Director's Note 9/1/18
Now that the mini-lakes on the lawn have temporarily subsided, and internet service has been restored following last Sunday night’s storm, my eye is drawn to the seemingly uniform expanses of green on the grounds. But it is easy to be distracted by all that bright green grass: a closer look reveals incursions of yellow in the canopy, a slow turning toward autumn. And though there’s a good bit of rain in the forecast, we still have some great reasons to be outdoors in September.
First, we remain open until 7:30 pm on Wednesdays throughout the month of September, an excellent time to take a walk or share a picnic, to stop in to see Tyanna Buie’s exhibition, Im•Positioned, or to visit the Bonsai Exhibition before it closes for the season.
We are also delighted to be partnering, once again, with Wisconsin Urban Wood to host Urban Forest Fest on September 15. This doubles as our fall free family day, and the day’s proceedings (described below) will be enlivened by a performance by the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra at 1 pm. The following weekend, on September 23, we open our doors for Doors Open Milwaukee, when we do our best to show you different facets of Lynden and its operations.
Our Call & Response programming continues in September with another visit from chef and food scholar Scott Alves Barton. He and artist-in-residence Portia Cobb will be talking about foods of the African Diaspora on September 29 and offering tastes, too.
Our fall schedule is out in print and online and includes some new or special programs, as well as the return of school-year favorites like our weekly art drop-ins. We launch a professional development series for educators: hands-on workshops offered by educators to educators. Lynden’s two teachers-in-residence, Sue Pezanoski Browne and Katie Hobday, and the UWM Writing Project are leading the fall workshops. The Self Care Studio will be hosting monthly drop-ins this autumn, collections manager Bruce Knackert offers tips on the care of works on paper in the conservation framing series, and artist-in-residence Chuck Stebelton is joined by guest Gina Litherland for a bird walk. Katheryn Corbin offers back-to-back ceramics workshops in September and October—an opportunity to pursue a project over two sessions if you are so inclined. The Women’s Speaker Series features Kelly O’Connor McNees in September, whose new novel, Undiscovered Country, explores the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.
In fact, there is so much going on this fall that I recommend that you check out the “Coming Up in October” section (below), pick up a copy of the brochure, or take a look at our web calendar so that you don’t miss out on a workshop or event of interest.
Supporting artists is a significant part of Lynden’s mission, and one of the ways that we support artists is by administering the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists program. September is a very busy month for the Nohl Fellowship, a time when we launch the 2018 cycle and continue the exhibitions and public programs celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. Artists take note: the application for the 2018 cycle opens on September 4 and, joined by current and past Nohl Fellows, I’ll be offering a series of informational workshops around town. The deadline for submission is October 4, 2018. The Nohl Fellows Anniversary Filmmakers’ Series concludes with Working Things Out, a screening at the Charles Allis Museum on September 13. 2017 Nohl Fellow Ariana Vaeth delivers an Artists Now! lecture at UWM on September 19. Several exhibitions organized on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary continue into the fall and beyond: The Nohl Fellowship at Fifteen at the Haggerty Museum of Art; Mary Nohl and the Walrus Club at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center; and the Tyanna Buie exhibition here at Lynden. On September 27, the Green Gallery East opens the final exhibition in the series, a solo show by Peter Barrickman (Nohl 2003, 2009), organized by John Riepenhoff (Nohl 2009, 2014).
