We are thrilled to share that the Wisconsin Arts Celebration Project will continue in 2026. The theme is "Collaboration." Collaboration is defined as the ability to work effectively with diverse groups to achieve common goals. Key components include respecting different perspectives, actively contributing to a group, providing and receiving constructive feedback, and using one's own and others' strengths to resolve conflict. This competency involves both contributing to group efforts and helping to support the group in reaching its objectives.
Below are the artists and educators contributing to this year's project. We are grateful to each of them! This project will launch at the end of October, 2026!
Brenda Cárdenas - Wisconsin Poet Laureate
Brenda Cárdenas is the current Wisconsin and former Milwaukee Poet Laureate. Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner of Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. Her poems have also appeared in many literary magazines, such as American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner, the latter which granted her their 2025 Strausse Award. She co-edited the anthologies Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Over the years, Cárdenas has enjoyed collaborating with musicians, composers, visual artists, and choreographers. Most recently her poem “Para los Tin-Tun-Teros,” set to choral music by Daniel Afonso, was published by Hal Leonard Music and performed by the National Concert Choir at Carnegie Hall. She is Professor Emerita of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she lives with husband, the poet Roberto Harrison and their dog Maya.
Jocelyn Hagen - Composer
Jocelyn Hagen composes music that has been described as “simply magical” (Fanfare Magazine) and “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). She is a pioneer in the field of composition, pushing the expectations of musicians and audiences with large-scale multimedia works, electro-acoustic music, dance, opera, and publishing. Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, still very evident in her work. The majority of her compositions are for the voice: solo, chamber and choral. Her melodic music is rhythmically driven and texturally complex, rich in color and deeply heartfelt. In 2023 her opera The Song Poet, written with Hmong writer Kao Kalia Yang, premiered with Minnesota Opera, and sold out their run over six months prior to the premiere date. In 2019 she celebrated the premiere of her multimedia symphony The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, which includes video projections created by a team of visual artists, highlighting da Vinci’s spectacular drawings, inventions, and texts. The work has already been performed over fifty times across the United States, including Canada, Sweden, Croatia, and England. Hagen describes her process of composing for choir, orchestra and film simultaneously in a Tedx Talk given at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, now available on YouTube. Hagen’s commissions include Voces8, Conspirare, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the International Federation of Choral Music, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, the American Choral Directors Associations of Minnesota, Georgia, Connecticut and Texas, the North Dakota Music Teachers Association, Cantus, the Boston Brass, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the St. Olaf Band, among many others. Her work is independently published through JH Music, as well as through Graphite Publishing, G. Schirmer, EC Schirmer, Fred Bock Music Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and Boosey and Hawkes.
Papa-Kobina N Brewoo - Dance Artist
Papa-Kobina Brewoo (PKB) was born and raised in Accra, Ghana and moved to Madison in 2001 with his family in hopes of better education and opportunities. He fell in love with Hip-Hop in 8th grade. PKB has appeared on MTV’s Made, America's Got Talent, World Of Dance, and signed with DanceOn Network. PKB has won countless awards and is featured in many magazines. He competes and teaches throughout the country. He is the founder of The Hitterz Collective and over the past decade has coordinated successful dance programs and events like, B.A.M (Battle, Arts, Music) Festival, The Shindig, Stop of the Dime Midwest Qualifier, Honor the Warriors, and many more. PKB cultivates a learning environment that is supportive, accepting, and encouraging of experimentation. Papa-Kobina is a passionate and experienced dance artist and educator who organizes dance festivals that are “designed to promote awareness, healing, connection, education and expression through movement and creativity.
Erika Crotty - Visual Artist
Erika Crotty is a painter based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, whose work explores experimentation, risk, and the evolving nature of the creative process. They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in 2D Media from St. Cloud State University. Creating art for as long as they can remember, Erika Crotty traces their artistic journey back to the first piece they created that sparked a sense of pride and possibility. That early experience continues to influence their work today. Their work is rooted in experimentation, risk, and the unpredictable nature of the creative process, they embrace chance, change, and discovery—believing that keeping their hands busy keeps the mind alive and constantly evolving. Professionally, they work at the Pablo Center at the Confluence in Eau Claire, where being surrounded by artists, exhibitions, and performances has deepened their connection to the regional arts community. Working closely with both artists and artwork every day continues to inspire their own creative outlook. While they paint year-round, the summer months are when their practice becomes most active. During festivIal season, Erika Crotty often creates paintings live at music festivals and community events. They thrive in these environments, embracing the energy of the crowd and the pressure of creating in real time. For them, painting in public transforms the creative process into a shared experience between artist and audience.
Kenosha Bradford High School Theatre Arts - Jodi Williams & Christi Geidner, theatre arts educators
Jodi Williams is a lifelong theater artist and educator with 25 years of experience as the Technical Director at Bradford High School. Beginning her career in North Carolina with NCTYP, Jodi transitioned to education to inspire the next generation of performers, technicians, and creative thinkers. At Bradford, she teaches stagecraft and stage management, while also supporting a wide range of performing groups that utilize the school’s facilities. A passionate advocate for the arts, Jodi believes deeply in the transformative power of theater, both as a tool for student development and as a catalyst for community connection. Her work emphasizes collaboration, technical excellence, and the vital role of performing arts in fostering empathy, confidence, and creativity in young people. Jodi is thrilled to facilitate Bradford’s participation in the Department of Public Instruction’s initiative celebrating performing arts, bringing her expertise in technical theater and her commitment to arts education to the Wisconsin Arts Celebration Project.
Charles Kohlbeck - Comic Artist & Illustrator
Charles Kohlbeck is an illustrator whose interest in the eerie and fantastic is explored through the heavy, dark contrast of ink on paper and the dramatic colors of digital. While drawn to stories of monsters, myths, and urban legend, he finds inspiration can be found in the mundanity of Wisconsin life. A dark park forest lit only by the orange glow of a vintage street lamp and the flickering lights of a late night gas station run, formed the aesthetic of his 2022 graphic novel, Another Day. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Entertainment Design from U.W. Stout, concentrating in comics and sequential art and currently resides in Eau Claire with his wife Kristen Protheroe where he is working on his second book.
Kristen Protheroe - Multimedia Designer
Kristen Protheroe is a designer with a passion for all things bright and bold. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Entertainment Design with a concentration in 3D animation from U.W. Stout, where she is also currently working towards her Master of Fine Art in Design, focusing in graphic design and interactive media. She is inspired by the things that make the inner child smile — bright colors, object collages, and finding fun in mundane things in life are common themes in her work. She happily shares her passion for the visual arts by working directly with children’s creative programs in the Greater Milwaukee area as an illustrator and multimedia designer. Currently living in Eau Claire with her husband Charles Kohlbeck, she aims to keep creating things that can put a smile on at least one person’s face.
UW-Eau Claire Concert Choir, Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble (Recordings)
