Final Blog Post

Wow! What an unforgettable journey. Feels like just yesterday it was the first day of fall classes and now it’s December 9th. It’s crazy how fast time flies and how things progress. Coming into the final week of this course feels unbelievable. For the past week I been reflecting on this experience and all I’ve learned. I couldn’t have imagined I’d be writing blog posts and interviewing a MIAD Alum with similar interests as me. Truly enjoyed this class and the doors it opened! 

At the beginning of the semester I was interested in writing about murals around Milwaukee. Especially since I had spent time in Scotland over the summer and seen so many buildings covered in amazing street art. Yet, at the same time I was also interested in writing about tattoo artist in Milwaukee. I definitely had a hard time making a decision. However once I did some research and understood what the series of articles was going to about. It made more sense to write about MIAD Alums in Milwaukee, who tattooed for a living. 

I reached out to multiple tattoo artists who were MIAD Alums. Some said they would help but never came through. The only one who did come through and was more then happy to help was Adam Werther. Yo that was super cool that he made time for me!

I can’t help but think back, when I had first heard about Adam was in Duane Seidensticker office (executive director of advising and career services). This was a years ago while I was getting my resume looked over, Duane noticed I had a lot of background in tattooing and recommended I go visit Adam one day. And sure enough that day came sooner than I had planned.  

I can honestly say I was nervous but excited at the same time. I came up with about 50 questions I thought would be perfect to ask Adam. Some had to do with his career as an artist today, some on his involvement in the community most recently, and some on his personal views at the moment.

The interview funny enough started with me showing Adam my sleeve of tattoos and leg piece. Then it led, to me showing him my portfolio and answering a couple questions he had for me. Almost felt like I was getting interviewed at first which surprised me but did make sense since I had told him I was very interested in tattooing after I graduate MIAD. 

Finally it was my turn to do the interviewing and I had a list of questions ready for him. However I thought, I would have to asking him each one individually, one by one but the first question kinda led me branching off his answers or adding my own comments which then led into a different topic. It almost felt like we were going back and forth with each topic and we just added from there. 

I could honestly relate to a lot of what Adam was saying about the current state of tattooing and how life as an artist could be a roller coaster. Through the good and the bad I learned that Adam still manages to be persistent with everything. Even when he fails, he keeps going and is always finding a way to move forward. It's been almost two decades and Adam still here doing what he loves. Which I think says a lot about him as a person and artist. Overall I found Adam to be very intellectual about art, tattoos, life, and himself. 

Our interview almost took two hours and we’d probably would have kept talking but his appointment had arrived and I needed to get back to school. Which wasn’t a problem, I had more then enough content to use. All in all I had an amazing time interviewing Adam and hope one day we will cross paths again. 

During the process of writing the final article, I had to transcribe the interview which took awhile. Then I had to take out all the key points, quotes, and turn that in to an article draft. This process was definitely challenging and took a lot time to piece together but overall I was thankful for the opportunity and happy it all worked out in the end.