Gardens Celebrated @ Charles Allis Art Musuem

Museum Opens Extensive Exhibition Inside and Outside the Historic Home

Jul. 03, 2012

11:57 a.m.

A large crowd attended the opening of “Our Gardens Inside and Out” at the Charles Allis Art Museum on Friday evening. Guest curator Jane Brite featured more than 75 artists in this huge exhibition, which rambled throughout the museum\'s numerous rooms like various colored blooms of climbing roses on a trellis. <o:p /> Amid all the art inside the historic house and outside in its garden, people milled through the two stories eagerly viewing the great variety of images from established artists, historical artists, and those only beginning their creative journey. Each artist expressed the garden theme, which could reflect creatures living in the garden, plants growing in the garden or the parties and people who inhabited the garden. One very comical take included a selection from Warrington Colescott\'s History of Printmaking: Ben Franklin at Versailles, an image of this elite American entourage from the past cavorting in a very elegant and extensive French garden.  <o:p /> In the home\'s front foyer, sculptor Truman Lowe's Willow Bench presented a contemporary, non functional vision of a branches "sitting" on a narrow expanse of wood. Neatly placed in a row, the tall twigs resembled pale, stick person forms lined on a bench, as people sometimes do in the park, sitting side by side without notice of each other. During the gallery talk Lowe commented, "He worked with wood in all forms, to use the patterns in our lives, because we all live with patterns.”<o:p /> Inside at the top of the house\'s grand stairway Beth Sahagian-Allsopp's imaginative sculpture in bronze and cherry wood attracted attention. Tilted Now You See Me, the contemporary sculpture resembled a fractured, hollowed out tree with a breast like form attached to its exterior bark. More space surrounding the sculpture would have allowed the fascinating artwork majesty instead of merely individual position. Outside in the garden, Mike Nolte displayed his tree of rakes, an delightful free standing form constructed of those important, reclaimed garden tools, rectangular rake ends.  Nolte and Sahagian-Allsopp partner to operate Milwaukee\'s Vanguard Sculpture Services, a fine art foundry where everyone works to create these grand works of casted or welded art.  Racine's Lisa Englander exhibited a series of paintings, detailed, exquisite and mysterious, including In the Garden: Eyrie and In the Garden: Wave Hill. Also from Racine, metal sculptor Bill Reid hand paints his welded materials, in one example on display his whimsical bird creatures dressed in a kilt plays his bagpipes in a piece Reid titles Piper of the Gate. <o:p /> Even Milwaukee collage artist Della Wells presented the charming image In This Garden My Dreams Will Bloom using tiny found objects and snippets of paper cut from all types of recycled media. In the same upstairs bedroom as Wells, award-winning author Lois Ehlert displayed two of her children's book, which she illustrates with sparse collaged pictures that capture the young at heart into learning about gardening. <o:p /> The warm summer evening passed quickly and those who attended enjoyed these museum gardens, inside and outside. With this expansive group of artists participating, the exhibition can overwhelm a viewer with painting styles and diverse mediums, combined with the great variety of artists to appreciate. Sometimes less can be so much more and editing would allow for the artwork to be shown at its optimal best. Yet, perhaps each square inch of artwork could be compared to a square inch of dirt. When expressing her own love of gardens and how they transformed her art and life, painter Jill Sebastian wisely claimed this quote from journalist Morley Safer, “You can learn anything in the world from one small square of dirt.” <o:p> </o:p>The Charles Allis Art Museum presents “Our Gardens Inside and Out” through October 7. Or view The Villa Terrace Decorative Art Museum\'s garden at their Cafe Sopra Mare musical concerts on Sunday mornings this summer. For further information and event schedules: <a href=\"http://www.cavtmuseums.org\">www.cavtmuseums.org</a>. <o:p> </o:p>

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