About the Madison Arts Commission

Anna January joined Wisconsin Watch in November 2023 as the Director of Institutional Giving. She leads Wisconsin Watch’s fundraising efforts to cultivate relationships with foundations, corporations, and philanthropic organizations to generate sustainable funding to support the newsroom’s mission. She has previously worked in fundraising at PBS Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Division of the Arts, and Madison Children’s Museum. 

January has a background in philanthropy, arts administration, grants, and community development. She has a master’s degree in art history and communication studies from McGill University, where she also completed a Fulbright Research Scholarship. She is currently serving as president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Greater Madison chapter  She has served on the Arts Commission since 2018. 

Bethany Jurewicz is the Director of Public Programming and Community Outreach at Garver Feed Mill. Formerly, she was the Exhibitions and Events Manager at the James Watrous Gallery, a program of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters where she remains on staff part-time as a financial advisor.

After gaining a master’s degree in Contemporary Art Theory from Sotheby’s Institute in London, she moved to New York City and developed an expansive career in the food, beverage, and event industries. She relocated to Madison in 2014 and currently lives in the Atwood neighborhood on Madison's east side. Upon arrival, she gained employment as the business manager for various organizations and simultaneously produced large-scale culinary and visual art pop-ups as fundraisers for local non-profits, including The Apartment Project, Municipal, Makeshift, and the CSArt Dinner Series. Recently, she co-produced Femmestival with the Culinary Ladies Collective and curated Outside Looking In, a drive-thru exhibition in the windows of Garver Feed Mill. She looks forward to planning public events at Garver and throughout Madison that highlight Madison's creative economy while supporting artists, musicians, and culinary entrepreneurs.

T.L. Luke (she/they) is a professional illustrator and small business owner in Madison, Wisconsin. Concerned with the political schism happening across the country, but especially in Wisconsin, Luke shifted her illustration practice (which previously focused on mental health, queer issues, and healthy escapism) to focus on well-researched comics and infographics on current events in local politics, state taxes, art equity, and more. It has become her goal to make complicated subjects more digestible and accessible, and to encourage communities to start thinking critically about local policies.

Luke is also a book illustrator, consultant, teaching artist, activist, and public speaker. She has illustrated children's books (for Lerner Publishing and Rebel Girls), provides art equity consulting for local organizations, business professionals, and emerging artists, and has run workshops for tech companies on best practices for hiring local artists.

Prior to starting her business in 2018, Luke used to work as Exhibitions Manager for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and Revenue Agent for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue; these are two very different positions, and yet they provide a panoramic perspective for how her work is informed today. 

Nick Pjevach is the Donor Database Manager at Madison Community Foundation, having previously worked at Arts + Literature Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin Foundation. He is a lifelong resident of Southeast Wisconsin, having come to live in Madison on two separate occasions, both to pursue degrees at UW: an MBA from the Bolz Center for Arts Administration and a BS in Computer Sciences.

Outside of work, Nick chairs the Economic Impact subcommittee of Greater Madison Music City, a broad coalition strategizing for equity among all members of our city's music ecosystem. He was a course instructor for Constructing the Real, a free online school put on by Art and Labor Podcast. “Break Stuff: Luddism, the Californian Ideology, and How to Make Technology Work for Us” attempted to explore the current weird, wired world we find ourselves in and how to navigate it. A follow-up will explore artistic expression in relation to Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis if he ever gets around to finishing the syllabus.

Marsha Rummel (District 6 Alder)

Alder Rummel grew up on the south side of Chicago in a mixed-race household. She came to Madison to attend the UW and never left! She learned about US empire and the history of US radical movements. She worked at cooperative businesses including the Mifflin St Grocery Coop and the Rainbow Bookstore Coop.  She also worked for seven years for the WI Department of Revenue/DOR where She was a proud union member of AFSCME Local 1 until retiring on April 1, 2022. She is currently an LTE at DOR. For the last several years, she has been an active member of the Madison Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

As a neighborhood resident, she got involved in the Marquette Neighborhood Association, volunteered at neighborhood festivals, and participated in city planning efforts for the Cap East District and McPike Park. She first decided to run for Common Council in 2007 and served as the District 6 Alder until 2021. She is proud of the work I did creating new neighborhoods and businesses along the E Washington corridor, expanding community oversight of police, and planning for the Madison Public Market.

Tony Sansalone

Tony Sansalone, currently the Director of Development at Wisconsin Humanities, first relocated to Wisconsin to pursue a Master of Arts in Business from the Bolz Center in Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His passion for working in nonprofits developed during his time at the Mansfield Art Center in his hometown in Ohio, where he focused on grants and outreach programming. Tony finds joy in cultivating relationships and promoting the impactful work that nonprofits contribute to individuals and communities, especially in his new home state of Wisconsin. Tony also received a BFA in Studio Art with a focus in drawing, painting, and printmaking from Bowling Green State University (Ohio). His artistic practice is heavily influenced by his Italian family, and he shares their stories through his charcoal drawings. 

 

Staff

Meri Rose Ekberg

Meri Rose Ekberg serves as Community & Cultural Resources Planner in the Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development at the City of Madison. She administrates public art projects for the Madison Arts Commission and assists in historic preservation planning for the Landmarks Commission.

Originally from Nevada, Meri Rose has resided in the City of Madison since 2015. Prior to this position, she was the Assistant Director of the UW-Madison Public History Project, and for several years she managed educational programming at Overture Center for the Arts. She has additional experience in exhibition curation, music festival administration, collection management, digital archiving, event planning, and web design.

She has a M.A. In Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. In Contemporary Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Western Washington University.

Anglea Puerta

Angela Puerta is a certified Urban Planner for the City of Madison Department of Planning & Community & Economic Development. She started as an AASPIRE intern in 2014 and has been working full-time with the City since early 2016. She is bilingual in Spanish and has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from her home land Colombia and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the UW-Madison. Angela’s planning focus areas are neighborhood planning, community engagement and urban design.

Angela is also a professional musician, currently oversees music-related projects for the Madison Arts Commission and is an active member of the Greater Madison Music City (GMMC) team. Angela leads the Tourism Music Hub GMMC workgroup and assists implementing the Task Force on Equity in Music and Entertainment recommendations.

Karin Wolf

Karin Wolf came to the City of Madison in fall of 2006 with a background in arts project management, research, writing, and educational programs. She is the Arts Program Administrator for the Madison Arts Commission in the Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development.  She manages the City's arts grants, runs the gallery spaces, stewards the City's permanent collection of art, and handles the administration of new public art projects.

Prior to this position, she served as the Special Programs Coordinator in the Community Outreach Department at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, where she created award-winning programs for educators and K-16 students in art, design and technology. She has worked as an educational assistant at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, teaching, docenting, and assisting the Curator of Education. She has a M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and undergraduate degrees in History, History of Cultures, and Afro-American History.

She is a longtime supporter of the arts and arts education, and has been involved with many community organizations in establishing exhibitions, educational programs, film festivals, temporary art, and permanent public sculpture projects.
 

Past Projects, Programs, & Partnerships Reports

Projects, Programs, & Partnerships 2020-2022
Projects, Programs, & Partnerships 2018-2019
Projects, Programs, & Partnerships 2016-2017
Projects, Programs, & Partnerships 2014-2015

Letters of Support

As the primary municipal agency that funds artistic activities and initiates cultural programs in Madison, MAC is often solicited to provide letters of support for artists and organizations applying for outside grants, permits, and honors. To insure that letters are consistent, requests must include sufficient background information to evaluate the level of appropriateness of a letter of support. The following procedures apply:

Requests for letters of support should be submitted to MAC at least two weeks prior to a scheduled commission meeting. View upcoming meetings here.

Requests for letters of support should include:

1. A summary outlining the purpose of the project for which the letter is being requested, and explaining why MAC support is critical to the success of the proposed project and how the project will help advance MAC's mission.
2. A copy of the budget proposed to accomplish the project.
3. The name and address of the organization that the letter is to be directed to.
4. A draft sample letter for review.