Artists in our midst

Contributing writer Katherine Rogers profiles four rising artists who've settled in Madison. Photographer Lewis Koch, 39, a native of Long Island who's also lived in Vermont and Denmark, cites "a certain saneness in living here that is in marked contrast to some of the larger art capitals like New York." Painter Brian Frink, 32, came to Madison to pursue an MFA at the UW and always yearned to return, even during the five years he spent living in a Brooklyn loft. Painter and Middleton native Paula Nees, 38, returned after graduate school in California because "I could live rather reasonably and have a studio." Chicago native Barbara Tetenbaum, 32, curator of Silver Buckle Press, studied art at the UW and worked in Indiana, England and Germany, but calls Madison "a place to get your work done." Tetenbaum is now head of book arts at Portland's Oregon College of Art and Craft; Nees teaches at Ohio's Otterbein College; and Frink is a professor of painting and drawing at Minnesota State-Mankato. Koch still lives in Madison, where he's mounted a striking series of mixed-media environmental and online installations, in addition to exhibits in Amsterdam, London and other art capitals.