Jody Clowes is the director of the Academy’s James Watrous Gallery and arts editor for   Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine. Her experience developing and curating exhibits, designing public programs, and writing about art includes senior positions at Milwaukee Art Museum, Detroit’s Pewabic Pottery, and the UW-Madison’s Design Gallery. Jody’s exhibition projects often emphasize connections across disciplines, from environmental concerns to social and economic history, technological change, and the history of craft.

She has a B.A. in Art and Art History from Rutgers University and an M.A. in material culture studies from the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Museum program. An eclectic reader, mad gardener, and stubbornly improvisational cook, Jody is happiest with her hands in the dirt.

Phoenix S. Brown is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Milwaukee, WI. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, she earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a minor in art history. Her work explores themes of empowerment, self-healing, and transformation through mystical imagery, symbolic language, and environments influenced by her upbringing on the cusp of the Midwest and Appalachia. Brown received the 2024 Wisconsin Emerging Artist Achievement Award and was a Mary L. Nohl established fellow finalist. She has participated in residencies at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH), Yale Norfolk School of Art (Norfolk, CT), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). Her work has been exhibited throughout the Midwest and beyond, including solo exhibitions at the Wright Museum of Art (Beloit, WI) and Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI), as well as group presentations at NADA Miami Art Fair, Other Art Fair (Chicago, IL), and Untitled Art Fair (Miami Beach, FL). She is Curator at Bronzeville Center for the Arts in Milwaukee and is an adjunct instructor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.