Lynden Blog

This is a blog post by Pegi Christiansen, who is a Lynden artist in residence through October 2015. To learn more about her residency, Distance, click here.

On April 15, eleven people sat in a circle in the upstairs Lynden studio for a Failure Round Robin. Eight of us took five to ten minutes to describe a failure and its implications. I let people know it could be any kind of failure, so I had no idea what to expect.

We experienced a heartfelt ninety minutes. It was not a therapy session, though we did comfort each other. We all laughed quite a bit.

At a number of points, I asked people to explain more about the failure aspect of their stories. Some didn’t sound like failures to me. This ended up as one of the themes. As Jeanie put it, “failure is about self-judgment.”

Robin talked about the self-doubt, confusion, isolation, and fear she has felt getting turned down for tenure-track teaching positions. Jeanie commented, “All adjunct instructors feel like failures and second-class citizens.” Robin’s failure has led her to work even harder and drives her to be more adventurous in her studio.

Chuck declared cheerfully, “I rehearse for failure on a daily basis.” Chuck is very involved in bird watching and migratory counts. Although he loves dogs, it is upsetting to him when owners, against rules posted on signs, let their dogs run off-leash in parks and preserves. He wants to be an ambassador for the bird community when he speaks with dog owners about their misbehavior. He gave examples of how he has failed in these interactions. I learned that Milwaukee is on an important migratory path that 300 bird species pass through.

Sarah responded that signs always fail because no one reads them. She also finds public spaces interesting because people’s codes for them don’t line up.

“My naivety is my failure, but it pushes me to the next project,” said Sarah. After a failure she thinks, “I am not naïve now,” and this leads her to try something else and the cycle continues. She summarized: “Failure is a drive to meet your own expectations and assumptions. Nothing plays out the way you think.”

Sarah and Brad have discussed how artists often take the path of most resistance. “Artists want to expand a field,” said Brad. “It is experimental and you are not going to be 100% successful.” For Sarah there is also a percentages aspect to failure. Nothing is ever a total waste.

View out the second floor studio window during the Failure Round Robin

Brad joked that he was “failing at being a grownup.” He confessed to wearing the same shorts every day from 2010-2012, is just now figuring out the right antiperspirant to use, and has a history of storming off job sites in a fit of childish rage. “I have professional skills, but I am not really a person yet,” he said.

Chuck immediately commented that in his interactions with Brad, “I didn’t have this impression at all.” Jeanie claimed that spiritual teacher Ram Dass, at the age of 75, said he was still dealing with the same issues he had when he was 25. At sixty, Jeanie said, “I am returning to the core of my youth.”

Colleen told Brad, “I didn’t grow up until I was fifty.” Colleen was let go from two management positions in situations where, as Brad noted, “You were designated to be a boss.” Colleen now sees these failures as steppingstones. Colleen tells art students, “In this room failure is expected and you can learn how to go forward.”

Adam brought up that in Western culture everything is binary: success/failure. He thinks we need to “embrace the duality spectrum.” Colleen added, “Failure is inevitable. If you haven’t failed you haven’t evolved.”

Anja graduated from college in 2009. It was during the recession and her friends were all unemployed, but she got her “dream job” in a puppet show. She didn’t realize, “I was expected to train for three years without any opportunity for creative expression.” She had to put on a puppet show with nursery rhymes for children every weekend. After memorizing what she was given to say and rehearsing for weeks, the head puppeteer would nitpick everything she was doing. “I felt like a pathetic idiot,” she said. Then Anja had an epiphany. She started to see the other people in training were broken and wanted someone to control them. “They were puppets!” Anja shouted with glee.

Adam’s was the closing failure story. He had a best friend from third grade through high school. Adam’s senior year, his father passed away and his friend was there when he found out and knew just what to do (stay with him) and was also perfect at the funeral. When Adam was in college studying abroad in Europe, he found out this friend’s mother had died. Adam did not reach out. “He was so generous to me,” said Adam. “I had a barrier and couldn’t respond in kind.”

Anja brought up the Western notion of reciprocity. She reminded Adam that this is another binary.

Chelsea, who came to listen, wrote in graduate school about binaries and ambiguity. She said, “It is all grey with success as failure and failure as success.” She brought up Brené Brown who wrote, “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.”

Although it wasn’t therapy, I had a catharsis. I spoke about a street intersection painting project I organized. The painting was supposed to last for at least three months and wore away in four days, despite careful preparation. This occurred almost two years ago, and I still wasn’t over it. I am now.

More than once over the past week I've found myself in Lynden's kitchen, warming my hands over the pilot lights of the catering stove, or testing the temperature of the new hand dryers Sergio and Patr

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts by Pegi Christiansen, who is a Lynden artist in residence through October 2015. As part of her project, Distance, Pegi will accompany people, in groups of up to three, on their first trip to Lynden. She will pick them up, drive them out, take a walk with them, and bring them back. As part of the excursion, she will ask some questions about distance. If you are interested in participating in this aspect of Pegi's project, please call 414-446-8794 or email info@lyndensculpturegarden.org and mention you are interested in a “distance visit.”

It was a cloudy, chilly morning in March when Jodi Eastberg drove me, along with five of her Alverno students, to Lynden, where we met up with eight more members of the class.

The class is focused on “place,” so my questions were related to this concept. When Harry and Peg Bradley bought Lynden, it was a farm. They hired a landscape architecture firm, Langford & Moreau, known for designing golf courses to shape the cornfield into something else. Later Peg Bradley added sculptures. Looking out over the sculpture garden, I asked what Lynden felt like to the students. Some of the words they mentioned were open, tranquil, and family friendly.

Alverno students discuss ideas about place with Hara watching. Photo: Jodi Eastberg

The students had read “Place,” an essay by Tim Cresswell. It made me think about the tension between globalism and regionalism. In western cultures, have places become homogenized, or are differences between places stronger? For Jessica, who grew up near Chicago, Milwaukee and Chicago seem very similar to her. They are both by Lake Michigan and, she noted, “All cities have the same street names.” Erin contrasted urban and rural spaces. She said cities have become “consumer cultures,” with people consumed with buying the newest hot thing. She would prefer to live in a rural area with more privacy and without another house visible from the windows.

Lynden has been evaluating another tension. There is a beauty to Lynden having no paths, except for the service road around the exterior. Yet for those in wheelchairs or those who have trouble walking on uneven grass, it would be helpful to have paths. Executive Director Polly Morris has investigated installing paths made out of a special grass, rather than chips or concrete, which would not hinder meandering.

Mariah has been to the Schlitz Audubon Center, where there are paths similar to most nature centers. Many of us are so used to paths that some of the students were not sure if it was okay to walk on the grass and waited to follow my lead. “If there was a subtle way to do it,” said Chelsey, she thought the paths Polly is considering would be a good idea.

Lynden rests within River Hills. River Hills, in order to create a community for “country living,” has ordinances that forbid any commercial development and all lots currently need to be at least five acres. I asked whether people living in exclusive River Hills could relate to issues of people living in Milwaukee’s segregated central city, which the class has been studying. Nikki thought they might be able to sympathize, but not empathize. “You can’t understand someone else’s struggles unless you have walked in their shoes.”

The students needed time to complete an assignment, so we went our separate ways and then gathered in the conference room to meet with Polly. River Hills came up again. When the Bradley family established Lynden as a weekend retreat, they drove out on a two-lane dirt road. There was a geographical distance between the Allen-Bradley factory in Walker's Point, where they lived, and Lynden. Now, it is a fifteen-minute drive away. Polly called Lynden an “oasis” in close proximity to urban Milwaukee, but many people have a sense of psychological distance from Lynden based on “the perception of wealth and a family having so much land and a huge sculpture collection.”

Students work on an assignment. Photo: Jodi Eastberg

The class wanted to know how the sculptures had been sited on the property. Polly explained that ideas about how to place outdoor sculptures change. Currently it is more common (especially in larger sculpture gardens), to place sculptures independent of one another, in their own environments. Peg Bradley liked to be able to see as many of the sculptures as possible from her porch, and grouped them together to allow for what Polly calls “conversations between them.”

On the ride back to Alverno, Jodi mentioned the three students in the back of the van were sitting in the “best friends seat.” This led to a discussion about personal space. In different cultures more or less distance is appropriate between people who are not related. The seat in the back should have felt too close for comfort, but the three students looked cozy.

This post is the third in a series by Junior Grounds Manager Weston Wagner tracking the behavior of wood ducks at Lynden. Read part one here and part two here.

April 3, 2015 – I noticed two pairs of wood ducks occupying their usual spot on the lake this morning. I have yet to capture a picture of them as they are very wary of human activity. It is possible and likely that these two pairs are the same wood ducks I have been seeing over the past couple weeks. It’s hard to tell but it is also possible that these wood ducks are the same wood ducks that have successfully nested in the boxes here at Lynden in previous years. I have yet to see a wood duck in a location other than the South East corner of the lake where two nest boxes are positioned. If these wood ducks do decide to use these boxes as nesting sites, it will be soon. My guess is they will start using the boxes, especially the ones over the water, next week, if they haven’t already. I won’t check the boxes until late next week to prevent disturbing any nesting activity. Once a nest is established, the hen will lay one egg per day until her clutch is complete. On average, the size of a clutch is usually between 10 and 14 eggs. Once the hen lays all of her eggs, she will begin the incubation process.

Bufflehead duck

Unlike the wood ducks, the lone male bufflehead duck I observed this morning was oblivious to my presence. Buffleheads are a diving duck that feed underwater by catching aquatic invertebrates. One thing they do have in common with wood ducks is that they are cavity nesters. This leaves the possibility that buffleheads are checking out the nest boxes as potential nesting sites as well.