Student Spotlight February 2023
Donna Charging is a first year MFA student studying Art and Design. You can view her work online at donnacharging.com.
Interview:
Q: What is your educational background?
A: I have a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Q: What brought you to the University of Louisville?
A: I was attracted to the mentorship model of the MFA program. I also liked the idea of a 2-year accelerated option.
Q: What made you go into this field of study?
A: I feel as though I've always been drawing and creating.
Q: How do you think this advanced degree will change your role in society?
A: This degree will qualify me to teach art in spaces beyond the community-based areas to which I've been accustomed while living in NYC.
Q: What are your long term goals and aspirations:
A: I want to be able to make my own work while teaching.
Q: What accomplishment, academic or otherwise, are you most proud of?
A: I believe that real accomplishments are often true contributions that don't require recognition; it's something that everyone can do on a daily basis. I did a lot of volunteer work in New York, but the real value was in the outcome. My last volunteer project involved hand-delivering fresh food to a place where it could be distributed to people in need.
Q: What has been your favorite part of the graduate school experience at UofL?
A: Overall, I love the facilities and the contact with other students and faculty. I have learned so much in my short time here.
Awards, honors, publications:
- Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards and Archibald Cason Edwards Fellowship
Fun Facts:
Favorite book: House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Favorite quote: "The indian is a simulation, the absence of natives; the indian transposes the real, and the simulation of the real has no referent, memories, or native stories. The postindian must waver over the aesthetic ruins of indian simulations." Gerald Vizenor, Fugitive Poses (1998)
Role model: Living artists Phillip Chen or Courtney M. Leonard
Favorite vacation destination: Powwow
If you weren't in graduate school, what would you be doing now? Living in NYC.