Art Scene MKE

09/09/2026

Tonight, I witnessed a work of art at American Family Field.

The Brewers were trailing the Cubs 3–1 in the bottom of the ninth. They were down to their final out.

Christian Yelich, who has been fighting through a slump, found a single and kept the game alive. Then Jackson Chourio walked to the plate with a smile on his face. Pat Murphy stood in the dugout looking almost impossibly relaxed.

Across the field was Craig Counsell, Milwaukee’s former manager. Even while the Cubs were winning, Counsell had looked tense and dissatisfied. Murphy looked as though he still believed something was coming.

Then Chourio, down to his final strike, hit a two-run home run and tied the game.

In the top of the tenth, the Brewers made the plays they needed to make. The Cubs’ automatic runner was caught sliding off second base, and the inning ended without a run.

In the bottom of the 9th, Milwaukee loaded the bases with one out. Luis Lara, a rookie, prepared to walk to the plate when Pat Murphy stopped him. Murphy looked directly into Lara’s eyes and asked whether he was ready. Then he told him that he believed in him, pressed a hand against Lara's chest and walked away smiling.

It was no grand speech...it lasted just a few seconds. But I have taught students for 30 years, and I have coached ice skating for even longer. I knew exactly what I was watching. Murphy was not giving Lara instructions. He was giving him the moment. He was telling his young player, "This is your moment. You are ready. I trust you."

Lara swung at the first pitch and sent a line drive down the third-base line for the first walk-off hit of his career. The stadium erupted.

We often talk about athletes as though talent alone creates victories. It does not. Someone has to build the culture in which people trust themselves under impossible pressure. Someone has to know when to instruct, when to challenge, when to wait, and when a young person needs nothing more than another human being looking directly at him and saying, “I believe in you.”

That is the art of coaching.

Pat Murphy did not swing the bat. But make no mistake: he helped create that hit.

Art does not exist only in galleries, theaters, studios, and concert halls. Sometimes it happens between two people beside a baseball dugout. Sometimes it lasts only a few seconds.

And if you are fortunate enough to recognize it while it is happening, it is exquisite.

What a team. What a coach. What a beautiful Milwaukee win. GO BREWERS!!!
GO MILWAUKEE!!!

Photo from Brewers TV

09/06/2026

THIRD WARD ART FESTIVAL... Final day!!
There were too many exquisite artists to name, but the three that captured my heart rising to the top of the list were all self-taught.

It made me think, "How many people around this city with ideas in their heads, materials in their basements, color in their hearts, notebooks full of sketches, or some stubborn creative impulse they have never quite given themselves permission to take seriously?"

So, if you go to the Third Ward Art Festival today, I want you to find your artists. Then, be inspired to create.

Nestor Yulfo

Nestor Yulfo’s work absolutely mesmerized me. His painted surfaces seem to lift themselves right off the canvas, built through layers of crackling, oxidation, masking, varnish, airbrush, stencil and processes he has clearly spent years making his own.

What stopped me was the tension between precision and controlled serendipity. His work suggests and evokes without telling you what to think. It leaves room for wild imagination inside a well-controlled dream.

Tali Lopez made me belly laugh!!

His Basquiat-esque characters inhabit painted wooden panels with delightfully vandalesque expressions, gestures and unexpected phrases that somehow feel like paintings, cartoons, memes and childhood drawings all at once.

There is tremendous sophistication underneath all that apparent playfulness, but mostly I stood, overjoyed, in my own childhood reverie.

Then there was Milwaukee's very own Lana Vosk.

A former fiber artist who found her way into painting, Lana builds surfaces that still seem to remember stitching: imperfect geometry, organic line, overlapping fields and layers of color that feel woven, or maybe just strung.

And her red. It was the red that kept me there for an hour, bathing in the surprising healing layers of it. When Lana talked about the power of color, I unexpectedly started crying.

That sounds dramatic until you stand in front of something and suddenly remember that art really can change your day, your week, sometimes even the way you understand your own life.

There were many more worth noting. Julia Keuler's woven wools, Jill Sevens' tangram-puzzled wooden mosaics, and Kay Kro, the On-Demand Typewriter Poet are further recommended.

Don't miss this event...it's free!! So spend your money buying some art and supporting an artist!!

09/05/2026

ONE NEIGHBORHOOD. A WHOLE DAY OF ART... FOR FREE!!

If you’ve been waiting for a reason to get outside today, this is truly it!!

The rain is gone, Milwaukee is green, the temperature is sitting in that perfect low-to-mid 70s range, and the Third Ward is absolutely PACKED with art today...

Start outside at the Third Ward Art Festival, where more than 200 juried artists have taken over the neighborhood with painting, ceramics, jewelry, photography, glass, fiber, mixed media and more. There’s live music, food, artist demonstrations and plenty to wander through.

Then walk over to the Marshall Building Art Crawl and explore seven floors of galleries, studios and creative spaces. If you've never been, it's like a Candyland for art lovers and curiosity alike!!

And if you’re still there at 5? Keep going. Gallery 218 is hosting a free public reception from 5–8 PM with live jazz, appetizers and work by local and regional artists.

Today’s Third Ward art crawl:
*** Third Ward Art Festival — until 5 PM
*** Marshall Building Art Crawl — until 7 PM
*** Gallery 218 reception — 5–8 PM

You could genuinely spend the entire afternoon here.

Find more Milwaukee arts events at ArtSceneMKE.com

09/04/2026

Milwaukee has plans this weekend.

Art festivals. Live music. Stand-up comedy. Figure drawing. Theater. Metal. Museum events. Highland dancing. Indie shows. Gallery crawls. And a few things we definitely didn't know were happening until we were looking!

We've been doing a major update of the ArtSceneMKE calendar, and it is getting GOOD!!

If you're wondering what to do in Milwaukee this weekend, start here:

ArtSceneMKE.com

Pick a category. Pick a venue. Pick a day. Go see something.

And if you know about an arts event we're missing, don't hesitate to send it our way.

If it's related to Art and it's in and around Milwaukee, you'll find it on ArtSceneMke - your hub for all things going on in the Art Scene of Milwaukee.

02/16/2026

For me, it is my coffee cup...or cups. So many things are forgiven and restored. It is not sleep that separates me from one day to the next, but that moment when I feel like the day and I are finally in agreement... That's when my day finally begins!

02/16/2026

This was hard. First baby's shoes, children's sweaters hand knit with care, an Army Officer's old baseball glove... A thing can only become real in time.

"'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” --Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

02/16/2026

Violins, pianos, ballet slippers, paint brushes, ice skates, journals... Anything that inspires the creative spirit!! With the Olympics on in the background, we can't help but marvel in the beauty of striving and the depth of the human spirit... We may have different tools, but mastery is familiar in every discipline.

02/16/2026

ArtSceneMKE is a gathering place to begin with. A place where books are still read, art is still made, impromptu music fills the air, and days fly by too quickly. It is the community we curate around us that keeps us warm and filled with light.

Chairs and couches ready for the next painting class, book club, or creative writing session...

02/16/2026

Day 6: Morning Light.
Maybe I stopped posting on this day because I leave for work before the sun is up, and I leave work at sunset...or later. This is what MKE is like at this time of year...daylight is creeping back in more substantial amounts. Today we had a rare 50 fahrenheit which felt like summer.

Morning light was my gift today. A walk with the dog, coffee, and a light jacket was the highlight of my day. It doesn't take much to make you happy when you've overwintered.

Speaking of overwintering...we're through the 15 longest weeks of the season. That's something!!

02/05/2026

A threshold for day 5...

I feel like February is its own threshold. Long cold days indoors, fighting the cold and a cold... You can tell it is hard for everyone, and people start dropping out of sight for long periods of time. For artists and writers, though, these days are some of the most productive.

There is something about the that we hold tightly inside of us. Ones that stream out in the darkest and coldest days of winter in the form of poetry, color, sculpture, song, dance, theater.... These are days that drain the body but feed the soul. For a little while, it is like we are only spirits.