2012 UWM Art Education Summer Institute

For information on registering for the related sessions at UWM and the John Michael Kohler Art Center, or to receive undergraduate or graduate credit, see below.

How are the arts are used to examine, build, and sustain place?

A Workshop with Kelly Lahl

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

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. To register click here. You will receive additional information once you register.

This daylong workshop will explore easy and artful ways to apply dye to silk scarves. From simple techniques such as tie-dyeing, resist and salt, to interesting mark-making techniques, we will modernize this ancient art form. We will look at examples of mid-century textile designers and we’ll also be inspired by the wonderful art and nature surrounding us at Lynden.

Each student will create three wearable and uniquely painted scarves. 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 and dress for the outdoors (footwear, sunscreen)—we’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres during our breaks.

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. She has a deep love of printing types and lettering, so naturally enjoys teaching undergraduate typography classes in the graphic design program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Rain date (only if it’s pouring on Saturday; we’ll plant in light rain): Sunday, June 10, 2012, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Free admission to the sculpture garden for volunteer gardeners!

Bring your spade and your green thumb. Join aquatic-biologist-in-residence Christine Kozik as she completes Phase II of the shoreline restoration project for Little Lake. We will be planting great blue lobelia, bottlebrush sedge, fox sedge and Canada anemones along the eastern edge of Little Lake. All plants are native to Wisconsin and raised locally to maintain the ecological integrity of Little Lake.

Plants that grow along the shoreline are adapted to wet or moist soils. Like emergent aquatic plants, shoreline plants encourage wildlife (birds and butterflies), stabilize the shoreline (they have deeper root systems than lawn turf) and help to block terrestrial organic matter. Moreover, geese are less likely to “hang out” by a shoreline where predators lurk.

More about the Little Lake Restoration Project

We are now in the second year of our restoration project. Christine spent last summer working on the shallow pond, coming up with sustainable ways to control the algae blooms without obscuring the original design. At Lynden, we are constantly balancing the aesthetic imperative—our desire to maintain the landscape that Harry and Peg Bradley created—with our commitment to sustainability. Under Christine’s direction, the pond was excavated and filled with new gravel and a recirculation pump was installed, which allows us to run the waterfall regularly). In the first phase of the shoreline restoration, several volunteers pitched in to help by planting native aquatic flora. These plants trap nutrients while shading the lake bottom, reducing the surface area on which bottom-loving algae can grow. They not only provide essential habitat for wildlife (frogs, turtles, some birds), but also stabilize the shoreline and provide a barrier to the organic matter that blows in from the lawn.

More information about the Little Lake restoration project here, here, and here.

Free introductory class: Sunday, June 3 as part of our Plein Air/Second Anniversary Celebration (garden admission fees apply)

Fees
Drop-in fee (pay at the admission desk): $15/general; $13/students & seniors (includes admission to the sculpture garden); $6/members
8-class card: $104/general; $88/students & seniors; $40/members. Click here to download a registration form for a class card, or purchase your card at the admission desk. You can use this form to purchase an annual membership and qualify for the $40 member rate for your class card. Class cards are also available at the admission desk and may be used for winter yoga workshops. Class cards are non-transferable and expire December 31, 2012.

Find a quiet retreat for the practice of yoga, sheltered from the wind, level and clean, free from rubbish, smoldering fires, and ugliness, where the sound of water and the beauty of the place help thought and contemplation.
- The Upanishads

Heather Eiden, ceramic artist, art educator and yoga instructor, offers a weekly beginning/intermediate Hatha Yoga class outdoors at Lynden each summer. Yoga, which means union, refers to the interconnection of mind, body and spirit. Yoga is an ongoing process of discovery, an evolving art, and a pathway to holistic health. Eiden focuses on mindfulness, centering and alignment as she leads students through asanas (physical postures), pranayama (control of the breath), and relaxation.

The class takes place outdoors (it will move into the art studio in inclement weather), so wear appropriate clothing and footwear (yoga socks) for outdoor practice and bring a mat. Some yoga experience required.

Heather Eiden has been teaching Hatha Yoga since 2004. She is a registered teacher with the Yoga Alliance, and has studied at several places, including the Himalayan Yoga and Meditation Society in Rishikesh, India. She has offered a variety of yoga classes, including Beginning Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Vinyasa Flow, Prenatal Yoga and Yoga for Alignment, at the Wisconsin Athletic Club and the Solcare Wellness Center since 2005.

Presented in collaboration with Woodland Pattern Book Center.

Photo: Steve McLaughlin

Taking a line from John Cage, "Mind Can Change," as our starting point, this workshop will explore a number of writing strategies of the historical and contemporary avant-garde. Following on writers and visual artists such as Cage, Joe Brainard, Dada, the Surrealists, and others, we will make use of the Lynden Sculpture Garden facilities to explore collaboration, non-narration, field poetics, disjunction, appropriation, and other artistic approaches to escape the codifications of daily language use. The avant-garde in our terms will not only signify a stance against the over-simplified and unimaginative, but for and toward the creation of art as new, synchronistic, immediate, and unprecedented experience. At the end of the week we will celebrate the work we have produced together with a public reading and reception.

Rod Smith is the author of Deed (University of Iowa Press, 2007) amd nine other books of poems, including Music or Honesty, Poèmes de l’Araignées, and In Memory of My Theories. He has taught creative writing at George Mason University, and was a visiting writer at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the Spring of 2010. He edits the journal Aerial, publishes Edge Books, and manages the independent Bridge Street Books in Washington, D.C. Smith is also editing, with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley.

Dates at Lynden: June 4-June 8
Monday, June 4 2-7:30 pm
Tuesday, June 5 2-5 pm
Wednesday, June 6 2-5 pm
Thursday, June 7 2-5 pm
Friday, June 8 2-5 pm (reading to follow)
Fee $275/$250 for members of Lynden or Woodland Pattern (one discount only).
To register contact Chuck Stebelton at Woodland Pattern: (414) 263-5001 or woodlandpattern@sbcglobal.net.

Lynden Sculpture Garden and the Woodland Pattern Book Center offer a weeklong-residency at Lynden with poet and writer-in-residence Rod Smith. In addition to the workshop, Smith will offer a reading at Woodland Pattern on June 3. The workshop will culminate in a reading and reception at Lynden on Friday, June 8 at 7 pm.

Related events:
Sunday, June 3
2 pm
$8/$7/$6
Reading: Rod Smith
This event takes place at Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 E. Locust St., Milwaukee, WI 53212

Friday, June 8
7 pm
Workshop Reading & Celebration
Free
This event takes place at the Lynden Sculpture Garden.
Participants in the workshop offer a reading of work produced during the week followed by a reception.

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden.

Drop by the art studio between 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm and join our all ages T-shirt Tote Bag workshop. Bring in your favorite old t-shirt (we’ll also have a few for you to choose from) to recycle into a handmade tote bag. This no-sew project gives t-shirts a second life as a unique gift wrap, summer beach tote, or reusable alternative to a plastic shopping bag. You'll also have an opportunity to learn more about our Summer Art Camps.

A Workshop with Thea Kovac

Fee: $75/ $65 members

Registration: Space is limited; advance registration required. To register click here. You will receive additional information and a supply list once you register.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case. ― Chuck Close

It’s been awhile since you have made any art.
You seek a new direction in your creative work.
You are ready to try art-making for the first time.
You spend a lot of time helping others make art.
You are curious about creative process.

Experience specific methods designed to renew your artistic efforts. The emphasis will be on simple, playful hands-on exercises that Thea uses in her own artistic practice and in her classes to jumpstart drawings and paintings. Also included will be suggestions on how to make room for creative work in busy lives, research-based ideas on how the entire human brain contributes to creativity, and ways to shift consciousness to reach the state of “flow.”

No artistic experience required. Visual artists, writers, performers, and anyone interested in creativity will benefit from this workshop. Bring a bag lunch and beverages and dress for the outdoors—we’ll be making use of Lynden’s 40 beautiful acres.

About Thea Kovac

Thea Kovac, visual artist, art instructor, and private art coach, calls her artistic practice The Lost Playground Studio. She has taught watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and drawing courses in Continuing Education Departments at several area colleges and universities including MIAD, UWM, Cardinal Stritch, Carroll, and Alverno.

She has led creative process workshops in many Wisconsin settings, such as the Weidner Center at UW- Green Bay, Woodland Pattern Book Center, the Girl Scout CyberCamp at Alverno College, and Riveredge Nature Center. She has held Artist Residencies at MPS schools and Brookfield Academy.

Currently she teaches watercolor courses through the UWM Sports and Recreation Dept. and the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center in Brookfield. She also holds private classes in the art studio at Danceworks and offers House Call Art Classes, private in-home art classes for individuals and small groups.

She paints vivid watercolor and acrylic paintings in her loft studio on the north side of Milwaukee. She has explored botanical subjects, landscapes, the human figure, and abstract imagery. You can learn more about Thea Kovac at http://www.theakovac.com.

Image credit: Eric Aho, Pass, 2010, oil on linen, 50 x 40 inches. © Eric Aho

Schedule:
Friday, August 3
     5 pm: Welcome and Artist Talk
     6:30 pm: Dinner
Saturday, August 4
     9 am-5 pm: Outdoor Painting
     6:30 pm: Dinner
Sunday, August 5
     9 am-3 pm: Outdoor Painting
     3-5 pm: Critique and Discussion
     6:30 pm: Dinner

Fee: $1000 (includes lunch on Saturday & Sunday; dinner on Friday, Saturday & Sunday). Materials not provided; a supply list will be available.

Lodging Package: A special three-night lodging package (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) is available at the Washington House Inn in historic Cedarburg, WI (www.washingtonhouseinn.com). Rooms range from $130.50-$166.50 per night; this includes a continental breakfast and an afternoon social hour with wine and cheese. Reserve lodging directly with Washington House Inn at 1-888-554-9545; specify Lynden Sculpture Garden Workshop package. Rooms must be booked no later than July 2, 2012.

Registration: Space is very limited; advance registration is required. To download a registration form, click here. If you have any questions, please contact Polly Morris at pmorris@lyndensculpturegarden.org or 414-446-8794.

Eric Aho’s paintings are a direct response to nature, whether they are images of the New England landscape that capture dramatic effects of weather and sunlight, or his more recent energetic, freely brushed abstract compositions. He invites professional and vocational artists to join him for a weekend outdoor intensive at the Lynden Sculpture Garden where, working among the sculptures, trees and plantings, participants will respond to the light and landscape of high summer. Step out of the studio and advance your skills in a collegial atmosphere under the supervision of a master artist known for his plein air painting.

Image credit: Eric Aho, Cape Mansard, 2008, oil on linen, 12 x 24 inches. © Eric Aho

About Eric Aho
Eric Aho (American, b. 1966) studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London, England and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. In 1989 he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the U.S. and Cuba. He completed his graduate work at the Lahti Art Institute in Finland supported by a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991-92 and an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant in 1993.

Additional fellowships and grants from the Vermont Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Vermont Community Foundation and the Finlandia Foundation and the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York have facilitated many projects over the past twenty years.

Aho has taught painting at the Putney School in Putney, Vermont, the Theater Academy of Finland in Helsinki, Finland and the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. He has been a visiting artist and critic at the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland; the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo Ireland; the Weir Farm National Historic Trust in Connecticut; Colgate University in Hamilton, New York; the National College of Art in Oslo, Norway; the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland; the St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Aho’s exhibitions include the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine; the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut; the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; the Fitchburg Art Museum in Fitchburg, Massachusetts; the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Maine; the McMullen Museum at Boston College; the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Nagoya, Japan; the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City; the Oulu City Art Museum in Oulu, Finland; and the Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont. Upcoming exhibitions include a ten-year survey of Aho’s paintings at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire (June 2-September 9, 2012) and an exhibition at Tory Folliard Gallery in Milwaukee in October 2012.

Aho’s work has been presented in numerous gallery exhibitions and is represented in private and public collections throughout the country and abroad including the permanent collections of the Fleming Museum, the Oulu City Art Museum, the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Eric Aho is represented by Tory Folliard Gallery in Milwaukee and DC Moore Gallery in New York. He lives and works in Saxtons River, Vermont. More information: http://ericaho.com/.

Come spend a magical evening with the fascinatingly
creative author Amy Krouse Rosenthal!

Admission: $45 – includes an autographed copy of Encyclopedia of An Ordinary Life, refreshments and admission to the sculpture garden (come early and stroll!).
Members: $35

Admission: $15 – includes refreshments and admission to the sculpture garden (come early and stroll!).
Members: $12
Although tickets will be available at the door, advance purchase is strongly encouraged. To purchase tickets, call 414-446-8794 or download this form and send it via email (staff@lyndensculpturegarden.org), fax (414-446-8492) or snail mail (Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 W. Brown Deer Rd., Milwaukee, WI 53217).