Five reasons I love Milwaukee!

McKinley Beach and the skyline of Milwaukee

Nearby nature and the arts combine for a high quality of life

Recently Milwaukee Magazine, for which I write a column called Urban Wilderness, asked contributors to list reasons why we love Milwaukee. My slightly amended answers are listed below. The magazine used one of my own photos to illustrate the first of my answers and then a couple of stock photos after that. I’ve included all of my own photos in this version—as you would expect! 

Warnimont Park, Milwaukee County Parks, Cudahy

1. Lake Michigan. Not only does Milwaukee have public beaches and parkland for a front yard in its downtown but also miles of lakefront parks that stretch the length of Milwaukee County.

Milwaukee River Greenway, view north from Locust St. Bridge

2. Four rivers. All four of Milwaukee’s rivers—the Milwaukee, Menomonee, Kinnickinnic and Root—have been endowed with parkways that enable citizens to hike and bike long distances in natural settings.

The Big Bang over the Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum

3. Calatrava. The newly improved Milwaukee Art Museum is the place to go to for outstanding art, and even after 16 years the Calatrava wing with its kinetic roof still seems like a miracle—a very worthy setting for fireworks!

The tropical dome in winter, Mitchell Park Conservatory

4. The Domes. The Mitchell Park Conservatory is the best place to go when the weather is lousy; of course they need to be repaired!

The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

5. The theater scene. Milwaukee has so many theatrical offerings it’s impossible to keep up with them all: the Milwaukee Rep, Pabst Theater, Renaissance Theater, and Next Act, to name just a few.

Scenic Route: MKE in Riverside Park

In fact, on occasion my favorite things overlap, as in this performance of “Scenic Route: MKE” wherein the dancers used Riverside Park and the Milwaukee River as a stage.

The original version of this story was posted by Milwaukee Magazine on April 12, 2017.

To see more reasons why I love Milwaukee go to my Flickr albums.

A residency in Managua, Nicaragua

I've been AWOL for a couple of weeks. But I have a good excuse: I've been out of the country. In Nicaragua to be exact. Over the past ten years my wife, Lynn, has developed a regular working relationship with a non-profit organization in Managua called Cantera. The mission of Cantera is to build a more just, equitable and sustainable society through holistic community development using the methodology of Popular Education. This year Cantera invited me to accompany Lynn in the capacity of artist in residence for a two-week period. We just returned last night.

During my residency I wrote poetry and made photographs that I hope capture a little of the resilient spirit of Nicaragua. On the one hand it is a tropical land with abundant natural beauty and on the other it is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere (after Haiti.) As the residency coincided with Christmas, some of the images reflect the season, which looks very different in Managua than it does in Milwaukee! I'm still editing the poetry but here is one of two initial selections of photos. The other set can be seen on my Urban Wilderness blog.

To see a different selection of photos from my residency go to Urban Wilderness.

Mending the Earth in Milwaukee: A new book

A photographer friend of mine has a new book called Mending the Earth in Milwaukee. Her name is Ney Tait Fraser. 

The book contains sixteen stories of yards landscaped with native plants to create mini-Edens for wildlife. The yards sustain pollinators such as butterflies, indigenous species of bees, birds 

and critters that feed raptors.

The owners of the sixteen yards featured in the book were members of Wild Ones. They were profoundly influenced by one of its leaders, Lorrie Otto. Otto was a gifted teacher. The heroic saga of Lorrie Otto getting DDT banned in Wisconsin is also included. 

Otto with children at Indian Hill School where she helped to establish native plants.  

This book is crammed with useful information and is illustrated by photographs.

Mending the Earth in Milwaukee is currently available at:

Woodland Pattern Book Center 720 E. Locust Street Milwaukee.

Schlitz Audubon Nature Center on Brown Deer Road.

Wehr Nature Center, 9701 West College Ave., Franklin WI 53132.

Riveredge Nature Center, 4458 County Highway Y, Saukville WI 53080.

The book costs $30 plus tax at all four locations.

Notebaert Nature Museum a great place for art

Canada warbler

I was pleased to discover the photographs of Art Fox at the Notebaert Nature Museum. Lusciously printed full color photographs depicted birds far larger than life-size. The birds were beautiful. They also were dead.

Baltimore oriole

Dark-eyed junco

Fox collected the dead birds from sidewalks around Chicago's skyscrapers. His poignant story is recounted on wall panels:

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"Each spring and fall, in the safety of darkness, migratory birds journey for thousands of miles. Many travel astounding distances between Northern Canada and South America. They follow routes called flyways. The Mississippi Flyway follows our waterways and passes right over Chicago. Sadly, every year, in one square mile of downtown Chicago, thousands strike our lighted shiny buildings and die. Across North America billions die."

Installation view

Yellow-shafted flicker

The exhibit, entitled Broken Journey, was just one of several that are currently on view at the Notebaert. While I had been to this lovely gem of a museum in Chicago's Lincoln Park to see art exhibits on previous occasions, I was surprised at how many I found this time. It seemed like every time I turned a corner I found another art display.

I had come to the Notebaert on the recommendation of someone who had seen a particular art exhibit, one that featured chocolate. Unfortunately, I was too late for the chocolate. 

The exhibit had changed. Going up in its place was a series of woodcut prints, also of birds, by Catherine Game.

Her "Red-tailed Hawk" appealed to me in particular for its powerful composition and unusual perspective.

Photographer David Mayhew specializes in chasing extreme weather conditions and his photographs demonstrate the dramatic nature of his pursuits (above and below.)

Fields of Glory

Yet another photographer rounds out the list of current exhibitors at Notebaert. David Shea hails from New York.

Shea's work, called Plume, is decidedly more political than the others. He "traces the journey of coal from mines in West Virginia to power plants in southeastern Ohio." According to the wall text he intends to "record the impact of the power plants on the environment and the people living nearby."

Bill Jones Camping on the Ohio

While you're there to see all the interesting artworks, be sure to also check out the museum's other displays and collections. These include the ever-popular butterflies:

Some dead.

And some still fluttering around.

“There is No Nature”—A thesis by Milwaukee artist Peter Beck

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The provocative title seems perfectly rational after hearing MFA thesis graduate Peter Beck talk about the Anthropocene era and the significance of human interference on the natural processes that sustain life on earth. The once commonly held view of nature as separate from humankind and distinguishable from the human-designed material world has been disintegrating for some time now. But there is not yet wide public acceptance of the notion that we have entered an era in which human influence on every aspect of what used to be called nature is so profound that we can no longer tease them apart.

One role of the artist is to be an agent of change, to herald if not affect what is happening all around us. An artist can help disrupt conventional understanding and point to new ways of perceiving the world. In the case of this work by Beck, on display recently at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Sullivan Galleries, the implications of humanity’s impact on nature can be visualized.

Tool No. 1, Subject/Object Confusion

Like a dog chasing its tail—then catching and biting it—an ax fashioned from a long, supple limb is bent so that it splits itself in half.

Tool No. 2

The missing spade end of a spanking new shovel reveals the “natural” source from which it is fabricated. The raw, unfinished wood of the stump no longer suggests nature but violence.

There is No Nature

A more subtle but ultimately more profound metaphor is created in the titular piece. For “There is No Nature” Beck painstakingly deconstructed and then remanufactured a tree limb. Suspended from the ceiling with cables, its gracefully arching form mimics “reality.” But because it is literally disconnected from its original context it more closely resembles a prosthetic human limb than one growing from a tree trunk.

In the new reality suggested by this sculpture we can envision a world in which “artificial nature” is not a contradiction but ordinary. It is a world of robotics, genetic manipulation, wildlife management, and climate change.

How to Archive Family Photographs

The exhibit is rounded out with a contrasting piece called “How to Archive Family Photographs." A delicate and faded photo extracted from a family album has been ensconced in an artfully crafted wooden tray embedded in a wall-mounted pedestal.

Although Beck borrowed rather than created this photograph, it connects the sculptures to his earlier work. Peter and I became acquainted when he was hired to replace me at Marquette after I quit teaching. When he invited me to see his thesis exhibit I had expected to see photography, with which I was familiar. His foray into sculpture was a refreshing surprise. I was particularly struck by the meticulous and superb craftsmanship of the work.

There is No Nature (detail)

We discussed craftsmanship. It’s something I personally value but, Peter told me, can be met with skepticism in academic circles--and even sometimes in the art world at large. (Coincidentally, in the July 17, 2016 issue of the New York Times Magazine, Chuck Close was quoted on the subject: "The dirtiest word in art is the c-word. I can't even say 'craft' without feeling dirty.") 

Peter described contrasting reactions among his fellow students. His precision and woodworking skills elicited admiration, but he also found himself defending not only his thesis but also those very skills with buttresses of theory and concept. Rather than being onerous, he said he found it rewarding to do so. The rigorous program and stimulating interactions with faculty and other students, along with diversity, he told me, were among the reasons he chose to pursue his MFA at the School of the Art Institute.

Like the people in the yellowing photograph in its neat wooden tray, we are all captives of a continually evolving culture, insects in the amber of history. Today, though, that history is increasingly being directed, if not completely controlled, by our own species. In more ways than one, nature is what we make of it.

Real Time dances with the Concrete River at Alfons Gallery

If you're following my work I expect you know that I and my collaborator Melanie Ariens have a major exhibit currently on display at the Alfons Gallery, called "Concrete River: Memorial and Promise on the Kinnickinnic." (If you missed my earlier description of it, click here.)

I am excited to announce that Daniel and Andrea Burkholder are planning to perform a dance that they've created especially for the installation. The performance is on July 1 at 7 PM.

Alfons Gallery is located at 1501 S. Layton Blvd.

"Real Time" is a regular feature held on the first Friday of each month.

This is how they describe the program:
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July’s Real Time performance will draw inspiration from Eddee Daniel’s photography exhibit, Concrete River: Memorial and Promise on the Kinnickinnic, installed at Alfons Gallery, by exploring the inherent tension within the exhibit’s photographs of “urban wilderness.” Real Time will engage these photographs and gallery installation through their subject matter, the beauty of form found in them, as well as the absurdity.

As a 30-minute performance which will repeat, non-stop, three times, the audience is invited to enter and exit the event at their pleasure or whim.

Integrated throughout the performance will be opportunities for the audience to discuss with the performers, Andrea and Daniel Burkholder, as well as photographer Eddee Daniel and environmental artist Melanie Ariens about the art work, the performance, and ecological issues.

Wine and seltzer water will be available, without charge, as part of the discussion with the artists. 

The performance series is completely funded by its open-priced ticket structure. The cash-only tickets go on sale beginning at 6:45pm and are available pay-what-you-will, where the audience puts it’s own value on the live art it comes to see. While NOT a donation format- everyone must pay- the payment is meant to reflect what each individual can afford.

Real Time is curated by Andrea Chastant Burkholder and Daniel Burkholder. It has featured aerial dance from Andrea Chastant Burkholder, improvisational dance from Daniel Burkholder, duets from the two of them, as well as solos and collaborative work with guest artists from Milwaukee and elsewhere in the United States. All shows in the series offer a new insight into the performance form of dance and what it can encompass. With each show lasting one hour or under, there is always time for drinks and conversation at the end of the night.

“We are working to meet our community where it’s at as far as seeing the arts, and from there, we hope to develop together as performers, audience, and as a larger community.” says Andrea Chastant Burkholder one of the creators of Real Time.

Full disclosure: This is not my first collaboration with the Burkholders. In April Andrea invited me to collaborate on her program, Bayou's State, at Danceworks. And in May I was an enchanted witness to their tribute to nature in the open-air and traveling performance of Scenic Route MKE. It has been a great pleasure to be a part of their creative endeavors.

"Scenic Route: MKE" dances in the park

Daniel Burkholder has been dancing in the natural environment for some time now. Last fall he began a series of seasonal dance programs called Scenic Route: MKE. I had the great fortune of seeing the most recent iteration, spring, which was third in the series. The event involved a select group of audience members who attended a 2-hour nature hike with site-specific performances at various stops along the way. Burkholder and company led the audience along one of Milwaukee's most beautiful parks--the exact location of which remains secretive so that ticket holders can have an exclusive viewing. (Anyone can buy a ticket, however.) I found it a lovely way to experience both nature and dance.

Here is my photo essay of the event.

"Scenic Route: MKE" is directed by Artistic Director Daniel Burkholder, and created in collaboration with Andrea Burkholder, Dani Kuepper, Joseph Pitalek, and Jenni Reinke.

The fourth and final "Scenic Route: MKE" will be held July 17. Tickets can be purchased here. The suggested donation starts at $10.

To see more of my photos of "Scenic Route: MKE" go to my Flickr album.