Registration for this event is now closed. Make sure to sign up for e-list for notifications about future events.

Fee: $25/$20 members – includes an autographed copy of Redefining Girly and refreshments.

Margy Stratton, founder and executive producer of Milwaukee Reads continues year three of her series featuring writers of particular interest to women. We are joined this year by series sponsor Bronze Optical and treats sponsor MKELocalicious.

Lynden Sculpture Garden's Women's Speaker Series, Boswell Books, and Bronze Optical welcome Melissa Atkins Wardy, author of Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween to the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Wednesday, February 5, 7-9 pm.

Many parents are increasingly startled and unnerved at how today’s media, marketers and manufacturers are sexualizing and stereotyping ever-younger girls—all-pink aisles in toy stores, ultrasexy Halloween costumes in tween sizes—but feel powerless to do much about it. Mother of two and author Melissa Wardy was frustrated—and then she channeled her frustration into activism. She created a website to sell T-shirts with girl-positive messages; started blogging and swapping parenting strategies with families around the world; began writing letters to corporate offenders; and worked with parents through workshops and social media. Wardy’s outreach ensures parents have the tools they need to change, limit and challenge the media that their daughters are confronted with every day. Amidst all the sexualized messages and gendered marketing of clothes and toys, Wardy encourages moms and dads to take a stance and start redefining girlhood even before a daughter is brought into the world.

Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween is the how-to guide for parents, family members and teachers who are concerned about how to raise confident and empowered girls in today’s hypersexual culture. Offering the tips, tools and facts needed to guide girls successfully through girlhood, Wardy inspires parents to teach media literacy to girls; encourage girls to advocate for themselves; discuss body image in a healthy way; and introduce kids to creating their own media.

“This eye-opening tome is an absolute must-read.” —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Melissa Atkins Wardy is the founder of Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies, a company that sells empowering and inspirational children’s apparel and products, and runs a blog of the same name focused on gender stereotypes and sexualization in childhood. Wardy discusses these issues facing families with thousands of parents using social media and workshops. She is also the cofounder of The Brave Girls Alliance, a gender equality think tank and advocacy group dedicated to communicating with and influencing media, corporations, and retailers.

She has appeared on CNN and FOX News and in the Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Huffington Post, and the Ms. Magazine blog, which have featured her work and her campaigns against national brands and retailers that resulted in the removal of sexist ads and products. She lives in Janesville, Wisconsin, with her husband and two children.

Watch Melissa Atkins Wardy on The Morning Blend.

      

A Workshop with Kelly Lahl

Register online now.
Fee: $60/ $54 members (all materials included).

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required.

Hand-dye your own Japanese artisan cotton gauze scarf, baby onesie set, or silk scarf using simple shibori techniques to create designs. Perfect for those who have been taking Kelly Lahl’s Silk Scarf Painting workshops, Jamie Lea Bertsch's Shibori with Natural Dyes workshop, or for those interested in exploring different hand-dyeing processes.

In this workshop we'll experiment with Japanese Bengala dyes made from iron oxide derived from the soil. The iron oxide is baked to create a range of "mud" dyeing pigments that create beautifully subdued, earthy colors. This simple and fun hands-on process is very gentle on the environment and humans, so it's a great way to begin dyeing your own fabric at home. It's child-friendly, too. Please note: these dyes contain latex.

About Kelly Lahl

Kelly Lahl is a multi-faceted print and surface designer working from her studio in Milwaukee, WI. She has recently taken to putting pigment down on silk, and has been experimenting with alternative approaches to surface design. She's a colorist and draws inspiration from the likes of Vera Neumann and various mid-century modernist designers and painters.

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden. Younger children should be accompanied by an adult.

Casting is a traditional fabrication method, and it was used to make many of the bronze sculptures at Lynden. Try your hand--or your thumb--at creating a rubber mold that you will fill with plaster to make a cast copy of your thumb to place atop a pencil. A perfect tool for your “thumbnail” sketches!

Registration for this workshop is now closed. Be sure to sign up for our e-list for information on future events.

Fee: $20/$16 members (all materials included)

Registration: Space is limited, advanced registration required. You will receive additional information once you register. If you prefer not to pay online, give us a call at 414-446-8794 to register by phone.

Lynden's Jeremy Stepien guides you through the process of making a garlic basket--perfect for your own home or as a gift. Learn a traditional twining weave using a combination of willow from the sculpture garden and basket-weaving reed. We'll use raffia to add color and texture to the basic weave. No prior weaving experience required.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for the outdoors. We’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres during our breaks, weather permitting.

A Workshop with Carey Watters

Register online now.

Fee: $100/$90 members (all materials included)

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. You will receive additional information once you register. If you prefer to register by phone, give us a call at 414-446-8794.

A Workshop with Kelly Lahl

Registration for this workshop is now CLOSED. Sign up for our e-list for information on future events.

Fee: $85/ $75 members (all materials included)

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. If you prefer not to pay online, give us a call at 414-446-8794 to register by phone.

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden. Younger children should be accompanied by an adult.

Drop in to the art studio to create a handmade accordion book using a variety of paper materials. Build up the layers with cut paper collage and try different folding techniques to make your own book or journal--then use it to illustrate a story, map and document your time at Lynden, or take it home to fill later.

3rd Annual Winter Carnival, photo: Howard Leu

Fee: Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden. Family passes for nonmembers will be available at the door for $20.

Lynden welcomes winter with a day of outdoor art-making, studio activities, tours and tree-walks, and whatever winter activities the weather permits. Elisabeth Albeck and Neil Gasparka are planning this year’s events, assisted by Jenna Knapp, Willy Dintenfass, Braden Baer, Ashley Janke and Sarah Luther. Artist Caleb Engstrom is flying in from New York to create an outdoor cinema, and you'll be able to help him make seats and your own stop motion animations for the day-long screening. Ashley Janke will conclude her year as a Lynden artist-in-residence with a final exhibition in the nAbr gallery: Ashley Morgan's Let's Build Something Together. Jenna Knapp is master-minding studio activities and an outdoor scavenger hunt. Sharon Morrisey returns for a tree walk, and Winter Carnival sponsors Davey Tree Expert will show you how they climb our big elms in the winter. We'll be making frozen flower molds and then planting them around the Little Lake (where, if the weather cooperates, you'll be able to skate). The art studio will be open for stop motion animation-making with Wesley Cathon and Eric Zimmerman in the morning (stick around and watch your work on the ice screen in the afternoon), and candle-making and cookie decorating in the afternoon. Plus we'll have The Simmer Truck on hand all day, serving hot panini sandwiches, hot soup, hot drinks and more!

Other activities: face painting by Ashley Janke , an outdoor games arena, a visit from the Kite Flying Club and another from All Hands BoatWorks (with an example of the canoe you'll be building in their February workshop), and an outdoor performance project from artist-in-residence Kim Miller. Watch or participate on foot, skis, snowshoes or skates (bring your own).

Additional thanks to Arctic Glacier.

Schedule

(Red indicates a drop-in activity.)

ALL DAY: WINTER CARNIVAL GUEST ARTIST CALEB ENGSTROM'S ICE CINEMA PROJECT
Artist Caleb Engstrom is a designer, performer, filmmaker and curator
whose work is striped with the impact of the communities he inhabits.
From Iowa City, Iowa, to Brooklyn New York, and within more abstract social spaces (the internet), Engstrom creates dynamic projects and presentations that draw from a collective, yet idiosyncratic experience, with a sense of revelry and emotional resonance. Engstrom comes to Lynden to present his project "On Ice," a cinema in two iterations. One: an ongoing indoor screening of film art works sourced from online networks, accompanied by several works by Milwaukee area filmmakers including Michael Walsh, Renato Umali, Joanna Hanlon and Elisabeth Albeck. Two: an invitation to an outdoor "ice theatre" that will include the opportunity to build your own theatre chair with snow and modular plywood pieces designed by Engstrom, as well as a ceremonial sourcing and sharing of freshly shaven ice to make snow cones, or "snow concessions," flavored to your tastes. Join Engstrom in the Ice Cinema from 10am-4pm for an animated gathering of neighbors, and catch the screening of curated works indoors from 10am-1pm.

ALL DAY: ALL HANDS BOATWORKS CANOE DEMONSTRATION
Members of All Hands BoatWorks, a Milwaukee nonprofit organization that uses wooden boatbuilding as a means to support positive youth development, education, and workforce preparation, will be at Lynden with an example of the type of canoe built during their workshops. If you'd like to build your own canoe with All Hands BoatWorks, sign up for their workshop at Lynden, beginning February 22.

10 AM-3 PM: WINTER SCAVENGER HUNT
Artist and Lynden summer camp assistant Jenna Knapp has devised a fiendishly fun scavenger hunt suitable for all ages. Start at the house, where you will create a team name and receive your first clue. Then off you go around the garden, exploring sculptures, circumambulating the ponds, ducking behind trees. Jenna promises us that many surprises await, and that every team that finishes will receive a prize.

10 AM-3 PM: nAbr GALLERY@LYNDEN: ASHLEY MORGAN
Ashley Janke concludes her year-long artist residency at Lynden with a final show in her outdoor nAbr Gallery: Ashley Morgan's Let's Build Something Together. Janke launched the nAbr Gallery -- a micro-venue on the Lynden grounds -- at last year's Winter Carnival with "Gathered From Various Other Reliable Sources," a project by Minneapolis-based artist Andy Sturdevant. Since then, nAbr has housed exhibitions by Patrick Sharrow, John Riepenhoff, Sarah Luther and Hideous Beast. With Let's Build Something Together, Ashley Morgan moves from exploring ideas around building a domestic space, maintaining a sense of control, and leading viewers towards an experience of comfort, to working collaboratively with anyone who chooses to help, allowing others to shape the work, and relying on a natural building material (snow) to achieve uncontrolled and unanticipated results.

10 AM-1 PM: MAKE YOUR OWN STOP MOTION ANIMATION WITH WESLEY CATHON & ERIC ZIMMERMAN
A still image can convey a message, introduce a character, or present a feeling.The act of animation can be accomplished by breaking a story down frame by frame, and connecting sequences of images that build off of each other. Winter Carnival visitors of all ages are invited to make their own stop-motion animation pieces, under the guidance of local filmmakers and art educators Wesley Cathon and Eric Zimmerman. Explore materials, textures and colors, and create a film short all your own from 10 am-1pm. Stick around for a screening of the workshop films at 3 pm.

10:30 AM: TREE WALK WITH SHARON MORRISEY
Join Sharon Morrisey, Consumer Horticulture Agent
Milwaukee County UW-Extension, for a talk and tour that focuses on trees in the winter landscape. The tour will begin on the patio, where your guide will lead you on a walk that loops around the lake where you will identify some of the unusual trees at Lynden (Shagbark Hickory, European Beech, Amelanchier or serviceberry, Bald Cypress, Dawn Redwood and more) while discussing how the texture, color and forms of trees can enhance the landscape in the winter months. Bring your questions for the tree expert!

11 AM-3 PM: PLANT AN ICE FLOWER GARDEN AROUND THE LITTLE LAKE
In wintertime, our eyes are drawn to the smallest signs of life and color; impossibilities warm the senses. Come defy the ice and snow, and playing your own lively winter garden! Using bright and tantalizing colored flowers, visitors are invited to create ice compositions, using flowers like paint and ice like canvas. Plant your blossom-filled compositions in a "garden" around the Little Lake. All ages welcome from 11 am-3 pm. Please note that this activity may require two visits during the day, as ice flower paintings take time to set.

11 AM-12 NOON & 1 PM-2 PM: PERFORMING THE SUBJECT WITH KIM MILLER'S MILWAUKEE INSTITUTE OF ART & DESIGN STUDENTS
Lynden artist-in-residence Kim Miller brings her Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design students to the carnival for "Performing the Subject." Working collaboratively, the students will present performative responses to the question of how action and language determine a subject. Visitors can observe and interact with the projects, which range from performance to a photo opportunity for visitors to sculptural responses to the landscape. Students will present from 11 am to 12 noon, and from 1 pm to 2 pm, on the grounds near Quartet 1967/2013 by Forrest Myers.

12 NOON: TREE CLIMBING DEMO WITH DAVEY TREE
Winter Carnival sponsors Davey Tree will give a demonstration of the techniques their arborists use to climb tall trees in the winter.

1 PM-4 PM: DIP CANDLES AND COOKIE DECORATING
These activities are designed as drop-ins and are open to all ages (young children may need parental assistance). Make candles the old-fashioned way, by dipping a string in wax; decorate cookies with hearts, snowflakes, sprinkles and icing!

1:30 PM-3 PM: KITE FLYING CLUB WITH SARAH GAIL LUTHER
Kite Flying Club is a project of artist Sarah Gail Luther, whose work often brings elements of nature into populated urban spaces to create contexts for social gatherings. Meetings of Kite Flying Club bring people to unlikely Milwaukee spaces to share in a joyful experience of kite flying, conversation and camaraderie. For Winter Carnival, Luther brings Kite Flying Club to the outskirts of the city, and Lynden's natural environment. From 1:30-3 pm, visitors are welcome tojoin Luther -- no matter the weather -- on her picnic blanket for a kite flying session, a chat, and a warm beverage straight out of the thermos. Capture the scene with your mobile device, and share it on Instagram @lyndensculpturegarden.

3 PM: STOP MOTION ANIMATION SCREENING
Gather in the conference room for a screening of films created during MAKE YOUR OWN STOP MOTION ANIMATION WITH WESLEY CATHON AND ERIC ZIMMERMAN, which runs 10 am-1 pm in the art studio.

A Workshop with Jamie Lea Bertsch

Register online now.

Fee: $85/$75 members (all materials included)

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. If you to register by phone, give us a call at 414-446-8794. You will receive additional information once you register. You may also be interested in Shibori with Natural Dyes: A Workshop with Jamie Lea Bertsch.

Learn the technique of marbling to decorate textile surfaces with swirling patterns, reminiscent of that found in natural marble stone. Create completely unique prints, and let the organic process guide your artistic decision-making. This workshop will provide you with all you need to create your own marbled tea towel set and silk scarf. A great opportunity for those who would like opportunities to extend the techniques they have learned in Carey Watters's paper marbling workshops or Kelly Lahl's silk scarf painting workshops.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for the outdoors. We’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres during our breaks, weather permitting. We have aprons, but please wear clothes suitable for artmaking.

About Jamie Lea Bertsch

Jamie Lea Bertsch is a maker. Whether itʼs creating pattern, knitting, arranging flowers, or experimenting with natural dyes—making by hand is her favorite thing to do. She swoons over combinations of color, texture and pattern. Bertsch received her MFA in Fibers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a BFA in Graphic Design and Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She has traveled abroad, teaching art in Mae Sai, Thailand. Her design work has been featured in Domino Magazine and Wisconsin Bride, and she has shown her work at Lillstreet Gallery in Chicago and the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York.

A Workshop with Jamie Lea Bertsch

Registration for this workshop is now CLOSED. Sign up for our e-list for information on upcoming workshops.

Fee: $85/$75 members (all materials included)

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. If you prefer to register by phone, give us a call at 414-446-8794. You will receive additional information once you register.

Shibori is an ancient Japanese resist-dye technique that involves creasing, folding, binding, and knotting to create beautiful patterns. In this workshop, you'll begin by making the dyes (some of them sourced from your own kitchen or garden), and will then learn the basics of Shibori to make a set of striking tea towels.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for the outdoors. We’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres during our breaks, weather permitting. We have aprons, but please wear clothes suitable for artmaking.

About Jamie Lea Bertsch

Jamie Lea Bertsch is a maker. Whether itʼs creating pattern, knitting, arranging flowers, or experimenting with natural dyes—making by hand is her favorite thing to do. She swoons over combinations of color, texture and pattern. Bertsch received her MFA in Fibers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a BFA in Graphic Design and Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She has traveled abroad, teaching art in Mae Sai, Thailand. Her design work has been featured in Domino Magazine and Wisconsin Bride, and she has shown her work at Lillstreet Gallery in Chicago and the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York.