Articles by Bo Mackison

Robinson & Bours House in Milwaukee

Robinson-Bours House and Garden

https://hymnsandhome.com/spring/ Robinson-Bours House © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://bettierose.co.uk/about/ One of the homes featured on the Wright & Like Tour 2011 in Milwaukee was the Dr. T. Robinson & Emma Bours House designed by once Wright associate Russell Barr Williamson. The home was constructed in 1921-22 and is Williamson’s best example of the classic Prairie-style architecture. The home has been carefully preserved and maintained, and remains true to Williamson’s design except for the two enclosed porches and bathrooms and kitchen remodeling projects.

source link Some of its more notable Prairie style features are the low-pitched terra-cotta roof, the strong horizontal lines and overhanging eaves. Further decorative details include long horizontal brickwork, the brick pilasters, cast planters, and stained glass windows set on concrete lintels.

Robinson-Bours Garden

https://thesentinelgroup.com/what-is-elmiron/ Robinson-Bours Side Garden and Planter © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://thelonelycreative.com/wishlist/ The garden, designed and carefully tended by the current owners, complements the exterior of the home. The pink poppies and pink/yellow lupine contrasted beautifully with blue and purple iris. What a fantastic display of color!

Wright-Like Garden Fence

go site Wright-Like Red Garden Fence © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://www.52editions.com/career/ The garden is partially surrounded by this handsome red wrought iron fence, designed by Williamson, but so much like the wrought iron work Wright often designed. Even the color — Cherokee red — is a Wright favorite.

go here Williamson worked with Wright from 1912-1918 and managed his Chicago office. When Wright was in Japan, Williamson supervised the construction and completion of many of Wright’s buildings in the Milwaukee area.

https://www.wjsmithconstruction.com/deck-building/ Classic Prairie-style. A handsome house, inside and out.

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Buy Amoxicillin Online Without Prescription Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is known for her botanical photography, but Prairie-style architecture is another of her favorite subjects.

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Almost Daisies

Almost Daisy Time

source site Almost Daisy Time © 2011 Bo Mackison

The garden is ready to explode with flowers.

https://www.completerehabsolutions.com/rehabilitation-case-management/ We’ve had the rain. Now we just need a few hours of sunshine to get these flowers to pop! The coreopsis, my ‘Loraine sunshine’ plants which are called false sunflowers because they have variegated leaves, the wild geranium, and the Shasta daisies — all are on the verge of blooming.

Buy Prednisone Online Without Prescription My garden will be transformed from a garden of few flowers — a couple of iris, the blanket flowers, and a few coral bells the rabbits haven’t yet found — to a flower riot of yellows, whites, and purples.

https://thesentinelgroup.com/what-is-elmiron/ This is the time of year when I love to take a break from my computer in mid-afternoon, pull my Adirondack chair under the shade of the maple tree, grab a good book and a glass of iced tea, and “set for a spell” as my grandma used to say.

Summer heaven!

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Buy Tramadol Without Prescription Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. When she is not admiring her flower garden, she is photographing the flowers and getting ready for the Spring Green Art Fair this weekend in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

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In Memoriam – Jackie Russo

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enter site Empty Chairs © 2010 Bo Mackison

https://gritandgracefamilyfarm.com/farm-journal/about-us/ I only knew her three and a half days.

I met Jackie Russo at the Tempe Festival of the Arts in Tempe Arizona this past March. She was a contemporary stained glass artist and she had a booth across a small pass way from my booth. During the show, we spent a lot of time chatting back and forth – about the show we were doing, about art shows in general, about Arizona, about her transformation from a jeweler to a stained glass artist to an award-winning, contemporary glass artist who found great success in recent years.

At the time, I was doing one of my first large shows in a strange city in a state far away from my home in Wisconsin. Jackie was also from the Midwest, just across Lake Michigan in the neighboring state of Michigan. She was an accomplished, veteran artist. She had her work in galleries and in private collections internationally, had articles in countless publications, taught glass mosaics, and did the best art festivals in the country.

Jackie could tell I was the new kid on the art show circuit and she took me under her wing. She gave me pep talks and shared past stories of failures that turned into surprising successes. She encouraged me in my venture into this part of the artists’ world. She welcomed me and gave me a boost of confidence.

On Sunday evening, as the show was coming to a close, we shared our schedules for the coming summer in the Midwest. When we discovered we would be doing another show together in early August, we made plans to get together for another visit. She and her husband Frank had made vacation plans in the Phoenix area before returning to the snowy Midwest, and they were both looking forward to some sunshine and time off. We said our goodbyes with a big hug.

Last Friday, Jackie Russo had a massive stroke and died.

As I said at the beginning, I only knew Jackie for three and a half days, but she was kind and helpful to me at a time when I needed an extra bit of kindness. I respected her as an artist–her glass creations were stunning and very popular–and I respected her as a wonderful person, too.

There is a lesson in this. One never knows when a proffered kindness to a stranger will make a big difference in that other person’s life. In this case, Jackie’s kindness made a difference in my life when I was questioning my art decisions.

Jackie Russo will be greatly missed.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Goodbye, Jackie, and thank you.

 

Hello, Summer!

This Poppy Pops

Eye-Popping Poppy © 2011 Bo Mackison

Since poppies are usually in full bloom in Wisconsin during the middle part of June, they are typically available for a Summer Solstice photograph. And what flower could be a better way to say welcome to the hot summer than this hot, summer-y flower?

On this first day of summer (although in my mind, I think summer begins on June first) this is how my micro-world looks and feels:

  • There’s a threat of thunderstorms, but I see lots of blue skies and white clouds. There are a few storm clouds far in the western sky.
  • It’s humid (85%) and on the warm side. 75˚F at 10 a.m. It’s predicted to get in the low to mid 80s later today.
  • The air has that smell of a storm brewing.
  • There’s a breeze to keep the house (and me) comfortable – almost. It’s a bit sticky and I keep my glass of ice water nearby. I have fans on, trying to postpone turning on the air conditioning if I can. I prefer to have the windows open when possible.
  • The upper branches of the ash tree outside my studio window are gently swaying, the leaves are fluttering.
  • A gang of crows just flew through my yard, chasing a smaller bird. The crows seem to be especially vicious this year, and I wonder why. A couple of weeks ago I saw a gang of them attack an owl in the middle of the day. The owl would fly and try to hide in a tree. The crows would follow, heckling and cawing and flapping their wings, darting at its target. Eventually the owl would take off again, only to be followed by a dozen angry crows. They repeated this until they were out of sight, so I never knew if the owl managed to escape.
  • There is fluff from the cottonwood dancing in the air. Lots of fluff. Lots and lots of fluff. I just noticed it this morning.
  • The red osier dogwood bushes are blooming–tiny clusters of deep purple florets cover the shiny foliage.
  • There are a lots of blossoms and several one-inch diameter green tomatoes in my garden. And blossoms and the tiniest beginnings on the green peppers. But only two yellow blossoms on the zucchini – I planted the zucchini late.
  • The grass needs cutting. With the rain we’ve had, it could be cut every 5 days, but that never happens.
  • Two pairs of cardinals are hanging around for the summer–one pair is in the ash tree on the west side of the house, the other pair is in the fir on the southeast side. They seem to stay in their own territories, except when visiting the feeders. Nuthatches, chickadees, yellow finches, sparrows, redpolls, and purple finches round out the birds that visit the feeders.
  • The columbine and coral bells have been in bloom for weeks, as have the flag iris and blanket flowers. The daisies and day lilies are just beginning to form buds so they will soon be flowering. The rabbits have eaten about half of the coral bell flower spikes. Gourmet garden rabbits!
  • The filbert tree died over the winter. Its curly branches are bare, but it is being a nurse tree for a young maple that is growing next to its trunk. The maple is already about two feet high.
  • The paper birch has the most wonderful bark this summer–layers and layers of curling, crinkly papers, patterned in many brown tones–almost as if it was steeped in tea by a painstakingly brilliant artist.

So that is what my world looks like on this Summer Solstice. It’s a vivid green world, highlighted with many bright colors.

What does your first day of summer look and feel like? I hope that, wherever you are, nature has given you many gifts to enjoy on this first day of summer!

Happy Summer Solstice!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She loves the summer and fall seasons in Wisconsin, and is welcoming summer with a little celebration — farm picked strawberries with home made shortcakes for supper’s dessert.

 

Hidden Hearts

Hidden Hearts

Hidden Hearts

This pink and yellow lupine was in the front garden of one of the Wright homes we toured in early June. Not only was it drenched with raindrops, it was also the hiding places of two tiny hearts. Though more commonly seen in its blue color, the lupine is also found in pinks, yellows, whites, and in mixed colors like this pink and yellow lupine.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. After a weekend in South Bend, Indiana exhibiting at the Leeper Park Art Fair, Bo is posting this short blog piece and taking the rest of the day off. Yawn!