February at Lynden

The grid of my windowpanes, square and relatively small, is transposed across the three layers of landscape I watch each day: sky, trees, land. This geometry creates dozens of mini-views, some hard and bright with snow, others grey and spongy with cloud, most a mixture of the different elements: a tangle of elm branches against the sky. Often, of course, I look past that grid to focus on the individual layers. In our current run of grey weather the relationships have been reversed, with all the light emanating from the ground, the trees a dark mass, and the sky indefinite and receding.

It’s somewhere between the ground and the trees that I see the sculpture or, a week after our warmest-ever winter carnival, the whimsical snow figures made by crowds of people of all ages who did not have to worry about braving a polar vortex this year. Snow people, snow serpents, the elegant volumes and the small, decisive patterns of seedpods, leaves, and sticks created by guest artists Richard Shilling and Julia Brooklyn, persist outside my window, though if the forecast is correct, they will be gone tomorrow. In these milder days they tilt and droop; the colors that were sprayed on them so exuberantly have faded; and some of the crispest structures have melted into inchoate piles. So stop by today if you want to see the remains of the festivities, or sign up for our whisk broom workshop tomorrow and sweep away—at least temporarily—thoughts of winter.

Though we may be almost spring-like tomorrow, summer does seem far away—yet this is peak season for summer camp registration. Not to be alarmist, but some of our camps already have waiting lists, so if you’d like to send your child to Lynden this summer, now’s the time to sign up. You can do so online or you can pick up one of our camp brochures. While you’re here you can visit our current exhibition, Robert Murray: The Working Models. The gallery, with its colorful sculptures, is a perfect antidote to the grey outside.

We launch our new art drop-in for the very young next week, so if you have been waiting for a weekly art activity for your small children, this is it. Adults can make whisk brooms with John Holzwart, cook up an herbal cold and flu remedy with Angela Kingsawan, learn all about enameling with Leslie Perrino, and join Kim Khaira around the dye pot for two batik with natural dyes workshops. We host the third in our series of Conversations on Displacement and the Arts—the panelists are Sumeya Osman, Ashraf Albakir, Nirmal Raja, and Ras ‘Ammar Nsoroma–and the Women’s Speaker Series welcomes Mary Kubica, author of The Other Mrs. For those who want to spend time outdoors, Lynden educator Claudia Orjuela leads a Lynden by Night moon walk on February 8, dogs have their day on February 15, and we will continue to eye the pond for ice-skating opportunities.

February events, arranged chronologically:

Sunday, February 2, 2020 – 12-4 pm
MAKE WHISK BROOMS WITH JOHN HOLZWART
Discover the art of making handmade brooms with Wisconsin broom maker Little John Holzwart. In this class we will make a Hawktail whisk and a Fantail whisk (also known as a turkey wing). These little brooms are perfect for those tight places. Shorter broomcorn has been selected for these smaller brooms, and all materials are provided. Discussion about decorative options will be included.

February 5, 12, 19, 26 – Wednesdays, 3-5:30 pm
WEEKLY ART DROP-IN FOR KIDS AGED 11 and Up
Drop into our studio for informal art exploration. Come for 30 minutes or stay for 2 1/2 hours; visit weekly or stop by when you need an after-school activity; bring a friend or sibling or try it on your own. Each week we’ll introduce different materials, processes and themes, and get you started on a project. We’ll focus on three-dimensional artmaking–though we will also do plenty of painting, drawing and collaging–and make use of Lynden’s special resources: the collection of monumental sculpture and 40 acres of park, lake and woodland.

February 6, 13, 20, 27 – Thursdays, 2:30-5 pm
WEEKLY ART DROP-IN FOR KIDS AGED 6-11
Drop into our studio for informal art exploration. Come for 30 minutes or stay for 2 1/2 hours; visit weekly or stop by when you need an after-school activity; bring a friend or sibling or try it on your own. Each week we’ll introduce different materials, processes and themes, and get you started on a project. We’ll focus on three-dimensional artmaking–though we will also do plenty of painting, drawing and collaging–and make use of Lynden’s special resources: the collection of monumental sculpture and 40 acres of park, lake and woodland. Art Drop-in goes on hiatus in mid-December, resuming in mid-January.

February 6, 13, 20, 27 – Thursdays, 3:30-4:30 pm
NEW! WEEKLY ART DROP-IN FOR THE VERY YOUNG (AGES 4-6)
In our new Art Drop-In for the Very Young, art educator Claudia Orjuela provides an hour of informal, parent-free art exploration and material investigation for children aged 4-6 years.

Saturday, February 8, 2020 – 5:30-7 pm
LYNDEN BY NIGHT: A WALK WITH CLAUDIA ORJUELA Advance registration required. Register by phone at 414-446-8794.
Come walk Lynden’s grounds with educator Claudia Orjuela, who will introduce you to the mysteries and unique features of outdoor life after dark. Discover the sights and sounds of the night in Lynden’s back acres and observe our monumental sculptures beneath the light of the full snow moon. A bonfire and treats await at the end.

Sunday, February 9, 2020 – 1-3 pm
LYNDEN’S GARDEN SERIES
COLD AND FLU REMEDY: A WORKSHOP WITH ANGELA KINGSAWAN
Feeling under the weather or just fatigued this winter? Join herbalist Angela Kingsawan for this herbal cold and flu remedy workshop. Learn how to make a simple, all-natural recipe. Even if you’re not sick, this remedy helps to boost immunity and supply much needed nutrients to keep your emotions and body healthy throughout the cold season.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020 -10:30am -11:30 am
TUESDAYS IN THE GARDEN: AN OUTING FOR PARENTS & VERY SMALL CHILDREN
The 40 acres that house the Lynden collection of monumental outdoor sculpture are also home to many birds, insects, frogs, mammals and plants. Educator Claudia Orjuela offers a program for the very young that explores a different theme each month, taking into account the changing seasons, and provides an opportunity for those with very small children to engage in outdoor play and art making. The theme for February is artful snow.

Saturday, February 15, 2020 – 10 am-5 pm
DOG DAYS AT LYNDEN
Bring your canine friends for an afternoon of romping in the garden. In the winter, cross-country skiers and snowshoers also welcome. Dogs must be leashed and considerate of other visitors, canine and human.

Saturday, February 15, 2020 – 1-3 pm
HOME: CONVERSATIONS ON DISPLACEMENT AND THE ARTS
This is the third in a series of conversations among artists, scholars, and community activists that continues the work begun with our first annual refugee celebration, HOME this past June, and it focuses attention on these communities as we prepare for the second HOME celebration, scheduled for June 20, 2020. As with similar conversations at Lynden, we will look at displacement broadly, as both an internal and an external phenomenon: from the experiences of refugees and immigrants coming to the United States to those of Indigenous, enslaved, and interned populations within this country. Participants in the third panel, moderated by artist-in-residence Kim Khaira, include Ashraf Albakir, Sumeya Osman, Nirmal Raja, and Ras ‘Ammar Nsoroma. Refreshments will be served.

Sunday, February 16, 2020 – 12:30pm – 2:30pm
FAMILY DROP-IN WORKSHOP: THE SOUND TREE PROJECT
Sue Pezanoski Browne and Katie Hobday, Lynden’s teachers-in-residence, invite you to participate in the Sound Tree Project, the focus of their collaborative artist residency. Working in a grove of trees on the Lynden grounds, Pezanoski Browne and Hobday are constructing an environment filled with clay chimes that they make and fill with personal narratives. This exploration of art, nature, memory, and materials is informed by their thinking about movement and migration—about life as movement interspersed with pauses of various lengths.

Sunday, February 23, 2020 – 9:30 am-4:30 pm
ENAMELING: A WORKSHOP WITH LESLIE PERRINO
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.

Monday, February 24, 2020 – 10 am-12 noon
LABYRINTH SOCIETY OF LYNDEN SCULPTURE GARDEN: PRAIRIE WORKDAY
Artist Jenna Knapp kicks off the second year of her residency at Lynden by calling for volunteers to help with buckthorn removal to aid in prairie restoration in and around the labyrinth. Land Manager Kyle Welna will explain how to identify and remove buckthorn; hand tools (pruners) will be provided to cut invasive woody plants. Dress for the weather and bring work gloves. Volunteers will receive free admission to Lynden for the day and a guest pass for future use.

Take one or both:
Tuesday, February 25, 2020 – 10 am-4 pm
Saturday, February 29, 2020 – 10 am-4 pm
BATIK WITH NATURAL DYES WITH KIM KHAIRA: BLUES AND YELLOWS
Artist-in-residence Kim Khaira spent part of the summer of 2019 working alongside master dyer Arianne King Comer and walking the grounds with Native herbalist Angela Kingsawan. These interactions informed the next phase of her residency project at Lynden: harvesting plants from the grounds and developing the natural dyeing techniques used in this workshop. Her practical and artistic experiments with indigo, turmeric, goldenrod and other materials gathered at Lynden have elicited everything from poetic lamentations on natural fibers to a series of sample batik prints in a range of colors and a variety of saturations. In this workshop, Khaira invites you to gather around the dye vat to work with indigo (indigofera tinctoria), wild indigo (baptisia), henna (lawsonia inermis), and turmeric (curcuma longa). These natural dyes will yield a variety of blues and yellows.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 7 pm
WOMEN’S SPEAKER SERIES: MARY KUBICA, AUTHOR OF THE OTHER MRS.
This event is co-presented by Milwaukee Reads and Boswell Book Company, with snacks from MKE Localicious. Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor, Morgan Baines, is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie, who is terrified by the thought of a killer in her very own backyard. But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. It’s their eerie old home, with its decrepit decor and creepy attic, which they inherited from Will’s sister after she died unexpectedly. It’s Will’s disturbed teenage niece Imogen, with her dark and threatening presence. And it’s the troubling past that continues to wear at the seams of their family.As the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of Morgan’s death. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light. Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of five novels.

COMING UP IN MARCH

All three weekly art drop-ins continue in March, and we offer our last homeschool day of the season, The Secret Lives of Nonhumans, on March 19. The theme for Tuesdays in the Garden (March 10) is signs of spring, and dog day is on the 21st. Join sound healer Catherine Soteira for a sound bath on March 8. Sue Pezanoski Browne and Katie Hobday, our teachers in residence, reconvene to work on the Sound Tree Project during a drop-in family workshop on March 15. March workshops include: fused silver loop earrings with Leslie Perrino (March 1); a sewing workshop with Molly Hassler on March 7 (you’ll be making baskets); a drawing workshop with Todd Mrozinski (March 14); and incense-making with Mike Paré (March 29). As gardening season approaches, landscape designer Justine Miller offers a workshop on designing a garden using native plants on March 8, and Angela Curtes offers the first of two composting workshops on March 28. Artist Robert Murray will be in town for a conversation with curator Jonathan Lippincott on March 28 in conjunction with our current exhibition, Robert Murray: The Working Models; a reception will follow.

The sun returns tomorrow,

Polly
2/1/20

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.