My City, My Actual Home - Category: My City, My Home

It is Wednesday and that means I post under the category "My City, My Home." I thought today it would be fun to show you my actual home here in MKE. After the opening I went on a cleaning and reorganizing rampage. I still have to get to my studio, which I will post on Monday. 

I was a little paranoid to show you my place because I have mild OCD...ok...severe OCD when it come to my house. Ask my poor sister Jenni who had to live with me for a year. The poor thing couldn't even put a dirty spoon in the sink without me freaking out. 

Since I am on an artist's budget I get about five dollars a year to put towards my apartment. Ok, that is also an exaggeration but I really don't have a lot to work with. This is fine with me though because one of my favorite things to do is go thrifting and resurrect old junk. I added up what I have spent on furniture for my place in the last six years and it came to four hundred fifty dollars. That includes my mattress, couch, dining room set and everything. The majority of my furniture my Grandpa Barenz made in his off time and I inherited it after he passed away. My favorite piece of furniture is a dresser he made that I restained a mossy green. 

One perk of being an artist is that you can afford great art because all your artist friends will trade with you, I have examples of some of my favorite works below. I used to be a resident at the Chicago Printmaker's Collaborative and I always crash their Twenty Dollar poster sale in the spring. I have works by Amos Kennedy, Jay Ryan, and many more because of this awesome event. I will spend here and there on a good rug or something to bring the room together and I usually find it at Target of IKEA. Other than that, I just spend a lot of time painting old furniture and trying to bring odd lot pieces together with the help of a can of spray paint. 

The Milwaukee thrift stores are AMAZING. I have lived in a couple of places and I have never come across so many great finds. I usually find a lot of vintage suitcases, gold leafed glasses, funky knick-knacks, and modern looking furniture. I would tell you where the best thrift store is in town but if I did I would have to kill you. 

So without further ado here is La Casa de Estefania. 

 

       

One of my favorite paintings by Stephen Hoskins

       

       

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Grandpa's dresser.

       

Left: Print of Johnny that I got from Hatch Show Print in TN. Right: Dennis O'Malley, one of my favorite Chicago printmakers.

Painting by Sara Mulloy

        

 

 

Holy Sparkin' Cable Cars! - Category: My City, My Home

 

My dad was talking to me the other day about how when he was a boy he had a very vivid memory of the electric cable cars that used to run around the streets of Milwaukee. He said while you stood on the street corner you could see the sparks showering down from the electric current when a car went past. This was quite the exciting site for his little eyes. As I wrote last week I am very nostalgic for the way things used to be. I love mass transit. When I lived in Chicago I would take the trains all the time. Sometimes I would get on the CTA Brownline with my sketchbook and draw the commuters for hours. I doubt Milwaukee will ever have the money to fund a train system like Chicago's but hopefully one day we will have more mass transit than we do. A girl can dream, right? 

 

I just purchased my first car this past October and I am in my late twenties. Up until then I walked, biked, or took mass transit. In all honesty, I could never really afford a car so it was really a decision born out of circumstance not because I have anything against people who have cars. Although, I do think we rely on them way too much. The years I didn't have a car were awesome. Now I am constantly stressed out about gas prices and when my rusted out minivan will bite the dust and what I will do when that happens. I suppose if it does, I could make it work like I did before. I will be bummed out about all the cool points I will lose for not having my minivan anymore though. Do you know how many men want to date me because of that ride? It is unreal. Girls if you want to get a man just get a minivan, they will come a knockin'. I had to install three locks and hire a meathead to watch my front door for me because of that beautiful motor vehicle. 

Anyways, since I am swamped in the studio right now I need to cut this short for today. I did want to pass along this link to the Wisconsin Historical Society if you are interested in seeing how our grandparents used to get around Milwaukee. I would have posted them directly on my blog but I believe there are some copyright issues with that. Enjoy! 

Nostalgic for Telephone Poles - Category: My City, My Home

I just finished two paintings this morning. They are telephone poles and are part of my Ma Bell series. I know several artist friends who have subjects that they just naturally gravitate towards but always feel a little guilty about painting them because they are so fun. I have a friend who is a serious portrait artist and says he secretly only wants to paint cats at the end of the day. Another who loves sheep, and another aliens. I like complex paintings packed with details but for me the telephone poles are simple, straightforward and just plain fun. They could be written off as "decorative" or "cliché" but I don't really care.

When I came to Milwaukee two years ago, I walked down Brady Street and was confronted with a mess of wire and crooked poles. I liked how the lines wrote abstracted script in the sky.

   

I don't know why but Milwaukee seems to have an abundance of utility of poles compared to other cities I have been in. I googled "Why does Milwaukee have so many utility poles?" and I couldn't really find an answer. What I did find is a group of other weirdoes like myself who have dedicated pages and shrines to documenting telephone poles. So I am not alone.

I think they are the man-made equivalent of the snowflake. They all look pretty much the same but as you get closer they change. Each one is an individual and are a lot like characters in your life.  Some look like your retired neighbor, like that popular girl in high school that you wanted to see trip with her hands in her pockets, or like a familiar face that you love.

Ok, bear with me I am going to skip over to something else but will come back to the telephone poles in the end so don't worry.

There was a group of artists in the 1930's called the Presicionists. When I walked up to a Scheeler at the Art Institute in Chicago a couple of years ago my mouth started watering. (This is a weird physiological response that happens to me when I see art that I love. Yes, I realize I am a freak.)  Formally, what they did blows my mind, it is straightforward, simple geometry.  They concerned themselves with painting inventions of industrialization, especially dramatic feats like large bridges and factory complexes.

               

The Met's Heilbrunn Art Timeline says this about what they were trying to do conceptually,

• " (At the time) Cultural critics voiced a need for America to seek and shape its national identity through its own history, landscape, artifacts, and regional traditions. This attitude was also reflected in a revival of interest in American folk art. …Accordingly, there existed two opposing views of the machine's place in contemporary American society, both of which were embodied by Precisionist art. One view was the utopian ideal of technology bringing order to the modern world by enhancing the speed, efficiency, and cleanliness of everyday life…The opposing view stressed the dehumanizing effects of technology, warning that it would replace workers, create pollution, and dominate the landscape in a destructive manner. Occasionally, these two attitudes coexisted in an ambiguous tension within a single work of art."

Eighty years out it is interesting and sad to see how their predictions came true.

I think it is important to continue the conversation of the Precisionists but of course now from a post-industrial/ "prophesy fulfilled" standpoint. This is common discussion in a lot of fields now. You hear "post-industrial this or that’s" everywhere, whether it is regarding the issue of fatherlessness in society or our food systems.

We are at a crossroads and everyone knows it. What is American identity now? What does it look like? How do we reclaim it? I know these are some broad questions. I don't really know much about it, I need to read more.  I do know that it makes me very curious. It is a salient conversation, especially as it pertains to the Midwest. We all know about Detroit, the modern day Pompeii, which was completely vacated almost overnight.

In Milwaukee I see vacant, gorgeous buildings, tangled worn-out but proud telephone poles, and rusted grain elevators that still hold their own. Maybe when I paint images of telephone poles, besides them being "fun" they are continuing this conversation that was started eighty years ago.

The telephone poles, like the faded bungalows, grain elevators, and old signage in my paintings make me very nostalgic. And I am just a young twenty-something so I don't even remember a time when it wasn't "this way". I feel for my grandparents or anyone who used to remember the "good old days."

Edward Casey, the leading voice on the topic of place, says our country is suffering from a national epidemic of nostalgia. Nostalgia comes from the Greek word nostos which means "returning home" and the Homeric work algos which means "pain, ache". He says, 

•  “One of the most eloquent testimonies to place’s extraordinary memorability is found in nostalgia. We are nostalgic primarily about particular places that have been emotionally significant to us and which we now miss: we are in pain (algos) about a return home (nostos) that is not presently possible. It is not accidental that ‘nostalgia’ and ‘homesickness’ are still regarded as synonyms in current English dictionaries.” -From Remembering: A Phenomenological Study

I was in the car the other day with my mom and I was in a bad mood going off on everything that was wrong with the world. I was being a total Negative Nancy, but every time I threw out a "this sucks" my mom would come back at me with a positive fast pitch. Frankly, it was annoying at the time but as always my mother was right. I think an educated optimism is a good way to address it. We can mourn for a little bit, be nostalgic and melancholy, but then we have to seek out the good and go with it.

We may be nostalgic for the America that once was, especially over the last few years. A lot of us are looking for a place to start over.  And if painting a "pretty" telephone pole helps me to be in touch with that I am going to paint them all day long.

 

 

P.S. I am writing this from "The National" on National and 9th. It is a total gem, you should all come here and sit in the window seats and watch the oncoming traffic. It is across the street from a storefront full of Jesus and Mary statues too. I mean what could be better than sitting with a bunch of statues blessing you as you drink your latte? 

My Milwaukee Story - Category: My City, My Home

I moved to Milwaukee about a year ago. Before this I was living in northern Wisconsin with my family because I was so broke out of grad school that I really had no other choice. At the time it seemed like a humiliating experience, especially at my age. I found a part-time teaching job in Milwaukee and commuted back and forth for a year.

I had never really liked Wisconsin all that much. I moved here my eighth grade year and absolutely hated high school. So when it came time for college I was out as fast as I could say, "I hate Wisconsin."

I lived in a couple different states and abroad and decided that I would always live in some "cool" place. So you can guess that I wasn't that happy about moving back here two years ago.

A funny thing started to happen on my commutes to Milwaukee, I really started to take a liking to it. I wondered why I hadn't noticed the nitty-gritty, rooted feel of it before. I decided to move to Milwaukee thinking that it would better my situation. However, life didn't get easier for me, in fact it got worse.

Again, I decided it must be Wisconsin's fault. It tricked me into thinking it was a good place to live. Solution: move away. I had always wanted to live in the northwest and I decided on Portland. It seemed like everyone and their awesome mama was moving  there. People talked about it like it was the Emerald City. It was always green,  had clean air, public transit, and food carts that sold burritos for a buck. I had even heard that breathing the air would make you skinny and give you great hair. Yes, Portland would solve all my problems.

So I got on a plane and stayed with my friend Victor. He took me to the waterfalls, the Japanese gardens and the Saturday market. It was all so beautiful! But wait, it was too beautiful. Really, it was. I always get uneasy when I am in a place that feels too idealistic. That is exactly how I felt in Portland. It was amazing, it was just too amazing. It felt like a place that had it all figured out.

When I got back to cold, drizzly, dirty Milwaukee I felt like I was home. I hadn't felt that way about a place for years. I really felt like I fit in.

Milwaukee has its problems, we have all heard of the high illiteracy, teen pregnancy, and highschool drop out rates. People here have to work hard to keep the city afloat. If you tune into 88.9FM, you hear stories about public and community programs that are transforming this city. It is a city that will probably ask you to stay and pitch in, which I think requires more guts. It has character, which is why I love it. It’s a city that is starting to happen, and that is something that I am going to stick around for.

And that is my Milwaukee story. 

A Neighborly Expression of Care - Category: My City, My Home

Today I am meeting with a couple of artists from my neighborhood of Washington Heights at a local pub.  We are hoping to start a neighborhood artist group. And this made me think that my first post about my city should be about my neighborhood, whose slogan is "In the City - Out of the Ordinary!"  

Washington Heights Signage and Cool Spoons Gelato

When I moved to Milwaukee about a year ago, I happened upon it by chance. It is a sweet little place and I hesitate to talk about it because I don't want the hipsters* to come and invade it.

In my work I often talk about the merging of polarities and I see Washington Heights as place where this is happening.  It isn't extremely rich or poor, it isn't racially segregated, it is kind of sleepy but there is still a lot going on. Neighbors are friendly  and have block parties and wine walks. It isn't a "hot" spot so to speak but I have noticed the people here have a very strong allegiance to these few blocks. It doesn't have that transient feel, it is very rooted. 

Painting that I made last year about Washington Heights

As an artist it is easy for me to get wrapped up in everything I have to do and make. I am guilty of the stereotypical "reclusive lifestyle." I often talk about locality and getting to know ones neighbor in my artist statements but I don't put it into practice as much as I could.  That is why I make work, it is a mirror of sorts. It helps me to ask those difficult questions that I probably wouldn't ask myself otherwise.  So this summer I am going to be out there taking walks and getting to know my neighbors. And you will also find me walking down Vliet St. singing this theme song from my favorite children's TV show. 

While I was looking for the Mr. Rodger's theme song, I came across this video of him defending PBS to the Senate in 1969. He said in his speech that we need to teach our children about the "neighborly expression of care." You are one smart man Fred, and I think that pretty much sums up the idea behind this post. I encourage you to watch the whole video because the end is the best part. He completely convinces the cynical senator of his cause and to give him 20 million dollars worth of funding. 

*I apologize for any sarcasm. I do like hipsters and you are more than welcome to come over to my place for dinner anytime. 

 

Washington Heights Top Ten List:

1. 88.9FM has its home here
2. MARN, the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network just moved in
3. Times Cinema (They had To Kill A Mockingbird running last week, how cool is that?)
4. You can hear the trains coming through every day
5. All the churches ring their bells to mark the time
6. Honey Creek is just a 10 minute walk away
7. Four Winds Fair Trade (gets my money every time)
8. O'Brien's Pub  (Awesome bartenders and they have a shuffleboard)
9. There is a building with a giant coffee cup on top of it. (see image below)
10. Farmer's Market in Tosa Village every Saturday 

 

Building on Vliet