#instruction sessions

[uwmspeccoll]

In the Land of Tiny Books

Our Head of Special Collections Max Yela has collaborated for decades with Milwaukee artist and art professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) Leslie Fedorchuk (on the left in the first image; Max is on the right). This semester, Leslie is teaching a MIAD course called "Magical Miniatures" and she brought her class over for a discussion and review of artists books that use small scale as expression.

While Max is not very fond of miniatures or the miniaturization of books, he does like books that are small for compositional reasons. In fact, one of his favorite artists books, In Here Out There (third image) by the late Minnesota artist Jody Williams, is quite small (5 x 7 cm). Since we hold about 95% of Jody Williams's work and about 90% of the small editioned work of Peter & Donna Thomas, after a discussion, the class spent time reviewing selected works by these artists, plus about a dozen others by local book artists.

This was the first time these art students, many of them Juniors and Seniors, had ever encountered artists books before, and all expressed that it was a transformative experience. We look forward to seeing some of the book work that comes out of the assignments for this class!

The photographs shown here were taken by MIAD Web Content Specialist Olivia Langby.

View more posts with artists books.

View more posts with work by Jody Williams.

View more posts with works by Peter and Donna Thomas.

View more posts on visiting classes.

View our online bibliography of the works of Peter and Donna Thomas.

#instruction sessions #classes #visiting classes #MIAD #MIAD students #art students #artists books #small books #miniature books #Leslie Fedorchuk #Max Yela #Jody Williams #Peter and Donna Thomas #Olivia Langby

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

#well. today was a nice day of not doing anything but drawing really. theres an au where i went to art school and am a happier person lol #except not really bc im sure my head would ruin that too. anyway. its a shame i have to return to the pain tomorrow. i have so much to grade #plus a paper to write plus data to work with. a protocol to figure out. and an exam to study for and a final project thatll kill me #god. i also have to get ready for lab Monday. christ. and what shall i say to my therapist Tuesday? well we could try to tackle the deep set #looming issue that prevents me from getting better in our tiny 50min session or i could be like listen. just fucking listen. let me give u #the case 4 and against me having adhd so i can stop feeling fucking nuts. just like give me feedback. ya kno? #it would b inattentive bc im not hyper unless im losing my mind and bordering on hyp0mania. but my focus is something i cant control #executive functioning has always been a problem but now im so worn down im in danger of actual consequences. and its not just things i dont #wanna do. im not just anxiously avoiding. i cant start tasks and stick with them. i flip back and forth and get nothing done. i spiral #sometimes for hours. im not doing anything fun im just not doing anything. frozen in anguish. i dont even wanna think abt how much money ive #lost by not filling out reimbursement sheets which arent hard to do. theyre easy i just never do them. why??? i dont fucking kno. but im not #forgetful. im thinking constantly abt these things. i just cant make them happen. theyre stuck buffering. i do have memory issues tho #my short term working memory is like that of a literal child. so i cant follow complex instructions. i constantly need new info. constantly #need sound. spoken words plus music at the same time. but the main reason i need an answer to this is the reading issue. which is that im #dyslexic but also my thoughts r like an interfering frequency. without realizing ill b thinking and not reading. its a problem no matter #what im reading. its severely disruptive. i will physically read out loud to try to hold my attention in place and still get distracted by #my own head. do u kno how frustrating it is to read something aloud 3 times and not know wtf u just read bc u arent thinking abt anything #interesting u would rsther b reading but u can't fucking pay attention long enough. genuinely if its not adhd and i cant get medication to #fix my focus issues i dont kno wtf im gonna do. im so bad at reading and its extremely frustrating. but is it just dyslexia? idk what i #described doesn't fucking seem normal or like a reading problem. sounds like a focus issue. so riddle me that #idk ive got adhd on both sides of my family plus my focus fluctuates with ny hormones plus homones possibly induce hyp0mania. like i mean #ive got other issues which make a diagnosis difficult to parse but like i feel like that's decent evidence for possibly adhd? my friend said #she was always worried she had a brain tumor before she was diagnosed. to me ive always felt like my brain is full of holes. im missing the #parts that would let it operate correctly. the frontal lobe is just fucked. ugh. i wonder how much accommodation i could get from the #disability office if i actually went to them. i wont bc im fucked up and i dont think they could actually do anything for me at this stage #but alas im curious. ugh. y do i do this to myself? i kno y but not enough time for that in 50min. bad attitude mostly. half my brain #just craves death. the other half is just trying to tread water but its hard with someone trying to drown u. so its all fucked #unrelated

[helennorvilles]

one of my lovely kids came up to me in class last session with a computer and he was like 'uhhh miss, someone googled this earlier?'

fun times in year 6!

#i just took it off him and was just like 'okay thank you that's my computer now :)' #i knew instantly who it was and god the evidence is DAMNING #she also googled the name of her favourite actor AND spoke in spanish to me a few days ago #and the biggest bit? she didn't even sign out of the website she was MEANT to be using when she was doing this #so it's looking like baby's first phone call home to parents :) i'm baby to clarify. #tbh im just glad she wasn't in the room when i discovered this. she'd already been removed by an ap earlier that session #for being rude and ignoring instructions :) FUN TIMES! #my post tag

[supercool-here]

Therapy sessions at uni, second session

Oh damn, we´re so back at it. I actually had my second session last thursday. It was great. I really appreciate my therapist. You don´t know the power of having good people around you until you have them and see their influence in your life. He is a professional, and I am thankful he is always gentle and tells me I´m doing good when I am. It means a lot to me. This time I was able to initiate most of the talk, and I told him the stuff I learned over the few days I didn´t see him, like how I am the one limiting myself so much, how I am insecure and etc. My next session is not until late april, but I´m excited to bring him good news; he gave me many exercises to practice talking and being more confident expressing myself.

I´ve been having a hard time though. There are things I haven´t talked about in therapy. This weekend I´ve been in a really bad mood almost everyday, either I start comparing myself with others and that brings me down, or I don´t get something I want and I feel frustrated, or for example yesterday my mom told me "you are twenty years old you can act accordingly" and that made me feel so angry and frustrated because I often feel like my family treats me like a child, and I recognize I comply to that but one thing that has been on my mind for years now is that I want to be capable of all the things an adult woman is capable of and I´ve imagined myself telling them about this so many times but I´ve never done it. I was so frustrated in all these situations, and I kept thinking "I have to express myself, I can´t bottle up my feelings" but there are things I don´t want to talk about with anyone, let alone my family. Because I understand it must be frustrating for them also seeing that I am in a bad mood and not knowing the reason and asking me about it and me just shrugging. But I can´t just tell them in the middle of a party "well I feel really ugly and I look at all these girls here and I feel like a cockroach and I really wish I was home in my pajamas watching tv instead of here feeling ridiculous and disgusting". Plus what would that do for anyone? For me maybe I´d at least have the feelings out of my system but I am not expecting them to give a good response to that, I would love it if all they could say was "sorry, it´ll be fine", but my mom would roll her eyes, even tho she has insecurities too, except she is good at sweeping them under the rug and expects me to do the same but I can´t; my dad wouldn´t say anything, which is a break; my sister would give me some patronizing speech; my other sister would echo her. And it would be very overwhelming. (the only pro is that they would get to know what is on my mind, which is good because I do want them to know me and I want to open myself to them) So I try to calm myself down but I can´t and I can only breath freely again once we´re out of the salon going into the car. I can´t tell them "behaving as a 20 year old girl is the thing I want the most in this world but do you ever help me with that? No. But nevermind, I don´t need you to help me with that, after all I am a twenty year old girl so if you really mean it, I will start acting as such. I´ll have more initiative. I´ll want things and try to get them. I´ll go places. I´ll say things. I´ll meet people. And I won´t ask for your permission, I will only ask if you´d like to join" I really wish I could say those things, but it low-key sounds more like a tantrum and that is exactly what children do. Funny.

Today I tried being brave and good to myself. I made a mid-size mistake. I panicked. I hate making mistakes because it hurts my pride (which is the only armor I´ve had in my life, tho it turns out, it hurts you more than it protects you) and it makes me feel miserable and it is one of the thousands of things that make me spiral and hate myself and ultimately want to die (or vanish into a void and come out as a different person). So my very coward instinctive response to oopsies is crying, and either denying or hiding my mistake. So the thing is that on the way home I told myself I will change this. My worth and confidence will no longer be rooted in pride. I won´t be scared of making mistakes nor, what´s even more terrifying, facing the consequences. Often times, consequences to mistakes involve someone else´s feelings. In this occasion, it was my mom´s, whom I knew would forgive me and laugh it off, and my dad´s, whom I knew would be mad, and could express it in many different ways that can really twist my guts and make me feel horrible (even tho that is absolutely not his intention, he just doesn´t know bottling up his emotions doesn´t mean he is completely hiding them). The second I am always very scared of. That is the reason why I hate telling my dad things. I never know how he´ll react. I dread it. But that is cowardly. And I told myself I will be brave, I will do this. So instead of hiding the truth from my dad until he somehow found out, I resolved I would tell him upfront, and if he did something that made me feel shit I would forgive him, and if he was brutally mad I would stand up for myself. The problem is that this resolution took me about 40 minutes (all the way home from the hospital where I made my oopsie) and when I told him he was indeed mad, not just because of the mistake itself, but because I had waited so long to tell him. I am trying to forgive myself, because after all I am not used to being brave, that is not my instinct, it took me 40 minutes to calm down, let the stream of tears go away, and come to a good decision. I am hoping in the future being brave will come to my mind much sooner than the panic and the tears and the fear, and I will own up to my mistakes much faster. But today, this is all I could achieve. I am feeling very guilty. And my mind tortured me in fifty different ways before I could calm down (such as the thoughts "they will never trust you again with serious things" "this is why they treat you like a child" "your sister never makes mistakes like this one, and if she does she knows how to solve them" "x person you envy so much would never make a mistake like this because she is all the things you are not" "you shouldn´t have come with dad, you weren´t of any help, you just gave him trouble") But I am glad I tried. I try to feel good for having been brave (braver than usual, certainly not braver than most) but the feeling is not stronger than the guilt. Yet, it is there, and that is enough for now.

Things I want to mention in the next session:

I hate making mistakes and owning up to them, BUT I fought it!

I compare myself a lot (I will not mention the mild eating disorder I had as a teenager unless the therapist asks)

What can I do with the unpleasant feelings I cannot express? I know I recognize what trigger them. I don´t want to bottle them up (not like I could anyway) but I want to be in a good mood for the sake of the people around me (often my family) and also for my own sake because life is too short to live it at the expense of my feelings and bad times and hard times. I want to choose happiness

My thoughts tend to spiral. A lot. In a bad direction

I have envy issues. Ugly issues. I don´t want to envy every person I´ve loved because it is destroying me.

Things to try:

All the exercises the therapist has given me

Maybe looking for self-regulation techniques?

MORE oopsies and MORE owning up to them (facing the consequences)

Definitely gentle self talk.

#therapy journal #therapy #therapy session 2 #second therapy session #personal #ps. I sometimes really wish I could talk to someone like my therapist when I am having a hard time #Someone who listens and doesn´t necessarily see themselves in a position to tell me what to do #I sometimes don´t want instructions or answers I just want to be heard and know I´m not alone

[thatonefatgumsimp]

ADZDAHFTWJVJSYGLBJDHF SCREAMING, CRYING, FOAMING AT THE MOUTH, MY LIFE MERCH HOODIE GOT HERE :DDDDDDD

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #I'm so normal rn #trafficblr #I BOUGHT THE LIFE MERCH AS JOEL INSTRUCTED IN SESSION 1 #I DID THE THING #life update #It also came with a complimentary secret task scroll sticker :3 #speaking of the life series tho‚ I rlly need to finish s1 today soooooo bai o/

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

grrrr it’s annoying when students act like they’re entitled to you

#my contract obliges me to teach only to the last week of instruction #you can’t just not attend all the sessions i give this whole term and then email me finals week asking me to give a session #so informally worded too how have university students not yet learned how to formally communicate by email? it’s not text messaging #you’re not entitled to my time or my energy just because your final is today and you suddenly realized you have to give a shit about physics #it’s annoying how in finals week students who kept making excuse after excuse now crawl out of the woodwork and demand help #anyways. my regular students beloved are going to do so well they have worked so hard and i’ve seen their passion for doing well :) #iskul bukol: undergrad edition

[shredsandpatches]

I have so much shit to do over the next couple of days, most of which I have to prep today, and I am so tired I feel like I am trying to walk around while encased in jello

#😭 #tomorrow i have two instructional sessions #friday i have a meeting with my new systems person and a job talk to go to #and then i am taking the candidate out to lunch #and i am just absolutely exhausted #completely out of gas #i need hours and hours of sleep and some unscheduled me time

[outlandishscenarios]

I finally was able to join the weekly magma after some technical difficulty with the drawing tablet.

But I drew this art work for an au I've been in the process of making and its taking over my brain and rotted it bad.

Side note: Eclipse isn't there biological father just the one who unwittingly took that role and position of guardian and just gave up correcting them from calling him that.

#my art #magama session art i made #i would rant about this au but gah i cant rather not making this into a long posylt #maybe ill post the doodles i made of it one day cause theres so many #any ways enjoy #off i go #little sun and moon #child companion sun and moon #daycare attendant eclipse #i call this au instructions not included #instructions not included sun #instructions not included moon #instructions not included eclipse #their family your honor

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

Today we had a visit from a Typography I class from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design taught by Leah Good. The purpose of the Type I course is to "provide students with an understanding of the integral use of typography in the overall design concept." Max Yela, UWM Special Collections Librarian, pulled a wide array of books from our collection that use type as image and to create image.

Everyone had a great time engaging with the materials and the session finished with a discussion of how using these materials informed the students' understanding of type and what it can do. Here's hoping we get to see some of their final type specimen posters!

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

#classes #Typography Tuesday #typetuesday #Leah Good #Type I #MIAD #Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design #Max Yela #type #typography #instruction sessions #type as image #typographic prints

[the-shy-artisan]

✨skin✨

#paige’s sewing tag #paige’s w.i.ps #prototype Beastos is starting to look like something #well somewhat lol #debating on whether I should use the heartbeat effects I bought for the last iterations… #I think I can take em apart and put new batteries in them #keyword: I THINK #I’m hoping to get most of this guy together during this session #then I can write instructions for my future self to follow for the main batch #aiming to make at least four to start #I am making these by hand so it takes a while ;;;

[longroadstonowhere]

so

i’m playing a knowledge cleric in my dnd campaign, and the religion we’re using is a really loose structure, half teacher half librarian kinda vibe (and yes i decided to play this character before the library school thing happened), but clerics are something a little extra than just a follower of a religion, right? like, you get your magic powers from your god, so i figure there’s something more happening there for whatever cleric you play

but me, i’m not one for pages and pages of backstory, i’ll figure things out while i’m playing but i mostly just give myself sketches and outlines to work off of, so i present my dm with ‘i had a dream that god told me to look for something, but i don’t remember what i’m supposed to be looking for, and i’m not even entirely sure it was god’

and that’s where we start the campaign, dude in his early forties with a fair amount of knowledge and a not-insubstantial understanding of people finally striking out into the world, and the first major event he runs into involves someone he trusted turning out to be a blood cultist, and he doesn’t really learn from that because surely that was just a one-off weird thing, like not every person you run into will be lying to you, that can’t happen

and it’s happened again and again and again - he finds someone who is scholarly, or helpful, or even of his faith, and he trusts that they’re genuine, or at least that they won’t harm him, and then he is betrayed and it’s getting worse and worse (bodies are starting to pile up around him and some of them are those he created, when he barely took the martial training offered at his temple, only accepting because any knowledge is knowledge worth having, but now death is at his fingertips), and he still wants to believe

the worst of it is that he’s been getting visions, and at first he believed they were from his god, because why wouldn’t he? who else could get inside his head this way? but he’s found that these visions (at minimum, some of them) are coming from a former brother of the cloth, someone who believes their god is lying to everyone and is willing to destroy the entire faith because of it, and he’s recruited so many people of my character’s faith that they can no longer be implicitly trusted, and they’re even being forced to attack and die for this man’s beliefs

so my character is finding that he can’t trust anything implicitly - his siblings of the cloth, the world they live in, even the thoughts in his head - and he still wants, so much, to believe in the inherent power of information, of knowledge, in knowing that even if it’s the worst pain you’ve ever known, knowing is still better than not knowing

and it’s so rewarding to play through faith in this way, to be presented again and again and again with the same choice, the same burden - do you trust this person? do you believe they are who they say they are? how many lies can you hear before you stop believing anything at all?

but lies can tell you the shape of the truth, and that’s all that my character can hold onto sometimes

#i've had a lot of feelings welling up in me about my little knowledge cleric dude #so it was about time i put them out there for other people i guess #just man faith is one of the most fascinating things to me and i love that i'm getting to play a character who's getting challenged #so many times and in so many ways in that regard #i mean it also feels weird because my character's dilemma is definitely the biggest one in terms of world-shattering events #so i'm kinda the driving force of the campaign most nights #and i'm not used to that? i'm very much a support character in real life hahaha #so it feels weird to be the center of attention so often #but i guess that's what i get for making a character whose motivation is a god's instructions #whereas my party members' roleplaying spurs are mostly family related things #trying to hunt down family heirlooms or confront an absent father #my character knows exactly where his family is and has a good guess what they're up to #he just.... doesn't fit in with them well #he expects to be told when someone gets married but doesn't expect an invitation to the wedding #that's the vibe i'm going for with his relationship to his family #anyway we had a session last night where my character was talking with a high-ranking member of his own faith #and he rolled a nat twenty on an insight check to see if this person was following the asshole that's plaguing him right now #and she was the most genuine person he could ever imagine meeting #so you know i'm feeling a little emotional about the whole thing #(happily we are in a spot where the god thing should hopefully be on the backburner for a couple of sessions) #(love getting to explore my stuff but again i'm ill-fitted to being the center of attention for a majority of our time hahaha)

[haleelah]

Saw some cute cows and I thought of Will as a cattleman/farmer, who partake in ethical ways to treat the livestock and has a genuine love for his cows.

Hannibal got introduced to Will through his favourite butcher, when Will comes to discuss business with them, and he is instantly intrigued by the man.

He starts making visits to Wills farm, and over the time he becomes closer to Will. Will's personality is that of an awkward reclusive man. Hannibal is ecstatic to be one of the few people Will called his friends. After time passes between them Hannibal can see how Will's chosen loneliness is wearing on him as he is denying himself of certain needs, and with some manipulation but mostly persuasion, Will ,with his full and conscious consent enters something sort of dom/sub sexual relationship of benefits with Hannibal.

It's so funny, Will thinks, how a man like Hannibal Lecter with his status, would mingle with someone like Will. But their little arrangement works just fine and Will is so pleased and the stress he used to acclaim finally ceased from his life.

Until Hannibal stops coming.

Will doesn't have that much of information on Dr.Lecter whereabout, except that he is on some trip on Europe or something.

Will doesn't Call him, lacking the confidence to ask such things from Hannibal, who is the initiator between the two of them. And Will suffers greatly that his desperation makes him go the length of thinking about humiliating task of asking Hannibal to come to him.

Will thinks of sending a nude pic first. He stands in front of the mirror and snaps a pic with his raised shirt exposing his chest and abdomen. He feels self-conscious and huffs. Takes a second one with a more flattering angle while sucking in his tummy, and after some thoughts, cups his chest with the hand not holding the phone. The second pic turns out great but he honestly feels to embarrassed to send it to Han. Will stares at his thirst trap and his eyes clings to his hand cupping his chest.

He types "I've got a new milk package and I'd like to give it to you"

Fast forward to nasty chest play with chest/nipples worship with Will begging Hannibal to either Fuck his ass or to at least give his mouth a taste of his cock, that his chest has apparently taken hold off..

#hannigram #upside down paizuri #where will is laying on a flat surface and han fucks the swell of his chest #Which he instructed will to hold close for him #in a way where his dick passes will's face/chin but denying him to get a lick of hehe #it's a session reserved for the tiddies #will's own grass feed milkers if you will #everthing is the same except will quits his job with fbi after the hobbs incident #before meeting han tho

[doolallymagpie]

me building the sergeant, vox, and vexilla: oh I’d better be careful to make sure they’re all like the instructions say (except the vexilla, she deserves the fancy scrub brush helmet)

me building the regular grunts: *deep breath*

FUCK IT WE BALL

#I mean yeah okay once you’ve got the fancy ones done it just sorta becomes muscle memory but this is very funny to me #haven’t even looked at the instructions this building session #warhammer 40000 #warhammer 30000 #horus heresy #space marines #legiones astartes #adeptus astartes #little sisters of purification

[cakesexuality]

So I have this one Pinterest board and one of the sections is pictures of people who are disabled icons for me that I'm gonna eventually print off and use to decorate my medical binder and I think I have more pictures of Daya than anybody else

#is it weird that im announcing this to the world that im planning on decorating the binder this way #'heres the instructions for a pelvic ultrasound and here is a giant lady wearing her own face on a shirt' #i also have yvie and willow and jinkx and saltina #plus a few youtubers i watch #and then also toph #i told my old therapist (dont worry nothing was wrong we just ran out of sessions) asked about one of the youtubers when i told him my plan #then our next session he was like 'i looked up that jessica and i watched some of her videos and i can see why you look up to her' #idk maybe my bar for therapists is just low after the two shitty ones i had but i appreciate that he took time to do that

[ellsellmesoull]

You know what sucks? When you try your best but your group mates fucking suck. The only thing i regret is not stepping up to be the leader myself

#like i got social anxiety and I promised id try being better #this was on me for breaking that promise #the grp was btw friends so I basically took leadership im only scared talking to strangers #and the leader didnt even tell us the whole actual task #and we wasted 75% of the time because of that #because she didnt take it seriously at all and the seniors who were supposed to guide us were distracting us and just talking #and our teammates were just talking back and me and another girl were the only ones putting in any effort #but shes so quiet she doesn't even understand anything i say and wont even speak up about it #and then they do whatever they want when ive given them clear instructions #ok the seniors were Supposed to not guide us but let us do our own thing which we found out later #but they were Actively talking with us not letting us focus and making things confusing #just causing problems in general they were actly supposed to just be on the sidelines #my back fucking hurts #no one fking tells any idea they just kept quiet on the brain storming session and when one model was halfway there #they start another #like wtf then they complain #imean ik im not a rly good leader but i tried my best and ik I cant do more like our actual leader weren't doing shit #but still our grp didnt put in any effort #and i could see my own shit model making skills in there #if ppl had work together then it wouldbe been better #cus my plus is Only functional ity and they could've helped w the aesthetics and looking like an actual irl model #but noo #it took me over 15 minutes of constantly yelling just to get one guy to stick two sides together to make a right triangle esply bcos #he was talking to the seniors abt home and shit and the leader wouldn't even fold paper seriously ffs shed fuck it up and act all sowwy #but i was trying to lead maybe I fucked up and its all my fault maybe i became the loudest voice and everyone listened #maybe things wouldbe been better if i just kept quiet #I thought i was doing a good job but ig i was just fucking it up cus when i see the model I see how my own model skills look like #and im very bad at model making.