Wash & Set: An Interview with LaNia Sproles and Ariana Vaeth
I was able to schedule an appointment to see Wash & Set at Hawthorn Contemporary on a sunny Tuesday morning. Entering the large, white-walled gallery was disorienting at first, as I haven’t been inside an art space since last March. Being isolated in a space designed for conversation felt chilly and brought attention to my body. Fortunately, I was in this hollow space with a collection of intimate works by LaNia Sproles and Ariana Vaeth. The uniformly desktop scale of the works exhibited invited me into vignettes of their lives. As I made my way through the gallery, I felt my shoulders relax and my attention moved from myself to scenes of celebration, leisure, and love. I met Sproles and Vaeth while studying at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Before this, Sproles was a student at High School of the Arts in Milwaukee, a school that allows students two hours per day to focus on art and hone their skills. Being that it had a more diverse student body than her previous school …