All Shapes of Arrival events are free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden.

Open Kitchen (OK) re-opens its cross-cultural, regional, seasonal food and thought exchange with the public with a series of events that explore the diasporic experience. These participatory events emanate from the project residencies Open Kitchen hosts here in Milwaukee. The Shapes of Arrival events will take place in and around an Open Kitchen installation on Lynden’s grounds.

Open Kitchen residents Patricia Nguyen, John Lee, and Hai Minh Thi Nguyen compose a Milwaukee-Vietnam index of aromas, flavors, and textures in the context of the ideas and beliefs of a diasporic experience. What is the taste of home? The smell? Throughout their residency, the collective will be working on Sống, a cookbook and archival project of the Vietnamese American community of Chicago. Sống translated means to live, liveliness, and raw. Sống is an active verb reflecting the liveliness of the people and stories that will be featured in the book. In addition, Sống works with the raw material of people's stories and the fresh ingredients used in Vietnamese cuisine to capture a taste of the homeland while fusing in new flavors. The cookbook will include interviews, recipes, photographs, drawings, and a history of Vietnamese migration to Chicago.

As an adjunct to this collective residency work, Open Kitchen has also invited a group of Chicago- and Milwaukee-based projects and individuals—Inga, Michelin, Kim Khaira, Angela Kingsawan--to a co-lecture and conversation on imagining a sensual archive. This is a Call & Response event.

Open Kitchen: Shapes of Arrival Events

Scents of Home: Sensorial Workshop, August 10, 1-3 pm
Common Scents: Edible Installation & Conversation, August 24, 1-5 pm
The Sensual Archive of Diasporic Peoples in Relation to the Naming of Things: A Lecture and Conversation, August 31, 1-3 pm

About the Artists

Open Kitchen is organized by Rudy Medina and Alyx Christensen. The project engages critical conversations on food, society and culture, local and at-large. By organizing food-related socials, seasonal residencies, counter-disciplinary collaborations, and satellite installations, conversations are collected, collaged, and open to the public.


Patricia Nguyen is an artist, educator, and scholar born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Her research and artistic practice emerges from a place of departure, rupture, presence, and possibilities as a child of refugees. Through embodied research, performance, installation, and community engagement she explores ecologies of freedom, migration, borders, and war to reveal histories of violence and imagine decolonial futures. Patricia has over 15 years experience working in arts education, community development, and human rights in the United States and Vietnam. As a performance artist, she has performed at the Nha San Collective in Vietnam, Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, Jane Addams Hull House in Chicago, Prague Quadrennial, Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She is co-founder and executive director of Axis Lab, a community centered arts and architecture organization in Chicago. She is also Director of Undergraduate Studies and Assistant Professor of Instruction in Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Performance Studies.

John Lee is an architectural designer and photographer who has lived in Chicago for 10 years. Lee’s work seeks what mnemonic possibilities can arise in notions of home, displacement, and space through the built and natural environment. His work is committed to cultivating places of possibilities through architectural design, as material, form, and content conjure a deeply affective relationship to history, people, and ongoing struggle for freedom.  John Lee has a masters in architecture degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His design work has been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, alongside commissions and recognitions from established institutions such as Northwestern University, AIA Chicago, Art Works Projects, Propeller Fund and recently published photographic work in the Chicago Reader. John is also co-founder and co-director of Axis Lab, a nonprofit arts and architecture organization committed to advocating for inclusive and equitable development on Argyle Street, an historic port of entry for immigrants and refugees.   

Hai Minh Thi Nguyen is an artist and educator whose work highlights the invisible, effective labor of women. From large paper cuts to sewing construction, Hai Minh seeks to center stories that have traditionally been on the margin.

Angela Kingsawan is an indigenous person of Raramuri, Tigua, and Mexica descent. She was born and raised on the Southside of Milwaukee and uses her unique perspective as an urban native person to teach modern herbalism infused with native tradition to impact and empower communities of color. By providing decolonized education, seed exchanges, and growing culturally significant plants in an urban setting, Angela strives to help community members remember their cultural ways of being. She currently works as a garden manager at a local Milwaukee non-profit in the neighborhood she grew up in and has been an herbalist in her community for over 20 years.

Michelin, a project of Rudy Medina and Bennett Westling, is a lecture-related space located in Riverwest, above Company Brewing. 

Inga (Jacob Lindgren, Alan Medina, Malia Haines-Stewart) is a bookshop and events space in Chicago with a focus on independently published titles in art, design, film, and theory. 

Kim M Khaira is a community worker and artist based in Milwaukee from Penang, Malaysia, whose current work draws on the sense of home, creating home, and of making “sense” of the literal and abstract. She is exploring these themes in Pulang Balik: I Am Going Home Too her residency project at Lynden.


More information:
www.axislab.org
www.patricianguyen.info
www.durational.co
https://i-n-g-a.com/

A Workshop with Leslie Perrino

Fee: $90/ $80 members (all materials included)
Registration: Registration is closed. Sign up for our email newsletter for information on future sessions.

Lynden is offering a series of holiday giftmaking workshops in November and December. They range from simple activities suitable for families with smaller children to more advanced workshops for adults. Whether you are making a gift for yourself or another, these workshops should provide a cheerful atmosphere for art making as we head into winter. To see a complete list of holiday giftmaking workshops, visit our Workshops page.

This daylong workshop will explore easy and artful ways to apply dye to pre-hemmed silk scarves. From simple techniques such as tie-dyeing, resist and salt, to interesting ways to make marks, we’ll let ourselves be inspired by the wonderful art and nature surrounding us at Lynden.

Each student will create three wearable and uniquely painted scarves using this centuries-old painting form. No experience required, and all materials supplied. Remember: using dyes can be messy. We'll supply you with an apron, but please wear clothes that you don't mind getting stained.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages.

About Leslie Perrino

Leslie Perrino is an artist and "art evangelist" who loves to share the power of art and creativity with people, particularly in her beloved areas of metals and enameling. Her artwork is a quirky mix of traditional and found objects, most recently combining computer/electrical components with enamels. She is a charismatic and effective teacher who encourages skill building and exploration of the medium.

Fee: $110/ $99 members (all materials included)
Registration: Registration is closed. For info on future sessions, sign up for our e-list.

Enameling is a timeless art form that involves sifting colored glass onto a copper base and fusing it in a kiln to create shiny, colorful works of art. In this workshop, Leslie Perrino teaches the basics of enameling, covering a variety of techniques including stencils, sgraffito, threads, silver foil, screens, and decals. She will also be covering new techniques for returning students. You will complete sample pieces for practice, and can then choose from a variety of projects. No experience required, and all materials supplied.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages.

About Leslie Perrino

Leslie Perrino is an artist and "art evangelist" who loves to share the power of art and creativity with people, particularly in her beloved areas of metals and enameling. Her artwork is a quirky mix of traditional and found objects, most recently combining computer/electrical components with enamels. She is a charismatic and effective teacher who encourages skill building and exploration of the medium.

A Workshop with Leslie Perrino

Fee: $90/ $80 members (all materials included)
Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. Register by phone at 414-446-8794.

Fusing is an ancient technique used to permanently connect precious metals, in this case, fine (pure) silver wire. Cleaner, faster, and less toxic than soldering, fusing involves the use of a hand torch. Leslie Perrino will show you how to fuse fine silver wire into loops that can then be made into earrings complete with earwires. Once you master the techniques, you will have time to make more earrings. No experience required, this workshop is suitable for complete beginners or those looking to expand their jewelry-making skills. All materials and tools supplied. You are welcome to bring beads to add to your earrings.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages.

About Leslie Perrino

Leslie Perrino is an artist and "art evangelist" who loves to share the power of art and creativity with people, particularly in her beloved areas of metals and enameling. Her artwork is a quirky mix of traditional and found objects, most recently combining computer/electrical components with enamels. She is a charismatic and effective teacher who encourages skill building and exploration of the medium.

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden.

Poet/birder and artist-in-residence Chuck Stebelton continues his series of bird walks at Lynden this fall, and he's bringing friends! On September 15 he'll be joined by Paul Druecke, and on October 6 his guest will be Betsy Abert. Please wear appropriate footwear and bring your binoculars if you have them; no previous birding experience required.

A Ceramics Workshop with Katheryn Corbin

Two Wednesdays, November 13 & November 20, 2019, 10 am-3 pm

Fee: $150/ $140 members (all materials included)
Registration: Registration is closed. Sign up for our email newsletter for information on future sessions.

The island of Majorca and the surrounding Mediterranean countries produce decorative and utilitarian pottery known as Majolica. Majolica ware uses an opaque white glaze as a ground and brush painting with colorful ceramic oxides and stains to create surface decoration. The brush work is similar to painting with watercolors, and this is an excellent workshop for painters new to ceramics. This workshop focuses on creating a memory plate. Please bring a photograph or object that you would like to commemorate. On the first day you will learn basic slab and coil construction, and will hand-build a clay vessel of your choice—perhaps a platter or shallow bowl with plenty of surface for painting. Return a week later to paint your bisque-fired piece using your photo or object as inspiration.

Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for studio work as well as the outdoors. We’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres during our breaks, weather permitting. Pieces will need to be picked up after a second firing.

About Katheryn Corbin

Katheryn Corbin is a painter, potter, and figure sculptor. Pots and figures have both been a part of Corbin's studio practice and teaching. Drawing and painting are important elements in each discipline, and her clay pieces are informed by the complementary processes of working with clay as vessel and as figure. Corbin is interested in historical developments in clay and variations across cultures, and she often explores different firing techniques and glaze surfaces. She has taught at all levels from elementary school through adult at the Evanston Arts Center in Evanston, IL; the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design; and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Fee: $15/ $10 members
Registration: Advance registration required. Register by phone at 414-446-8794.

Join us for a special event with artist-in-residence Jenna Knapp.

The full moon is a time for releasing and cleansing. The light of the full moon illuminates any obstacles or interferences in our lives. Once we recognize our blocks, it becomes easier to let go of what didn’t serve us in the most recent lunar phase. It is an amazing time to reevaluate and recollect. 

We celebrate the Harvest Full Moon with a healing sound bath followed by a candle-lit labyrinth walk. Sound baths are an ancient form of deep meditation; they include various ambient sounds playing in a space where you can hear and feel their vibrations. Your sound healer for the evening will be Milwaukee’s own Catherine Soteira (Cat Ries), initiated by Akhilanka of the Temple of Singing Bowls in Mysore, India.

The sound bath lasts approximately 45-60 minutes. Please bring your own yoga mat, blanket, or towel to rest on for the duration, and dress appropriately for the weather. Candles will be provided for the labyrinth walk, but feel free to bring your own.

Fee: $65/ $55 members (all materials for making 12-20 incense pieces included)
Registration: Advance registration required. Register by phone at 414-446-8794.

Learn the basics of making your own natural incense. This workshop introduces a Japanese style of incense-making using traditional materials. Mike Paré, drawing from the history of incense, introduces students to a variety of aromatic herbs, spices, tree resins, and powders; discusses the philosophy of fragrance formation; and teaches participants to roll cones or joss sticks. Each participant will finish the workshop with 12-20 pieces of incense. Additional incense materials will be available for purchase.

The workshop consists of three parts:
Part 1: Incense Burning
Participants are introduced to historical and cultural aspects of incense. They will get acquainted with incense materials by burning them with charcoal and a censer. Creative and interactive exercises will involve incense burning and sampling ingredients such as frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh, patchouli, sage, and a dozen others.
Part 2: Formulation
We discuss philosophies of fragrance formulation and combination. Participants choose from the selection of prepared incense materials to create their own blend. Only organic or wildcrafted materials are used.
Part 3: Hand Rolling Incense
Participants mix and shape their blend into a burnable form by hand rolling cones or joss sticks. Drying and storage of incense will be discussed.

NOTE: Rolled incense takes up to 48 hours to dry completely. Participants are encouraged to bring a small, airtight plastic container to transport the finished incense.

About the Artist
Mike Paré is the founder of Zouz Incense - a natural incense company. Paré has a background in visual art, education, and anthropology. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.