Please save the date for: 
Fermentation Fest—A Live Culture Convergence
Oct. 4–13, 2014
Reedsburg, Wisconsin
http://fermentationfest.com/
A multifaceted food and farming festival celebrating live culture—in all its forms.


Featuring the 50-mile Farm/Art DTour along with performances, and classes and tastings about fermented foods, farming and rural life. Featured speakers are John Greenler and Kirsten Shockey. Explore, learn, taste and enjoy live culture. 
To Request A Press Kit / Contact:  Donna Neuwirth, Wormfarm Institute executive director,donna@wormfarminstitute.org, 608-415-0347.
 
OVERVIEW
Fermentation Fest—A Live Culture Convergence Oct. 4–13, 2014
The Wormfarm Institute will host its fourth-annual Fermentation Fest—A Live Culture Convergence Oct. 4–13, 2014. It’s a multifaceted food and farming festival celebrating live culture in all its forms—dance to yogurt, poetry to sauerkraut. 


The signature feature is the Farm/Art DTour, a nationally recognized, 50-mile, self-guided road tour through northwestern Sauk County’s scenic hills and farmland punctuated with temporary art installations, field notes about agriculture, roadside poetry, pasture performances and artist-built Roadside Culture Stands selling fresh, preserved and fermented locally grown food.


The Fest also offers 44 classes and tasting events about fermented foods (kimchi, yogurt, hard cider, chocolate, cheese, beer, bread etc.), preserving the harvest, farming and more.


Kirsten Shockey of Applegate, Ore., homesteader, fermenter, teacher and co-author with her husband, Christopher Shockey, of Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes For Fermenting 80 Vegetables And Herbs, will conduct three hands-on classes Oct. 4–5 about safely fermenting seasonally available produce and forbs into cultured krauts, preserves, pastes and relishes. Join her for an evening presentation of Once Upon A Brine: A Fermentista’s Tale Oct. 4 where she’ll sign her just-released book. www.fermentista.us


John Greenler, education and outreach director for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will speak Oct. 11 about moving beyond corn and grain to make ethanol by fermenting plant materials into renewable energy as fossil fuel alternatives. Join his lively presentation and try fermenting fuel. www.glbrc.org


For more information and to register for classes and tastings, visit www.fermentationfest.com.  

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It’s An Accessible Life: My 24-hour Journey
By SALLY SWANSON, AIA
The white Christmas I’m thinking about this season has nothing to do with snow. Rather, it’s all about a site specific art installation that occurred this October. My friend (and son-in-law’s mother to be precise) Mary Dickey is an artist living and working in America’s heartland – Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Mary was selected as one of the thirteen professional artists (from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, Washington D.C., New York, California and New Mexico) to create a work of art for the 2014 Farm/Art DTour which is a 50-mile self-guided back roads tour by car, bike or buggy through the beautiful, unglaciated hills and valleys of Sauk County, Wisconsin. Mary’s artwork, a roadside shrine titled “A Call to Beauty” would feel right at home in Narnia; her wonderland in white instantly piques one’s imagination and stirs the soul. From Mary’s point of view it’s a different approach to urban design that acknowledges and celebrates the environment. And so I’d like to celebrate Mary, her exquisite talent and the local community that inspires her work.
“A Call to Beauty” asks us to contemplate the idea of a creation and our place in it. It is a work of art inspired by Wisconsin’s rich history of made environments and the profound unity of nature. Mary’s piece invites one to leave the everyday, enthrone oneself and let the cherished white deer lead one’s vision to the beauty of the Wisconsin countryside (to paraphrase the official event guide). The shrine was constructed and installed with the help of many of Mary’s friends, especially Pat and Don Yanke who donated their barn and hours of expertise and hands-on help. As Mary relates, “Don is a retired stonemason and problem solver extraordinaire, while Pat, retired from banking, is an artistic soul and mosaic expert. Other helpers included Nancy Appleyard, Patrice Luer, Annette Mahler, and Brandon Yanke. Actual installation was facilitated by Jeff, Pat, and Megan Wyman and Carolyn Brown, and landowner Tom Gillen”.
Mary’s inspiration to include the white deer was motivated in part by a tragic event. There is a herd of local white deer near the Yanke property in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin. Several years ago during hunting season, hunters shot and killed several of the herd, which are cherished and protected by the neighboring farmers and landowners. Outrage at their killing led to a campaign to educate folks about the existence and importance of the white deer. Mary quotes the following from the Lac du Flambeau tribe as being influential in her decision to include the white deer in her piece: “The white deer in Ojibway culture represents the sacredness of all living things. They should be left alone, never hunted or bothered. When we see them, we should take notice of our own spirituality and think about where we are with it”. ( Quote attributed to a Lac du Flambeau elder telling about creation and the assignment of roles as leaders to different animals.)

This is an important moment in time for women artists everywhere. In the past month, we’ve witnessed Georgia O’Keeffe become “the world’s most expensive woman painter” (per the Financial Times, 29/30 November 2014) following the sale of “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1” (1932) which made $44.4m at auction at Sotheby’s – nearly triple its estimate. And arriving in theaters on Christmas Day is the film “Big Eyes” which is based on the true story of Walter Keane a successful midcentury painter (1950s/’60s) who gained notoriety via paintings of waifs with big eyes - painted, in fact, by his wife Margaret who at 97 lives and still paints in San Francisco.
Mary Dickey is an artist who solidly remains true to her roots. She resides in rural Dane County and is represented by River Arts on Water Gallery, 590 Water Street, Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. To learn more about Mary, her work and the Fermentation Fest and Farm/Art DTour, please visit the following websites:
www.riverartsinc.org
www.marydickey.com
www.fermentationfest.com

And so in celebrating Mary, I salute all women artists: be forever true to self and inspired always.
May your Christmas be merry and bright – and even white for that matter – if the fates allow.

Newly opened in the fall of 2011, River Arts on Water Gallery is a gallery featuring over 30 local artists, meeting space, office space for River Arts, Inc., and event space.

My work is represented by River Arts on Water Gallery. If you see a piece you are interested in you may contact riverartsonwater.org for information about purchase.

For Immediate Release
November 19, 2010

Contact: Martha Glowacki, gallery co-director, 608-265-2500 /
mglowacki@wisconsinacademy.org OR

Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director
jsmith@wisconsinacademy.org / 608-263-1692 ext. 21

Handmade Meaning:
The Value of Craft in Victorian and Contemporary Culture
Exhibition Opens at the James Watrous Gallery on December 17

Visit the James Watrous Gallery for the free opening reception with gallery discussion
and demonstrations of craft processes from 5:00–8:00 pm at the Wisconsin Studio in
Overture Center. Exhibition on view until February 6, 2011

MADISON—Today’s do-it-yourself (DIY) craft movement isn’t your grandmother’s knitting. Or is
it? This new exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center raises provocative
questions about amateur and professional art practice and the role of craft in shaping identity
and creating community. A collaboration between the Watrous Gallery, the UW–Madison
Department of Art History, and the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, Handmade Meaning:
The Value of Craft in Victorian and Contemporary Culture explores the relationship
between rarely seen Victorian “fancy-work”—hand-painted china, hair wreaths, and fine
embroidery—from museums across the state, objects made by people active in the current DIY
movement, and work by contemporary artists who use craft processes and materials.
For many women in the Victorian era, fancywork meant more than creating beautiful objects or
decorating the home. It also offered important opportunities for self-expression, self-reliance,
and community building. In this sense, Victorian women’s pursuits were not all that different
from those of people engaged in the current DIY movement, which puts a fresh spin on
traditionally feminine crafts and grapples with issues of identity, community, and creativity. By
juxtaposing fancywork with the work of contemporary artists using craft techniques, Handmade
Meaning poses intriguing questions about the value of craft, the status of the amateur, and the
desire to “make your own.”
The 19th and early 20th-century pieces for this show are borrowed from historical societies and
museums across Wisconsin, from the Oneida Nation Museum to the Mayville Historical
Society. Most of these objects have never been shown outside their local communities.
Contemporary Wisconsin artists in the show include Anne Kingsbury, Cortney Heimerl, Hai-Chi
Jihn, Marna Goldstein Brauner, and Cassandra Smith (Milwaukee); Mary Dickey (Sauk City);
Susan White (Madison) and Chris Walla (Madison and Fargo, ND).
For more information, visit the Handmade Meaning blog.
Image files for media:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53205150@N06/sets/72157625250416351/

(over)

This exhibition is supported in part by grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the
State of Wisconsin; Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission; Wisconsin Humanities Council;
Caxambas Foundation; and The Polly and Stanley Stone Fund. Ongoing support for the James
Watrous Gallery comes from DoubleTree Hotel–Madison, Anita Been in memory of George
Parker, and Robert & Carroll Heideman. The Wisconsin Academy thanks these sponsors for
their generous support.

Related events:
• Sunday, January 23, 2–4:00 pm. Panel discussion, moderated by Beverly Gordon
(UW–Madison Dept. of Design Studies), with exhibition artists Cortney Heimerl, Anne
Kingsbury, and Susan White. Free and open to the public. Madison Museum of
Contemporary Art’s lecture hall, Overture Center.
• Ongoing through February 6: Community embroidery project, inspired by the redwork
quilts made for community fundraisers during the late 1800s and early 1900s. To
participate, pick up a packet from the James Watrous Gallery or Stitcher’s Crossing,
stitch one of the designs, and return it to the gallery. Finished squares will be pieced
together to create a quilt. Follow the progress of this project on the Handmade Meaning
blog.
• December 17–February 6: Related community fiber art exhibition, Our Tiny Friends and
Foes, in the Overture Center Playhouse Gallery.
• Closing celebration on Sunday, February 6, 12:30–3:30 pm. Exhibition tour followed by
a reception and presentation, “History Through Women’s Hands,” at the Wisconsin
Historical Museum auditorium. Presentation speakers include Brian Bigler (Mt. Horeb
Historical Society), Lyn Korenic (UW–Madison Art Library), Nancy Mithlo (UW–Madison
Department of Art), and Emily Pfotenhauer (Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database).
About the James Watrous Gallery
The James Watrous Gallery is the premier gallery for Wisconsin visual art. A program of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the James Watrous Gallery presents works
by Wisconsin artists, Wisconsin art and craft history, works owned by Wisconsin collectors, and
exhibitions that bridge the sciences, arts, and humanities. Our mission is to promote the visual
arts in Wisconsin through quality exhibitions and related educational programs. For gallery
hours and current exhibitions, please visit the James Watrous Gallery page at
www.wisconsinacademy.org or call the gallery at 608-265-2500.


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Visiting this site will take you to an article about my house and work from the Capital Times archives, Saturday, August 13, 2005. If you are unable to access this by clicking, visit The Capital Times website archives and enter Saturday, August 13, 2005.