Introduction

Hi, my name is Alyssa Willgruber and I am a painting major going into my senior year. I am very excited for the opportunity to be interning and assisting Michele Kishita this summer. Michele is a well-known artist who received her BFA and MFA in painting here at University of the Arts. As well as her individual art career, she is still involved with the school as the director of the Honors Scholars Program for the Provost Office, an academic advisor in the Advising Center, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Division of Liberal Arts and the University Common Curriculum.

Michele is a painter with an active studio practice. Her work is a dialogue between the wooden surfaces on which she paints, and the trees from which those panels were built. She strives to bring out the landscape that is part of each surface, while expressing the visual contrast and harmony where man-made structures and nature intersect. Through her work she investigates correlations between landscapes, especially water, and the wood grain of each panel. Michele uses colors found in nature that are not typically seen as “natural” to create her pieces. Her work is Japanese inspired due to her time of living abroad in Japan. She was self-employed as a Japanese art consultant for galleries and auction houses and associate specialist of Japanese prints at Samuel T. Freeman & Co., where she identified, translated, catalogued and appraised Japanese prints.

Her work is shown frequently in private collections, group shows, exhibitions, and many galleries across the East coast. Michele has been published in multiple magazines as well as literary journals. She is extremely professional and takes her practice, as well as her career very seriously which I greatly admire.

I am extremely grateful and excited to be working and learning from Michele. This summer I will be prepping surfaces for paintings, working on her large-scale installation piece, wrapping work, hanging exhibitions, and organizing her studio space. I will be meeting advisors, gallerists, artists, and interacting with clients. I will also be working on professional packets, promotional strategies, professional practices, and so much more. I know I will grow a lot from this experience and gain a lot of skills that I will take with me in my career moving forward. I can’t wait to see what the summer has in store for me!