Paris study abroad illuminates creative practice for students

Madison Boeder ’25 found that study abroad trips through the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) resonated so strongly with their practice that the Fine Art + New Studio Practice major (Art History minor) went on two: Florence in 2024 and, this year, Paris.

“I’m especially interested in how architecture, landscape and spiritual spaces hold memory, and encountering those firsthand in such grand settings gave me new ways of thinking about presence in my own pieces,” says Boeder. “Paris in particular inspired me to incorporate more ornamental and glass elements into my practice, expanding the visual language I’ve been building.”

Bailey Staerkel, Paris 2025.

Boeder is currently a member of the 11th cohort of Plum Blossom Initiative’s 10-month Bridge Work professional development program, co-founded by artist and MIAD Professor Jason S. Yi. “Those feelings of memory, transformation and place remain central to what I’m making now,” Boeder says, “as well as popular symbolism and ideals from historical painting.”

Themed “Life as Art: The City of Lights Illuminates Culture,” the 2025 Paris trip was “breathtaking” and “exhilarating” for Bailey Staerkel ’26 (Fashion and Apparel Design), who says, “It definitely already has influenced my senior thesis.”

“My senior thesis is an exploration of gothic horror in fashion and how horror can be represented through clothing. Paris of course has a very deep legacy with gothic as an aesthetic and as the architecture … all of these things provided so much wonderful visual inspiration that I was able to take for my collection inspiration and put into my mood board and into my sketches.”

“One of the greatest benefits of these MIAD study abroad programs is the opportunity for students to build confidence as independent travelers and creative professionals,” says Art History Professor Chris Szczesny Adams, Ph.D. She collaborated on the trip with adjunct faculty/architect Jessica Gebhardt and adjunct faculty/alum Tara Bogart, who went on the original student trip and whose time living in Paris helped inform this year’s explorations, site visits, private tours and gallery openings.

“By navigating transportation, planning excursions and engaging with the city as artists and designers, students learn to move through unfamiliar environments with curiosity, adaptability and self-assurance,” Szczesny Adams says. “Seeing that growth unfold is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching at MIAD. Tara clearly exemplifies how programs like these can be life changing.”

Like Bogart, Staerkel says they “could really see myself living there in the future. It’s a fashion hub, cultural epicenter of the world, and with my interest and my background in theater it is also an excellent place for that, so who knows, one day maybe I’ll be making costumes for the French opera.”

An exhibition of work from the Paris and The Burren, Ireland, study abroad programs is on view through Nov. 15 in MIAD’s 160 Gallery. Learn more at miad.edu/galleries.