BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

Grace Latz has long had a gift for doing and seeing things in a creative way.

Her instincts for arts and crafts – crocheting, drawing, quilting, pottery, woodworking – began to come to life when Latz was a toddler and continue to this day.

Growing up on a 100-acre farm near Jackson, Michigan, Latz paid close attention whenever a family member had a moment of inspiration and followed through on an idea. Her instincts were never far away.

"I've always been a crafty kid,'' Grace said.

She also made a point of looking for ways to improve regardless of the activity.

"Whenever there'd be something in our area, like our museum where they'd have art classes or pottery, she would always sign up for a class and try to learn different things,'' said her mom, Virginia. "She was around it a lot.''

When Grace left home to enroll at Wisconsin in 2006, she brought with her a similar level of curiosity. She was approached at SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising and Registration) by a representative of the women's rowing team who took note of her 6-foot frame and asked if she would be interested in doing something she hadn't done before.

A former ballet dancer and volleyball standout at Jackson Northwest High School, Latz wound up falling in love with rowing, so much so that after she graduated from UW with a degree in international and environmental studies in 2011, she made the U.S. Olympic Team in 2016 and currently serves as a color commentator for the sport for the Big Ten Network and helped with the Olympic and Paralympic Trials - Rowing on Peacock.

Latz doesn't consider herself a professional artist – at least not yet – but she has found a way to weave her love for rowing and her penchant for creative expression into an enduring gift to the Olympic experience in Paris.

Now 36, Latz was one of four individuals from around the world – including three Olympians and one Paralympian out of approximately 100 applicants – to be chosen for this prestigious assignment. She is joined by fellow American rower Kelly Salchow MacArthur, French handball player Luc Abato, Estonian sprinter Egle UIjas and Argentinian paracanoe athlete Brenda Sardon.

Latz was among the finalists for this project in 2020 in Tokyo, putting together a completely different presentation, but the project was postponed and later cancelled due to the pandemic. She considers this a second Olympic berth.  

"I know the IOC is taking a little bit of a risk with me because I'm the only one (of the four athlete-artists) that isn't a professional artist,'' she said.

This program began in 2018, giving Olympic and Paralympic athletes a global platform by inviting them to create and present new works of art.

To celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, eight Olympians and one Paralympian were invited to participate in the program through either an individual project inspired by sport and Olympic values or through collaborative workshops with focus on community engagement that were organized by the Olympic Museum in collaboration with the City of Paris.

Latz found humor in the fact that her athletic world and her craft world gently collided.

"It's just funny that I did sports when I was such an arts kid, so now it's funny that sports gave me this art opportunity,'' she said.

"I was ecstatic,'' Virginia said. "It was nice to be a helper.''

Latz said her latest creation was inspired by T-shirt quilts commonly made to memorialize sports experiences, similar to one that currently hangs inside Porter Boathouse, home to the UW women's and men's rowing teams.

Using all sorts of recycled sports material from around the world, this Olympic quilt, which roughly measures 6-feet-by-10-feet and depicts the five Olympic rings, includes snips of a 5K fun run T-shirt, a rugby uniform, volleyball netting and a swim cap to name a few.

Latz also incorporated her own material into the design, including a Badgers uniform with a motion W, a T-shirt from her high school volleyball team, the first organized sport that she took part in, and a T-shirt commemorating her last national team appearance in the World Championships.

"She definitely had a vision,'' Virginia said of her daughter.

As part of a pre-Olympic trip to Paris, Grace invited her mother to go along and serve as a sounding board, an eye for detail and a technical advisor.

"I was ecstatic,'' Virginia said. "It was nice to be a helper.''

In addition to working with a recycling outlet, time was also spent at a senior center where the final product will be on display until it eventually makes its way to the Olympic Museum.

"It was wonderful seeing their response as well,'' her mother said.

Grace explained that she wanted to work with seniors in this capacity because, "I think this group often gets forgotten in the sports world, where everything is about being the biggest, fastest and strongest.''

Virginia recalled the day that Grace reached out and said she was going out for rowing as a walk-on.

"I thought it was a great idea,'' her mother said. "She kind of felt this was a way to get to know people. She initially had gone (to Wisconsin) for the academics, but then when the rowing kind of came around, she found a love in that and kind of stuck with it and we supported her in that.''

Grace said the nature of rowing is very team-oriented and collaborative, that it combines well with art and creating on this large scale.

When Grace first began rowing, she didn't have a true sense of where it would take her. She wound up an Olympian.

Now her world as an artist is beginning to open up, much to her joy.

"It's something that came across my path,'' she said. "I like it and now I'll see where it takes me.

"I hope I get to do more projects like this because it's really been a rewarding experience for all involved. It's invited more discussion and connection around my sporting experience, and I can't wait to continue with this after Paris.''