Director's Note 9/1/15
It is Labor Day and we are laboring, though by the time you get this, work, school and a slew of regular activities will be back in full swing, as if the three-day interruption had never happened. We are greeting visitors as they come to take advantage of this intermittently sunny holiday, and preparing for the launch of the 2015 cycle of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl Fellowship for Individual Artists program. The application goes live Tuesday, September 8, and we are updating web pages, testing the application form, and making sure that everything is in place. We receive around 150 applications each year, and in 2015 we will be awarding $20,000 to each of two established artists and $10,000 each to three promising emerging artists. That's $70,000, and that doesn't include the Suitcase Export Fund, which assists artists with the costs of showing their work outside greater Milwaukee. In October, three jurors will come to Lynden from across the country to choose this year's fellows. It is part of the work we do to support local artists.
Although we've been enjoying a summery reprieve, our fall brochure is done and reflects the change in programming that comes with the approach of the fall equinox. With school back in session, we are rolling out field trips and tours for K-12 groups; the weekly art drop-in and school's out workshops (the first one comes up on September 14); and our homeschool days. Our ability to offer these programs, and to make them accessible to a broad range of students across southeastern Wisconsin, is dependent on the success of our annual Backyard Barbecue. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who turned out for the event, purveyed food (Braise, Bob Retko, Brenner Brewing, Lush Popcorn, Sassy Cow Creamery, and hog donor Lynde Uihlein), donated auction items (Groth's Country Gardens, Kavita Mahendra, Larry's Market, MKELocalicious, North Shore Boulangerie, and Michelle Zimmer and Jack Douthitt), and provided media sponsorship (88.9 Radio Milwaukee, WUWM). A special thank you to our generous major sponsors: Baird Private Wealth Management and the ECAB Investment Group; David and Julia Uihlein; and Stafford Rosenbaum LLP. You are all making a difference in the lives of children this year.
We hope the warm weather lasts long enough for Angela Laughingheart to teach her Qigong workshop, Five Animal Sports, outside this Sunday, but we're prepared to move it inside. Same with Katheryn Corbin's new ceramics workshop, Primitive Raku, and Shibori with Natural Dyes, a workshop with Jamie Lea Bertsch that is just a lot easier to do outdoors. But we're already adding the indoor activities: Yevgeniya Kaganovich's grow workshops are back, and we imagine those of you who drop in for our monthly family workshop will be moving back and forth between the grounds, to collect leaves, and the studio, to make fall foliage suncatchers. Dog Day is firmly outdoors, and the first fall event of the Women's Speaker Series, a visit from P. S. Duffy, author of The Cartographer of No Man's Land, is certainly indoors, but if you arrive early enough you are free to stroll the grounds before the sun sets (6:37 pm that day; with dusk 30 minutes later, that still leaves you with a half hour for wine and snacks before the talk begins). If there's one person who ventures out no matter what, it's naturalist Naomi Cobb, and she will be leading the very young and their companions outside for Tuesdays in the Garden and Storytime in the Garden.
Before I return to my labor (and the occasional glance at the clouds outside my window), I'd like to remind you that some things definitely come to an end in September. Dan Torop's exhibition, Frozen Period, closes on September 20, and our final late Wednesday (open until 7:30 pm) is September 30.
