This Week: Skipping Gallery Night

July 19, 2024

The way I enjoy Summer Fest is from the comfort of my bed, having tucked myself in promptly at 9:30 PM. I shut my eyes and imagine the carloads of Northern Illinsoisians screaming at their GPSes as they merge onto 794. I see them driving hopelessly up and down full parking lots, waiting in line for their five-dollar bottle of water. It never fails to send me into the dreamless slumber of one grateful to be boring.

And this year especially, with the RNC’s nuke-seeking helicopters converging on the same two weeks as the Harley Davidson Homecoming, Air & Water Show, and recent cosmopod invasion. Plus, you know, Gallery Night. Can we agree to all stay in bed until August?

Or better yet, let’s find things to do that aren’t loud, crowded, and politically fraught. Maybe what we need are undercover events, public gatherings where we can agree to respect each other’s need for complete and total social isolation.

BYO INCOGNITO

Friday, July 19

It Can’t Happen Here—Again - Woodland Pattern

As longtime readers know, I’m a big fan of both Flora Coker and Woodland Pattern, but also, secretly, Sinclair Lewis too. Long story short, Lewis adapted his novel into a play, which the Writers for Democratic Action adapted for today’s unending political maelstrom. It’s the ideal place to release your anxieties back into the atmosphere.

1:00 PM at Garden Park, corner of Locust and Bremen

40 Hour Work Week - Real Tinsel

This show’s actually been open for almost a month already. Or more accurately, it’s been in progress. You can walk in, punch your time card, and make drawings to be exhibited in the space. My understanding is that they’re having a more formal opening tomorrow, so now is a good time to slip in under the radar.

1013 West Historic Mitchell St. Milwaukee, WI

AT NIGHT - The Alice Wilds

If you’re committed to the idea of standing in a small room with many other people, this is a relatively tranquil room to do it in. Black and white pictures of plants and the night sky make a serviceable excuse to not talk to anyone.

Opening 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM at The Alice Wilds, 900 S 5th St #102, Milwaukee, WI 53204

Saturday, July 20

Gallery Night

Sorry pal, this Saturday you’re staying in. Because listen, and I’m speaking to the older-than-35s in the room: Is whatever you have planned really better than sitting at home, pouring a glass of lime vodka seltzer, and playing a movie in the background to justify some quality time with your cats? They don’t want you to leave home either! So do yourself a favor. Save your art-viewing plans for another weekend. Take off work next Tuesday and go then. The show at Portrait Society looks pretty good.

If you’re really looking for something to do tonight, go see Milwaukee Film’s Best of Fest Thelma at the Oriental.

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM, 207 E Buffalo St Ste 220, Milwaukee, WI 53202

Breeze Weaving at Usable Space

So here’s an actual Gallery Night recommendation. Whenever anyone gives directions to this venue, all they ever say is “by Barnacle Bud’s” which sets the expectation that the paintings will be hung on a dirty wood pallet. To enhance the sense of adventure, I tend to not look up the current exhibition beforehand.

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM, 1950 S Hilbert St, Milwaukee, WI 53207

Sunday, July 21

Full Moon Mini Market at Lynden Sculpture Garden

Do not be deceived. The market is held in the afternoon, which to me seems like a missed opportunity for the back-alley Agrabah dealings the name suggests. What you will find there are ceramics, jewelry, fiber art, and a buffet of runic, astrological, and tarotic fortune-tellers.

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, 2145 W Brown Deer Rd, River Hills, WI 53217

Monday, July 22

Deadline for Wormfarm Institute’s Roadside Poems

I can say from personal experience that open calls for poetry are addictive. Spend twenty minutes on a few lines, then email them off and feel like a real hotshot. At least until the rejection letter. Wormfarm is looking for compact, six-line poems in the style of vintage Burma shave ads. Selected poets get $100 and have their work printed on signs along a route in southern Sauk County.

Submission guidelines here.

Wednesday, July 24

Make a Mug at Mitchell Street Arts

The damn neighborhood kids have been vaping in the alley again, and now your last coffee mug is a pile of broken ceramic, two feet to the left of where they’re (still) standing. You could go to Target and buy a boring old mug with no sharp corners OR you could make your own. The class is pay-what-you-can with a $10 suggested donation.

Register here.

If YOU have an upcoming event, let me know at [email protected]