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The Cost of Art


In November, a dear friend of mine was informed that she qualified for UW’s Advanced Painting Workshop. Only 2 students in her year received this highly prestigious opportunity, which allocated a studio space to each qualifying student. When we got back from Winter Break and started the Spring Semester, Reagan found her way to her studio on the 7th floor of the Humanities Building. She was disappointed when she pulled the curtain and found that her area’s walls were painted a dark, forest green. This is problematic for an artist, she told me, the color will wash out my

paintings, a white background is essential for an effective creative space. So, she made her way to Sherwin-Williams and bought a gallon of white paint and a paint roller. I told her I would help her paint the space; two sets of hands are always faster than one, but I remember thinking, if she were a STEM student, some sort of engineering major, this space would have likely been painted for her, prior to her arrival.


Life on the frontier in Wisconsin’s early years didn’t exactly encourage artistic expansion. Early settlers viewed art as a comparatively less valuable skill than subjects such as mathematics or language studies. Additionally, there was a specifically gendered aspect to art that made it less important – art was for women. In its early stages, art at UW was regarded entirely as a subfield of engineering. Beginning in 1910, the College of Letters and Sciences offered a Manual Arts Program, which included courses such as mechanical drawing, woodworking, and metalcraft, intended to help students become successful engineers or secure positions in the manual arts or vocational work, like trade skills and technology. It was akin to the story of Adam and Eve; Engineering was Adam, and Art was Eve – created from Engineering’s rib. This rhetoric of art being a stepping stone to an education in engineering work lasted until 1946, when Veterans returning from World War II were eager to continue their education through funding provided by the G.I. Bill. Enrollment at UW swelled, and there was a demand for resources on all corners of campus, including the Arts.


Exiting the elevator onto the 7th floor of the Humanities building felt like entering a portal to a new side of campus. While I spent time in the Humanities building, the 6th and 7th floors, reserved for the arts, were a world of their own. With gallery spaces lining the hallways and student art displayed everywhere, it was easy to lose track of time, taking it all in. However, I somehow managed to make my way down the hall, all the way to the end where the Advanced Painting Workshop resides. Embarrassing myself, I tried to open the door, unaware of the lock maintaining the workshop's sanctuary status. Silly me to think just anyone could intrude on this sacred, creative space. 

At this realization, I called Reagan. She, miraculously, answered on the first ring, chirped an excited “Are you here?” and came and collected me from where I stood sheepishly in the hall. Reagan is a free person; she dresses freely, speaks freely, and behaves freely. But in this moment, I saw her comfortable in a way I didn’t have the privilege of seeing often. She stood in front of me, wearing comfortable yet still colorful and expressive clothing. A neon pink undershirt peeked out from underneath her equally bright teal t-shirt. For someone working with paint, I took note of how many rings she was wearing, the number of bracelets that adorned both wrists. With headphones around her neck and sporting a huge smile, she was clearly happy to invite me into her space. 

“Hey, bro!” she said as she pulled me in for a hug. 

She led me to her studio space and showed me her newest pieces. At this point in our friendship, I am no stranger to Reagan’s talent. My entire apartment is furnished with her paintings; I wake up and fall asleep cradled by her creativity. However, there is something truly special about getting a peek into the middle of the process, as opposed to simply seeing the end result. At the moment, she is working on a painting of a man

playing the bass, based on a photo she took at a jazz concert. The painting is colored with a focus on purple and blue hues, making the moment feel magical. Reagan describes herself as an artist who works not necessarily on personal matters, but instead takes inspiration from the world around her. As a friend of hers, I can attest to this. If you simply take a walk with Reagan, she will notice the smallest things – a crack in the sidewalk shaped in some strange way, the way the ceiling looks inside a random building, the way in which the light bounces off the street lights. I could go on.

At this point, Reagan suggested we walk around. As we strolled past room after room of incredible, unique work, she offered me her perspective on the Humanities Building itself. 

When I commented on the state of the workshop, almost every desk, every square inch of floor, was covered in paint splotches; there was almost nothing brand new in the entire space, Reagan told me that this is her favorite part of making art in the Humanities Building.

“There’s just so much life here,” she told me. 

In every room, on every workspace, there is evidence of past artists; the room itself has an undercurrent of community that would be hard to find in a new, pristine building. Additionally, art isn’t an especially clean practice. Reagan went on to tell me that working in a brand new, sparkly building would have her on edge, almost hesitant to make art out of fear of being messy or ruining something expensive. You can’t mess up a building that is already severely messed up. 

However, she also brought up another interesting point, about associating art with mess because historically, the spaces allocated to artists have been less than perfect. 

“I think it’s kind of the vibe of art to be more free and careless,” Reagan said. “But maybe it’s just something that I associate with art, being old and messy, because those are mainly the spaces where artists work.” 

The Humanities Building, constructed in 1969 amid a surge in enrollment, was built focusing on cost-effective, durable designs. Unfortunately, decades later, students are facing the consequences of these “cost-effective” architectural choices. Having spent millions on repairs throughout the years, and a whopping expected $70 million in deferred maintenance, the Humanities Building is officially no longer able to support student needs, nor is it an appropriate place to pour money into fixing. 

Peter Schlecht, university architect and assistant vice chancellor of Campus Planning and Design for the Division of Facilities Planning and Management, has said that the building’s needed repairs have “grown beyond what is feasible”. The only practical solution is demolition. 

The issues with the Humanities Building include a deterioration of building structures, the very structural integrity of the building is failing. The elevators and mechanical systems are often down for repairs, and the building has major HVAC and temperature regulation issues. Water leaks and plumbing issues render some spaces useless and unsafe, the building’s design itself has faced intense scrutiny for its impractical, confusing layout, and most importantly, there simply isn’t enough space. 

According to UW-Madison and the State Budget, the demolition and replacement of the Humanities Building would cost $292.6 million, $30 million of which would be raised in gifts and grants. Not exactly an easy number to swallow for a society that doesn’t monetarily value the arts. However, this number is comparatively not far off from what it cost to construct Morgridge Hall, a new Computer, Data and Information Sciences building that opened just last year. 

The difference is that this building was funded entirely by private funds. The $267 million needed for the buildings constructed was led by a gift from Tashia and John Morgridge, alumni of the university. Additional monetary support came from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Epic Systems, the Vilas Trust, and hundreds of other alumni. 

There is something to be said here about funding and what our community pours money into. The newest major on campus was just handed a brand new, shiny building, funded entirely by the Madison community, while the Arts have required a new space for decades. The Humanities building has been desperately needing an update, and the request for its demolition and replacement has been denied time and time again. However, private donors took it upon themselves to fund a new STEM building that was arguably not needed. STEM will always get the money over the humanities, no matter where needs lie. 


It was Reagan who encouraged me to reach out to Fred Stonehouse, telling me enthusiastically over the phone that he was the most inspiring professor she’d ever worked under. She even used the words “favorite professor”, a huge honor from a college student. In response to the lack of space in the Humanities building, the Art Department acquired an empty warehouse, renovated it for $9.2 million, and thus the Art Lofts were born in 2009. I had never been there before. Located at 111 North Frances, the upcycled warehouse was tucked away behind the Kohl Center, a corner of campus I seldom ventured to. However, my presence was requested there, an interview with the campus’s, arguably, most prestigious artist looming in only ten minutes. Through sludge from yesterday’s blizzard, I walked to the lofts and was amazed upon walking through the doors. I was immediately greeted by a gallery space that I didn’t know existed, filled with extremely impressive student works that I would have never seen otherwise. I gave myself two minutes to absorb it all before I made my way to Stonehouse’s studio. 

Stonehouse wasn’t the most responsive man – a true artist at heart rejects modern technology, I suppose, and he never got back to me regarding where exactly his studio was located. I strolled from one edge of the lofts to the other in search of the space, until I stumbled upon something I recognized. A massive painting, one I saw when I googled Fred Stonehouse before scheduling the interview, hung on the wall. It stood in

great stature, dwarfing the double doors next to it. It was a freaky thing – as most of Fred’s work is – detailing a man with a frog covering his mouth and tears running down his face. Fred considers it the “largest portrait” he’s ever made. 

Knowing I surely found the place, I knocked. I wasn’t entirely sure what the procedure was for entering someone else’s art studio. So in response to the lack of an answer, I simply waited by the door. A couple of minutes went by, and a man walked over to me.

“Oh shit, am I late?” he said, with a cadence that sounded nothing like what I was expecting. He was casual, for lack of a better word, entirely normal. I told him no, actually, it was I who was early, and we entered the studio together. 

Immediately, I was shocked by the space that stood before me. Each and every wall, every inch of shelving, every square meter of floor space was filled with art supplies, unfinished works, or collected pieces from other artists.  It was clear to me that this is what an artist is – his life is in this room, it is detailed on these walls, living in the works he’s created. 

Fred wasn’t shy in his disdain for the Humanities Building, almost immediately jumping into a discussion about how it is a dangerous, toxic building. 

“I don’t have any proof that there’s a connection to the building,” Fred said, “but at one point I counted the number of people who worked in the building long term who developed cancer, and it seemed like an insanely large number.”

Fred went on to tell me a story that he heard from a friend, a lithography teacher who suffered through two bouts of cancer. While working here, around 15 years ago, he realized there was no airflow in his workshop space – he could hear the units going, but couldn’t feel any air actually moving. If he used a chemical, he could smell it lingering for days. So, he called engineering to complain, and at first they didn’t believe him, claiming that, of course, the air was circulating, “What, you don’t hear that?” The engineer conducted a test where he threw a very fine powder up into the air. If the circulation was working properly, this powder would get sucked into the air vents. In reality, the cloud of powder sat, hovering in the air for a minute or so, before coming straight back down and settling on the floor.

“I don’t think it was ever fixed,” Fred said. “It’s still never been fixed.”


Fred is an opinionated man, specifically when it comes to his students. He is fiercely humble (only mentioning to me that he sold a painting to Madonna in very slight passing) and stands up for his students. Being who he is, funding disparities haven’t necessarily touched Stonehouse himself. He gets adequate amounts of research funding on top of the income that comes from his actual work, but he is extremely passionate about how funding disparities affect his students.


When asked about funding, Reagan informed me that, for her, and I’d assume most students, the brunt of the funding disparities comes in the cost of supplies. I asked her how much she thinks she has spent on supplies in her courses throughout her education and she answered simply, 

“Oh, like thousands.” 

In her years studying in the Art Department, Reagan has been in charge of buying her own paint, her own canvases, her own watercolors, pencils, pens, markers, paintbrushes, metals, neon, and the list goes on. 

“Funding is a prime example of demonstrating what is valued in our society, and art is, at its core, an undervalued craft.”

In a capitalistic society that so deeply shapes everything around money, it is obvious that we pour capital into either things that we see as valuable or things that will lead to more money. Art checks neither of these boxes.

As a writer, it is hard for me to comprehend this cost of materials. To practice my craft, all I really need monetarily is a pen and a piece of paper. The average art student’s creative needs exceed mine tenfold. This realization made me sad for my friend, while also growing my respect for her as a creator immensely. While, of course, all artists require support, time, and space to create, if I had to spend thousands of dollars each semester to simply write, I’m not sure I would want to write anymore. The dedication and resilience of artists – and specifically physical artists that require extensive materials – is impossible to ignore and easy to admire. 

Fred told me a story of a room where he teaches 2d art, which is located in the Humanities building. They had been pushing for a lab remodel for quite some time – really, they just needed some tables to draw on. However, the students weren’t in any danger regarding the drawing horses they currently had, regardless of whether they were practical or not, so the lab remodel was denied repeatedly. Fred was only allocated a budget of $100 for supplies to his classroom, but he was determined to get his students these tables that they desperately needed. Long story short – he stole some tables that were being donated from a lab room in Sterling Hall. He recruited two athletes to help him carry these tables from Sterling, down Bascom, and into his classroom in Humanities. 


As Reagan and I walked around the Advanced Painting Workshop, peeking behind curtains into the spaces of other creatives, I was astonished by the variety of work. The range from pure abstraction to perfect realism was shocking and incredibly impressive, proving that each student has a clear perspective that cannot be replicated. While, of

course, the work itself is beautiful to see, the most fascinating part of my tour of the advanced painting workshop was being able to peek into the minds of different artists. I found myself photographing workspaces more than the work itself, enamored by the differences in strategy and organization from student to student. One student, who focused on realistic painting of the sky and clouds, had a workspace that was – for lack of better words – a mess. There were 11 small plates of paint, 6 of these plates almost identical shades of blue, scattered along the left side of his workspace. On the right side lay a rag, varying sizes of paintbrushes, both laid out haphazardly on the table as well as in a jar, and multiple pieces of scrap paper donned with scribbles and sketches. At the top of the desk lie, in a row, 22 different tubes of acrylic paint,

miraculously organized in rainbow order. The desk itself was covered in splotches of paint, evidence of both his work as well as the work of artists that came before him. 

Other workspaces were kept on the neater side, consisting of empty desks, with supplies confined to shelving and carts. Some lived somewhere in the middle, a happy medium of obsessive cleanliness and artistic disaster. Every desk was covered in rainbow splotches of paint. A little red here, a little green there – the workspaces were pieces of art in their own regard. One workspace in particular had writing on the wall in Sharpie above the desk, with a list of what made them experience fear and what made them experience joy. On

the fear side lay words like “rejection” and “loneliness”, and on the joy side, words like “creating” and “community” caught my eye. 


When we made our way to the end of the loop, Reagan showed me a closet with a bunch of, what many would call, junk. Inside were random scraps of fabric, miscellaneous books, pages torn out of magazines, and a collection of spray paint. I looked at Reagan and noticed she had a sparkle in her eye. 

She grabbed the blue spray paint, sprayed a little dot on the door of the closet, decided she liked the color, and led me back to her studio, where she began spray painting blue dots all over her new painting. 

I asked her how she avoids perfectionism, how she has the bravery to do such a thing, but she said it's something she is working on every day. She said that Fred Stonehouse inspired her to let go of perfection, and left me with a final message, 

“I’m not trying to make perfect art, I’m just trying to make art”. 


When I went to exit the Humanities Building, go home and begin writing, I was shocked to see a sign outside the elevator. It was bright orange, drawing the eye easily, and contained instructions on what to do when the elevator is down – the single elevator servicing this wing of the Humanities building, might I add. A sign of this nature suggests one thing quite clearly: the elevator is down often enough to require signage, and bright signage at that. 

In 2022, the accessibility issues in the Humanities Building reached a climax, resulting in student protests. An art student hung a banner in the Mosse stairwell that read “Mosse Stair Challenge" and "Only four flights to go," along with an anonymous statement of direct criticism calling attention to the lack of accessibility for art students on campus. This incident occurred in early May of 2022, two months after the Humanities Building’s working elevators dropped to one – one that did not reach the sixth or seventh floors. This protest sparked conversations about federal valuing of the arts and the disrespect art students face at an institutional level. 

This federal ignorance is something that has only worsened in recent years. Since this protest in 2022, and as of September 2025, 82 academic programs have been eliminated in the UW system, and over half of those cuts were in the humanities and social sciences. Liberal arts and Humanities programs are in danger, specifically from the Trump administration, and are suffering seriously from budget cuts. What supporters of STEM don’t see is that, unlike STEM degrees, which tend to be hyperspecific and lead students to a specific career, degrees in the humanities develop transferable skills. Humanities courses teach students to analyze competing ideas, evaluate evidence, and form well-rounded arguments – skills helpful in almost any career. These skills, according to The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, allow humanities graduates to succeed in a wide range of careers, including business and leadership roles. UW-Madison’s Art Department Alumni have succeeded in a wide range of careers as well, including creative directors, photographers, graphic designers, and specialists in product design and materials science, in fields ranging from chemistry to architecture. 

While not all artists engage with STEM in their daily lives, I can guarantee almost all those in STEM-related fields engage with art on a day-to-day basis. Whether that be music, film, literature, or the art I am talking about in this piece, the world thrives when creativity is fostered. A world without artists is one devoid of color, of passion, of purpose. In a capitalistic society, we tend to put importance on things that make money. Because artists aren’t at the top of the food chain, funding for the arts is in crisis compared with fields like engineering and computer science. It is important to remember that money is far from everything.


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