Brauer Museum of Art

We at the Brauer Museum of Art are pleased to have two fine judges

for this year’s Secondary School Showcase exhibition.  This

exhibition will run from April 1st through April 19th, with an

opening reception and award ceremony in the museum on Wednesday,

April 1st at 6 pm.  The exhibition, opening reception, and award

ceremony are free and open to the public, and the judges will be

present to give awards and comment on their selections.

Here are biographies of our two judges, Carole Stodder and Tom Brand.

Carole Stodder was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  She came to the

Chicago area to attend Lake Forest College where she graduated with

honors in art.  She continued her art studies with New York artist/

teacher Will Barnet in advanced painting at the University of

Minnesota, Duluth.  This experience continues to inform her approach

to art to this day.  In Chicago she taught art at the University of

Chicago Laboratory School and earned her Master of Fine Arts degree

at the Midway Studios at the University of Chicago.

As an arts activist in the 70s, she was a founding member of the

Chicago Artists’ Coalition and served as chairperson of its board.

She wrote for the New Art Examiner and was editor of the Chicago

Artists’ News.  During these years, she continued to paint and

exhibit and established a studio on Chicago’s west side.

In more recent years, she worked as assistant administrator of the

Illinois Artisans Program, a state program for artists.  In 1996 she

moved to Indiana.  She has been active at the Lubeznik Center for the

Arts and in the Area Artists Association.  Currently she maintains a

studio at her residence in the town of Pines.  Carole Stodder is an

award-winning artist who has exhibited widely.  Her work is in both

private and public collections.

Tom Brand has been a part of the arts community for more than

thirty years.  Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Brand came

to Chicago (after service in the U.S. Navy) to study art and painting

at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In the years following, he married and provided for his family by

working as a journeyman printer, a trade he had first learned in his

father’s business in Indianapolis.  As president of his own printing

company in Chicago, he produced posters and comic books for the

“Hairy Who” as well as catalogues for other Chicago artists.  He

curated exhibits for the Beacon Street Hull House Art Center in

Chicago and showed in community exhibits.  As an arts activist in

Chicago, he is one of the founding members of the Chicago Artists’

Coalition in 1974, an organization that still exists today.

Brand moved to Northern Indiana in 1996.  He became active in what

is now known as the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City,

Indiana.  He was chairman of the Area Artists Association.  He was

also the secretary to the board and also the chairman of the

Collections Committee.  Brand, as a prolific painter, exhibits often,

and his works have won awards and are in many private collections.