Milwaukee Art Museum - Caught in Flight

Milwaukee Art Museum

Yes, this is Milwaukee. Isn’t she lovely?

This is the Quadracci Pavillion of the Milwaukee Art Museum, which hugs the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee’s downtown, and has easily become a symbol for the revitalization of the city. The design, built in 2001, features a movable winged structure which stretches a magnificent 217 feet when it is open during the day. It closes, folding on itself, at night or during inclement weather.

The architect, Santiago Calatrava, is world-famous for his playfulness and the use of kinetic features. Some of his work, including both the Art Museum and the renowned Turning Torso in Sweden, is featured in this video. If you like buildings, but not your plain-old-ordinary rectilinear buildings, this guy does some amazing work that is art - in and of itself.

Lake Michigan through the Eyes of the Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee Art Museum on the shores of Lake Michigan

Say Milwaukee and what do people think of? Beer? Bowling? Laverne and Shirley? Actually when I think of visiting Milwaukee, it is usually in anticipation of attending Summerfest, the biggest music festival in the world - draws over a million people every year - or visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Museum is an amazing place. The newer addition is a “moving winged affair” designed by internationally acclaimed architect, Santiago Calatrava. It’s a great museum, and it has a large collection of paintings by one of my favorites, Georgia O’Keeffe. And the museum is on Lake Michigan’s shores, so spending a summer day there is usually delightful.

What’s New in the Gardens?

Tomatoes on the Vine

The tomatoes are so thick with blossoms and fruit this year, the tomato plants are requiring extra stakes. Good news for my salads and spaghetti sauce.

"Full Moon" Pumpkin

“Full Moon” - the ‘great white’ of pumpkins, though not really white. More pastel orange. It can grow 25-50 pounds. This pumpkin’s photograph was taken on the day of the full moon - think that makes it a lucky pumpkin?

"Sweet Beauty" Watermelon

The fruit of the “Sweet Beauty” is sweet and crisp. Perfect for dessert any night.

I went to our University’s Annual Field Days at their Research Gardens. There they show off all the produce of their test gardens and even provide free samples - the corn and salsa and raspberries were really perfect. Even got to vote on favorites, so maybe the tomato I loved will be in seed packets and at the garden centers in a year or two.

Giant Sunflower and a New Perspective

Giant Sunflower

When you take time out to rest your back upon the earth, and look up into the summer skies, it’s amazing what you just might see. Perhaps, like I did, you might see life from a different perspective.

Streeterville

Streeterville Neighborhood in Chicago

I visited Chicago and walked the streets where I once I lived when I was in my twenties, where I studied and played, before I made my escape to Wisconsin. This is a view taken from Northwestern University’s downtown campus. Lake Shore Park, in the foreground, was the spot for 16 inch softball games after classes.

Water Tower Place and the John Hancock Center loom in the background. I was near the Water Tower building the day a concrete panel fell from the side of the building. Just glad I wasn’t too close when the building started shedding hard rock!

Fish Boil - A Wisconsin Tradition

Fish Boil at "Boil-Over"

I have a suspicion that if you mention “fish boil” anywhere in the United States, except Wisconsin, you will see some odd expressions, but the traditional Door County Fish Boil is wildly popular in this northern Wisconsin vacation destination. The main ingredient - thick steaks of delicate, freshly caught whitefish from the surrounding waters of Lake Michigan - make dinner an occasion for many a visitor. This is especially true when the fish is prepared in a huge black kettle amidst a fiery blaze. When a member of the Boil Over Crew sounds the dinner bell, it is the signal for the “boil over” and that is the signal that it will soon be time to eat.

For the uninitiated, a fish boil begins with a kettle of hot salted water perched atop a wood fire. The boil master drops one steel basket of potatoes and onions into the boiling water, and a second basket of fresh whitefish goes into the steaming cauldron a few minutes later. When everything is nearly ready, kerosene is added to the fire and a huge flame erupts, causing the water to boil over the top. Hence, a “boil over.” The hot flames cause the water to boil over the sides of the kettle, removing fish oil that has collected on the surface during the cooking process.

As you can see in the photo, the crew then lifts the baskets from the heat, lets the water drain, and the ingredients are presented to the hungry crowd with a generous drizzle of butter and hearty slices of bread. And to make the event an even grander foodie experience, the meal is finished off with a slice of Door County cherry pie.

Yum!

Time Marches On - 50,001 and Still Going

Time Marches On

Today I was sitting in the Apple Store waiting for a 1-on-1 lesson on how to promote my long-planned-for, new website when I decided to pop open my blog and see what was going on. It was 2:58 pm CDT and my eye caught my blog visitors counter-50,001 visits. Wow! That’s a lotta clicks. Seems like a milestone to blog about…

I started posting on this photoblog on October 5, 2007. My intention when I began was to post a photo a day for a year. I wasn’t sure who would look at the photographs-I was just learning how to use my Olympus E- 500 and didn’t know much about photography-or who would want to read my rambling words. But it was something I needed to do for myself. I needed to set a goal for myself and then work hard until I achieved it. Prove something to myself, in a way.

I’ve not quite finished the year-I still have another 50 days to make that goal. But I’ve been pleased with my attempt at blogging. I’ve learned an amazing amount of stuff about WordPress and all that techie stuff I always claimed I would never need to bother with. And I’ve got a website - Seeded Earth Photography - that I’m planning on unveiling on October 1st in response to the kind visitors who have asked how to purchase my photographs. (more on that coming soon)

I’ve taken thousands of photos and written nearly 400 posts and I’ve had 3,126 comments. Some of you who comment now have been commenting since the first weeks. I’m rather proud of that. You guys who have been hanging around a long time include Montucky at Montana Outdoors, Chrisy at visuallens, Ron at rtd13, Bernie at BFK Photography, nouveau fauves, Ankush at Ankush Vimawala Photography, Mon@rch at Mon@rch’s Nature Blog, amuirin at Stop and Wander, Robin at Bountiful Healing. How awesome! I didn’t even know that happened in blogland!

I also read and hear from other bloggers regularly, including Anna and Preston at Surface and Surface Photography, Gypsy-Heart at Gypsy-Heart I Am, Marcie at Daily Practice, ybonesy at red Ravine, Jules at The Way I See It , Grace at The Wild Pomegranate, Laurie at Capture This Photography, Richard at Capturing Light, Pat at Wandering Wonderings, and Joanna at Confident Writing. If I’ve missed you, sorry-check my sidebar for more of my favorites places and people. I love all of you!

So - thanks everyone. I don’t know what will happen on October 5. I’m writing for a Wisconsin website now, WisconsinNative.com, and with the launch of Seeded Earth Photography, I don’t know quite what I will do with this original blog. But I’ve learned a lot and have climbed mountains and swum oceans, as the saying goes. So thanks again. Your presence has been an important part of these last 10 months for me.

Lake Shore Drive - Up Close and Personal

Seems like these last few posts are transporting me 30 some years ago and plopping me down in Chicago, the place where I completed my studies, met my husband, and planned for a career–expecting my life, of course, to go as I planned. When you are 21, you don’t quite get how life works for the most part. The changing part is a lesson to be learned later. Anyway…

I lived on Lake Shore Drive when I attended the university’s downtown campus. Most students were housed in the only dorm - Abbott Hall - which had been used as housing for soldiers during one of the many war efforts. I’ve forgotten which one. By the amenities in the building - squash courts in the dark basement, ping-pong room, barber shop - I’m guessing WW II. (I guess I really should know, but I’m not looking it up.) OK, I looked it up - 1939. WWII was a correct guess. But the best part of the old gray monster at 700 North Lake Shore Drive, was location, location, location. We looked across LSD and saw Lake Michigan spread out before us in her glory.

Lake Shore Drive in Chicago

I literally got up every morning and from my 14th floor vantage point, I checked out the sun rising over Lake Michigan. Squalls and storms made for great “window TV’ in the evenings and night, especially those jagged lightning strikes. And there was always a breeze: cooling in the summer, warming in the winter.

Once, on a night my friends and I were not thinking as clearly as we should have, we climbed the guard rails in front of the Drive and sprinted across 10 lanes of traffic to get to Lake Michigan and the beach on the other side. By the time we were ready to return, sanity had again taken hold and we walked the long way, down to the stoplights, and went when the little light turned red.