Abby Sunde, an undergraduate student pursuing a BFA in the School of Education’s Art Department, was highlighted in a recent Division of Arts video, titled “Arts for Everyone, Everywhere: Melting biology with glass at the UW–Madison Glass Lab.”

Sunde’s focus is glass and drawing, and she has returned to school to blend earlier pursuits in biology with art. Some of her recent work with the UW–Madison Glass Lab has revolved around black walnuts, a preview of the video explains, highlighting “the patterns they left on paper as they fell from trees in the Lewis Nine Springs E-Way, and then shelling the walnuts and blowing glass around them to capture their texture (a process that also produced roasted walnuts).”

“I see science and art interacting a lot in terms of framing curiosity and research, because it’s the ‘what ifs’ or the ‘hows’ that really lead you to exciting points of creativity,” says Sunde.

As a first generation descendent of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Sunde incorporates Native culture into her work, including a piece inspired by the Ojibwe origin story for maple syrup that was featured in the Glass Madison: The Sixth Decade of UW Glass exhibition in the fall of 2023.