Anderson Japanese Gardens is at 318 Spring Creek Road, in Rockford, Ill. (www.Anderson Gardens.org.) While in Rockford, check out the Rockford Art Museum, currently featuring work by Chicago artists Richard Hull and Nicholas Sistler. – Photo: Courtesy
A garden of reverie,
tended with reverance
As our society eliminates unscheduled time, the concept of day dreaming feels ever more remote. The Japanese (via the Chinese historically) understood that to create a sense of reverie one needed to carefully structure the passage. It was only through artificial ordering and attentive effort that one could lay the means for relaxation.
The Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, Ill., are built on this kind of paradox – and perhaps that is why their beauty is so pronounced. Rockford is a ravished city that struggles for an economic foothold. Yet hidden within its folds is this 12-acre gem of reflecting pools, golden koi, stone paths, shady knolls, a 50-foot waterfall and trickling streams. It was recently rated the number one Japanese garden in America.
A garden of reverie, tended with reveranceArtwatch
There is plenty of art to gaze at as Milwaukee’s fall cultural season revs into high gear. Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, 839 S. Fifth St., opens its annual member’s show on Fri., Sept. 10, from 5 - 8 p.m. The exhibition content varies year to year, but always promises to be a great big grab bag of form and style.
The Marshall Building in the Third Ward, 207 E. Buffalo St., will hold an open house from 6 - 9 p.m. on Fri., Sept. 10. This creative epicenter boasts about 20 art-related businesses, including galleries, artists’ studios and design showcases. A highlight of this event will be the reopening of Luckystar Studio, which has gone through numerous incarnations in the past decade.
ArtwatchArtwatch
When you head to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, you might want to make a full day of it. This week, I discovered an amazing restaurant that has been in the downtown area for five years but somehow eluded my culinary radar. Margaux, 821 N. Eighth Street, is owned by chef Rob Hurrie, who previously served as executive chef at Blackwolf Run in Kohler.
Margaux offers a contemporary, relaxed environment (clean, open, airy) with outstanding food and wine. Often, these kind of ambitious restaurants in smallish cities try way too hard and end up serving overly fussy foods that are meant to impress, but lack artisanal soul. This place seems to have both heart and good food politics embedded in its offerings. Hurrie is committed to locally grown ingredients (they partner with an organic farm) as well as a seasonal menu.
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Margaux, Haggerty
Steven & Billy Blaise Dufala, Long Runner, 2009. – Photo: Courtesy Fleisher Ollman Gallery, Pennsylvania
Art tickles in a playful exhibition
What’s the difference between an art museum and a comedy club? Metaphorically speaking, maybe not much, considering the current exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. “A Sense of Humor,” which runs through Sept. 26, showcases over 20 artists in a cavalcade of works that play on strange juxtapositions, witty words and pictures, plus the playfulness and poignancy of the modern condition.
John Michael Kohler Arts Center. “A Sense of Humor”
The lobby of the Iron Horse Hotel seems calibrated to define and deliver a pleasant air of testosterone. – Photo: Art Elkon
Iron Horse Hotel nails
the masculine aesthetic
In the Renaissance, as Italian society was rapidly changing, a diplomat, Baldassare Castiglione, wrote a treatise called “The Book of the Courtier” (1513-1518). In it he tried to categorize the new ideal of manhood or l’uomo universale. He recommended middle height, solid build, “shapely of limb,” light and supple, good wrestling skills, tennis, sportsmanship, fitness, education, knowledge of Latin and Greek. A man must speak and write well, draw, play an instrument. The ideal man should be calm and “a play of the eyes shall give an effect of grace.”
Iron Horse Hotel nails the masculine aestheticOpinion
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