Visual History of the Unions
Fourteen Stamps artists, graduating between 1982 and 2026, created new work about the history of the Michigan Union and League, as centers of university life. Alison Rivett (MFA ‘07) Associate Director of the Arts Initiative, shared a list of hundreds of resources to give each artist as a sample of the kinds of stories the artists could consider. The artists were invited to reimagine our shared history, highlighting the less known stories from our institution’s past.
The artists then interpreted a theme that resonated with each of them and did additional research as needed. The project was supported by the Inclusive History Project in partnership with Michigan Unions.
The following is an overview of the artists’ interpretations of the history of the Michigan Union and League:
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Melanie Manos
Stamps MFA ‘08
Historical reference: Tradition Broken by Freshman Co-Ed (1932)
Title: The League of Extraordinary Women
Archival Pigment Print
Melanie Manos has been researching the roles of women at the University of Michigan for a few years already for a larger body of work. She looked more closely at Dr. Eliza Mosher, first woman professor and first Dean of Women at the University of Michigan, who advocated for a “space for women,” which would eventually be the Michigan League.
Utilizing her body in absurd and precarious actions, Melanie Manos (Stamps MFA ‘08) walks a tightrope between humor and solemnity to convey the inequities and insecurities of daily life, and the systems that perpetuate them. She works in live and mediated performance, video, photography, mixed media drawings and digital collage. Manos is a Teaching Professor and Janie Paul Collegiate Lecturer at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design, also serving as Engagement Programs Coordinator.
Manos won a 2021 Knights Art Challenge in Detroit Tech Award for the webXR project HerView: Visualizing Women’s Work, and a 2020 Kresge Arts in Detroit Award. She’s exhibited and performed internationally including Museum London, Ottawa; Zuckerman Museum, Atlanta, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, Detroit Institute of Arts, Hellenic Museum of Michigan, Santa Monica Museum, Wheeler Opera House, Aspen, and Links Hall, Chicago.
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Katie Shulman
BFA ‘10
Historical reference: City ‘Salute’ to Working Women to Include Varied Special Events (1963)
Title: If You Can't Lick it, Join it
Mixed Media
Katie Shulman connected her own experience as a recent new mother to an event held in the League in 1963 – “The City Salute to Working Women.” One of the speakers, Debra Bacon, was a Dean of Women at U-M, whose talk was about automation and how it’s changing the lives of women. Bacon emphasized that women won’t be making these new machines, but will have to work with them. Her talk took Shulman back to the invention of the breast pump, which has turned women into machines, and allowed them to be in the workforce.
Katie Shulman is an artist, organizer, arts administrator and educator from Washington, DC. She lives, makes art and builds community in Detroit, Michigan. Katie holds an MFA in Studio Art from Syracuse University and a BFA in Fine Art from The Penny W. Stamps School at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her work has been shown nationally including at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY, The Strohl Art Gallery in Chautauqua, NY, I.M Weiss Gallery and Reyes|Finn in Detroit, Michigan
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Angel Manson
BFA ‘22
Historical reference: Diversity in Student Life
Titles: Lionel, Mary, and Tomo
Digital Print
Angel Manson was interested in portraiture and how it contributes to how some images get to be immortalized. Manson chose three past students and will style them similarly to the older portraits in the Union already, as digital prints. He wants students to see themselves in these people––people in U-M’s early history who look like them; people of color, queer people, were there. Students defying gender roles so long ago is inspiring.
Angel Manson is a comic book artist and illustrator born in Detroit, and based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. They create children’s and YA stories that teach themes of kindness, love and empathy. Angel earned their BFA from the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan in 2022. They have worked for Plucky Comics on “Ferronica’s Vanity,” a series about the significance of Black, LGBTQ+ history and drag culture. Angel currently does freelance work and runs the fantasy webcomic, “Autumn, the Protector of Lumaria.”
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Katie Hammond
BFA ‘04
Historical reference: “Our Handsomest Girls Are Men”
Title: Lionel "Iron Mike" Ames
Acrylic paint and glitter on canvas
Katie Hammond created a portrait of Lionel “Mike” Ames, the most celebrated of the female impersonators of the Vaudeville-era operettas performed in the Michigan Union. These were fundraisers for the Union itself, and, because the Union was a mens-only club, all of the women’s roles were performed by men. As Hammond points out: “This is an especially timely moment to highlight gender exploration, as it has become more accepted in mainstream society. Still, into the 1990s, when I started college, people had to be much more careful expressing themselves in public." This portrait of Lionel Ames invites a timely reflection on community, expression, and the legacy of campus performance.
Katie Hammond earned her BFA from University of Michigan School of Art & Design (2004) and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). She has exhibited widely in Michigan, Chicago and New York. She received fellowships to Ox-Bow and Vermont Studio Center residencies. She has completed numerous murals and commissions. She is the founder and manager of Ann Arbor Artist Studios. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her young son, Desmond Frederick. www.katiehammondartist.com
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Abigail Lowe
MFA ‘24
Historical reference: John G. Frey (1943)
Title: John G. Frey (1876-1943)
Graphite and gouache on paper
I chose a reference to a notice of the death by heart attack of John G. Frey while at work at the Union, where he was a janitor, in August of 1943. I was interested in the fact that there is not much archive about him, compared to other people represented in the Union’s memory – he left a faint trace compared to them. I am using drawing, which is a slow, tedious process, to do a close reading of what I could find about him, as 25 small images.
Abigail Lowe earned her BA from Grinnell College in 2015 with an interdisciplinary degree in studio art and creative writing and received her MFA from the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design in 2024, where she was awarded the Jean Paul Slusser MFA Thesis Award. Her work has been supported by fellowships from Penland School of Craft (2022) and Vermont Studio Center (2025). She is currently a lecturer at Stamps and serves as the Fabrication Lead for the Creative Campus Voting Project.
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Martyna Alexander
BFA ‘12
Historical reference: History Lessons: A Pool Resource
Title: The men typically swam in the nude
Acrylic and oil pastel on cotton canvas
Martyna Alexander depicted the swimming pool that used to be in the Union when it was first built in 1925; until 1966. It was the main campus pool, where swim meets were held. She is interested in the ways that sports spaces arrange humans into patterns of movement and interaction.
Martyna Alexander is a Detroit-based artist and designer whose work often compares the strange harmony of the strict and systematic to the expressive, organic, and spontaneous – oppositions that mirror the many tensions of her cultural multiplicity and our modern lives. She graduated from Stamps in 2012 with a BFA. Originally a designer working in corporate settings for over 10 years, she now uses her design experience to create abstract solution-less works of art to uncover the deeper connections felt to place and examine the simplified structures of man-made systems as visual objects. As a designer, she’s worked with companies such as Apple, Floyd, and Shinola, and as an artist has shown in Detroit, Chicago, Spain, and Tokyo. She was the Artist-in-Residence at Almost Perfect, Tokyo, in 2022, and at the Vermont Studio Center in 2024.
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Ellie Lee
BFA ‘26
Historical reference: Resources: Visual History of the University Unions (Union and League)
Title: A Visual History of the Michigan Union
Digital print
Ellie Lee decided to try to show the entire history of the Michigan Union, as represented by stories that made it into the news; or what media in the past chose to highlight. She wanted to create a large-format piece, as a personal challenge. The piece shows certain trends of what was happening at different times, such as periods of more protest, political environment, or even famous visitors. Lee finds it interesting to see Michigan putting effort into documenting these histories, at a time when other universities are trying to cover up the past.
Ellie Lee is a senior at the University of Michigan pursuing a BFA degree at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design with a concentration in graphic design and a minor in User Interface User Experience (UI/UX) through the School of Information. Her work explores the intersection of technology, ethics, and design. She is passionate about data visualization, experimental typography, and promoting ethical design practices.
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Nick Azzaro
BFA 04; MFA 22
Historical reference: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/u/umsurvey/AAS3302.0004.001/466:3.2.9
Title: What is the Union?
Mixed media
Nick Azzaro used a quote by a professor of the early 20th century and his call for support to raise this building, who wanted it to be bigger than any other Union, and talks about how inclusive it is for men – for Michigan men. This statement, once accepted, today, it made Azzaro wonder, “What things do we still see today that were accepted in the past?” He wanted to highlight the importance of the Union but recognize the influence of things that have been said and the actions folks may take in accordance with those formerly accepted ideas.
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Mellisa Lee
BFA ‘22
Historical reference:
Title: The First 'Teach-In'
Acrylic and oil on canvas
Mellisa Lee wanted to work with some aspect of the Vietnam War protests at U-M. She admires the student and teach-in protests because they’re a form of peaceful protest through education. Lee’s piece uses the form of a paj ntaub, a traditional textile art and needlework form of the Hmong people. It’s a form of art Lee’s mother taught her to do, which she had learned while in refugee camps.
Mellisa Lee is an artist and educator who earned her BFA from the University of Michigan (2022). Her passions include bridging lost stories of displaced communities and underrepresented peoples. She uses a painted approach of the “paj ntaub,” a traditional embroidery art form created by Hmong women during the times of genocide that is passed down from generation to generation. The work is purely archival, full of assorted collages meant to preserve and give amplification to a particular time in history. She earned the William A. Lewis Watercolor Prize in the Stamps Undergraduate Juried Exhibition (2022) for her work on indigenous representation. Mellisa has also served as a college advisor in Detroit, taught art across multiple school districts with the company Crayola, and has recently taught in NYC with New York University.
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Mary Hafeli
BFA
Historical reference: : Tradition Broken by Freshman Coed (1932)
Title: Official House Rules
Paper, ink, paint, fabric, thread
Mary Hafeli was intrigued about the presence and absence of women at the Union. She did a lot of additional research at the Bentley Library, looking back as far as 1904 in meeting minutes, some of which are handwritten on onion-skin paper, of the Union's Board of Directors. She found many references but they did not appear to get at the reason for their resistance. They would wonder whether women, if given access, could use the billiards room, instead.
Mary Hafeli (Professor Emerita, Teachers College Columbia University) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She received a B.F.A. from the University of Michigan and an Ed.M. and Ed.D. from Teachers College Columbia University. Her studio work has been shown nationally and internationally. She has received several awards in recognition of her widely published research on the studio practices and processes of artists and young people, and in 2020 was named a Distinguished Fellow by the National Art Education Association.
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Sally Clegg
MFA ‘20
Historical reference: Alice Frayer With Her Sculpture ‘The Spirit of the Snow’, May 1939
Title: The Spirit of The Spirit of the Snow
Lenticular print
Sally Clegg created a lenticular print inspired by what she sees as the parallel stories between a student from 1939 and another student today. Ben Michalsky and Clegg recreated the 1939 photo of Alice Freyer and her award-winning sculpture to compare the experiences of art students across time.
Sally Clegg is a concept-driven artist working in sculpture and experimental printmaking. She holds an MFA (’20) from the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design, where she is now a lecturer and student exhibitions coordinator.
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Toby Millman
MFA ‘07
Title: TAHRIR Coalition - March 28, 2024.
Appliqué quilt (linen, wool, cotton, poly-cotton) and beading
Toby Millman created a documentary quilt – a direct interpretation of a photograph taken by U-M graduate Jeremy Weine (BA 2024), which captures protestors pausing in the Michigan Union during a campus march on March 28, 2024.
Toby Millman grew up in Miami, Florida and moved to Michigan to earn her MFA from University of Michigan. A Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant recipient, she has exhibited throughout the Detroit area as well as New York, Chicago, Casablanca and Bangalore, has been an artist in residence at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and Women’s Studio Workshop, and her artist books are in numerous collections including the Getty, New York Public Library and Center for Book Arts. She is currently a Lecturer at the Residential College and has lived in Hamtramck since 2008.
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Alison Rivett
MFA ‘07
Historical reference:
Title: People in the Union (Haile Selassie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sun Ra)
Serigraph with gouache
Alison Rivett has long been interested in the ways history gets oversimplified. For the Unions, we distill history to JFK’s announcement of the Peace Corps, and MLK’s visit. The history of our Union is also built upon the stories of each person who walked into one the building. History is the collection of many mundane occurrences or local revolutions; this work reminds us of how historical memory is often shaped by what we choose to spotlight.
Alison Byrnes Rivett engages historical imaginaries referencing visual cultures influenced by her time living in India. She returned to the USA in 2016 after teaching art and design for seven years at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Bangalore. She taught painting at the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan prior to that, and worked in exhibition design in various museums. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed a BA in Classics and a BS in Art. She currently works at the University of Michigan.
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Liz Barick Fall
BFA ‘88
Title: Past, Present, Future: A legacy of Mothers and Daughters at Michigan
Mixed Media
Liz Barick Fall’s mother went to the University of Michigan before women were allowed inside the Union, and Fall herself attended just after the end of gender restrictions and spent a lot of time there because she lived in West Quad. Her four daughters went here as well. Fall used family memorabilia to reflect on university life for women as political and cultural trends change over time.
Liz Barick Fall is a mixed media artist. She makes sculpture, installations and found object assemblage which integrate varied materials and items she collects with her photos using encaustic transfer techniques. She is a lifelong Michigan resident and has lived and worked in Ann Arbor for the past 30 years. She holds a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art. In addition to practicing and exhibiting her work, she is also the director of trustArt studios and Barickuda Gallery, an artists' workspace and gallery in Ann Arbor, which she founded in 2012 to develop opportunities for creative collaboration in her community.
