Four years ago, the Chazen Museum of Art hosted a group show featuring artwork created by University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff. Now, in a collaborative effort between Chazen administration and 51 art department faculty, emeritus faculty and affiliates from related departments and Tandem Press are again displaying their best and latest for students and the community.

?Because the show is only once every four years, there are unfortunately students who go through this program who never get to see what their professors can do,? said Andy Rubin, a printmaker from Tandem Press who is showcasing one of his woodcut prints in the exhibition.

The impressive faculty collection spans three temporary galleries and the entire fourth floor of the museum, representing a broad field of creative styles and techniques. Such diversity can be seen in just one corner of the fourth floor gallery, where exquisite glass casts of trees and ships by art professor Steve Feren sit near a trance-inducing, high-definition video project created by associate art professor Stephen Hilyard. Also in the vicinity is a towering sculpture by associate art professor Gail Simpson made out of wood and recycled cereal boxes, illustrating the disconcerting transformation of great trees into man-made products.

Additionally, numerous paintings, photographs, prints, woodworks, digital graphics, ceramics, sculptures, jewelry, metalworks and textiles are on view.

In preparation for the show, professors were asked to submit only what they created as artists, not as faculty or academic staff. Thus, museumgoers are given a unique opportunity to see the personal, inventive styles of each artist.

?I think that when [art students] are getting critiques from professors, it?s nice to know where they?re coming from and what kinds of artwork they do and what their interests are,? said Rubin. ?I also think that helps them become better students because then they know how to get the most out of that teacher.?

For many professors, leading this dual life between teaching and working as an artist can be taxing.

?The difficulty is finding enough time to do one?s own research and art practice,? said associate art professor Nancy Mladenoff. Visiting the urban hub of New York City about five times each year ?feeds my own work, often in oblique ways,? she said. ?As an educator, it helps me to inspire my students.? Her watercolor-on-paper work ?Insects? can be seen in the exhibition and is only about one-third of an ongoing piece cataloging all the general species of insects, plants and birds in North America.

?My focus is on art as a social practice through an aesthetic experience,? Mladenoff said. With ?Insects? Mladenoff intends the viewer to see the impact human beings have on the environment.

For Rubin, being a member of the academic staff and thus being unable to have summers off to sit in a studio and create art greatly impacts the amount of time he is able to devote to his craft. ?This September will be my 20th year at Tandem,? he reflects. ?It is basically an 8-to-5 job, and I?m doing this work for [visiting artists and graduate students]. School and life have a way of filling up your time.?

Still, Rubin tries to keep working regularly on woodcut prints. ?I don?t have an apocalyptic vision, and I try to keep politics out of my work,? he said. His ?Gardener? is displayed in the exhibition, which shows a tranquil scene from the everyday life of a woman tending to large, budding red flowers. Rubin explains, ?It?s like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything is carved, painted and put back together again.?

For students, this exhibition offers a rare chance to personally see and evaluate art produced by those who are, potentially, the professors who instruct them in their own projects. As Rubin expressed, this can be an invaluable experience.

In a broader sense, the exhibition?s great appeal rests in how it showcases such a large body of art created locally by individuals who manage to both work and play in the field they love.

The 2008 Art Department Faculty Exhibition will run at the Chazen through March 30 and is free to the public.