Art grad curates impressive resume through Experience-Driven Learning

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—As she hosts her senior gallery exhibition, Western Michigan University art student Hope Donovan is curating a clear vision of her future. A talented artist in her own right, she found her passion for curation and museum management after transferring to Western. 

Donovan, who will graduate on Saturday, Dec. 13, with a bachelor’s degree in art, grew up envisioning a career as a professional musician.  

“Before I ever picked up a paintbrush, I idolized performers,” she says. “My childhood heroes weren’t painters but visionaries like Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and Freddie Mercury—artists who blurred the line between reality and theatre, who weren’t afraid to be larger than life.” 

She took a more classical music route than her heroes, becoming a talented viola player.  For the better part of a decade, Donovan honed her craft, practicing and performing with orchestras in middle and high school and pursuing a music degree at Loyola University New Orleans. 

“I played music my whole life; it’s what I thought I was supposed to do,” she remembers. “But after two years as a music student, I started thinking it might not be for me. I didn’t love the classical field; it didn’t offer a lot of creativity. But I’ve always been an artsy person, and I started selling paintings and drawings to make extra money down there.” 

That side hustle illuminated a new professional possibility: artist. She established herself as Nervous Giraffe on the New Orleans arts scene, earning commissions and gaining a following. Under her new artist identity, she shipped paintings across the country and displayed her work in galleries. 

“I learned that although I enjoyed music, I found my true purpose in art,” she says. 

Along with her newfound passion came an eagerness for a new start, and she knew just the place: Western, where she’d spent two summers in high school in the music seminar program. 

“We would stay overnight for two weeks in the dorms and live like a college student, and I loved the vibes of Western,” says Donovan, who grew up in Grand Rapids. “I remember when I told my dad I was transferring, he said, ‘I always knew you’d end up there.’” 

Finding her fit 

Transitions can be daunting, but Donovan says coming to Western felt like coming home. The WMU chapter of sorority Alpha Chi Omega welcomed her with open arms. 

“They were such a support in my first couple months here because of study hours and sorority sisters lending me their textbooks for my core classes, giving me advice, helping me find study groups, helping me find other girls in my major and really helping me root myself on campus as a new student,” she says. 

Donovan also found belonging in Hillel at WMU, a registered student organization (RSO) representing the Jewish community on campus. Through the organization, where she’s been president the past two years, she’s had the opportunity to cultivate a worldwide network of support. 

“Hillel has chosen me to represent Western Michigan University for global events in New York and Chicago and Israel. They’ve sent me to three different conferences ... with people from all over the world. My roommate in Chicago was from Argentina!” 

Finding her footing and gaining leadership experience in RSOs helped Donovan build confidence in all aspects of her life. 

“It’s an irreplaceable experience having so many leadership opportunities, because there are more than 300 RSOs at Western,” Donovan says. “That’s 300-plus opportunities to lead something and make a difference.” 

Igniting a spark 

Transferring to Western, Donovan arrived with a blank canvas to paint a new career future.  

“I really took my time at Western to dive in, and I supercharged my program and took so many classes,” she says.  

In one of those classes, a professor asked an important question: What did she want to do with her degree? 

“He said, ‘Hope, you have a crazy knack for telling stories,’” says Donovan, who at that point planned to go into art education. “He talked about the idea of gallery work and museum management—careers I’d never really considered or even really knew were a possibility.” 

As with everything in her life, Donovan took the idea and ran with it. She pitched a gallery show at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts and got a job there as a gallery assistant. She’s also worked as a student assistant curator for the Zhang Legacy Collections Center, curating display cases throughout Western’s campus and collaborating with professors on research. 

In summer 2025, those experiences culminated in an internship with the curatorial management team at the Detroit Historical Society. 

“I was assigned this really cool independent project of restaging a home in historic Fort Wayne, taking note of all of the artifact inventory and working on a really large project right out of the gate,” says Donovan, who was the only undergraduate intern in the organization’s curatorial department. “I wouldn’t have been able to get that internship had I not had the experiences at Western, which is a huge blessing, because it was a really great stepping stone for my career. I learned a lot.” 

Now, she’s using everything she learned to curate her most important show to date: Her own senior exhibition. Called “Stage Fright,” the collection is a culmination of her academic and personal journey that focuses on reclaiming discomfort. It features works ranging from a weeping Grim Reaper to Donovan and her sisters reimagined as clowns to a self-portrait depicting her body as a decomposing viola. 

“It’s both a reflection on my childhood obsession with theatrics and a curtain call for my time in art school,” she says. “‘Stage Fright’ lives in that in- between space:; the moment before a spotlight hits, the silence before applause, and the fear and thrill of being known.” 

Donovan’s exhibition—presented under her Nervous Giraffe persona—runs Dec. 2-13 in the DeVries Student Gallery in the Richmond Center for Visual Arts. She calls it a final bow in her journey as an art student before embarking on the next chapter, which she’s prepared to tackle thanks to the support she found at Western. 

“It’s nice to have faculty who care enough to help you carve out where you can be and how to get to where you want to be,” she says. “My professors helped me find my voice and empowered me to run for leadership positions and take on more stuff while making sure I knew I had the support and skills I needed to succeed.” 

“I’m really, really happy with what Western has given me.” 

For more WMU news, arts and events, visit WMU News online.