The Kenosha Writers’ Group has been meeting for two years in gallery lofts, members’ homes, and coffee shops throughout Kenosha. They gather on the third Thursday of each month to offer support through the writing process and to share in the joy of completed projects.
Membership is open to anyone who writes, whether professionally or for pleasure, any genre or format, and is looking for open, honest feedback about their writing.
My great granddaughter and I attended our “Mommy and Me” swimming class today. Her mother teaches the class, so I get the honor of playing the mommy role. After an enjoyable class, we went down to the dressing room to shower and dress. When we were on our way up to the stairs, she said “G.G. (great grandmother), I can’t walk up all of these stairs, can you carry me like mommy does?
“Well, I’m getting kind of old, and you are getting kind of big, so I can’t carry you up the stairs, but I can teach you to fly up them”.
Put your arms way up and out to your side, and wave your hands and fingers as fast as you can, now start up the stairs and you’ll see how easy it is. She managed to get up all 9 stairs, and when she got to the top she called out loudly in her two year old voice. “G.G. I did it”. When we got to my daughters home, she told her grandmother that her G.G. taught her how to fly. My daughter said, “What’s next Mom, roller skating?” I’ll think about that.
What sweet memories we can make out of the simplest things . . .
Mary Ann Eils is a retired registered nurse working part time as a nursing instructor. She has been married for sixty years. Mary Ann is a mother of four, grandmother of nine, and great-grandmother of two. She enjoys writing true to life stories with a humorous touch.
Doug Moe
dmoe@madison.com
As published in the Wisconsin State Journal
This was late spring 1998 and George Pollard was in his Kenosha home on the shore of Lake Michigan talking about the time he did a portrait of Harry Truman.
“It was his last portrait,” Pollard said.
The former president was not famous for his patience. “His hip hurt and he didn’t like sitting,” Pollard said.
Pollard was undaunted. After all, as a sergeant during World War II, he had known the pressure of being asked to paint generals. “This experience,” Pollard would later note, “had taught me two things — paint fast and do not be intimidated by important people.”
The Truman portrait, done in 1964, had taken a full year to set up. It was at the presidential library in Missouri. Truman sat, began to chat, and Pollard went to work.
Although he called Truman one of his most memorable subjects, George Pollard, the internationally known portrait artist who died Thursday in his Kenosha home at 88, was used to working with the celebrated and the powerful. His subjects — and his subjects nearly always became admirers — were presidents, popes, A-list entertainers and athletes. Yet somehow Pollard remained as friendly and unpretentious as the Wisconsin farm boy he was.
I was at his home in Kenosha that day in 1998 in the company of my Madison friend Bob Royko. It was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve ever spent.
Click HERE to read the rest from the Wisconsin State Journal
Mariann Kramer (top center) with Actor’s Craft families in Music and Improv for Pre-School!
Mariann Kramer makes the arts come alive for Pre-Schoolers. For twenty-five years, she has engaged young minds and bodies in imaginative play, all while teaching lifelong skills of active listening, responsibility and self-control. Kindergarten readiness is part of her mission.
I first met Mariann when she was my daughter Theresa’s pre-school teacher at Kid’s Castle. I was impressed with how she managed to keep all the youngsters happily engaged in their activities — even cleaning up after themselves — while never raising her voice. As a mother with three children under 5, I thought I might learn something from her! Continue reading →
ArtWorks new class schedule for May and June is now available. Please go to our newly updated website at www.artworks-kenosha.com and check it out. Our gallery art exhibit schedule for 2008 is now posted as well as a few photos from our Pixels! opening on March 22nd.
http://www.artworks-kenosha.com/index_files/Page843.htm
Your are invited to participate in Lemon Street Gallery’s art-making, fund-raising event, LemonAID ‘08!
Formerly know as Caged! Artists in Their Natural Habitat, LemonAID’08 promises to be our biggest event ever. This great ART day has been moved to Downtown Kenosha, where it will be a featured activity of Bloomin’ Days, a large community event. To compliment the new premier location, we selected the new name, LemonAID.
Participation details: On Saturday, June 7th up to 40 artists will arrive at the event grounds Continue reading →
The House that Art Built, is a fund raising alliance composed of regional artists dedicated to the cause of enhancing the quality of life through the perpetual momentum of creativity.
The blue prints of the House were first conceived while my team and I (Touch Fine Arts) were completing the ceiling of the Florentine Ballroom at the Congress Plaza hotel in Chicago. The idea being that fine art is indeed a lovely addition to the immaculate ballrooms, and banquet halls of the excessively wealthy, but it is NEEDED most on the baron walls of the impoverished.
Our first show is to be held on June 13, 14, and 15 at Mo’s Cafe. Many artists (student & Professional) from Milwaukee to Chicago will be featured, and 20% of all the proceeds will be donated to AHA!
There will be live performances, and plenty of wine. So clear your schedule, get the gang together, and come help lay the foundation of The House That Art Built.
The House that Art Built is currently moving forward on a series of charity Murals within the community. Thanks to a generous donation from ARTWORKS they have all the supplies we will need to create some beautiful work in the community. If any artists out there are interested they would really appreciate volunteers. Also, anyone who would like to submit their work for the show at Mo’s should feel free to contact surrealbigdeal@yahoo.com
Adonis Jamal and Vittoria DuMez improv a scene at Friday Night Improv.
Friday Night Improv goes to Milwaukee Actor’s Craft brings the fun to Bucketworks!
Friday Night Improv comes to Milwaukee at Bucketworks! Get up on your feet with Theater Games and Improvisation! Everyone participates. Play the games you see on “Whose Line is it Anyway.” Come alone or bring a friend, either way, you’ll have fun. The good times roll between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. on May 2nd.
Admission for Adults 18+ is $8 for Bucketworks Members and $10 for Non-Members. Bucketworks is located at 1340 North 6th Street just north of downtown Milwaukee off the McKinley exit of the I94.
For more information, call Maureen Cashin Bolog of Actor’s Craft or check out the website at www.actorscraftwisconsin.com.
Actor’s Craft offers Professional On-Camera Acting Technique Classes for Adults both in downtown Milwaukee at Bucketworks and in Kenosha at the Rhode Center for the Arts, 518 56th Street. Classes for Children (2+ yrs) and Teens are offered in Kenosha.
One of the first things I noticed about Vince Gedgaudas’ sculptures was that they didn’t have faces. Not one of them. The heads were a radical departure from the norm, looking more a futuristic impression of some terrestrial visitor rather than a human. Still, I found them fascinating and wanted to know more. I couldn’t get over how they complimented his amazing attention to detail.
Michelle Cascio Photography and Model Casting takes new models and turns them into “agency ready” machines for both Editorial and Commercial markets. Michelle enjoys the Commercial market which allows her models to just be who they are; no worrying about fitting into a stereo-type, clothing size, or age bracket. Whoever, or whatever, you are, there is a place for you. And it’s family friendly!!!
Kenosha is a good place for local models to get started. Continue reading →
John Conlon and I first met in an abstract class at Lemon Street. At first John seemed a very shy person. Slowly his sparkle in the eye New England, dry wit surfaced. John’s sensitive, insightful comments of artists’ work, talent and personality integrated very easily into the gallery. There’s an appreciation for his thoughts and direction. His work exhibits these personal characteristics.
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Hartford Connecticut and lived most of my youth in New England. I graduated high school in Providence Rhode Island.
What brought you to Kenosha?
A smokey gray 2004 Honda Civic with mud guards and a sunroof, actually, I started to look for a place that taught encaustic painting and found out about Lemon Street.
Samir Husni, the academic world’s “Dr. Magazine,” who keeps track of this sort of thing, recently reported the birth of 715 magazines during the past year.
Well, now there are 716. Welcome, please, The Bathroom (”A Good Place to Read”), a new poetry magazine published by Racinian Nicholas Michael Ravnikar.
A couple of caveats up front: This is not the poetry of Robert Frost. Nor is it a magazine like, say, George Plimpton’s Paris Review, that you actually could carry into the bathroom. Continue reading →
It was an evening of celebration.
On Friday evening, April 11, community leaders joined the Lakeside board and supporters of the Rhode to celebrate the grand opening of the new west auditorium. Already a winner, the new theater has been playing to full houses for the children’s shows. Music and laughter, food and beverage, pride and pleasure permeated the evening.
ArtWorks new class schedule for May and June is now available. Please go to our newly updated website at www.artworks-kenosha.com and check it out. Our gallery art exhibit schedule for 2008 is now posted as well as a few photos from our Pixels! opening on March 22nd.
