Caryl Yasko:  Public Art, the Original Social Medium
By  Dave McGraw

These days, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of social media.  In fact, even making that statement seems redundant.  But what if we ask the question: “What are the roots of social media?”  If we ask this question, we must look back to a time before the Internet, and consider what role media played in shaping the world.

This City is Growing
By  Dave McGraw

It started as a low rumble, barely perceptible.  Slowly growing in strength and intensity, it was suddenly shaking the world around us.  The foundations of Milwaukee have been uprooted and changed once again, this time by the force of a new Generation.  This new Gen has decided to work together rather than independently, and is rapidly changing the way we see our city.

SpeakPeace at War Memorial - Art Museum
By: Eddee Daniel


Milwaukee’s War Memorial and Art Museum have long been strange bedfellows, sharing space in what has become a mélange of architectural forms at their premier location on the lakefront. But their often disparate missions have found an intersection in a new exhibit with the evocative title SpeakPeace and the cumbersome, though precise, subtitle, American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children’s Paintings Exhibition.

Posters of Paris: Toulous-Lautrec and His Contemporaries
By: Dave McGraw

The Milwaukee Art Museum’s newest exhibition just started, and the first MAM After Dark party is on its way.  And I tell you; I can’t wait for this Friday.  The theme is 19th century Paris.  The focus is exactly what you hope for: the legendary nightlife of Paris during its most recent renaissance.

ART Jamboree & Info* Magazine 10th Anniversary Party
By:  Melissa McGraw

A stylish shindig sprawled throughout the third floor (and across the rooftop) of the Milwaukee Athletic Club to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Info* Magazine.

My friend Melissa and I were pleased to come inside from hassle-free parking to a complimentary tasting by Vino 100 in the club’s elegant lobby.  I sampled a Leese-Fitch cabernet sauvignon and entered my name in drawing before we took the stairs to the main event.

“After the Desert God” staged play reading
By:  Melissa McGraw


Recently, a single experience had the power to reverse many previous unknowns. I had just learned about Vanity Theatre Company, which intermittently surfaces in the Milwaukee scene with presentations of new works (plays, translations and adaptations).  I had never before attended a staged play reading.  I was entirely unfamiliar with Yiddish theater, had never heard of poet/playwright Kadya Molodowsky, and had never considered the impact of the Spanish Inquisition on Jewish history, or its parallels to the Holocaust.

Origin Story: Shannon Molter at the Tenth Street Gallery
By: Jason Altobelli

The legacy of what we leave behind; the art and objects, books and images, the textiles and vocal tales all tell the story of who we are as individuals and who we are as a culture.  These elements shine a light on where we have been, highlighting what we have seen and experienced firsthand, illuminating who we are and the time in which we existed.  These stories as artist Shannon Molter illustrates in her exhibition Origin Story at the Tenth Street Gallery are only a small part of a larger, more elaborate narrative where Mother Nature takes on a defining role.

Hidden Meaning of Face Jugs
By Dave McGraw


History often requires us to look at it with an open approach.  It is often said that the winners write the history books, and while this fact is undeniably true, artifacts remain, and with them so does truth.  When enough time has passed, we begin to see an object, an event, or a culture for what it really was.  When even more time has passed, we may become so disconnected with a former time period that we begin to look at it without rhetoric.  Time washes our preconceived notions away and leaves only truth.  America's past is filled with triumph and tragedy, glory and shame.  Slavery of the African people is one of America's greatest disgraces, and still resounds within our culture today.

“Othello” at Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Melissa McGraw

By now you’ve heard the buzz: Mark Clements’ adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Othello” is set in the contemporary context of a motorcycle club.  The artistic director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater created a production that is infused with heavy metal and Harley-Davidson's.  It is gritty, edgy and raw as much as it retains the Bard’s timeless themes of love, power and jealousy.

Surrounded by an endless white
Broken gray skies
And dark, stony water
Lapping intently at the shores of this land
Wearing down the edges of my
Consciousness
Where am I?
What am I doing here,
Searching this land?
Retracing the steps of
Exploration past
They found it, the top of the world
Not without aid, yet still
They found it
Lost in this endless white