Willy's blog

Kate Balsley's "Anima Mundi" was awarded Best Experimental Film at the Rural Route Film Festival in New York. She used her Suitcase funds to attend the festival, meet fellow filmmakers and environmental activists, and to tell people about Milwaukee's supportive film community.

Congratulations to the awardees in the 2010 Summer Cycle of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Suitcase Export Fund. The fund provides support to greater Milwaukee artists who are exhibiting or screening work outside the immediate four-county area. This group of artists will be taking work to Portland, Minneapolis, Arizona, New Mexico, Syracuse, New York City, France, South Africa, South Korea, China, and Little Wolf, Wisconsin.

Yevgeniya Kaganovich: To participate in Drawbench, a group exhibition at Gallery AOP in Johannesburg, South Africa. The exhibition explores three dimensional sculptural objects that originate in two dimensions as sketches, technical drawings and photographic images. She will be exhibiting “Falling Still,” an installation created in collaboration with Nathaniel Stern.

Rina Yoon: For an invitational solo exhibition at the Gyo Dong Art Center in Jeonju, Korea. Yoon will be showing “Earth Body,” her recent body of work comprised of 16 prints and a wall installation.

Kristopher Pollard: To participate in Amalgamation, a group exhibition of 7 artists from around the world at Compound Gallery in Portland, OR. Pollard will be contributing 5 drawings.

Melissa Wagner-Lawler: To exhibit a piece in MCAD Students and Alumni Explore Fiber Arts, a juried exhibition featuring 29 artists at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design Main Gallery. The exhibition runs in conjunction with Confluence, 2011 International Surface Design Association Conference.

Mark Mulhern: To exhibit 7 large paintings at Riva Yares’s two galleries in Scottsdale, AZ and Santa Fe, NM.

Hans Gindlesberger: To exhibit 20 photographic works in the 2011 (16th) Voies Off Festival in Arles, France (part of the Rencontres d’Arles Photographie). His work was presented in a night-projection in the courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace.

Sarah Zamecnik: To participate in the annual MFA alumni exhibition for Syracuse University at the Dumbo Arts Center in New York. Zamecnik will show 20 framed 15x15 photographic prints.

Peter Barrickman & Xav Leplae: To participate in the annual Great Poor Farm Experiment at the Poor Farm in Little Wolf, WI. Barrickman & Leplae plan to bicycle from Milwaukee to Little Wolf, creating a collaborative painting project along the way, which would then be exhibited at this international gathering of artists.

Jordan Brethauer: To participate in a Red Gate artist residency in Beijing, China that culminates in an open studio event for all the artists. He will exhibit drawings, short films (and music).

Katherine A. Balsley: To travel to NY to present her experimental video, “Anima Mundi,” at the Rural Route Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image as well as at Brooklyn Grange (NYC’s largest organic rooftop farm).

We had a busy July at Lynden. In addition to our summer art camps and our weekly Yoga in the Garden class, we hosted a lecture by Jonathan Lippincott, a sold-out performance by Eiko & Koma, and a free workshop and screening from the Echo Park Film Center Filmmobile. Now that things have died down a little bit (although there's a camp running as I type this, and two events coming up), I thought I'd take this opportunity to recap and post photos from the last month. (A special thank you to Claire Ruzicka for the wonderful Lippincott and Eiko & Koma photos!)

Jonathan Lippincott is the author of Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s, and the son of Don Lippincott, founder of Lippincott Inc., the first fabricator dedicated exclusively to making large scale sculpture. At Lynden, in front of an engaged and enthusiastic audience, Jonathan talked about the large-scale sculpture fabricated at Lippincott in the '60s and '70s, and provided many interesting details about some of the works in Lynden's collection--all illustrated by wonderful slides.

During the talk.

Showing slides.

Amidst George Sugarman's Trio, which was manufactured at Lippincott Inc.

With Lynden's Executive Director Polly Morris.

At the book signing.

Eiko & Koma arrived a week later. During an earlier trip to the garden, the dancers had chosen a spot in the southeastern corner of the garden to stage their performance. This time, however, the sight of the recently drained Little Lake caught Koma’s eye. While the barren area was a perfect fit for Eiko & Koma’s apocalyptic Japanese dance, it meant that all the previous arrangements for the performance were now out the window. In the next 48 hours, a stage was constructed (under the tireless leadership of our Facilities and Sculpture Manager, Sergio Salinas), a PA system was brought in and set up (including some speakers hung in trees), and everybody rolled with the punches all the way up to and through Eiko & Koma’s performance of “Raven.” Claire Ruzicka was on hand to take pictures of the performance, which involved maneuvering through the sold out crowd, and following Eiko & Koma as they moved off the stage, into the garden, and back.

Performing.

Performing.

Crowd & performance.

Performing.

Crowd.

After the performance.

The following Monday, the Echo Park Film Center Filmmobile rolled into town. The Filmmobile is a traveling film school and cinema operating out of a converted school bus fueled partially by vegetable oil that is run by Echo Park Film Center staff Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr. Steeped in the tradition of itinerant cinema, each summer, Marr and Davanzo tour the United States offering free film workshops and screenings. At Lynden, they gave a Direct Animation workshop, and then, once dusk came, screened movies on the side of their bus, as it was parked on the gravel area next to the pond. The program mixed short films from all over the world with work made at the Echo Park Film Center and at workshops on the road. The audience, which ranged in age from toddlers to grandparents, ate some snacks, played some bingo, and enjoyed the diverse selection of films and live musical accompaniment. We hope to welcome the Filmmobile back to Lynden in the future.

Paolo Davanzo, with the Filmmobile in the background.

Filmmobile & Bingo Bunny!

Audience & projector

Screening.

Screening.

Eiko & Koma left Lynden the morning after their performance to return to New York to rehearse for a premiere at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival. Here's the review: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/arts/dance/eiko-koma-at-lincoln-center-out-of-doors-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Eiko%20&%20Koma&st=cse.

A big thank you to everyone that attended Eiko & Koma: Raven at Lynden on Saturday. We hope you enjoyed the event as much as we did. Here are a few pictures of Eiko & Koma at the garden, taken by Claire Ruzicka.

We are very excited to have the Echo Park Film Center Filmmobile stopping by Lynden for a series of free events today. At 5 pm, Echo Park Film Center staff Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr will host a Direct Animation Workshop. This workshop is suitable for all ages. Following the workshop, there will be a picnic (bring your own picnic) at 7 pm, and a screening with live musical accompaniment at 8 pm.

For more info on the event, click here.

For more info on the Echo Park Film Center Filmmobile, click here, and to keep up with their journey across the country, click here.

Inside/Outside artist Linda Wervey-Vitamvas, whose native clay pots are still on display in the garden, has been working on a new project this summer. Using dried algae culled from the various ponds on our grounds, she has fashioned another series of small pots. They are currently arranged down by Little Lake (although today's strong winds have returned some to the water) where they are attracting the attention of curious ducklings!

UPDATE!
Yesterday's wind scattered the pots, and deer tracks indicate that it's not only ducklings who have had their curiosity piqued!

To see the complete set, click here.

Dan Nauman and the bronze railing he made for Lynden (pictured above) are the subject of a four page spread in the Anvil's Ring, a magazine published by the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America (ABANA). For more information, click here.

Everyone will be relieved to know that the injured goose has finally been captured (thank you, Weston and Bob) and taken to the humane society.

2003 Nohl Fellow Dick Blau is a contributor to a new book on real mothers in contemporary art.