Category Archives: The Arts

Unknown's avatar

Photo Contest “Best in Show”

by

Old World Wisconsin Foundation hosts a photography contest every year, and this year’s Best of Show picture included ME, the Church Lady!   I remember meeting the photographer soon after we opened for the day.  The heat had let up a bit, there were puffy cumulus clouds playing with the light; it was a brilliant, inspirational sky, and I couldn’t help looking up at its constantly changing aspect.  He took several pictures and showed me with his viewer how the shadow of the window panes appeared and disappeared in various shots.  I told him that I was planning to buy myself a new camera for my birthday.  It was a very pleasant visit.  How exciting to learn this week that the picture had taken First Place in the Historic Structures category and also won Best in Show!  I saw the winning shot yesterday, framed and hanging in Harmony Hall.  I got the photographer’s name and e-mailed him a congratulatory note and asked if I could post the photo on my blog.  He graciously provided the jpeg and agreed.  So, drum roll, please!  Ladies and Gentlemen, Jay Filter’s award-winning photo of St. Peter’s Church and the “church lady” (me!):

Photo by Jay Filter

You can see more of Jay’s amazing work by visiting his website here.  I love seeing his dazzling images scroll by and exclaiming, “I’ve been there!”  Holy Hill, Lake Michigan, Old World Wisconsin, Devil’s Lake…and various sandstone formations that I think I recognize, but can’t remember where I was.  My next goal is to enter the contest as a photographer, not a subject!

Unknown's avatar

Canon Practice

by

Last night I went to my first ever photography class to learn the basics of using my new Rebel T3i.  I find myself wanting to figure out how to approximate the feeling I had when I took pictures with my AE-1 film camera, so I’ve been experimenting with disabling automatic, computer-generated options.  It doesn’t always yield the best results, but I’m still learning.  I don’t want everything lighted evenly, nor do I want everything in sharp focus.  So, I’m learning how to tweak the white balance thingie and the depth of field.  It’s interesting that the viewfinder will not show you what the picture will look like, and the instructors knew that there was some way to view it, but they discouraged that, saying that the Canon representative hadn’t showed them how.  Well, I think I found something in Manual setting with Live View that approximates the final result.  But, hey, no film wasted, right?  Click and review.  So I’ve been fiddling around with it, using some of my favorite subjects.  Allow me to introduce them:

From my elephant collection

This guy was helpful with the monochrome, but he kept falling over on the bedspread.  He was an experiment in Manual Focus.

So I replaced him with a littler guy and worked on depth of field.

Then I pushed the ISO way up to see what kind of noise they’d make.

But this little guy just looks so special in his own portrait, all decked out like a museum jewel.

Anyway, I’m having a great time with my new toy.  The class was OK, but I didn’t appreciate the first 20 minutes where they tried to sell us on another truckload of accessories.  There is still so much I have to learn about the gizmos on the main piece of equipment!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend following your own bliss!  And honestly, don’t think you have to spend a nickel to do that.  At the end of a photo session, I put down my camera and marvel at the eyes I got for free.  

 

 

 

 

 

Unknown's avatar

Home Decor

by

We took a walk in the rain yesterday, then got in the car and drove around Cudahy, WI for a bit.  Suddenly, I see this house on a corner, and we have to pull over so I can take photos.

Steve has a lot of kitsch in the house; I’m just glad none of it is THIS BIG!

Unknown's avatar

Where Am I?

by

Ever go walking in your own neighborhood and take a new turn that you’ve never taken and find yourself wondering what world you’ve stepped into?  In my town of Wauwatosa, I discovered that there’s a 420 million year old limestone reef tucked away behind an industrial site…used to be a quarry.  I wandered down there after a rainstorm last week.  I saw stuff I didn’t expect to see…

…even though there’s no access to the reef just yet.   We can all be travelers, even within a 5-mile radius.

Unknown's avatar

Playground Photos

by

Earthbound, solid structures surround me.  My eyes shoot upward toward the moon.  Life is so much more than my immediate environment.  Hard and colorful  outlines are surely blurry and insignificant when viewed from that other orb.  I must remember this.  I freeze the thought in a frame…and wish I could expand the edges to infinity.

 

Unknown's avatar

Adventure!

by

The season for Old World Wisconsin ends in October.  Steve and I are gearing up for a 2-3 week road trip.  We have about 9 possible itineraries, National Forests and Parks mostly.  We’ve come to call this “our trip to metaphorical Maine” because although Maine is one of the top contenders, it is really just serving as the title of an unknown eventual destination.  This is how Steve prefers to travel, and he is teaching me to appreciate the spirit of living in the moment rather than planning for safety and control.  Not that Steve is an “extreme” kind of guy, a risk-taker for the sake of it, or anything like that.  It’s really more a Zen kind of thing of being aware of conditions as they arise and dancing with them rather than putting on blinders and sticking to a railroad track. 

We recently borrowed the DVD of “The Sheltering Sky” starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich.  I’m sure the book was better, but the film has some terrific cinematic landscapes and brings up a lot of interesting questions.  Like, “What is the difference between a tourist and a traveler?”  A tourist wants the comforts of home.  A traveler seeks adventure.  I recently had a conversation with a co-worker who talked about a visit to France and only mentioned that there were no bugs or birds and that French waiters substitute Sprite for lemonade.  This guy never thought he’d leave the country in his lifetime.  Maybe he shouldn’t have!

I feel like I have been working on my personal demons (neuroses, grief, all that baggage) and have gained some courage and self-confidence since our last big trip.  I did have one memorable meltdown in a rest stop off the highway in the pouring rain from about 2-4 in the a.m.  That was April of 2011, and we were on the road for 4 weeks.  Here’s a shot taken somewhere near the Colorado River in Utah that illustrates one of the many decision discussions we had.  Do you want to take this road or not?  Why? 

There’s no “right answer” and there’s no judgement, Steve told me.  “I just want to know what you think about when you make decisions.”  What are we here for?  What do we call “living”?  Is it “to be safe and have children and grandchildren”?  Is it “to learn to praise God and serve Him”?  There are a million ways to answer that question.  Steve describes his answer to me every time we have a conversation.  He wants to meet life with awareness, engage in nuance and complexity, question and think critically, try to discover delusion, respond in the moment to what is before him, and participate in the adventure of living, as holistically as he can.  Yesterday, I read a short science fiction story by E.M. Forster called “The Machine Stops”.   It describes a futuristic world where the human race is run by Machine and never ventures to the surface of the earth.  It’s eerie how much that could be the life of modern individuals plugged into the Internet with no experience of the physical phenomenons of Earth.   What kind of life do I really want to live?  What kind of courage do I have to face the adventure of living?  Do I prefer comfort to challenge?  These are good questions to take out for a road test.   I’m looking forward to it! 

Unknown's avatar

Pinball Wizard

by

My weekend working at Old World Wisconsin is over for this week.  We’ve survived the brutal heat, although the beeswax candles in St. Peter’s did not…one suffered from heat exhaustion to the point that it fell out of its holder and now lays tangled in the brackets of the sanctuary lamp chandelier.  Another of its mates is listing at about a 90 degree angle.  We’ve had no significant rainfall since June 16.   Crowds have been sparse, way off the season norms.  How do I stay sane while the sweat drips down my corset?  I meditate and sew.  I was taught to make pinballs during my training week.  These are dodecahedrons (12-sided spheres) of 5-sided bits of fabric, sometimes called “Bucky balls” (named after Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes).  They hold pins and needs like a pincushion, but can also be used for playing hackey sack or juggling, or hung with a ribbon on a Christmas tree (not that anyone in the 19th century used them for that!).   I find it fun to pick out the bits of fabric and mix and match the colors…and it’s a whole lot simpler than quilting.  I can sew 12-20 stitches per inch by hand.  I’ve made about 10 of these so far; a few have not been stuffed yet because finding the scrap wool and fabric to put inside requires a “supplies requisition form”.  I have begun to hand hem linen towels as well, and when I’m at the Hafford House on Tues. and Wed., I crochet rag rugs.  So here are some photos of my handiwork, and a shot of my favorite visitor today: a butterfly who landed on the 173 year old wood and spread his magnificent wings for me. 

Hope you had a great weekend; maybe unlike you,  I look forward to Mondays because it’s my day off!

Unknown's avatar

Friday Night Dancing

by

After the living history museum closes and I’m finished my work for the day as an interpreter in St. Peter’s Church, I’m changing out of my corset and bustle and into modern day country dancing togs!  There’s a barn dance tonight in the octagonal barn.  Square dancing is something that I’ve enjoyed since grade school when Mr. Maghita, the gym teacher, would call out the squares and teach us to promenade, doe-see-doe, and allemande left with our classmates.  I didn’t even mind the boy cooties.  Even better, though, was the Girl Scout square dances when I got to dance with my father.  Which reminds me of a funny story….

  On my 15th birthday, my older sister Sarah and I were staying with my father at the historic Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.  We had just delivered my sister Alice to the University of Colorado, Fort Collins and were heading back to California.  As we checked in, I noticed a sign in the lobby advertising that there would be square dancing on the patio that evening.  It sounded like a perfect way to celebrate my birthday, so after dinner, we made our way out to the terrace.  I noticed that there were a lot of people dressed in square dancing outfits – ladies in ruffled skirts that stuck straight out, gents with string ties and cowboy boots.  I lamented the fact that I hadn’t really packed for this occasion.  I also wondered why all these people had pinned on name tags with the same logo.  As the music started, people started squaring up, and my father promised me the first dance and asked my sister to wait her turn (since it was MY birthday).  When all the squares were completed, I spotted a rather disgruntled couple in costume sitting on the sidelines.  The caller and the dance started up, and the other couples in our square, in professional regalia, started ushering and dragging my father and I around to the dance steps being announced.  Finally, I started putting all these clues together and realized, to my complete teenaged humiliation and embarrassment, that my father and I had just crashed a Square Dancing Performance!!  I had always thought of square dancing as a teach-as-you-go, anyone-can-play kind of thing.  It never occurred to me that the hotel guests were supposed to be simply spectators!  My sister was so happy that it wasn’t her birthday, allowing her to be spared this special treatment.  Ah well, Daddy.  It makes up for there not being enough room for us to dance together at my wedding reception in the parish hall of the church 6 years later.

So tonight, Steve & I are dancing.  I’m pre-posting this because I intend to get home from Old World Wisconsin all hot and tired and in need of a shower and sleep.  Enjoy your Friday night, friends!  I hope you DANCE!!!

P.S. Becca – you know this reminds me of you!

Unknown's avatar

I Love to Sing

by

As I was washing the dishes in the kitchen sink, a song came back to me from years ago when my children were toddlers. I had just finished giving a voice lesson to a Baptist pastor at his storefront church.  He’s coming along nicely, despite a rather constant battle with sinusitis (with which I sympathize, having finally had surgery for chronic sinusitis about 10 years ago).  He’s got an entire electronic sound system set up in the sanctuary, which is also in the process of being remodeled.  They raised the roof a few feet, improving the acoustics tremendously.  Today, I asked my student to try practicing The National Anthem while using  a microphone.  I want him to really begin to like the sound of his voice.  That will give him more confidence and more motivation to practice and play around with what he’s got in his “bag of tricks”.  I told him that I get a similar opportunity when I’m at the 1839 St. Peter’s church at Old World Wisconsin.  At the end of the day, before I sweep up and close the windows, I allow myself some singing time.  By that hour, visitors are heading to the parking lot and rarely step inside.   I do the figure 8 processional up and down the aisles singing “Jubilate Deo” or “Dona Nobis Pacem” or “Amazing Grace”. 

The acoustics in this Gothic Revival building are fabulous!  I really like the way my voice sounds echoing up in those wide, white spaces.  Yesterday, I stopped in a corner and tried out Schubert’s “Ave Maria”.  I haven’t sung that since I performed it at a wedding four years ago.  It was a paid gig, just four months after Jim’s death, on our Kiss Anniversary.  I was nervous, I was emotional, but I got through it.  Then I cried all the way home in the car from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to Illinois.  It’s a perfect song for St. Peter’s, the first Catholic cathedral in Milwaukee.  It sounds really lovely, but I need to find the music and remember the words! 

I am preparing to give another lesson this evening to my newest student.  She also has an amazing electronic set up…in her basement.  She’s a drummer; her husband plays and teaches guitar and writes songs for his rock ‘n’ roll band.  My student is going to try some Sarah McLachlan tunes.  She’ll do very well with that style.  So, I’m going to do a bit of listening now, but I’ll leave you with the song that started me off.  Enjoy!

Unknown's avatar

Dodging Art

by

What an amazing day!  Training at Old World Wisconsin included visits to the Animal Barn, the Garden curator, and the Collections curator.  I met two oxen, each weighing a ton, and stroked their noses and chins.  I was introduced to three horses who are each in their 90s in “people years”.  I saw a sow who had given birth for the first time just this week and her seven pink little piglets.   Oh, how their little faces captivated me (and made me wish I’d brought my camera)!  I visited a greenhouse full of tiny sprouting seeds which will become food and decor to an entire community, a future rooted in the present and informed by the past.  I browsed through shelves of antique artifacts that illustrate the lives and time of people whose stories encompass miles of external and internal territory.  So much to take in, visually, mentally, physically and spiritually!  I came home to my usual tasks of dinner and chores and a phone call from my darling youngest…and now I’m sitting at my computer and entering this century of technology for the first time today.  It feels kinda weird!  I can only imagine how this feeling will intensify as I spend more time in the Old World. 

I have one more week of the poetry challenge from NaPoWriMo to complete, and already I can tell that it’s not going to be easy to be in the mood to concentrate on composing verse each day after training!  Still, I hope to have a little time to dabble in the word pond.  Today’s prompt is to write an “ekphrastic” poem, a graphic description of a work of art.  “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous one.  I went through some art photos that I had collected for a game I invented, and this one caught my eye.  It’s a self-portrait by Van Gogh.  Here’s the picture and the poem, and then I think I’ll call it a day here in the 21st century and get ready to go back 150 years again tomorrow!

Freckled, wistful world

Speckled, swirling molecules

Boundaries camouflaged

Fits and bits punctuating disappearance

Addled, dappled, sparks in the dark

Furtive sideways glance to the canvas

Back to dabbing, daubing, repetition

Poking at the flat reality

Testing the surface, then

Bouncing off again