Posted 8:14 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015
Bill Kader's portraits will be featured as part of the annual All-Students Juried Exhibition Feb. 13-March 7.
[caption id="attachment_38623" align="alignnone" width="770"]
Local artist Bill Kader with some of his drawings.[/caption]
He spent his career as a doctor helping people with their physical ailments. Now, he’s helping people lift their spirits.
Bill Kader spent 27 years as a urologist at Mayo Clinic Health System. Upon retiring in 1998, he turned to art. “I was always interested in art,” he says. “I was interested in drawing, but not very good at it.” Those looking at his work today think otherwise.
You can see Kader’s work when it’s featured at UW-L during the All-Students Juried Exhibition Feb. 13-March 7 in the Center for the Arts. Some of his charcoal portraits will hang in the Study Gallery, adjacent to the University Art Gallery.
[caption id="attachment_38626" align="alignright" width="125"]
Portrait sketches by Bill Kader will be featured in the Study Gallery during UW-L’s All-Students Juried Art Exhibition.[/caption]
Kader, 81, became a student when he audited one of UW-L Art professor Joel Elgin’s figure drawing classes shortly after retiring. Over the years, he has taken other classes — an oil painting class with Jennifer Williams Terpstra and charcoal portraits with local artist Peggy Baumgartner.
During the past decade, he has honed his skills with pencil and charcoal drawings. To get more drawing time, he put posters up in the university’s Center for the Arts offering to pay students to sketch their portraits.
Lately, Kader has volunteered to oversee a Mayo waiting room four times a week. There, he draws patients and caregivers. He sketches without asking because he knows they’ll behave differently if they know he’s at work. Instead, he offers up the sketches to his “models” when he’s finished. “It’s amazing how pleased people are getting decent drawings of themselves,” he notes. “I’m very happy to do that.”
For the eight years he’s been sketching in the waiting room, he’s never had anyone get upset about drawing them. Usually he gets the opposite response. “This connects me with people more than anything else,” he explains. “I feel it’s another way of showing loving care.”
While Kader currently gives his “models” the sketches for free, he’s considering asking for donations to award UW-L art students in a department that cared for him. “The art department has been very good to me,” he explains. “They accepted me and treated me like a student.”
Each year for the annual All-Student Exhibition, Kader funds an award for a student’s work that catches the jurors’ eyes. He’s happy to be able to provide extra incentive for deserving art students. “It’s a stimulus for students to try and do their best,” he says. “It makes them take their work more seriously.”
If you go—
What: Charcoal Prints
Who: Bill Kader
Artist talk: 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, 116 Center for the Arts
Opening reception: 7-7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20. Show runs through Thursday, March 5
Where: Study Gallery in the university Art Gallery, Center for the Arts
Regular hours: noon-1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 4-6 p.m.Thursdays and Fridays
Note — Images of Kader's work are available upon request
More portrait sketches by Bill Kader.[/caption]
The university Art Gallery opens its spring 2015 exhibition schedule with the annual All-Students Juried Exhibition with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, in the gallery on the first floor of the Center for the Arts. The show highlights the creative works of students across the campus. The adjacent gallery will feature charcoal prints by retired physician Bill Kader. The show is free and runs through March 5.
The jurors for the exhibition are Phillip Ahnen of the Rochester (Minnesota) Art Center and Carolyn Payne, director of the Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis. Funding for awards given at the exhibit is from the UW-L Foundation and donors: Ruth and Dan Devitt, Bill Kader, Betty Kendrick, RuthAnn Knapp, Richard Kohler, Carol and Tom Hutchins Winther, and the estates of Catherine Crail, Louise Drumm, Milton and Margaret Kosbab, James Quillin, and Ray Sherin.
University Art Gallery exhibitions are funded through the UW-L College of Liberal Studies and UW-L Student Association. All exhibitions and related events are free and open to the public.
If you go—
What: All Students Juried Exhibition
Who: Students
Opening reception: 4-6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13. Show runs through Thursday, March 5
Where: University Art Gallery, Center for the Arts
Regular hours: Noon-1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 4-6 p.m.Thursdays and Fridays
Admission: Free
Upcoming exhibits:
Local artist Bill Kader with some of his drawings.[/caption]
He spent his career as a doctor helping people with their physical ailments. Now, he’s helping people lift their spirits.
Bill Kader spent 27 years as a urologist at Mayo Clinic Health System. Upon retiring in 1998, he turned to art. “I was always interested in art,” he says. “I was interested in drawing, but not very good at it.” Those looking at his work today think otherwise.
You can see Kader’s work when it’s featured at UW-L during the All-Students Juried Exhibition Feb. 13-March 7 in the Center for the Arts. Some of his charcoal portraits will hang in the Study Gallery, adjacent to the University Art Gallery.
[caption id="attachment_38626" align="alignright" width="125"] Portrait sketches by Bill Kader will be featured in the Study Gallery during UW-L’s All-Students Juried Art Exhibition.[/caption]
Kader, 81, became a student when he audited one of UW-L Art professor Joel Elgin’s figure drawing classes shortly after retiring. Over the years, he has taken other classes — an oil painting class with Jennifer Williams Terpstra and charcoal portraits with local artist Peggy Baumgartner.
During the past decade, he has honed his skills with pencil and charcoal drawings. To get more drawing time, he put posters up in the university’s Center for the Arts offering to pay students to sketch their portraits.
Lately, Kader has volunteered to oversee a Mayo waiting room four times a week. There, he draws patients and caregivers. He sketches without asking because he knows they’ll behave differently if they know he’s at work. Instead, he offers up the sketches to his “models” when he’s finished. “It’s amazing how pleased people are getting decent drawings of themselves,” he notes. “I’m very happy to do that.”
For the eight years he’s been sketching in the waiting room, he’s never had anyone get upset about drawing them. Usually he gets the opposite response. “This connects me with people more than anything else,” he explains. “I feel it’s another way of showing loving care.”
While Kader currently gives his “models” the sketches for free, he’s considering asking for donations to award UW-L art students in a department that cared for him. “The art department has been very good to me,” he explains. “They accepted me and treated me like a student.”
Each year for the annual All-Student Exhibition, Kader funds an award for a student’s work that catches the jurors’ eyes. He’s happy to be able to provide extra incentive for deserving art students. “It’s a stimulus for students to try and do their best,” he says. “It makes them take their work more seriously.”
If you go—
What: Charcoal Prints
Who: Bill Kader
Artist talk: 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, 116 Center for the Arts
Opening reception: 7-7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20. Show runs through Thursday, March 5
Where: Study Gallery in the university Art Gallery, Center for the Arts
Regular hours: noon-1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 4-6 p.m.Thursdays and Fridays
Note — Images of Kader's work are available upon request
All-Students Juried Exhibition kicks off second semester
[caption id="attachment_38630" align="alignright" width="125"] More portrait sketches by Bill Kader.[/caption]
The university Art Gallery opens its spring 2015 exhibition schedule with the annual All-Students Juried Exhibition with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, in the gallery on the first floor of the Center for the Arts. The show highlights the creative works of students across the campus. The adjacent gallery will feature charcoal prints by retired physician Bill Kader. The show is free and runs through March 5.
The jurors for the exhibition are Phillip Ahnen of the Rochester (Minnesota) Art Center and Carolyn Payne, director of the Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis. Funding for awards given at the exhibit is from the UW-L Foundation and donors: Ruth and Dan Devitt, Bill Kader, Betty Kendrick, RuthAnn Knapp, Richard Kohler, Carol and Tom Hutchins Winther, and the estates of Catherine Crail, Louise Drumm, Milton and Margaret Kosbab, James Quillin, and Ray Sherin.
University Art Gallery exhibitions are funded through the UW-L College of Liberal Studies and UW-L Student Association. All exhibitions and related events are free and open to the public.
If you go—
What: All Students Juried Exhibition
Who: Students
Opening reception: 4-6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13. Show runs through Thursday, March 5
Where: University Art Gallery, Center for the Arts
Regular hours: Noon-1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 4-6 p.m.Thursdays and Fridays
Admission: Free
Upcoming exhibits:
- The Wisconsin 3rd Congressional High School Art Exhibition, “An Artistic Discovery,” March 27 – April 11. Reception from 1–3 p.m. Saturday, April 11.
- UW-L Seniors Exhibition, April 17–May 8. Reception from 4-6 p.m. Friday, April 17.
- Wisconsin Regional Arts Program Exhibition, featuring work from artists representing western Wisconsin, May 18–30. Reception Saturday, May 30.