Kelly Donahue-Wallace
When Kelly Donahue-Wallace arrived at UNM College of Fine Arts, she immediately caught the research bug. It changed her life. Before long, she was on her way to her master’s degree, focusing on the art created during the clash of cultures that was the Spanish colonial period in Latin America. Along the way, she studied the great teachers at UNM and learned how to teach. She learned how to write and to edit her work. Eventually, she would go on to write a book about teaching art history.
Donahue-Wallace studied in Spain and learned the language and culture. A Fulbright Fellowship took her to study in Mexico City. Even when she worked at the library to help pay her way, shelving books in the rare book room, she couldn’t resist reading the books before shelving them. She earned her doctorate and became a noted expert in her subject. Her most recent book describes the art and architecture of Latin America in the turbulent period of 1521 to 1821.
Today, after four years as the chair of the Department of Art Education and Art History at the University of North Texas, Donahue-Wallace has returned to the UNT faculty to give more time to research and writing. But she has never forgotten the new worlds that were opened to her by the mission and range of knowledge at UNM College of Fine Arts. And how important it is to support that mission.
“Supporting the arts is not fundamentally different from supporting a hospital or an after-school program,” Donahue-Wallace says. “Supporting the arts says that you value the words, images, music and other forms of self-expression of the person whose life was saved by the hospital or made better by the after-school program. And it says that you want that person’s words, images, music and ideas to be available for everyone to enjoy. Supporting the arts says that you value the society in which you live and the people with whom you interact.”
How many worlds, small and large, will College of Fine Arts alumni transform, and will yours be one of them? With your vital support, the answers are “many” and “yes.”