Micaela Sullivan-Fowler is Ebling Library’s (School of Medicine and Public Health) History of the Health Sciences Librarian, Curator of Rare Books & Special Collections, Head of Marketing & Communications and her visual art and writings published in Corpus Callosum are Lit (Spring 2021), and Still: Immigrants on an Atlantic Liner, 1906 (Spring 2022).
Editor’s note: the term art below can apply to written and/or visual work.
Question 1: What drew you to writing and painting and what is your background in it?
Sullivan-Fowler: I’ve been drawing, painting, hand lettering, paper making, papier mâché, embroidery, photographing…for as long as I can remember. Not until I curated an art show at Ebling for the annual conference of The Guild of Scientific Illustrators did I finally start taking art classes, mainly watercolor and oil painting. One of the artists, looking at my very bohemian, textured, lots to look at office, suggested that I had the observation skills and the esthetic, I just needed to learn some mechanics, to put a medium to paper. And so, I began to draw and paint with formal instruction.
Question 2: What motivates you to create and what inspires your art?
Sullivan-Fowler: That’s for the painting I have done, for the writing, well, I recall suggesting (when going beyond community college) to my parents, that I always wanted to be an artist, a writer if truth be told. They wondered what I could pursue to earn a living. Sigh. Library Science and Public History turned into a wonderful career (that often-included writing), indeed, a calling, but still…what about creative writing? I have taken a couple of online courses with poet, Nadia Colburn, who encourages the writer to couple mediation with their writing practice and has great prompts from established writers for inspiration. I currently belong to a writer’s group, called Spill, an extraordinary group of women who write together, once a month. We get a prompt from our founder, Betsy Delzer, usually a poem or piece of inspirational writing, respond for 20-30 minutes in our journals, then read our responses out loud to the group. That sharing of often intimate, layered thoughts and emotions has helped me grow as a writer, that, and routine journaling. Practice, practice, just like a sport, music or any other hobby. Betsy just started a podcast, called By Firelight. She discusses the creative process, featuring heart-expanding conversations with inspiring guests, prompting the listener to follow their own artistic paths. By Firelight: perhaps Corpus readers will find a bit of magic there.
Question 3: Do you have any favorite artists/writers or art/writings that have influenced you and who/what are they?
Sullivan-Fowler: Countless artists, a rather eclectic group! Seventeenth century painters, Jan Vermeer, and Clara Peeters. Georgia O’Keefe, Hilda Wilkinson Brown, the quilts of Bisa Butler, and an extraordinary Western painter, Oleg Stavrowsky. The first time I saw his “The Raid” in Boulder, Colorado, I thought I’d never recently seen that much power in a painting. The horses nearly life size, the rifles blazing, the great swathes of color in the sky! I later learned that he listened to jazz when he painted. Amazing!
Writers, perhaps too many to count, but John Steinbeck and Truman Capote from high school on, continue to resonate. I read them every couple of years, trying to recall what I found so compelling decades ago, and still continue to find revealing and impactful. I was influenced back in the day by May Sarton, Toni Morrison, John McPhee, James Baldwin, Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Lamott. Newer voices like poet Rudy Bankston and essayists, Aimee Nezhukumatathih (I had to look up the spelling!), C.J. Hauser and Catherine Raven come to mind. Local poets, like Katrin Talbot and Andrea Potos love language and storytelling. Their poems are stunning in their capture of the texture, tension and tenacity inherent in nature, mothers, swimmers and Brussel sprouts!
Question 4: How do you balance your art with the rest of responsibilities in your life and does art help you in those other arenas of your life?
Sullivan-Fowler: The only thing I currently have time for in art is hand lettering on the occasional greeting card envelope. But I love that medium and it’s an excuse to purchase Micron thin tipped markers, so that’s not a bad thing. Writing, I still try to jot down a few observations every day, especially bits of dialog I hear walking through the hospital, on the bus, in the line at Aldi. While lettering (or when I was painting) the immersion into deciding on pens, paint colors, brush strokes, mixing colors etc., always transports me, however briefly, calms me so that whatever I was worried about before, is somehow a bit more considerate, a bit easier to handle.
Question 5: What is next for your art (anything you are working on now or planning to)?
Sullivan-Fowler: I am retiring in December, from a career I, frankly, adore. People ask what I will do with my unfettered time. I’ve now taken to answering “what am I NOT going to do!” Painting and writing are on the top of the list. And where will the inspiration come from? Some of the illustrated rare and historical books I didn’t have time to properly appreciate, my four grandchildren, my garden, travel in a restored 1967 Bambi Air Stream (first I must find one), catching up with friends and family. All the things. And I want to learn to use tools, my husband can weld, saw, sand, drill, route, and wire. If I can learn all that I can make birdhouses, paint them with whimsical characters, load them in the Bambi and sell them at craft fairs. Haha…sounds like a plan!
Question 6: Do you have any advice for anyone curious or interested in getting into art who hasn’t before?
Sullivan-Fowler: Oh goodness, take a class, there are many offered through UW (the Hoofer Club), or through someplace like the Madison Public Library or the Monroe St. Art Center. Just start. It’s probably like knitting, though I don’t knit. Something about the one with the most yarn wins (even if you’re not actually producing anything). Same with drawing and painting. Learn about ALL THOSE supplies, buy a few (you don’t really need many) and start. It is the finest thing to make things, share the results. It is truly therapeutic- and that’s why we are all in the health sciences, yes. To heal or help heal. Art/writing helps.