention not only to curriculum, but to atmosphere—to the subtle shifts in energy, the quiet pause before a student shares, the vulnerability embedded in making.

Years later, when I returned as a supervisor, the space felt familiar, yet my role had changed. I stood at the back of the room listening. The rhythm was different: preservice teachers navigating uncertainty, children responding in unpredictable ways. Supervision became its own form of practice—less about directing, more about attuning. Feedback required resonance rather than authority.

Now, as coordinator, I encounter Saturday Art School as both program and archive. Shelves hold years of student work. Lesson plans evolve. Cohorts shift. But what persists is harder to document. The archive lives in gesture—in the way teachers lean toward a child’s drawing, in the instinct to offer “You can start over,” in the quiet choreography of care that unfolds each week.

Saturday programs occupy a unique place in our field. They exist between university and community, between child and teacher education, between structure and improvisation. They are voluntary spaces. Chosen spaces—and I think that difference matters.

Without the urgency of weekday systems, experimentation feels possible. Preservice teachers try, adjust, and reflect. Children encounter art as process rather than performance. Families enter university spaces not as observers, but as participants in a shared learning ecology.

For those of us in SRAE, programs like Saturday Art School invite us to reconsider where research happens. Not all inquiry begins in a journal. Some of it unfolds in repetition—returning to the same studio each week, noticing how bodies remember, how community forms through rhythm.

As I revisit my own years within this program, I see Saturday not as a side project, but as a living continuum of practice. A place where teaching is rehearsed, revised, and remembered. A site where care accumulates quietly.

Sometimes the most enduring archives in art education are not stored in boxes or databases. They are carried in posture, in listening habits, in the shared tempo of a room that gathers again and again.

And on Saturdays, that gathering continues.

Wildcat Saturday Art School

• About: Wildcat Saturday Art School is a hands-on art education program designed for K–6 students. Courses are led by pre-service teachers in the School of Art’s Art & Visual Culture Education program, each bringing their own artistic perspective and teaching approach.
• Open Studios: On the final day, April 25, 2026, families are invited to a special event from noon to 2 p.m. at the University of Arizona School of Art.
• Website: wildcat.art.arizona.edu/

School of Art Assistant Professor Nicole Antebi has been awarded a prestigious MacDowell Fellowship to work on an animated essay that will explore “the hug” — both visually and textually as a gesture that “is as complex as it is political,” she said.

Antebi is among 135 artists across seven disciplines chosen from a pool of over 2,600 applicants for the spring/summer 2026 season at MacDowell — the nation’s first artist residency program, founded in 1907. She’ll be working on her project March 16-30 at its historic campus in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

“I’m really looking forward to this opportunity,” said Antebi, part of the school’s Illustration, Design & Animation program. “The project I will be working on … will focus on four consequential hugs that took place in El Paso, Texas, from 2019 to 2025, which demonstrate the restorative love of a border city perpetually traumatized by federal policies.”

Context for her animated essay, she said, will begin with the dismantling of “Hugs not Walls,” a Border Network for Human Rights initiative that began in 2016 that let families who could not visit each other because of their immigration status to meet in the middle of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) River once a month to embrace.

Makeshift platforms on the river allowed families wearing different T-shirts — one color for those on the U.S. side and another for those in Mexico — to hug without fear of deportation or any other repercussions. The events were hosted in partnership with the Border Patrol, the International Boundary and Water Commission and the El Paso and Juárez police departments. The initiative was cancelled May 10, 2025, on Mexican Mother’s Day, because the Trump administration had designated a second stretch of the border as a National Defense Area to enforce immigration laws, according to news reports.

Sama Alshaibi, a Regents professor from the University of Arizona School of Art, was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship last year.

Also offering a fall/winter season, MacDowell hosts 300 fellows annually from around the world, including architects, composers, filmmakers, interdisciplinary artists, theater artists, visual artists and writers.

Antebi and others “will be granted the gift of uninterrupted focus,” supported by a private studio, accommodations and three prepared meals each day, according to the residency’s website, macdowell.org.

“MacDowell is a safe haven for artists from around the world,” said Courtney Bethel, the program’s admissions director. “In the current political climate, it’s especially meaningful to create opportunities for artists to build connections and foster community at both the national and global levels.”

In 2025, Antebi was named an Early Career Scholar Award recipient by the University of Arizona for her cross-cultural work that centers on animation as a form of community-engaged storytelling. She is co-director of the Wonder Studio at Biosphere 2, which serves as an animation, data visualization and film production laboratory dedicated to developing solutions for environmental change. 

“Nicole is an amazing teacher who encourages her students to build better communities through storytelling, animation and collaboration,” said Professor Kelly Leslie, who chairs the School of Art’s Illustration, Design and Animation program.

For this year’s Spring Summer session, MacDowell received applications from artists in all 50 U.S. states along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and 71 countries. Accepted artists represent 27 states, 16 countries and five continents.

Founded by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian MacDowell, the MacDowell program was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997. Over the past 119 years, more than 16,500 residencies have been awarded to distinguished artists such as James Baldwin, Charlie Kaufman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Louise Erdrich, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ayad Akhtar, Laura Poitras, Faith Ringgold, Meredith Monk, Osvaldo Golijov, Sam Grabiner, Ersela Kripa, Alyson Shotz, Maya Ciarrocchi, and jaamil olawale kosoko.

“I am once again in awe of the remarkable talent arriving on our grounds this spring and summer,” said Chiwoniso Kaitano, MacDowell’s executive director. “Representing … an extraordinary breadth of ideas, these artists — at every stage of their careers—are true groundbreakers. It is a deep honor for MacDowell to play even a small role in the impact our Fellows have on art and culture.”

More about Nicole Antebi

• Early Career Scholar story: art.arizona.edu/antebi-receives-early-scholar-award
• Artist’s website: nicoleantebi.com
• School of Art bio: art.arizona.edu/profile/nantebi
  

School of Art alumni are remembering Professor Emerita Bailey “Peggy” Doogan as the University of Arizona Museum of Art celebrates the late artist with an exhibition that highlights her life’s work.

In “Bailey Doogan: Ways of Seeing,” on view until April 4, 2026, 80 selections from each phase of Doogan’s career are being displayed together for the first time, highlighting her artistic processes and evolution.

After obtaining a BFA in Illustration from the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Doogan began her career as a graphic designer. Among her most well-known designs is the Morton Salt Girl, “Mortie,” an iconic symbol of the brand that remains mostly unchanged today — and one that the artist later reimagined in the large pastel drawing, Pour It On (1998). Her early work shows the influence of her design background, as well as the pressures she faced as a woman in a largely male-dominated industry.

In 1969, Doogan moved to Tucson to teach graphic design at the University of Arizona. She was promoted to Professor of Design, Painting and Drawing in 1982 after receiving her Master’s in Animated Film from UCLA. Much of Doogan’s 1980s work features bright colors and cartoon-like figures as seen in If You Can Scream Loud Enough You Get Hopp’in Mad (1982).

At the end of the decade she began creating her signature works focused on the human body. Detailed and visceral, these drawings and paintings interrogate traditional artistic conventions of female beauty by centering the aging female body, a subject which has been largely avoided in Western art and popular culture.

In works like RIB (1988-1989) and Self-Exam (2003-2005), Doogan explained she was not aiming to depict “The Nude” or “The Figure.” Rather, “I deal with the real body,” she said. “Our bodies are diaries of our experience. Whatever happens to us is recorded there: wrinkles, scars, the way we stand. That specificity fascinates me. I think it’s beautiful.” Doogan often painted her own body at a monumental size and in great detail, drawing attention to aspects of the female form that society often shies away from.

Doogan retired from the School of Art in 1999 and became a professor emerita of Painting and Drawing. She remained a vital part of Tucson’s arts community and a driving force in the downtown arts scene before her death in July 2022 at age 80.

“With powerful imagery, combining bite and humor, she called out sexism and misogyny in academia as well as in the Tucson art community and the art world,” School of Art Professor Ellen McMahon said in the school’s website obituary for Doogan. McMahon took three classes from Doogan while a graduate student at the University of Arizona.

Other former students remembered Doogan as the UAMA exhibition opened on Jan. 17:

Eve Calderaro
BFA ’98, Studio Art
Art teacher, K-8, New Jersey

Bailey was a painting professor during my time as an art student at UA and I took one of her classes. I remember her very distinctly. She was sharp, sassy and undeniably talented. Her work wasn’t easy to look at and I think that was very much the point. She wasn’t easy … or afraid of being honest in her work and in life. 

She told us about designing the Salty Girl logo in her early graphic design days. To this day, I keep a Salty Girl label pinned at my desk…in my art class where I am an Art teacher myself, K-8 public school in New Jersey.  She made us get custom sheets of glass as our palettes for oil painting and she always told us how she liked the empty jars from her martini olives to clean her brushes. 

As an artist, I take these little pieces with me on the journey and I’m grateful to have had exposure to someone like Peggy Bailey Doogan. I can think of other teachers who were more likeable or supportive in general, but there was a motivating factor and daring that came from Bailey.  She was staring you down and not taking anyone’s excuses.  Challenge accepted, thank you, for being you, exactly as you were.  RIP and I’m so happy to see your life’s work recognized.

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Chris Carls
MFA ’98, Studio Art
Art Director, Cirrus Visual, Tucson

Margaret Bailey “Peggy” Doogan is most famously known as the designer of the Morton Salt Girl, but I remember her as an incredible painter and teacher. She was on my Masters of Fine Arts panel and I had a few classes with her. I was her assistant in the Advanced Painting class my final year, and was also her intern for a summer at the Anderson Ranch Arts School in Snowmass, Colorado. I even worked around her house, helping with various projects. After graduation, I’d visit and take her out to lunch since she lived close to work.

I loved her straight-forward talk. She was a true badass, and one helluva strong lady that would take no $hit. But she always had a precious smile to share.

My favorite line is when she’d suggest painting for your favorite part: “If you did it once, you can do it again.”

She fought for us young and dumb artists. She dedicated her life to helping us grow. She inspired me to want to teach so many years ago.

Thank you, Peggy! Miss you!

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Deb Kahn
BFA ’73
Commercial art, Florida

Bailey Doogan was a major influence in my career as I pursued a major in Commercial Art and a minor in Scientific Illustration.

The memory that stands out the most was the time she stopped to talk with me in the hallway. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember the inspiration. It carried me through my lengthy career in Commercial Art.

I understand the title “Ways of Seeing.” I have become legally blind, but still practice my evolving art.

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Tricia Amato
BFA ’86, Studio Art
MA ’07, Art History
tamato design, Phoenix

Peggy, as she was known then, was teaching graphic design and we were so intimidated by her! But she was an amazing teacher, and something she told me has continued to inspire me.

“There are no bad ideas,” she said. “It’s only the execution that can suck.”

So true!

I also remember her telling us that when she interviewed for her academic position, they asked her if she would start crying in front of the class. This was in the late ’60s.

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Mark Fina
BFA ’84, Studio Art
Creative Director, New York City

As a graduate, enthusiastic designer, and artist, I can look back fondly and proudly on the inspiration that Professor Doogan provided for me. She challenged me and instilled in me a drive that propels me every day in my career and creative pursuits. She also ignited the idea of inspiring others, which has led me to become a professor myself. 

Thank you, Professor Doogan. You have given us all so much and enriched our artistic minds, for that we are forever grateful.

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Send us your memories of Professor Emerita Doogan at artinfo@cfa.arizona.edu.

University of Arizona School of Art Professors Amy Kraehe and Ryan Shin have been elected to the National Art Education Association Distinguished Fellows class of 2026 — among only four members nationally chosen for next year’s prestigious award.

“Membership in NAEA Distinguished Fellows is a mark of excellence in art education research and is widely considered one of the highest honors in the field,” Kraehe said. “It serves as a reminder of the opportunities and mentorship I have been given, for which I am immensely grateful.”

Dr. Kraehe and Dr. Shin, part of the school’s Art & Visual Culture Education program, will be honored March 5 at the NAEA national conference in Chicago.

“This recognition not only celebrates my journey thus far,” Shin said, “but it also inspires me to continue advocating for excellence in art education.”

Kraehe, a national leader and researcher in the arts, culture and education, also was selected to serve a four-year term as a Trustee of the National Art Education Foundation. “We are confident that your experience and perspective will be a valuable addition to the Foundation and will contribute meaningly to advancing (our) mission,” said Chris E. Guenter, the foundation’s past chair, said about Kraehe.

She has 25 years of experience in universities, public schools and museums. She has been a part of the College of Fine Arts since 2018 and was named Associate Vice President for Organizational Excellence and Impact at Arizona Arts in 2025. She received the Excellence in Fundraising Award for her contributions to development and advancement at Arizona Arts and garnered the Women of Impact Award from the University of Arizona for driving discovery, interdisciplinary collaboration, community outcomes and the empowerment of others. 

Her writings, podcasts, public lectures and workshops illuminate how sociocultural, economic, and political contexts influence the development of professional identities and organizational capacity within educational and cultural institutions. Kraehe has published four books, and her work appears in the top research journals in her field. She has received numerous grants and professional honors, including the prestigious Manuel Barkan Memorial Award from the National Art Education Association.

Shin’s research focuses on Asian popular media and culture, Asian critical theory and decolonization, global civic engagement, and new media and visual culture. In 2025, he was elected as associate editor for “Studies in Art Education,” a prime national research journal in the field of art education. He will serve two years as associate editor, and automatically move to editor position of the journal in 2027.

He has co-edited several notable books, including The Intersectionality of Critical Identities in Art Education (InSEA, 2024). In 2021, he was honored as the USSEA Kenneth Marantz Distinguished Fellow. His scholarly articles have been published in renowned journals, and he has authored numerous book chapters and presented his work at both national and international conferences.

“We are thrilled that Professors Kraehe and Shin are receiving this fellowship,” said Professor Karen Zimmermann, interim director for the School of Art. “No one is more deserving of this honor than these two. Their significant contributions to the AVCE program at the University of Arizona and to Art Education nationally and internationally are incredible as mentors, researchers and scholars, teachers and colleagues. We are so lucky to have them as part of our community.”

• Dr. Amy Kraehe bio
• Dr. Ryan Shin bio
• National Art Education Association (NAEA)

Alejandro Macias felt a mix of nerves and pride as he introduced his work to actor and Chicano art collector Cheech Marin at a recent exhibition opening. Then Marin smiled and told him something unexpected: He’d dreamed about one of Macias’ paintings the night before.

“I’ll go ahead and take that as a good sign that I’m doing something correctly,” the University of Arizona associate professor said with a laugh.

Macias has been honored for doing a lot of things correctly since joining the School of Art faculty in 2019 as a painting and drawing teacher — including an Arizona Higher Education Award and multiple residencies, fellowships, grants and other awards. The New York Times even used his “American Mexican” painting as a supporting image to Pulitzer-winning opinion writer Carlos Lozada’s Oct. 20 essay, “You Caught Me. I’m Speaking Spanish.”

So far this year, Macias has presented work in six group exhibitions, including “Soy de Tejas: A Statewide Survey of Latinx Art” at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California. It features nearly 40 Chicano and Latinx artists from across Texas and the borderlands like Macias, who was raised near the Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas.

Macias is exhibiting three self-portrait paintings in the show, including the one Marin dreamed about, “Turning Point” — featuring a video loop of Macias’ own navigation across the desert terrain in Mesa, Arizona — along with “Man on Fire (III)” and “Ascension III.”

“I described my work to Cheech as an exploration of identity, assimilation and place,” Macias said, “particularly how the U.S.–Mexico border continues to shape the lives, bodies and narratives of those connected to it.”

Marin rose to fame in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s as part of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong, the television series “Nash Bridges” and the movie “Tin Cup,” filmed in Tubac and Tucson. He established “The Cheech” in 2022 with the Riverside Art Museum as the first North American facility dedicated exclusively to Mexican American and Chicano art — donating his collection of over 700 pieces.

“Meeting Cheech Marin was definitely surreal because I had an opportunity to speak about my work on such a personal level to a cultural icon,” Macias said. “Because he’s such a passionate art collector, he was deeply invested in what the artists had to say.”

Marin did a walk-through with 25 artists in early October, spending several minutes with each.

“Meeting (Macias and) so many talented artists in ‘Soy de Tejas’ was inspiring,” Marin said. “Each one offered a unique perspective on what it means to be connected to Texas and to identity. I was especially struck by the emotional honesty that runs through all of the works.”

That honesty is what sets Macias’ work apart, according to one of his former students, Vanessa Saavedra, a 2025 MFA graduate and now a School of Art adjunct instructor who took over Macias’ painting and drawing classes this semester while he’s on sabbatical.

“His work is visually pleasing, but the content can be challenging or uncomfortable for the viewer,” Saavedra said. “Alex isn’t afraid of criticism or rejection, and that fearlessness is incredibly inspiring. It’s powerful to see someone so grounded in their beliefs and so committed to expressing them for the greater good.”

Macias draws from his personal and regional histories in the borderlands to explore themes of assimilation and migration. His practice integrates traditional rendering, abstraction and multimedia approaches, using the human figure — often himself — as a central point of his works.

“These remain challenging times, but I do still believe that art has the power to foster dialogue, empathy, and understanding, even if the progress seems to be incremental,” Macias said. “My hope is that the work continues to offer a more nuanced, humanized view of the border experience, countering the harmful rhetoric and narratives that often dominate the mainstream. Having hope is the first step and I have plenty of it.” 

Local exhibition has university ties

He and Saavedra are part of a group exhibition at the Tucson Desert Art Museum, “Cruzando La Línea: Contemporary Art in the Borderlands,” through June 27, 2026, alongside School of Art Professor David Taylor and Professor Emeritus Alfred Quiroz.

“We all have a connection to the University of Arizona as either educators or former students, and it feels special to be part of such an esteemed group that has contributed to important local and national conversations about the tensions and complexity of border life,” Macias said. His work in the show stems from his 2024 solo exhibition, “Land of Wolves,” at New York City’s LatchKey Gallery, where he held “a mirror to Border Patrol agents of Mexican descent who have surveilled the borderlands” he said.

Taylor, who is also associate dean of Faculty Affairs for the College of Fine Arts and a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow in photography, has seen Macias’ influence in and out of the classroom.

“Since joining the School of Art, Alex has been an outstanding colleague and teacher,” Taylor said. “His studio practice, which is deeply reflective of both his first-person expertise and research program, complicates and expands upon Latinx representation. Working across painting, drawing and multimedia, his output is innovative while also acknowledging a legible set of influences.”

Saavedra, who grew up in Nogales, Sonora, also received her BFA from the School of Art. She was one of Macias’ first students when he started teaching at Arizona. He also mentored her in Saavedra’s MFA thesis year and hooded her at graduation in May, which Macias called “one of the most significant and important professional moments of my life.”

“Now that both Alex and the university have trusted me to cover his classes during his sabbatical, I can see things from the other side — perhaps how he once saw me — and that makes me even more appreciative of his patience with my process and trajectory,” she said.

Saavedra’s work in the Tucson Desert Art Museum exhibition highlights the complexities of migration and cultural intersection. With her paintings and drawings, she also gives voice to the silenced lives of women across Latin America.

“It’s incredibly fulfilling to see Vanessa contribute to our art community through her own practice,” Macias said. “Her work is meticulous, profound, and is already making an impact in such a short amount of time. … To see her grow in the span of six years makes you realize how important higher education can be.”

Teaching honor ‘means a lot’

Not only did Macias participate in the University of Arizona’s 2024-25 Research Leadership Institute cohort, but he also was honored in late September for his commitment to teaching and mentorship in receiving the Alberto “Tito” Rios Outstanding Literary/Arts Award at the Arizona Higher Education Awards in Tempe.

“Being recognized by peers and institutions that understand the intersection of art, education and community engagement means a lot to me,” Macias said. “I found the whole (Tempe) ceremony to be incredibly overwhelming and emotional because I shared space with educators who dedicated their lives to sharing knowledge with others.”

Through Nov. 29, he’s sharing another space at Tucson’s Etherton Gallery with School of Art Professor Lawrence Gipe and MFA alum Jim Waid. Macias’ solo show, “In the Cases,” includes a variety of drawings and mixed media works from 2017-2025, mostly figurative and on paper, that explore his ongoing interest on the border as “a physical and psychological construct,” Macias said. He added that presenting with Gipe and Waid “has been inspiring, and both artists bring decades of experience and visual language that have contributed to the Tucson community” and elsewhere.

During his sabbatical, Macias is focused on developing new work for more exhibitions, including projects that further integrate painting with video documentation and installation. He’s part of a group exhibition, “The Armor We Wear,” at 516 Arts in Albuquerque, New Mexico, curated by Olivia Amaya Ortiz, a 2018 School of Art BFA graduate. The show, which also includes 2018 BFA alumna Elizabeth Denneau, runs from Nov. 8 to Jan 31.

“My work will continue to explore themes of culture, migration and belonging,” Macias said, “but in a more intimate approach that respectfully documents the lives of people who contribute to their border communities.”

Meanwhile, his paintings will stay on display at the Cheech Center through Jan. 11. Macias’ work also was included in the first two iterations of “Soy de Tejas” in San Antonio and Fort Worth, Texas. He has high praise for the exhibition’s curator, Rigoberto Luna, whose exhibition explores migration, indigeneity, race, gender and mythmaking, while also celebrating the joy, resilience and traditions that define Latinx communities.

“Rigoberto has been building bridges across the coasts of the United States to recognize and uplift artists on a national level,” Macias said. “It’s honestly history in the making.”

Since 2019, Macias has presented his work in at least 65 selected exhibitions across the nation, including six with Luna as a curator. Macias participated in the 2024 Texas Biennial at Sawyer Yards in Houston, the 2024 Border Biennial at the El Paso Museum of Art and the 2023 Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of Art. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Lehmann Emerging Artist award, which included a two-person exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum. He’s held solo shows at Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, Texas; Presa House Gallery in San Antonio; Tucson Museum of Art; and LatchKey in New York.

Macias’ work is included in the permanent collections of the Newark Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, El Paso Museum of Art, University of Arizona Museum of Art (which acquired his first “Man on Fire” painting), Tucson Museum of Art, Mexic-Arte Museum and the Brownsville (Texas) Museum of Art. He participated in notable residencies at Elizabeth Murray in Troy, New York; Vermont Studio Center; Chateau d’Orquevaux in France, Studios at MASS MoCA, Wassaic (N.Y.) Project, CALA Alliance in Phoenix and Uncool Artist in Brooklyn, New York.

“The accolades Alex’s work has received are a clear indication of its significance,” Taylor said. “It’s been a pleasure to see his art career flourish, and we are enormously fortunate to have his influence and mentorship in our program.” 

When Macias returns to the Arizona campus in spring 2026, he can’t wait “to bring these new experiences and perspectives back to the classroom … and to continue guiding students as they find their own voices and purpose as artists,” he said. And in the summer, he will be a workshop instructor in mixed media portraits at North Carolina’s prestigious Penland School of Craft.

“Teaching remains one of the most rewarding parts of my career,” Macias said. “My students’ energy and curiosity constantly reinvigorate my practice and desire to share everything I can.”

• Artist website: alexmaciasart.com
• Instagram account: @alex.macias.art

University of Arizona School of Art faculty members Lawrence Gipe and Alejandro Macias and MFA alum Jim Waid are presenting their artwork at Tucson’s Etherton Gallery from Sept. 23 to Nov. 29.

The opening reception is scheduled Saturday, Sept. 27, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the gallery, 340 S. Convent Ave. A look at the group exhibition:

Lawrence Gipe

Professor, Painting & Drawing
Exhibition title: “Casbah Noir”

In his words: “My latest suite of paintings are derived from screenshots I take from my computer while researching films. Just after World War II, for about 10 years until 1955, Hollywood became enthralled with setting their movies in exotic French colonial contexts, especially North Africa. Starting around 1946, they began to replay the formula of Casablanca over and over in a sub-genre that I call Casbah Noir. My intention with this series is to investigate Hollywood’s role in creating stereotypes that persist in our country’s current perception of that region.

Etherton says: “Lawrence has created a powerful series of paintings that slow the cinematic tempo to reveal the ideological foundations of colonialism embedded in the seductive language of film noir. In these films the Casbah becomes a metaphor for otherness, unknowability, and eroticized danger. Casbah Noir asks how Hollywood’s cinematic myths continue to shape cultural memory and political ideology today.”

Alejandro Macias

Associate Professor, Painting & Drawing
Exhibition title: “In the Cases”

In his words: “My work is mostly figure-based, and I use the figure as a way to respond to my own identity, but also social-political concerns related to the borderlands. In the show, you’ll see a variety of works spanning from like 2018 until 2025. Most of the work will be on paper. I’m interested in paper because of its durability and versatility. I’m interested in like graphite drawing because of its formal qualities, its immediacy, the fact that I can think about like technical aspects of the drawing but also abstract it. … I wanted to point out some of the work because of its color. I’m interested in the serape for its connection to my own Mexican American identity and the way I can also abstract color. And I’m also like interested in paper and in the fact that I can like mount it on panel and I can include a variety of media like found objects and like wood and collage as a way to further abstract the figure, and that it acts as a metaphor as well for my own identity.”

Etherton says: “We’re over the moon to be exhibiting “In the Cases.” … Raised along the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, Macias draws from personal and regional histories to explore themes of assimilation, migration and cultural hybridity. His practice integrates traditional rendering, abstraction, and multimedia approaches, often using the human figure as a central point of his practice.”

Jim Waid

MFA ’71, Painting & Art History, University of Arizona
Exhibition title: “In stars”

In his words: “I chose my title because the In starts are like the intermediate stages of the insect as they’re growing, and each one metamorphoses into a different form. And then finally the caterpillar or the butterfly arrives. And I think of that as having a resonance with the way I paint, because things are always transforming and moving into something else, evolving into something else. And until it reaches that final state, we don’t know what it’s going to look like.”

Etherton says: “Jim is widely regarded as one of Arizona’s most significant painters. For over five decades, he has created stunning, abstract landscapes that translate the desert into densely layered, color-saturated compositions.”

Artist’s websites

• Lawrence Gipe: lawrencegipe.com
• Alejandro Macias: alexmaciasart.com
• Jim Waid: jimwaidartist.com

As the 2025-26 school year begins, the School of Art is welcoming five faculty and staff members to new positions.

Dr. Mont Allen

Position: Assistant Professor of Practice, Art History

Bio: Allen came to the School of Art a year ago as a principal lecturer in Art History before being promoted to a full-time faculty member in July. He teaches courses ranging from ancient Greek and Roman to Renaissance and Baroque art. He is the winner of five teaching awards, including both the Liberal Arts Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award and the Faculty Mentor of the Year Award from Southern Illinois University and the ‘Everyday Hero’ Award from UC Berkeley. With a doctorate in Ancient Art History (UC Berkeley), master’s degrees in the History of Religion (Syracuse University) and Modern European History (UC Berkeley), and a bachelor’s degree in Geography, his interests range widely, from Greco-Roman sculpture and painting, ancient sculptural tools and techniques, and the archaeology of the classical world, to Greek mythology and its visual depictions, early Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist art, and the long history of western art, as well as intellectual history and urban geography.

Quote: “Nothing brings me greater joy than discussing art and sharing ideas with other minds afire in the university classroom.” — Dr. Mont Allen

Okyoung Noh

Position: Assistant Professor of Practice, First Year Experience

Bio: Noh completed her MFA at the University of Michigan, where she served two years as Graduate Student Instructor for the year-long Integrative Project capstone course and was recognized as an Elilse Choy Lee scholar. Noh’s work spans community engagement, performance, video and installation in exploring issues of identity and mis/dislocation related to the experience of Asian women. Her work has been exhibited and/or performed in the U.S. and internationally. She will also be an artist in residence at MASS MoCA.

Quote: ”Informed by her experience in art education, Okyoung invites audiences to participate in and interact with her installations, performances, and discussion-based workshops in order to reflect on questions of immigration, identity, language and value creation.” — Laura Braverman, former Curatorial Assistant of the Museum of Modern Art

Website: oknoh.com

Kaitlyn Jo Smith

Position: Career-track lecturer in Photography, Video and Imaging (PVI)

Bio: The interdisciplinary artist received her MFA in Photography, Video and Imaging from the U of A School of Art and taught courses as an adjunct instructor the last few years. Inspired by a rural upbringing, Smith’s practice explores the intersections between work and worship by considering the implications of automation on labor and religion in relation to America’s working class. Through both traditional photographic means and the implementation of automated technologies and machine learning, her work challenges the authority of algorithms while fostering a dialogue around future applications of artificial intelligence. Smith’s work has been shown nationally and internationally. She is the 2023 recipient of the Alice C. Cole ’42 Fellowship in Studio Art, was longlisted for the 2021 Lumen Prize in Art and Technology (London) and received the College Art Association’s Services to Artists Committee Award for her video Lights Out.

Quote: “Kaitlyn has been a great asset to our extensive image/photography program. She has the ability to uniquely link established artistic techniques with cutting-edge technologies for relevant purposes.” — Sama Alshaibi, Regents Professor

Website: kaitlynjosmith.com

Megan McNulty

Position: Undergraduate Academic Advisor

Bio: McNulty advises majors and minors and prospective students in Studio Art, Art History and Art & Visual Culture Education. From 2022-24, she was a full-time Degree Auditor for various graduate programs (including the School of Art) across the University of Arizona. Originally from Mesa, Arizona, she graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science in May 2022 from the U of A, with a concentration in Law and Public Policy and a minor in Criminology. She received a certificate in Risk Management and Insurance from Rio Salado College in April 2025.

Quote: “I find advising especially rewarding because it allows me to build meaningful relationships with students, meet them where they are, and help them navigate their path towards achieving personal and academic goals.” — Megan McNulty

Ginette Gonzalez

Position: Program Coordinator, Student Services

Bio: Gonzalez supports the school’s advising office, including helping students with internships and independent study. A native Tucsonan, she was the School of Art’s Administrative Associate from 2016 to 2022. She is a first-generation college graduate and earned a BA in Classics in 2012 and an MBA in 2020 from the University of Arizona. She also earned an MA in Classics from Villanova University in 2014.

Quote: “I’m excited to streamline processes in advising to and support the advising office, students and faculty.” — Ginette Gonzalez

• Full School of Art Directory