Presented in collaboration with Woodland Pattern Book Center.

Hawaiian Umbrella Schefflera

Fee: $65/$60 Lynden and Milwaukee Bonsai Society members (all materials included)
Registration: Space is limited, advance registration required. Register by phone at 414-446-8794.

Bonsai is living sculpture. Unlike traditional sculpture however, it changes from day to day, season to season, and year to year. Because it is never finished, it celebrates all of nature: its cycles, its harshness, its resilience, and its balance. Bonsai is for people who enjoy art, nature, trees, gardening, and sculpture. It combines the principles of design with the science of horticulture.

Students in this workshop will create a bonsai from a dwarf shefflera, which is an indoor plant in Wisconsin. In the class, you will design your bonsai and transplant it into a ceramic container. If you wish to document your tree’s progress, bring your camera. We will be repotting so bring an apron or wear appropriate clothing.

This is a hands-on class in which you will learn the basic principles and techniques of bonsai design, and how to work in harmony with nature. You will return home with the bonsai that you created in the class, and a new appreciation for the world of trees.

Learn more about Bonsai at Lynden here.

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden.

We celebrate International Sculpture Day with all things Smith. We’ll have drop-in activities related to the sculptures of David Smith and Tony Smith, and a cake in the shape of Tony Smith’s Wandering Rocks created by Debbie Pagel of Eat Cake! Plus, artist Gary John Gresl presents Might This Be a Sculpture?, a temporary installation on the grounds.

Schedule

12-4 pm: Cubi Redux with Jeff Boshart
David Smith salvaged small boxes that had been thrown into the fireplace at a Christmas party to create his first Cubi sculptures. Working with the boxes and tape, he began assembling forms that he would later fabricate as the stainless steel sculptures in his late Cubi series (Mrs. Bradley donated Cubi IV, 1963, to the Milwaukee Art Museum). Using a variety of boxes and tubes, we will explore positive and negative space, balance, and the dynamic relationship between shadow and solid on the surface of a sculpture. This is an all-ages, drop-in activity.

12-4 pm: Might This Be a Sculpture?
Might This Be a Sculpture? A day-long, interactive intervention in honor of International Sculpture Day from artist-in-residence Gary John Gresl.

1-3 pm Wandering Rocks with Reece Ousey
Tony Smith, whose Wandering Rocks (1967-69) is in Lynden’s outdoor sculpture collection, is also represented in our indoor collection by a series of five posters illustrating the polyhedra nets for each of the pieces that make up that sculpture: Crocus, Slide, Dud, Shaft, and Smohawk. Suffering from tuberculosis as a child, the artist spent hours by himself making buildings and miniature cities from small medicine boxes. He returned to that pastime as an adult when recovering from a car accident; it is from this work with geometric solids that some of Smith’s Minimalist vocabulary emerged. Join us to make your own model of Wandering Rocks by cutting, folding, and gluing the images shown in the posters. This is an all-ages, drop-in activity.

3 pm: Eat Cake!
Join us for Wandering Rocks cake courtesy of Debbie Pagel of Eat Cake!

Fee: $85/$75 members (all materials included)
Registration: Registration closed. For information on future workshops, sign up for our email newsletter.

Creative people tend to gather things that have special meanings attached to them. These small items may collect dust in a bin hidden at the back of the closet until re-discovered and put to use. In this workshop, sculptor Jeff Boshart invites you to bring a gallon-sized bucket of these keepsakes to reconfigure into a sculpture or dimensional wall work. Utilizing elements of design and principles of organization, we will “tinker” with the parts: exploring color, texture, and form as we figure out how to assemble the parts into something bigger and better than the individual fragments. 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.

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

Mother Nature gave us the lever, center of, and moment (think rotation around a point). Artisans and sculptors use these physical concepts to generate ideas and inform aesthetic choices. Using found and repurposed materials, we will put these concepts to work as we construct simple balancing toys.

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

Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities, artist Fo Wilson's installation on the grounds at Lynden, is a full-scale structure that is both slave cabin and cabinet of curiosities. It imagines what a 19th-century woman of African descent might have collected in her living quarters. Like Eliza, we will take a close look at our own collections and create our own mini cabinets of wonder in response to Eliza. We will have different materials on hand to help you build and enhance your tiny cabinet.

CITIZEN (2016) by Reggie Wilson Fist and Heel Performance Group ©Aitor Mendilibar Raja Feather Kelly

Call & Response is a summer-long project that gathers a community of artists who share a commitment to the radical Black imagination as a means to re-examine the past and imagine a better future. Many have a history of working individually and collaboratively at Lynden: choreographer Reggie Wilson, visual artist Folayemi Wilson, filmmaker Portia Cobb, textile artist Arianne King Comer, and chef/food anthropologist Scott Barton. Others are new this summer: poet Duriel E. Harris, visual artist Tyanna Buie.

Working with artists, scholars, educators, and community members, we have been imagining a space for artists of color working across disciplines to celebrate the radical Black imagination in both form and content. Reggie Wilson’s 2015 residency and performance of Moses(es) and Folayemi’s Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities have redefined Lynden as a place where Black creativity is nurtured and celebrated, and where its role as a “unique technology of Black agency, resistance, and survival” (Folayemi) is being explored. With Call and Response, we expand these conversations into other marginalized communities that are actively addressing citizenship and belonging in their daily lives.

Related Exhibitions
Arianne King Comer: Ibile's Voice, June 3-July 3
Arianne King Comer + Others: Ibile's Voices, July 3-August 19
Tyanna Buie: Im•Positioned, August 26-December 2
Related Events
Family Workshop: Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities, June 3, 12:30-2:30 pm
Writing in the Light of Death: Withness & Experiments in Joy with Duriel E. Harris, June 6-8, 1-4 pm
Arianne King Comer Open Studio Schedule, July 5-July 25, times vary
Family Workshop: IBILE!, July 8, 12:30-2:30 pm
The Garden Project with Scott Barton & Portia Cobb, July 14, 10:30 am-4 pm
Performance on the Porch: Kavon Cortez Jones, July 14, 4 pm
The Garden Project with Scott Barton & Portia Cobb, July 15, 2-4 pm
Family Free Day: Call and Response, July 22, 10 am-4 pm
Performance on the Porch: Nickel & Rose, July 22, 4 pm
Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group: Citizen, July 28, 2 pm
Performance on the Porch: Portia Cobb, August 11, 4 pm
Talk and Tasting with Scott Barton & Portia Cobb, September 29, 3-4:30 pm
Call and Response: A Conversation with Tyanna Buie, Folayemi Wilson, and Portia Cobb, November 17, 3-4:30 pm

What began in unique projects with Reggie Wilson and Folayemi has grown into an approach to programming that is cross-disciplinary, community-focused, artist-driven—and that places the voices of artists of color at its center. Folayemi’s call to performers to respond to her work brought Tomeka Reid, Viktor Le, Honey Pot Performance, and Anna Martine Whitehead to Lynden and transformed Eliza’s Cabinet into a site of public programming. Last summer, Cobb’s residency responded to Eliza by conjuring her own Gullah-Geechee ancestors; Cobb planted Sea Island staples in Lizzie’s Garden and invited Comer to pilot IBILE! and Benjamin Seabrook to perform You Da Gullah/Geechee Too, a collection of a cappella songs and spoken pieces. Barton, who first joined us at Lynden in 2016 for Eliza's Cabinet: History, Objects, and the Black Imagination, the symposium following Folayemi’s project, returned to talk okra and the migration of movement, bodies, and food across the African Diaspora with Cobb and Reggie Wilson. Arsene DeLay came up from New Orleans and SistaStrings came from across town to perform on the porch of the cabinet.

Two interlocking residencies are at the heart of this summer’s programming. Starting July 9, Wilson will remake Citizen, his latest work, for a large, intergenerational cast, with a performance on July 28. For IBILE!: Ancestral Call in Cloth (July 3-28), Comer will open an all-ages, drop-in, indigo-dyeing workshop, filling Lynden’s gallery with her work and that of community members. Comer will work with Barton and Cobb to compile community recipes related to Lizzie’s Garden, Cobb’s project, in a cloth cookbook and will design costumes for Citizen’s expanded cast. Cobb will return to cultivate Lizzie’s Garden and perform; Buie, a 2012 Nohl Fellow, will open a responsive solo exhibition on August 26; and Barton will prepare and share a harvest story meal from Lizzie’s produce.

Public activities include exhibitions, workshops, a Free Family Day, and several performances. There will be moments for reflection: a public roundtable and an invitational postscript gathering of artists and scholars. In the fall, we’ll connect with For Freedoms, a 50-state platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists, as we continue to explore what freedom looks like in the 21st century.

Call & Response is made possible with the generous support of:

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden. Drop in anytime between 2 and 4 pm.

A Workshop for Elders with The Illumignossi Project

Fee: There is a $25 materials fee for this two-day workshop. Fee waivers are available; please contact us by phone at 414-446-8794 for a waiver.
Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. Register online or by phone at 414-446-8794.

Monday, May 7, 2018 and Wednesday, May 16, 2018, 9:30 am-12:30 pm

“With age comes wisdom, and length of days brings understanding.” (Job 12:12)

Legacy Lights workshops combine artmaking, writing, and essential questions for elders who are pondering their legacy: What is my life story? What is the meaning of my life? What is my legacy?

“You shall honor your elders" (Lev. 19:32), is central to Judaism, as is the idea of legacy, expressed in the Hebrew phrase l’dor va-dor, meaning “from generation to generation.” Working with Rabbi Moishe Steigmann, founder of The Spark Wisconsin, and David Moss, founder of The Illumignossi Project, you will explore the Jewish approach to legacy as you make your own richly-decorated lamp and share wisdom through conversations about life and the gifts we can pass on. It’s about discovering meanings in our full, complex, messy lives and connecting with others through artmaking and sharing stories, traditions, memories, hopes and dreams.

Legacy work isn’t about death and dying, it’s about life and living. Workshop participants, regardless of their artistic background, come away with a beautiful lamp—a legacy light--to enjoy…and, eventually, to gift. As important, they come away with a deeper appreciation for their life journey. This workshop is open to all who are interested in exploring their legacy. No prior artmaking skills required; participants must attend both sessions.

This workshop is made possible in part with support from Bader Philanthropies, Inc.

About The Illumignossi Project

Make Lamps.  Spread Light.  Share Wisdom.

Illuminating life’s journey is the core of The Illumignossi Project’s philosophy. When we can see life as a journey that’s rich with opportunities for growth and learning, horizons widen and meaning deepens. Like any journey, there are unexpected twists and turns; easy passages and passages that are dark and narrow; tedious portions and moments that are remarkable and sacred.

Now think of light and all that it symbolizes: Warmth, clarity, illumination, understanding, love, healing, hope and inspiration.

Our goal? A little more light for life’s journey. From cradle to grave, we have initiatives that can ease life’s dark, challenging passages or hallow life’s hallmark events. Our unique lamp making process and the beautiful lamps our participants create from natural, handmade papers and materials are surrounded with layers of meaning to help provide light for life’s journey. During the lamp making process connections are made, wisdom is shared, healing is fostered and inspiration is nourished. Whether our workshops are a welcome respite, a positive inflection point along life’s path, or an illuminating flashpoint – a little light, warmth and shared wisdom is always welcome. Gifted to another or kept by its maker, each lamp is its own beautiful, unique symbol that helps provide some welcome light and comfort for life’s journey.