sold still life, acrylic 6" x 6"
I’m back from Wisconsin.
It’s cherry season.
Which was all I needed as a catalyst for a pie eating contest with no one other than myself. Seaquist Orchards has the very best cherry pie, Bea’s the second, but Bea’s has the best (only) Deer Ears - a puffy pastry filled with Bavarian cream, because why limit myself to just cherries? I also ate cherry scones and really anything (er, um, everything) with the word cherry in it.
In between my cherry frenzy, I taught a two-day intensive daily painting workshop to an enthusiastic group at the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek. Those who run the art school maintain a beautiful, productive, upbeat atmosphere in an area known as the Cape Cod of Wisconsin (a true statement). In my pre-workshop quest to find cut flowers in a town overflowing with gardens (no one needs to buy a bouquet), I asked for advice at lunch - the restaurant owner handed me a paring knife and pointed me to all the flowers in the yard of her mint green cottage. These folks are generous.
After lunch, I took a boat ride around the lake, and learned all sorts of interesting facts like how to remedy scurvy, while watching eagles and pelicans (they are gigantic) do what eagles and pelicans do. That night I attended a performance at the Peninsula Players, Door County Theater - America’s Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre, on a forested sixteen acre setting along the shores of Green Bay.
Coincidentally, Lyle Lovett was in town with his big band performing at the elementary school’s not so big auditorium, so, I went - I cannot say no to a small music venue.
After a scenic ride to the top (end?) of Door County, I boarded a car ferry to Washington Island. This is a small island town with only 708 year round residents. The locals wave to each other when they pass on the road and folks on their front porches stop what they are doing and wave when you drive by.
They have lavender fields and a fishing wharf, and a beach covered in smooth, round limestone rocks. Everyone comes out to watch the town baseball game, there’s a fish boil fly-in once a year to the island's airport (a grass strip) with over 200 planes.
From here I drove to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, which was his 37,000 square foot home (one of them). If I ever go back to school (heaven help me) I'm going to the School of Architecture at Taliesin.
To end the trip, I stopped by Alex Jordan’s House on the Rock - which is indescribable, it’s kind of like if you saw a carousel with 269 animals, 182 chandeliers, 20,000+ lights, and hundreds of mannequin angels hanging from the ceiling - because that is precisely what you’ll see.
