The following post is from an e-mail received from long-time Wild Ones member Nancy Aten regarding Art at the Urban Ecology Center now through September 2019 at the Riverside Park Branch in Milwaukee*.
If you’re in the area, this Thursday, July 11th from 5-7 pm is the free opening reception of The Art of Mending the Earth. There will be refreshments, good company, and the artists will speak informally at 6 pm. Bring your copies of their books and get them signed by the author.
The orange milkweed planted in monarch way station at Doctors Park returned and is in bloom. Last week, we planted more common milkweed. The week before, a group of young people from Cream City Conservation took out seven Ace bags full of day lilies. Progress continues.”
The Artists
Artist and Photographer Ney Tait Fraser
Ney’s very large, personal oil paintings of close-up wildflowers will cover the gallery’s walls giving viewers an opportunity to consider and discuss the Nature of Art. Ney says, “In a world already smothered by objects, perhaps it is time to start making living, conceptual art that mends the web of life. Small creatures such as birds, butterflies and spiders could be given habitat with indigenous plants.”
Over a period of several decades, Ney has improved Big Bay/Buckley Park by removing invasive plants, and she says, “This landscape is now a living, conceptual piece that sustains wildlife…. Loss of pollinators is one of the most import issues of our time. Instead of making more interior decoration, Art — as native plant landscapes — could address this problem.”
Ney, a long-time Wild Ones member and friend of Wild Ones hero Lorrie Otto, wrote and illustrated a book called Mending the Earth in Milwaukee which includes sixteen stories of extraordinary pioneer gardeners (including Lorrie) who created mini Edens by replacing lawn and exotic plants with native plants. Ney’s book is for sale locally at Outpost Natural Foods to benefit Teens Growing Greens. Also at Woodland Pattern, Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, Wehr Nature Center, Riveredge Nature Center. Or for sale on-line.
Poet Terimarie Degree
Terimarie grew up with both parents serving in the US Navy. This afforded her the opportunity to live everywhere from Southern California to unique locales such as the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Those experiences birthed an appreciation for nature.
Her nature poetry is a combination of reflecting on the beauty found in the natural world and also the role people have to care for it. Terimarie has a number of poems published on-line as well as work in four books: Permeable to the Year (2017), The Third Eye (2017), Where I Want to Live (2018) and Secret Words Volume 4 (2019). Her work recently was on display as part of the Swan Day MKE gallery show, “Water: Reflection, Ritual & Resource” at Urban Ecology Center, Menomonee Valley.
Terimarie’s poems will be on display with Ney Tait Fraser’s work and she will kick off the opening reception with a poetry reading.
*The Riverside Park branch of the Urban Ecology Center is open Monday – Thursday 9 am – 7 pm, Friday – Saturday 9 am – 5 pm, and Sunday noon – 5 pm. Located at 1500 E Park Place, Milwaukee 53211, (414) 964-8505.
I think two different dayilies were sold to the Chinese very early on, both seedless. The chinese bought more of the single tawny. And they were sold back later without the amerindian stigma. They were never wild plants. In southern Ohio, you see rows along certain roads, too shaded to bloom. I think our colored alliums derived from plants in amerindian onion plantations. Chicago and NYC both contained these plantations. They generally are not fertlized by flock bird droppings. People remove narcissi plantings too. Their business.
Interesting.
I visited cemeteries with an old cemetery group, that had collections of old day lilies in my youth. People had such different stories. I did not always pay attention.
Years ago, we went to Cedar Point by Lake Erie. There was a swamp next to this crummy shopping center. We drove behind the shopping center and the swamp had been used as a dump. A friend found an old aquarium in such a place, so we looked for more rescue items.There was a flower that looked like stella doro at the edge of the swamp. I took some home to plant. They died out after a few years. That was so long ago.
Hi! Cindy — Said to say that people don’t value our swamp areas today as much as we should. It’s so much easier to fill it in and build over it. See Plant Rescues and Dreams.
I had to look up the “Stella Doro.” The Missouri Botanical Garden had a good description: “Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’is a genus of about 15 species of herbaceous perennials commonly known as daylilies. These plants are native to Asia and central Europe. Most plants are fibrous rooted, but some are tuberous rooted….Genus name comes from the Greek words hemera meaning day and kallos meaning beauty as each flower lasts but one day.
‘Stella de Oro’ features profuse 2.75-inch diameter yellow flowers with ruffled edges and deeper yellow throats. Flower is classified as a miniature. Flowers are borne on naked stems (scapes) above a clump of arching, linear, blade-like leaves. Individual flowers open for one day. This multiple AHS award winner has become perhaps the most popular daylily in cultivation in large part because of its compact size, vigorous growth, profuse bloom and extremely long bloom period. (Jablonski 1975.)”
It was a better place to develop than most areas so close to the lake. But the buidng looked battered. There was a channel there, a private way to the lake. We took the canoe out. My husband had worked St Cedar Point and had learned a lot of its history from old timers. He did not say, but I am sure he knew about this.
This was about forty years ago. My mother was babysitting. My memory of that day is nice. I lost the stella doro plants over a winter.
Pleasant memories are always satisfying. Thanks for sharing, Cindy.