Nurses’ art show to benefit UW-Madison School of Nursing

While a nurse’s job may be the epitome of caring and giving, alumni of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing, with support from Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, are temporarily stepping into a different profession – that of artist – to give back to current nursing students.

Landscape photographer Edgar Catacutan, a 1989 School of Nursing graduate, is holding an exhibit opening on Friday, July 18, from 7-9 p.m., and on Saturday, July 19, from 9 a.m.-noon, at the Butler Café, 21 North Butler St. A portion of the sales will go to the Nurses’ Alumni Organization to help fund student activities, scholarships and grants. Catacutan’s art hangs in several Milwaukee-area buildings, including Covenant Healthcare facilities and the Rawson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“As an undergraduate, I benefited from an NAO scholarship,” says Catacutan, a 2002 NAO Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. “I hope to be able to give back some of what I’ve been given by holding this opening for the benefit of the NAO.”

Also on display will be several photographs by Eric Bauman, president of the NAO and a 1994 nursing alumnus. As nurses/artists, Bauman and Catacutan share yet another distinction: They are among a small group of male nursing graduates. Of the 7,168 alumni of the nursing school since it’s first graduating class in 1927, only 336 – or five percent – have been male.

A poetry book titled The Heart and Hand of Nursing will be available for purchase at the show to further support the work of the NAO. The book features the winners of the first NAO poetry contest, a cover by Catacutan and a forward by Baldwin. As a child, nurses cared for Baldwin during a serious illness, and they later cared for her grandmother while she was in the last months of her life.

Baldwin writes, “I hear regularly from constituents who rely on the quality care provided by nurses for themselves and their loved ones, and who fear that a growing nursing shortage may affect the availability of that care. It is through nurses’ technical skill that wounds often are healed. Perhaps even more importantly, however, it is through nurses’ willingness to open their ‘vein of vulnerability’ that transformation takes place.”

The book can be purchased at the show for $12, with the proceeds going to fund student research, study abroad and the pinning ceremony in the School of Nursing. For more information, contact the School of Nursing’s alumni office, (608) 263-5230.