When Professor Emerit Laurie Beth Clark retired this past spring after more than four decades on the faculty of UW–Madison’s Art Department, she didn’t want to celebrate her own accomplishments. Instead, she wanted to recognize the hundreds of students she mentored throughout her career.

That decision launched her on a months-long effort to reconnect with the more than 200 students whose graduate committees she served on. She was able to locate all but 40 of them, and roughly 110 have agreed to contribute to a new exhibition this fall.

“The show is about them,” explains Clark. “I’m using my retirement not to celebrate me, but to celebrate what happened to their lives. I cannot take credit for their accomplishments. I had the honor of serving on their committees.”

The exhibition, “How We Got It Together,” will take place Oct. 12-18 across three galleries in the Humanities Building (455 N Park St.) and Art Lofts (111 N Frances St.). It explores a question that has been central to Clark’s work as both an artist and educator: What is the value of studying art, and how does it prepare people for rich, creative lives?

During Clark’s four decades at UW–Madison, she taught studio courses in video, performance, and installation art and many graduate seminars on topics in visual culture and performance studies, while mentoring generations of graduate students across disciplines.

While most of the featured alumni earned Master of Fine Arts degrees in the visual arts, others earned PhD and MS degrees in fields including agroecology, art history, design studies, interdisciplinary theatre studies, Spanish and Portuguese, and theatre and drama. Their lives have taken them across 17 states and around the world, including to Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan.