Long before she was the artist in residence at Milwaukee’s Saint Kate Arts Hotel, Julia Bradfish was learning how to stretch her first canvas right here in Wausau. Educated in the supportive environment of D.C. Everest teachers and local institutions like the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, Bradfish transformed her youthful curiosity into a serious professional calling. Today, she is actively challenging the notion that art is merely a side gig, showing young central Wisconsin creatives exactly what it takes to turn a passion for painting into a sustainable career.
Bradfish, a 2019 graduate of D.C. Everest, earned her fine arts degree at UW-Milwaukee in 2023. Last September, she was selected as the artist in residence at Saint Kate Arts Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. Saint Kate is uniquely positioned as one of the first hotels to celebrate the arts in a variety of forms. The program supports artists by providing studio space, a stipend and consistent access to the art curator and programming.
Shaped by the Wausau area’s creative backbone — from crafting sidewalk art at Chalkfest to leaving a permanent mural in her high school halls — Bradfish is now in the midst of the prestigious residency, proving that making a living in the arts takes just as much discipline and drive as it does creativity.
“Wausau was a really great place to grow up in as far as just having that wholesome childhood,” Bradfish said. “I was always biking around in the summer, very playful when I was a child and I think that just inspired me to be more creative.”
Art is in Bradfish’s DNA. There was no “a-ha” moment when she discovered that being an artist was her calling — it was always there.
“During childhood, they have those exercises saying ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I immediately wrote ‘artist’ and that was never a question, that was always just something that I identified as and I knew I was going to do,” Bradfish said. “I just had this drive almost immediately.”
Artistic development began, almost subconciously, at an early age. Bradfish remembers tracing books in elementary school.
“Looking back, that was a crucial technique to learn that hand-eye coordination and understanding your line work, your mark making,” she said.
One person who left a permanent mark on Bradfish’s artistic awakening was D.C. Everest art teacher Melissa Clay Reissmann.
“She was really encouraging, Bradfish said. “She definitely allowed the art students who had a very focused path in the arts to explore different options.”
One critical opportunity she granted Bradfish was painting a mural outside the classroom.
“I had done a piece that basically encapsulated all different art movements, different famous artworks that people would recognize. It was a great way to just explore what it would be like to work in a larger scale, but also have the freedom to make my own creative choices and creatively problem solve as well, which was a really great thing to do at such a young age.”
Bradfish discovered oil painting was her prefered medium after taking an independent class with local artist David Hummer at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art. This class not only solidified her interest in oil painting, but also elevated her skills and offered new perspectives on what a career in fine arts could be,
“Seeing someone who was an artist himself [Hummer], running his own art space was also really inspiring to understand the level of professionalism that goes along with oil painting and also just the level of rigor that you can put into the practice. I am very much a determined hard-working person, so when it comes to seeing the passion behind his painting practice and just all the things that he’s built, it was really inspiring for me.”
In her teen years, Bradfish found another opportunity to publicly display her art at Chalkfest -- an event she remembers attending from an early age with her grandparents and sisters.
“When I had first considered doing Chalkfest, I was scared because I had never really done chalk pastels, let alone in a public setting in that kind of weird environment where you’re drawing on a sidewalk,” Bradfish said. “It was definitely a leap of faith to try it out, but when I had done it, it was such a great opportunity to see all these creatives in the Wausau area that you don’t even know exist. Learning different techniques, understanding that there’s so many different ways to interact with the community through art — it was a really cool opportunity.”
Throughout middle school and high school, Bradfish never wavered from her artistic calling. When people expressed concerns that it could be difficult to make a living or chart a successful career in the arts, Bradfish doubled down.
“I’m a very stubborn person, I’m very determined,” she said. “Looking at a field that may not have as many individuals in it or a clear-cut path didn’t necessarily bother me. If anything it inspired me, it lit a fire inside of me and I knew I had to figure out how to do it. I had to be stubborn, I had to be disciplined. If anything it was just a challenge for me to figure out how to do it.”
As Bradfish neared graduation from D.C. Everest, she discovered UW-Milwaukee was the best art program in the UW system and applied solely to that school.
“I just knew,” she said. “I had this gut feeling and I just had to go with it. And here we are.”
At college, the biggest turning point for Bradfish was the intense focus on learning and developing technical skills.
“I realized that identifying as an art student and an artist are two very different things,” she said. “You have to find your voice, you have to understand what kind of work you want to do for the rest of your life. If you’re stranded on a desert island, what kind of artwork are you going to make that isn’t influenced by any media, any other person’s opinions, but your passion for it?”
Learning how to navigate that fundamental question and build a reflective portfolio were probably the biggest lessons Bradfish learned in preparing her transition from art student to studio artist.
Once she graduated, Bradfish faced another turning point: learning how to develop yourself in a business sense and market yourself as an artist.
“A lot of artists don’t realize this when they’re in school, but you have to wear a lot of hats,” she said. “You can’t just paint in your studio all day, you have to be your own marketing team, you have to understand how to fix a POS system, you have to be all of your support because you are your own person at the end of the day and you are your own business. And learning that was really, really crucial for me especially here at Saint Kate being so forward facing.”
As a Saint Kate artist in residence, Bradfish has her own studio in the hotel where she can work on developing her portfolio. Guests are encouraged to stop by to watch her work or ask questions. The average day at Saint Kate’s, Bradfish said, always varies. In addition to studio work, she helps out with programming and events. On Valentine’s Day weekend she hosted a drawing workshop where couples drew each others’ portraits.
“I have been planning out a specific series as well as a catalog to showcase all the work that I have created during my residency and then launch that as kind of like a celebratory ending,” Bradfish said.
Bradfish’s residency concludes in August and the exhibit will likely be shared sometime that month.
Visually, Bradfish’s work features a lot of dimensionality. She usually starts out an artpiece by creating a three-dimensional collage with interesting materials she has collected over the years.
“I’m flipping through National Geographics, I’m finding found materials, I’m thrifting, to create these environments with different elements,” Bradfish explained. “So there’s some National Geographic realistic photos, some cartoons, and once I’m done with that three-dimensional collage, I’ll slowly transition it onto the canvas ... I’m still incorporating that main model for that three-dimensional feel and making the viewer feel as if they’re encapsulated in an environment. It’s very fun, it’s very playful, very colorful.”
A common theme throughout Bradfish’s work is the contrast and balance between chaos and control. Despite appearing abstract, Bradfish’s art still incorporates parts of her central Wisconsin upbringing from time to time.
“I do think there’s something to be said about the different culture that Wausau has and I think it’s fun to play into that,” she said. “My most recent visit was over the holidays, I went to a little dive bar with my family and I gathered a snowmobiling map. I’m looking to collage that into a future painting, so there are still some things that I’ll take from Wausau to incorporate into my practice now.”
Whether it be a stunning National Geographic photo, or a local snow trail map, the subject matter is less important than the material’s artistic merits. Bradfish is interested in transporting the disctinct color palette and line work of a given piece into something different.
“I like to remove that image out of its original context and put it into something new where people may not be able to name it, but it seems recognizable,” she said. “I like to have my work walk on that fine line where people feel this tie to it but they just don’t know why. That confusion and taking a minute to pause when you’re looking at a piece of art to figure it out is something that I really strive for in my artwork.”
There are plenty of students in central Wisconsin, some studying art in the very classroom Bradfish’s mural adorns, that dream of a career in the arts. Bradfish’s advice for them is to prioritize art as something serious.
“They need to research, they need to practice, practice, practice,” Bradfish said. “They need to constantly be making new artwork regardless of what that looks like. Even if they don’t have the capacity to build stretcher bars or canvases, they still should be sketching and practicing and always have that curiosity of learning more. It’s crucial at such an early stage in your development as an artist to just be a sponge, absorb all the information you can, take all the coaching you can. Always be looking for criticism and brutal honesty.”
Bradfish also said that researching artists and inspirations is something prospective artists can start doing today to set themselves on the right path.
“Start looking at all of the artists that you value their work in some way. Do an opportunity that they have done and look into how they’ve built themself to be prepared for that opportunity and be able to welcome it in,” Bradfish said. “But also, just keep making art. Keep being open-minded. That is the biggest thing. Don’t get pigeonholed into a certain style, always be trying new things.”
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