Keepers of Art

Scholarships helped Brittany Deal ’13 achieve her dream of a career in art. Today she is the art gallery director and exhibitions manager at the Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery at Wartburg College.

If Brittany Deal ’13 could talk to her scholarship donor, she would say: “I never intended to pursue a studio art degree. I made the decision gradually within my first year at UNI. The scholarships I received helped to validate this decision when I needed validation most. The art-making process is rather unsettling at times. During college, I frequently entered periods in which I wanted to throw up my hands and walk away. Sometimes I would, yet I always returned to the studio. Since someone believed in me enough to monetarily invest in my education, I refused to give up.”

Brittany Deal is a grateful student from UNI. In 2012 and 2013, Brittany received the Dorothy Jean Tostlebe Ray Endowed Art Scholarship. As a student, she juggled study, studio time and jobs. She worked as an assistant to an art history professor, a preparator at the UNI Gallery of Art, lab assistant for the photography studio and resident assistant in Bartlett Hall.

During her senior year, Brittany worked three jobs and created her first cohesive exhibition of work. Brittany earned her B.F.A. in studio art with an emphasis in photography and B.A. in art history. Dorothy Jean would be proud to know Brittany is now the art gallery director and exhibitions manager at the Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

An art devotee and philanthropist, Dorothy Jean ’41 developed an interest in anthropology when she moved to Nome, Alaska. She devoted herself to independent research and writing that resulted in eight books and 90 professional papers on ethnohistory and the art of the Inupiaq and Yupik Eskimos. She received numerous awards for her work, including the State of Washington Governor’s Annual Writers Award for her book, Eskimo Art: Tradition and Innovation in North Alaska.

Dorothy Jean died in December 2007. She lived a life full of friendships, adventure, gardening and goals. She also had the satisfaction of bicycling hundreds of miles in two summers throughout New England and three trips on the Alaska Highway alone, without a flat tire.