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Lynden Blog

November 6, 2014 | Willy

This is the first of what will be 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.”

Executive Director Polly Morris mentioned that artist and educator Paul Druecke would be bringing out a class from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and suggested I contact him. This excited me! I used to teach at MIAD and the students tend to be full of ideas. They proved true to form.

I pulled up in front of MIAD at 4:20 on October 16, 2014. The class, titled "Post Studio Practices," has seven students. Paul, who has a temporary installation at Lynden, asked if my walk and talk about distance could include all of them. I had prepared eight questions, so one for each student plus Paul. Perfect!

After the two carloads of students met up at Lynden, I walked with them to three of the temporary sculptures, Sightseer, Feast, and Seedpod, as well as Open-Air Writing Desk, while I asked questions. Two topics came up repeatedly when they responded.

Many brought up the importance of distance. They appreciated being away from their families in order to develop their own identities. “I needed breathing space from my family,” is how one student put it. In another case, a student realized she was mimicking her parents in ways she wanted to change. A third student explained she had developed a closer relationship with her father from a distance. “We were not in the moment,” she said. On the phone they were able to talk about family dynamics and then work through problems in what she described as “a healthier way” when she returned home.

A number of students had strong reactions about technology and distance. Michael Collazo called Facebook “fake” because people create a certain persona. Two agreed with Michael and gave the example of students getting scared off by assertive Facebook comments that didn’t really express a person’s full personality. Some said you present yourself in a certain way no matter when or how you communicate.

Evin Sagduyu has grandparents who live in Turkey. His family used to visit every summer, but it has been four years since the last trip. “Skype is not the same because you aren’t interacting,” Evin said. “When I am there I am involved; Skype is a routine.” Nick Kinsella, in counterpoint, sometimes feels closer to people he communicates with online who live in other countries than with people in the same room.

Two surprises happened. First, we got lost. Of course we weren’t really lost. It is impossible to lose sight of the service road or the pond. However, on our way over to view David Robbins’s Open-Air Writing Desk, we approached it using a different route than I usually take. Paul and I both needed to backtrack to find it. I like getting disoriented. It shakes up my senses and I notice things I hadn't before.

I have explored Lynden day and night, and during all four seasons of the year, but had never experienced sunset. The picture shows my first. The sky cleared an hour before we departed from MIAD after days of rain and clouds making it an extra-special second surprise.

Pegi Christiansen - Distance visits
Photo: Paul Druecke

November 1, 2014 | Anonymous

November is a time for organizing, for planning ahead.

October 1, 2014 | Anonymous

October is a time for switching gears. School has started and everyone is settling into their schedules.

September 8, 2014 | Willy

In the second half of its eleventh cycle, the Fund provided assistance with shipping and travel to seventeen individual artists. These artists—six of them past Nohl Fellows—work in a range of media. Their exhibitions took them to Anchorage, Alaska; Kansas City, Kansas; Bangor, Maine; St. Mary's City, Maryland; Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; Canton, Missouri; New York, New York; and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Destinations abroad included Quebec, Canada; Shanghai, China; Varennes-sur-Loire and Yerres, France; Ballyvaughan, Ireland; Malaga, Spain; and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

2012 Nohl Fellow Lois Bielefeld received support for Androgyny, a solo show at The Rita at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha. The exhibition explores the power and complexity of gender identity in a series of photographic portraits, videos, and a large-scale installation.

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As the recipient of a major award in a national juried Watercolor U.S.A. Honor Society exhibition, Christine Buth-Furness had a painting selected for Watercolor Now!, the 2014 WHS Small Works Exhibition in the Mabee Art Gallery at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri.

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Cecelia Condit, a 2004 Nohl Fellow, traveled to Ireland for A Stone's Throw, a solo exhibition at the Burren College of Art Gallery in Ballyvaughan. She showed a three-channel video installation, shot in Ireland during a prior residency, and large-format composited photographs.

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Christopher Davis-Benavides and Karen Gunderman both traveled to China to participate in the 2014 Fourth Biennial Shanghai International Contemporary Porcelain Art Exhibition at the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum and the International Modern Pot Art Museum in Yi Xing. They exhibited their work, lectured, and served as members of the international awards selection committee.

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Paul Druecke (Nohl Fellow 2010) was invited to exhibit a new public sculpture as part of the Marlborough Gallery's Broadway Morey Boogie in New York City. The group show of outdoor sculpture by American contemporary artists extends from Columbus Circle to 166th Street on Broadway.

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Sally Duback is making two trips to Grand Rapids, Michigan to participate in ArtPrize 2014. She is exhibiting Nature's Children, a large mixed-media mosaic.

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Jenna Knapp will spend two weeks in Amsterdam at Kulter, an independent gallery and a collective that organizes projects at relevant sites. Knapp, a recent graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, will be participating with other artists, musicians and performers in a site-specific group show.

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Xav Leplae and his Riverwest Radio project (a neighborhood radio station that broadcasts live from the window of his Riverwest Film & Video store) have been invited to participate in the Detroit iteration of The People's Biennial, a traveling show curated by Jens Hoffman and Harrell Fletcher. Leplae, a 2008 Nohl Fellow, will travel to MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) with three other Milwaukee artists to create and activate a fantasy web radio installation inside the museum.

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Patrick Lichty traveled to Anchorage, Alaska for a solo exhibition at the Institute for Speculative Media at Out North Contemporary Arthouse. He also taught a workshop on drone cinema using a DJI Phantom Drone, and continued his field research in Alaska, using his drone for artistic purposes, mapping and scientific study of global warming at the Exit Glacier in the Kenai National Forest.

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As a finalist in the 6th edition of the Pollux Awards, Joseph Mougel was invited to exhibit Blanc 016 in the 3rd International Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography at the Municipal Heritage Museum in Malaga, Spain.

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Mark Mulhern, a 2003 Nohl Fellow, exhibited works from his pigeon series in the gallery at Le Manoir de Champfreau in Varennes-sur-Loire, France. Aptly, the gallery was entered through a 16th-century pigeonnier. Mulhern, who also makes artist books and monotypes, met with curators at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

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Christopher McIntyre Perceptions received support for a solo exhibition of his photographs at KAHBANG Arts, a nonprofit arts organization in Bangor, Maine.

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Colette Odya Smith has been invited to be the guest of honor of the Societe des Pastellistes de France at their fall international exhibition of pastel paintings at the Caillebotte Park in Yerres. She will exhibit fifteen paintings and meet society members in Paris and at the public opening reception.

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Marc Tasman, a 2004 Nohl Fellow, exhibited twenty photographs from Laurentian Internationale at Galerie Remise in Saint-Hippolyte, Quebec. The documentary series spans six years and explores one family's connection, over five generations, to a land community and their attempts to preserve its culture and natural resources,

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Lynn Tomaszewski will travel to St. Mary's City, Maryland, for a solo exhibition at the Boyden Gallery at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Tomaszewski will be exhibiting paintings, large wall drawings, and two interactive installations.

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Christopher Willey received support for Lanterns, a collaborative exhibition/installation with Tonia Klein at The Hown's Den: A Nomadic + Domestic Exhibition Space in Kansas City, Kansas. The work references doorknockers and lanterns that Willey saw in China, and incorporates Klein's screen printing practice.

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September 1, 2014 | Anonymous

A day rarely goes by when I don't take a look at the Kandinsky painting, Häuser in Kallmünz, that hangs at Lynden.

August 1, 2014 | Anonymous

Sighs abound: sighs of relief (we survived July's dicey weather), sighs of wonder (were those Trisha Brown dancers really floating out on the Big Lake?

July 1, 2014 | Anonymous

In the mad dash to prepare for the many things going on at Lynden in July, it's been difficult to raise the eyes from the computer screen, but inevitably, when I do, I am greeted by the sight of peopl

June 1, 2014 | Anonymous

Perhaps it's the warm and sunny weather, but we are sending the June e-news out a bit early to let you know that we are open over the Memorial Day weekend (including Monday) and to give you time to si

May 31, 2014 | Willy

From the Wild Side is a recurring feature on our blog. Author Bob Retko has been on the staff at Lynden since 1966.

Photo: Robert Retko

Above is a photo that I took this morning of a hen wood duck in one of our wood duck nest boxes. She started incubating in early May and, as you can see in the photo, it appears that the ducklings are in the process of hatching. After hatching they will remain in the box for about a day. The hen will then leave the box and check the surroundings for predators. When she has determined the area is safe, she will call to the brood. The ducklings will respond to her call by climbing up the wall of the nest box and one by one jumping from the entrance hole. They will drop to the ground, sometimes from a high nest cavity in a tree. When the nest is over dry land the ducklings often bounce and are not harmed by the fall.

Once the ducklings have left the nest box the hen will assemble the brood and lead them to water where food and cover are abundant. The ducklings will not return the nest box, unless they return as adults in following years to incubate a clutch of eggs.

At Lynden, once out of the nest box, a wood duck hen and her ducklings may only stay on our ponds for a day or two at the maximum. The hens generally find other waters that have better overhead cover to protect from predators.

May 27, 2014 | Willy

In the first half of its eleventh cycle, the Fund provided assistance with shipping and travel to fourteen individual artists. These artists—five of them past Nohl Fellows—work in a range of media. Their exhibitions took them to Birmingham, Alabama; Weed, California; DeKalb, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Winona, Minnesota; Galloway, New Jersey; Columbia, South Carolina; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Johnson, Vermont; and Blacksburg, Virginia. Destinations abroad included Vienna, Austria; Reykjavik, Iceland; Trondheim, Norway; and Hanoi, Vietnam.


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