Lauren Bartlett calls Northern Illinois home, and graduated from Hononegah High School. This represents an Indian name native to Roscoe, Illinois where she lives. After completing painting and drawing during high school, she discovered art transformed her life for good, traveling further north to study at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) in Wisconsin. Bartlett watches all the graduates prepare for the Senior Exhibition, which opens Gallery Night, April 16, and as a sophomore anticipates this experience in only two years. While waiting in the college's front lobby, Bartlett chats about her art education here in the city.
Q: What inspired you to attend MIAD to pursue your present major?
A: MIAD is so welcoming, words don't even describe it. I wouldn't want to go anywhere else. I'm in Industrial Design with a minor in Interior Architecture and Design. There you focus more on the structure and space than on the colors or very specific furniture.
Q: How did you choose Industrial Design?
A: Industrial Design covers anything in industry, from cars to medical equipment, anything we interact with everyday. I had no idea I would go into Industrial Design because I was never exposed to it. Growing up though you think of things, ways things might be done, differently, to make them better. But when I got here [to MIAD] the major was one of my options, and it fit my personality.
Q: What projects have you been working on this year in your major?
A: I've been working on a submarine project, a prototype for a research submarine, and how to use the space inside. And in one of my other courses we are working on designing kitchen utensils. How you use them, to improve on them. I chose a spatula. We try and make it ergonomically efficient while also making it aesthetically pleasing. Color is the last thing we think about, and it takes a lot of research to get where you want to go, to know what exactly I'm going to do. You make multiple samples before you get to the final design.
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Q: What's in your future when school ends for the semester?
A: I'm going to Italy this summer with MIAD, and spend the summer abroad. It's a combined studio class and liberal arts study in Florence. Part art history and then we'll study past masters along with contemporary artisan designs. It's a month long course. After the summer study, this may change my perspective on what I would like to do. Ideally, I would just draw all day, every day, and make things better. There's a fine line between design and a fine artist. I hope to be a critical thinker in both art and industrial design...the whole spectrum.
