Welcome to Dem Bones

Hello — Stella Cretek here. You’ve landed at Dem Bones. Don’t let my upswept blonde ‘do and drooping cig fool you. It’s only a jpeg of a painting by a friend who is an exceptionally bad painter. Because this blog will attend primarily to art, I figured I’d start off with an example of what art isn’t. Look around and you’ll see plenty of it in our town. Milwaukee is filled with artists tagged as “emerging,” “mature,” “promising,” “interesting,” etc. They paint, sculpt, exhibit their photography, produce assemblages, dabble in metal and clay, and generally vie for attention of local art critics who are also vying for attention.

There is some hope out there however. Tom Bamberger, a local writer/photographer, enlivens Milwaukee Magazine, along with art historian Deb Brehmer, who manages to teach at MIAD and maintain the Portrait Gallery in the Third Ward, plus runSusceptible to Images. Over at the Shepherd Express, Aisha Motlani is developing attitude about reviewing art and architecture. Attitude is a good thing, and thinking persons need not fear it. Non-thinkers are the ones who need to worry.