Willy's blog

In the second half of its twelfth cycle, funding assistance with shipping and travel was recommended for fifteen artists. These artists--five of them past Nohl Fellows—work in a range of media and their exhibitions will take them to Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Denver, Colorado; Des Moines, Iowa; East Lansing, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Destinations abroad include Vancouver, Canada.

Bass Structures (Emmanuel Fritz & Collin Schipper) participated in an exhibition at the CREATE Art and Technology Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the country's largest festival focusing on the intersection of visual art and technology and part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

Jim Brozek opened a solo exhibition, "Iron Hulls and Turbulent Waters: Ore Boats, Workers and Great Lakes Shipping," at the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing. The exhibition includes 24 photographs and a slide show made while working on the iron hulls. In conjunction with the exhibition, Brozek gave a public lecture, "Capturing the Iron Hulls from the Inside: Worker/photographer, Photographer/worker."

Katy Cowan opens a solo exhibition at Cherry and Martin in November. She will be shipping large ceramic sculptures, wooden pallet-inspired sculptures, and paintings to the Los Angeles gallery.

Maura Kelly Doyle traveled to Richmond, Virginia for Friends, a group exhibition at Mulberry Gallery. In addition to showing a photograph and two sculptures, Doyle gave a presentation about Present Works, the space she co-ran in Milwaukee, and explored ways to connect the two cities.

Grant Gill and fellow Milwaukee-based artists Kyle Seis (2014 Nohl Fellow) and Zach Hill (2015 Nohl Fellow) are taking a group exhibition to Skylab Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. The exhibition is a multimedia installation containing works by each individual as well as collaborative works. The work responds to places visited on their way to Four Corners Monument.

Michael J. Havice shipped two photographs to CORE New Art Space, a cooperative members gallery in Denver, Colorado, for Water, a juried into the exhibition.

Yevgeniya Kaganovich attended the Midlife Metals Retreat at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and participated in the accompanying exhibition. The retreat for academic metalsmiths focuses on collaborative materials research.

Kelly Kirsthner presented her live audiovisual work, "Falling in Terms of Silent" at The Third Work: Sound/Image/Interaction, a research symposium on sound in non-fiction media at Hunter College in New York City. In addition to performing, Kirshtner discussed the work's audiovisual design and development.

Angela Laughingheart participated, with Dot Spransy, in a hat-themed, two-person exhibition at the Anderson Arts Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Laughingheart exhibited crafted fiber hats, drawings and paintings of hats, and a sketchbook of designs.

Kendall Polster participated in a two-person exhibition at the Lindsay Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. Polster's work included 10 welded, repurposed scrap metal sculptures.

Nirmal Raja & Nina Ghanbarzadeh exhibited together for the first time in a two-person show at the Hinterland Art Space in Denver, Colorado. Work included site-specific installations, prints, and mixed media pieces utilizing writing, text, and language.

Nathaniel Stern and collaborator Erin Manning created a site-specific version of Weather Patterns: the smell of red at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the annual International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Vancouver, Canada. The walk-through installation includes tornado machines, spices, fans and fabric. There will be an accompanying publication.

Sonja Thomsen will participate in a group exhibition at the Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco curated by gallery director Ann Jastrab. Thomsen, who attended graduate school in San Francisco and has not exhibited in that city since 2004, will attend the opening.

Melissa Wagner-Lawler was invited to show an artist book and a new etching in Parts of a Whole 3 at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis. The group exhibition features artists recently associated with MCBA.

Shane Walsh will travel to New York City to execute an installation painting as part of a group exhibition at Asya Geisberg Gallery. The exhibition will include three additional paintings of his.

Jason S. Yi spent several days in the downtown Capital Square Atrium making "Terraform," a large site-specific sculpture, for Art Week Des Moines in Iowa. He was sponsored by Transient Gallery, a new noncommercial space.

This is the tenth in a series of blog posts by Pegi Christiansen, who was a Lynden artist in residence through October 2015. Learn more about her residency here.

On July 31 and August 1, Theresa Columbus flew in from Maryland, Jennifer Holmes from California, and John Loscuito from Florida so the four of us could work on the Distance exhibit (September 28-October 11) and accompanying performance (October 10 and 11 at 4:00). I invited these three artists--who had never met each other before--to participate in Distance. Jennifer was the only one of us who had never been to Lynden.

Theresa was the first to arrive, on Friday night, and pointed out there was a blue moon. This means it was the second full moon in the month, something that only occurs every two to three years. Both of us thought this perfectly characterized our year of art making.

On Saturday morning, I picked up Jennifer at the airport and the four of us went out for breakfast to map out what we would be doing until everyone left town on Wednesday.

We returned to Lynden and, for the first time, got to see the exquisite corpses we had been making separately for eleven months on 11” by 15” pieces of paper. If you come to the October performances, you will see them too and learn more about how these happened. It was a wonder to point to some of the ways, though hundreds of miles apart, we were aware of each other’s intentions. For instance in July, without anyone knowing what the other three were doing, there were circles in everyone’s images. We decided how we wanted the visual exquisite corpses arranged in the gallery, as well as our monthly dawn photos and, with Polly’s help, the text corpses.

For the remainder of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, our time and energy was devoted to working on the Distance performance. Since February we had been writing the script for the forty-minute performance, but we needed to block it and, in some cases, to revise the script based on our actions. Every night Jennifer, John, and Theresa stayed up late at Lynden reviewing the day’s revisions.

Polly encouraged us to go out for dinner one night. Monday I drove everyone over to the River Lane Inn. We sat outside while the sun set on a gorgeous evening. I asked everyone if they would mind sharing something important personally and professionally (outside of the Distance project) that had happened during our year of collaborating. This ended up sparking incredible conversation. I described how the “Failure Round Robin” I organized at Lynden in April had liberated me. John gave examples of how he is making new opportunities available for artists in his new position. Theresa explained her “kidult” concept with adults and kids creating theater together. I have always viewed Jennifer as a total Amazon, and realized she was more vulnerable than I had imagined.

August was the final month for making visual and text exquisite corpses and our dawn photos. As another way to take advantage of our time together at Lynden, we completed the August text corpse by dinnertime on Tuesday, and that morning I arrived early so we could take our dawn photos with each other. We had selected inside and outside the bathhouse by the pond as our location. John and Jennifer took selfies, and Jennifer helped to take pictures of Theresa and me. Afterwards, we took this picture of the four of us.

Left to right, John Loscuito, Theresa Columbus, Pegi Christiansen, Jennifer Holmes

Just as Polly needed to close the gallery on Tuesday, we finished blocking. We figured out all the next steps, and by Wednesday Jennifer, John, and Theresa were back in their own corners of the United States.

This is the ninth 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.”

Sura Faraj and I have known each other long enough that even though we can’t remember when we met and when we last saw each other, there wasn’t a moment of hesitation during our three hours together on June 24. When we connected via email in March to do a “Distance” visit, she was recovering from a herniated disk that had kept her flat on her back for months. Thanks to acupuncture, Sura was able to stroll through the grounds and sit on the grass to share a picnic lunch.

Sura’s mother died in May of 2012. In response to her grief, Sura started to learn about medicinal herbs and plants, which her mother had an interest in as well. Sura told me stories about her mother’s capacity for healing, and how her mother overcame shingles while Sura’s uncle, a doctor, didn’t.

Jewelweed at Lynden

Sura takes her dog for walks along the Milwaukee River and also identifies and studies the plants. She pointed out Jewelweed for me at Lynden and explained it is excellent for poison ivy and soothing insect bites. I admire Sura because when she sees something that needs to be done, she figures out a way to make it happen. When she started to get angry with the mountain bikers who cut their own trails along the river, disrupting sensitive ecosystems like a beech grove, she founded the Milwaukee River Advocates. Its goal is “to protect the natural habitat” of the river from many threats, including “intense and irresponsible recreational use.” (I learned a new term from Sura: greenwashing. It applies to the bikers who would tell her they were creating “sustainable trails,” which sounds environmentally friendly.)

Sura’s study of plants led to her developing tinctures and infused oils, now primarily from plants she grows in her own yard, like Solomon’s seal. You can find her Root Flower Remedies tins of ointment and lip balm at Fischberger’s Variety and the Riverwest Co-op.

Our roving conversation swung around specifically to the topic of distance. Sura believes our current capacity for long distance travel has disrupted our connection to the land and habitat. “Travel has allowed the human species to dissect the earth and disassociate from it,” she said. It pleased her to see how the Lynden Sculpture Garden has been a careful shepherd “rewilding” the grounds. She adored the removal of the fence that used to stand around the formal garden, with only the wooden gate remaining.

This is the eighth 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.”

Last year Lynn Bartkus contacted Lynden about having a visit exchange. She is a docent at Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot, the estate of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, widely regarded as the greatest husband-and-wife acting team in the history of American theater.

Lynn Bartkus leading a tour at Ten Chimneys

On May 19 I drove to Ten Chimneys for the first time, about the same distance as my home is to Lynden. On my way out, I wondered whether there would be any similarities between Ten Chimneys and Lynden. It turns out there are plenty!
--The Lunts (1922) and the Bradleys (1926) married around the same time.
--They both sought country retreats near Milwaukee in what were then rural areas.
--Both tamed and transformed the land they bought. For the Bradleys, it was turning a farm into a pastoral landscape. For the Lunts, Lynne explained they “created a retreat for friends and family.” Lynn told me the Lunts let guests pick the breakfast tray they wanted, plus what, where, and when the meal would be served so they would feel pampered.
--Both developed well-tended gardens.
--The Bradleys put in a pond and built a bathhouse for swimming (Mrs. Bradley was an avid swimmer). Lunt and Fontanne installed an L-shaped swimming pool with a dramatic pool house. (Every building and room on the property has the appearance and feeling of a stage set.)

As you can tell from the top picture, Lynn, whose mother thought Fontanne personified glamour and named Lynn after her, gave an animated two-hour tour of the sixty acres at Ten Chimneys. Lynn trained to be a docent five years ago. I told her how much I enjoyed her tour, and Lynn said she learned that people wanted to hear fun stories by shadowing other docents.

A week later, on May 26, Lynn met me at Lynden in the morning. Rain was predicted, but it held off until the moment we said goodbye.

Early on in our walk around Lynden, we stood by the birch stand near the east end of the pond. Lynn brought up the birches at Ten Chimneys. She said they are a Scandinavian good luck symbol and are often given as wedding presents. Lynn suggested both the Lunts and Bradleys “loved life and nature.”

Lynn Bartkus at Lynden

It takes Lynn an hour to drive from her home to Ten Chimneys, but she does not mind the distance. She uses the time to see Wisconsin and often takes back roads.

She likes that you can wander at Lynden and votes for not introducing paths. Once you have paths, she finds people tend to assume they should “Keep Off the Grass,” whether there are signs or not.

Lynn has a very active Facebook presence and uses it primarily to post pictures of grandchildren for family members who don’t live nearby. Even though it sometimes seems intrusive, Lynn thinks social media invasions of privacy are here to stay.

Her eight grandchildren live in Southeastern Wisconsin. She wants to bring them to Lynden. I showed her one of the sculptures children like best, George Sugarman’s Trio. “It’s like the spine of a whale,” she said. After the visit she emailed to tell me how she delighted in “the lushness, the sculptures, the pond—to relax and breathe the fresh air.” I’m so glad Lynn contacted Lynden last year. Since visiting Ten Chimneys, I find myself asking everybody if they’ve ever been there. Whether you are a theater fan or not, it’s definitely worth signing up for a tour.

In the first half of its twelfth cycle, funding assistance with shipping and travel was recommended for fifteen artists. These artists--five of them past Nohl Fellows—work in a range of media and their exhibitions will take them to Fairfield, Iowa; New York, New York; Lock Haven, Pennsylvania; Austin and Dallas, Texas; Park City, Utah; Farmville, Virginia; Fish Creek and Madison, Wisconsin; and Clearmont, Wyoming. Destinations abroad include São Paulo, Brazil; Vence, France; Apples, Switzerland; and Istanbul, Turkey.

Cynthia A. Brinich-Langlois is bringing work she made during previous residencies at the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming--a collection of handmade artist books that address the history of various cultures, settlements, and range management techniques that converge in this place--to a group exhibition at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery.

For his first solo exhibition, Jamal L. Currie will be showing video and video installation at the Clinton County Arts Council's Station Gallery in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The show will include television sculptures, and single-channel and interactive video works.

2011 Nohl Fellow Richard Galling is taking part in Curbit, a three-day festival in Apples, Switzerland. Galling is designing a project as part of Lifetime Achievement, an alternative pedagogical platform based in Milwaukee.

Jon Horvath joined a former Nohl Fellow in a two-person exhibition, On the Road: Hans Gindlesberger and Jon Horvath, at the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. The exhibition featured independent and collaborative works, including excerpts from Horvath's "Passages" series: GPS drawings of Jack Kerouac text being “driven” on Wisconsin’s alphabetically labeled county highway system. Horvath was also able to give a guest lecture at Virginia Tech and to offer critiques.

Julie Briede Ibar will have work in six group shows at the Edgewood Orchard Galleries in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, this summer.

Robin Jebavy is renting a truck to transport her large-scale paintings to the ICON Gallery in Fairfield, Iowa, where she has a solo exhibition this summer.

Marsha McDonald was one of three Wisconsin artists invited to participate in a Wisconsin Waterways exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. She showed a video, 100 origami canoes, moon viewing boxes and paintings.

Alec Regan of American Fantasy Classics (Nohl Fellow 2011) collaborated with Homeland Security, an artist-run, non-commercial, domestic exhibition space in Dallas, Texas on an exhibition of 2- and 3-dimensional collaborative works during the Dallas Art Fair. The exhibition included the planting and dedication of a garden plot. AFC and Homeland Security see this as the beginning of a long-term collaboration between two artist-run organizations.

Chris J. Robleski drove to Texas to participate in Art City Austin, a juried outdoor art fair run by Art Alliance Austin. Robleski exhibited the night-time photographs he makes with "just a camera, flashlights, and no computers."

Albulena Shabani is traveling to Istanbul, Turkey, to screen Trebled Times, a collection of interviews with Kosovan musicians who discuss life and music in Kosovo's recent past. Shabani will be an artist-in-residence at Halka Art Project, a non-profit independent arts organization, and in addition to screening the film, will perform original Albanian songs written while working on Trebled Times in Kosovo.

Cristina Siqueira (Nohl Fellow 2013) brought a version of the video installation she made for her Nohl exhibition, and the original artwork produced for the Monga / Ape Girl documentary poster, to Las Magrelas Bar e Bicicletaria in São Paulo, Brazil. Siquiera gave a talk as part of a “meet-the-filmmaker” night.

Roy Staab will make a site-specific sculpture installation from materials collected on the land for Vence-Art-Nature 2015, an outdoor festival curated by Yves Rousguisto in Vence, France.

Christopher Thompson (Nohl Fellow 2010) and Michael Vollman screened The 414s at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The short film was purchased by CNN Films.

2005 Nohl Fellow Steve Wetzel traveled to New York to screen his video, From the Archives of an Inventor, as part of the Flaherty NYC series at Anthology Film Archives.

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.

This is the seventh 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.”

I did not confess to Bobbi Ganiere my general aversion to dogs when we arranged that she would bring Lily, one of the two dogs she and her husband Brian own, to Lynden on April 8. Bobbi and I both grew up in Shorewood and had renewed our friendship a few years before she retired at the end of last year from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Bobbi is keenly perceptive and I couldn’t wait to hear her impressions of the current show in the gallery, “Robin Jebavy: Recent Paintings.” She called the still life paintings “simultaneously opaque and transparent.”

Lily came into the gallery with us (Editor's Note: special permission required for this!), and her quiet and elegant bearing impressed me. As we went outside, I explained my dog disdain and asked about Bobbi’s history with dogs. Her dad had owned dogs, but it broke his heart when they died, so they didn’t have any when Bobbi was young. At a Girl Scout meeting when she was ten, Bobbi saw a litter of mutt puppies. She brought Peanut home, black and white with floppy ears.

Peanut was it until Bobbi and Brian went camping with friends who owned a Vizsla. Vizslas--Hungarian, medium-sized, short haired mahogany pointers—are known for being devoted and smart. When the dog had puppies, Bobbi and Brian bought one. This was in the mid-nineties. They have always had at least one Vizsla since, and often two. Bobbi described Vizslas as “cuddly and sweet” and said she could understand my feelings for most dogs. She thinks the kind of dog matters.

I had never thought about this. Maybe my attitude toward dogs was based on the breed. I was warming up to Lily by the minute.

Bobbi and Lily

During our walk, we passed by almost every sculpture in the garden. The two trees that Amy Cropper and Stuart Morris painted in 2011, one red and one orange, have always perplexed me. Why interrupt seeing the natural backdrop at Lynden? Bobbi had the answer: “You have to stop for a minute,” she said. “It makes you take a closer look at a specific spot.”

I finally got around to asking Bobbi directly about distance. I have been inside the newsroom at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on a number of occasions and I couldn’t imagine working there. The desks sit side-by-side with no walls. I wondered how she managed without physical space and quiet. “I loved the newsroom,” Bobbi said. “I got used to the noise. It was cozy and you could learn a lot listening to conversations.”

Bobbi also needed to be adept at using social media. What did she think about all the communication technologies available now? Bobbi told a story about a friend who spent two year-long stays in Antarctica. She could order from Amazon and get deliveries. As Bobbi observed, “There is no place to be totally alone anymore.”

We went back inside to warm up a bit before departing. April 8 was a foggy day between two of rain, so we had been lucky, though at forty degrees it still wasn’t feeling like spring. Lily sat between us and I found myself petting her. I just don’t do this. Driving home I actually considered mentioning the idea of owning a dog to my husband Dale.

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

April 23rd , 2015 – There are wood ducks hanging around the area in between the two nest boxes in the water just about every time I drive past. They still spook when they see you, but now they will only fly to the other side of the lake. With so many wood ducks present over the last couple of weeks, it would be hard to believe that at least one pair isn’t using the boxes as a nesting site. Soon I hope to sneak a peak in the nest boxes over the water to confirm that there is nesting activity happening.

In other news, spring looks like it’s here to stay. There are a lot of different birds besides ducks showing up. I saw gold finches, green herons, and bluebirds today. Not only did we build some brand new wood duck boxes over the winter, we also replaced all six of our bluebird houses. We went with a new style that is more similar to a wood duck box. They aren’t as big but they are much easier to monitor and clean out than the old ones.

6 bluebird houses in the front row

The six boxes in front are the ones we made for bluebirds. Just like wood duck boxes, predator protection is one of the most important factors in establishing a successful nest box. We added predator guards to the posts the bluebird boxes are mounted on. The bluebird boxes have an oval shaped hole that is sized species-specific for bluebirds. It is also important not to have a perch in front of the hole.

Bluebird

I've been monitoring the bluebird boxes since we put them up and hadn't noticed any activity. It was a different story when I went to check them out today:

Bluebird nest box activity

A fully-built bluebird nest

Bluebirds make nests of dried grasses

Three out of the six boxes had definite signs of bluebird activity, including one box that had a fully built nest. There were no eggs in the nest yet but that will happen soon! Notice how the nest is made only of grasses. It’s not a guarantee but there is a very strong chance that this was the work of bluebirds because the nest was made only of dried grasses and there was no lining of feathers inside the nest. Other birds will use a variety of items including sticks and feathers to build a nest.

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 fourth in a series by Junior Grounds Manager Weston Wagner tracking the behavior of wood ducks at Lynden. Read part one here, part two here, and part three here.

April 6th, 2015 – There were five male wood ducks at the nest boxes this morning. The wood ducks are showing more and more activity with each passing day. I didn’t see any females so there is a good possibility that one was occupying a nest box. I didn’t check the nest boxes over the water but I did check the ones in the field. The first box I checked had something in it, and it wasn’t a wood duck.

Eastern screech owl occupying a nest box

It seems as though an eastern screech owl has no problem occupying a nest box designed for a wood duck. I snapped a quick picture and left the owl alone. There are two color variations of eastern screech owls. This particular owl in the picture is the gray morph. My post from March 27th has a red morph eastern screech owl pictured. It’s not what we were expecting to occupy the nest boxes but we will take it.