Meet Makenna Schibler and 2025 Senior Exhibition Project Day Ten
This is one in a series of online interviews with MIAD seniors, who share their thoughts about their 2025 Senior Exhibition project and their MIAD education.
Makenna Schibler ’25 (Fine Art + New Studio Practice) is from Louisville, Ken.
What is your “elevator pitch” for your senior exhibition project?
I am a practicing fiber artist based in Milwaukee. I use techniques such as freeform crochet, knitting, tufting, sewing and quilting to reimagine the digital image as a tactile 2D wall work. For my senior thesis, I decided to create from familiar imagery of the traditional American values with a combination of a deteriorating dollar bill, a pair of blue jeans with cowboy boots, and two fishbowls. The bill and blue jeans are connected in themes of blue collar with the ironicism of the use of material. The fish bowls placed underneath/adjacent the blue jeans serve as a foundation for the individual.
Makenna Schibler, “Day Ten,” 2025.
Makenna Schibler, “Day Ten,” detail, 2025.
Makenna Schibler, “Day Ten,” detail, 2025.
Makenna Schibler
Anything you’d like to share about yourself or MIAD?
I am so grateful for how MIAD helped segue me to connections outside of the school, properly introducing me to the Milwaukee art scene. I’m thankful that I am the most motivated I’ve ever been while making art and so excited to continue.
I am involved in a couple of community art projects around the city of Milwaukee that will surface later in the year. I’ll continue to submit and exhibit new and old works in and out of the city while accepting commission work. My involvement with MIAD will also continue over the summer with workshops. Very excited about what’s to come!
News
MIAD Values Recognition Award: Leslie Fedorchuk
Leslie Fedorchuk, Professor of Writing & Humanities and Director of Service Learning, received the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) MIAD Values Recognition Award for February 2026. Leslie received nominations that highlighted her embodiment of MIAD’s Core Values, especially Integrity, Kindness and Community.
MIAD Innovation Center and MAM provide career experience
Through a partnership with the MIAD Lubar Innovation Center, stunning campaign artwork by a student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) once again is helping to launch Art in Bloom – the Milwaukee Art Museum’s annual celebration of art and spring. Illustrations by senior Emily Porven ’26 are both vibrant and subtle, colorful and evocative, capturing the essence of the event.
Nohl Alumni Award propels lasting impact for MIAD professor
Receiving a Ruth Arts Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award has both immediate and longer-term impacts for Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Professor Jon Horvath; for himself as an artist, for the arts community and for MIAD students. Horvath, who teaches in MIAD’s Fine Art + New Studio Practice major, was one of three artists and one collective recently given the award, which provides $25,000 in unrestricted funds to each.
Arts education lays groundwork for MIAD alum curatorial role
Nikki Ranney ’22 (Illustration), the new curator of the Cedarburg Art Museum, says she “is so grateful that I went through my Bachelor of Fine Arts and got to experience a traditional art education at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design because it laid the groundwork for the more academic side of the curatorial field.”
Museum Studies class: Hands-on exhibition and career experience
Last fall’s Museum Studies class at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) has solidified a career choice for at least one of the 16 students who took it. The class was on the go all semester, visiting museums throughout Milwaukee, meeting with professionals and thinking critically about the role of museums in our society.