Mid-Day in Milwaukee

Dropped by the Milwaukee Art Museum today. The had their first Milwaukee Artist's Market. Small... but it's new, and there was lots of interesting stuff. In future years, it might be worth a visit. You could tell that most of these people don't do the art fair circuit normally. Few of them had the near-obligatory $5-$10 trinket for sale. The trinkets get people into your tent so that they can get hooked on your more expensive works. Lacking the trinkets (I'm ALL about trinkets!), I decided to go on in to the museum.

I get reciprocal free admission through my Racine Art Museum membership, but I've still got to pay extra for the special exhibits. Since I scored free Street Parking today (boy, do I sound cheap! Let's just say that I don't get up to the old stomping grounds too often, and I like to stretch my $$), I decide to treat myself to the new video exhibit, Cut. It's mostly film collages, with a few more abstract pieces like 24 hour psycho (whatever. Is it museum-worthy art to project a film very slowly? At least warhol's 24 hour film was an orignal work). I liked most of the stuff, tho'. I'd recommend the show - and if you go, make sure you see Video Quartet. It's half an hour long, but I'd have gladly watched a couple more hours of it. It's four screens showing inter-related video collages with the accompanying sound. The clips tend toward instruments, female voices, crashes, screams, and a few spoken words - but mostly instruments. As the piece progresses, it slides from melody to symphonic noise (think - the end of A Day in the Life by teh Beatles) and back again. The video images help to promote flow and get you past rough spots where noise seems to predominate. It's complex and I'd have a hard time explaining any moments within it, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. I'd have stayed all day, if I wasn't starting to get lightheaded. Normally, I fit in lunch by 11:30 at the latest, and it was already 1:00 by the time I headed out to my car.

On the way to lunch, I stopped off at the Murray Hill Pottery Works>. I'd wanted to stop there since I heard they had an art-o-mat. I'm a sucker for vending machines, and these dispense $5 art! Yay! trinkets! The stuff in the gallery was very nice, and if you're in the market for just about any kind of ceramics, I'd recommend a stop. Oh, and my Art-O-Mat excursion scored me a small sort of tile with a giant fly on it. Cool enough!

Finally got to my lunch destination (Onopa Brewing Company) at about 1:30pm... feeling rather lightheaded by this point. Well, it turns out that Onopa has changed it's hours. Despite what the website says, they don't open til 2pm on Saturdays now. And the cafe isn't open on Saturdays. So, on to other lunch options - The Fuel Cafe. A Hippie Hoagie and an iced coffee satisfy my belly and put an end to my shakes. 2:10 - time for beer!

And the beers are delicious! Some kind of Mustache Pale Ale (could it really have been Mustache Rider Pale Ale, as I recall?!). I was the only customer in the place, as a few assorted people were putting things up and taking things down. When the barkeep sets my beer on the bar in front of me, my senses are flooded by floral aromas. I can tell this is going to be a tasty beer! One sip confirms my hunch. Loaded with aroma hops and just the right level of bittering hops to balance the malt. On the low end of the carbonation scale, it is perfect for a summer's day like today! Sweet, bitter, floral and herbal. Delicious! Unfortunately, my Hoagie-filled belly was incapable of holding another, so I headed back to the car and to home.

What a lovely Milwaukee Day!