A Distraction of Poppies

Poppy and Bokeh

Poppy and Bokeh © 2011 Bo Mackison

Sherpa and I spent last weekend in Milwaukee. We attended the Wright and Like Tour, a tour of eleven houses in the Milwaukee area, all designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and related architects. The annual tour is sponsored by the The Frank Lloyd Wright® Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program, Inc., created with the assistance of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the State of Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

This is the third year we have attended. We attended our first tour in Madison in 2009 and last year toured homes and businesses in the Racine area.

The main tour was held on Saturday, and although the weather was overcast with a few sprinkles here and there, it was not unpleasant outside. As an added bonus, I much prefer taking photographs of architecture when it is cloudy. Sunny days, especially during the mid-day, casts harsh shadows and the light is too bright and washes out details.

I have hundreds of photos to go through, and so I will be posting photographs of the exteriors of the houses we toured, but it will take me a while to organize them.

Since Sherpa and I were celebrating our anniversary, we splurged and added the second day of the tour. It turned out to be an excellent decision. We saw the Lyndon Sculpture Garden in the morning and visited the Greek Annunciation Orthodox Church, one of Wright’s last designs, in the early afternoon before heading home.

The weather was sunny and mild, with a few scattered clouds, on Sunday, providing great background for our walk through the 40 acre sculpture garden. The garden was the creation and much loved project of Margaret Blakey Bradley, one of the greatest benefactors of the arts (and other projrects) in Milwaukee.

Finally, the visit to the church was the highlight of the tour for me. I sat in the church’s interior for well over an hour, just looking in awe of the beauty, the design, the details. Of course, I took lots of photographs in both the garden and of the exterior and interior of Annunciation Church, so I will have plenty of photographs to share with you.

So…if I took hundreds of photographs of buildings and sculpture, why am I posting yet another photo of this lovely pink poppy? Well, because I absolutely fell in love with one of the tour home’s gardens and I received permission to photograph some of the flowers. There were hundreds to choose from, but I was totally captivated by this particular poppy and spent the majority of my time ooh-ing and aah-ing and admiring three pink poppies.

It seems no matter where I look, there is always a wonder or two to photograph.And that truly makes me a happy photographer.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is catching up on some photo business today before diving into her new stash of photographs.

 

All Saints’ Cathedral

A View from the Vestibule

A View from the Vestibule

I’m not one for spending a lot of time attending church services, but I do appreciate a quiet space where I can take some time out of my day and sit in quiet.

Often that quiet space, at least for me, is out in the middle of a hardwood forest propped against a tree, or sitting on the giant boulders lining the lakes, concentrating on the waves that never stop washing over the rocky shore.

But sometimes I find myself in the city, and I find myself in need of a quiet place. Occasionally I walk inside one of the many churches that line the downtown streets, and I find a space to sit and spend a few minutes in silence.

I was quite taken by the old world beauty of this church in downtown Milwaukee, and wanted to capture the feeling in a photograph. The half open door provided just enough framing for a part of the interior of the church. I liked the warm colors and the simplicity.

It was another one of those good spaces.

Drink Green Beer the Whole Year Long

Larry's Mug on the Tank

Larry’s Mug on the Tank ©Bo Mackison 2008

The City of Milwaukee has a heritage of brewing great beers.  While many of the old names have faded, the Lakefront Brewery has grown and is adding to Milwaukee’s proud tradition. And to add a little extra color to their beer, Lakefront Brewery is a participating business in the Travel Green Wisconsin program, a state program which identifies Wisconsin tourism businesses who practice “green.”

Ah, definitely a greener kind of beer.

Sherpa and I have stopped at many a brewery tour, but this brewery tour has got to be the funniest around, and well worth the trip. Even if you don’t like beer, you’ll still enjoy the show. (I was told the beer is great by the Sherpa sampler guy, but I drank their root beer which I happily gave a five star rating.)  Our tour guide was a mild mannered middle school health teacher by day, and a comedic, brash cheerleader and part time Laverne & Shirley imitator on the weekends. Her performance alone was nearly worth the trip.

You find out all the basic things about beer on this tour, including definitions of words like wort and fermentation.  However, the high tech graphics (laminated hand made signs), fermentation tanks painted with images of The Three Stooges, the tour guide’s rendition of Laverne & Shirley choreography, and evidently the refillable beer cup, make this tour “The Tour.”  You see the real brewing operation in all its gory – or glory – and it’s one grand adventure.

Go ahead. You’ve always wanted to visit Milwaukee. Mark this brewery tour on your map for when you plan your visit.

Milwaukee Art Museum – Caught in Flight

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee Art Museum © 2008

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.

Portrait of a Peacock

PLUMAGES

We’ve been wearing a winter coat
like drab and tired feathers
and an old beaten hat
like a drooping crest.

Grey days, grey skies, grey hearts.
Barnyard birds of routine,
low horizons, chicken wire souls.
We peck at what’s given us.

Why don’t we wake up early
tomorrow and catch the sun
in the drop at the end
of the drain-pipe?

Why don’t we sing to the moon
for a change and ask foxes
to dance their tangos
and wild tarantellas?

And then let’s change clothes
with phoenixes
and steal thunder
from the peacocks.

Then we’ll stand arrayed in opal
and emerald plumage,
in scarlet and tangerine
and pinions of azure and silver.

Then we’ll be kings and queens
among daisies and irises,
in poppy-fields and thyme-gardens,
through the bluebells
and even among the roses!

Then we are the crested emblems
of life in the air,
life among flowers,
life even in the barnyards
and the crates off to market.

Let’s never take off
these beautiful clothes.

from my poetry friend, Kate Chadbourne

photograph, Milwaukee County Zoo
Milwaukee, WI