WAM Collective is now accepting applications for Fall 2016 membership! This is the perfect opportunity for those interested in planning events inspired by current exhibitions, working closely with arts professionals, collaborating with other student groups, and promoting the museum across the UMN campus.

I visited family in Ann Arbor this past weekend to explore the University of Michigan Museum of Art with my cousins. Some of my first memories at museums are with them, when all I knew was that I liked the echoed quiet and the staged scenes of animals and ancient civilizations. Museums seemed to tell stories to me with a quality non-existent anywhere else. I could look into paintings and learn about ballerinas, or mythology, or places unexplored. I could learn about famous lives and the future. I could ask questions and wonder.

Earlier this week, a friend and fellow undergraduate at the university asked me over text message, “Why do they call the journal the Ivory Tower?” His question echoes ones that we, the staff of Ivory Tower, hear regularly from our student peers.

“Don’t you think that comes off a bit exclusive?”  

“Is the name supposed to be ironic?”

Last Friday, WAM Collective hosted a workshop with local artist, designer, and arts educator Witt Siasoco. Typically his work is inspired by problems within his immediate community, so we asked him to discuss the role of printmaking in activism and communication. His work has appeared in protests, on the lawns of local condemned houses, in rundown suburbs on the verge of gentrification, and also in formal art settings.

When I tell people that I am an Art History major, the most popular response that I get is, “Wow, what inspired you to do that?” I used to trace my interest in art to a class I took in high school. Recently, however, I realized that my inspiration to study art was with me since the moment I was born.