Eat a Grilled Cheese; Support an Artist, UWM Peck Students Awarded $3,690 in Wisconsin Artist Grant

Peck School of the Arts students Grace Barden and Jaaron Langford won a combined $3,690 from The Grilled Cheese Grant, a fundraiser to support emerging artists and their proposed projects by making grilled cheese sandwiches.

The 11th annual community fundraiser made $13,000 this year with $9,001 set aside for its five finalists, chosen through a jury of creative professionals. Langford won $2,250 in second place and Barden walked away with $1,440 in third place.

The other finalists were Amanda Smithivas, James Kramer and Emmanuel Guerra.

At the event, attendees received a ballot with their $15 sandwich purchase and casted a vote for their favorite artist in a giant cardboard block of cheese. After voting was cut off, each finalist was ranked to determine who would receive the most money.

Aside from the live grilled cheese flipping, attendees enjoyed free activities from community collaborators such as DIY potato stamp making, t-shirt printing, “sculpt your partner’s portrait” out of clay and a butter churning station.

The event was inspired by Sunday Soup, a Chicago program that invites artists to share a bowl of soup, donate food costs and pitch their works in progress over dinner. At the end, everyone votes for the project they think deserves to be supported by the sum of donations.

“We modified that idea and plugged in a Wisconsin-friendly sandwich, the grilled cheese,” said co-organizer Rachel Hausmann before announcing the winner.

Grace Barden is a senior studying Studio Art with a concentration in Jewelry & Metalsmithing. Her work displayed at the event is Time Remains, a series exploring time, natural lineage and grief. She reconstructs heirlooms she has inherited by casting wearable and sculptural objects into a small and large scale.

Barden was inspired when she deconstructed a watch for a previous scholarship event, wanting to further explore the idea of passing down jewelry for generations.

“Something right off the shelf isn’t necessarily an heirloom; you have to go through time for that process to happen and for it to earn that title,” she said.

With her award, she plans to purchase aluminum and other materials for her upcoming BFA show. After graduation, Barden is headed East, where she got a job at the Heidi Lowe Gallery in Delaware.

Jaaron Langford is a senior studying Studio Art with a concentration in Printmaking and Photography. As a Milwaukee native, he raises the question; what role do abandoned buildings play in the neighborhood? His installation featured various photographs of buildings around the city and a map with colorful pins.

Langford went through intense research looking for the history of abandoned buildings on Milwaukee’s North side, oftentimes having to seek out people in the community for answers due to lack of documentation online.

He mentions the abandoned Atkinson building on 14th street that is next to his childhood home. He remembers waking up at the same turn and seeing the building every time he was driving home.

“For me, that building was almost this weird domestic landmark to my environment,” he said.

With his award, Langford plans to fund his capstone project and cover some of his tuition fees for next semester. He describes his community work as a lifelong project; due to the amount of time it takes to dig into archives and build relationships with neighbors. Moving forward, he wants to continue working in North side neighborhoods to build togetherness and document the city.

“Through a lot of the research I’ve done, I’ve seen a lot of stories about community and resilience,” he said. “If my work had to have a message, it’s just to continue talking about the stories you had in these spaces and continue to remember.”