- I'd like to introduce Lynn Richie,
the president of LOLA,
Land O' Lakes Artisans,
and Wendy Powalisz,
the executive director of LOLA.
Right, so thank you, Wendy and Lynn.
So thank you very much.
You've gotta transfer.
- Thank you, Chris.
As Chris said I am Lynn Richie.
I happen to have the lucky job of being
the president of our board for LOLA.
LOLA originally was named Land O'Lakes
Area Artisans, Inc.,
and as we matured we decided that that name
really didn't fit us.
People got a little confused.
We all call ourselves LOLA
and that's mostly how people know us.
But we have now become Land O'Lakes Arts.
Simple, easy.
People can understand it.
I would like to read our mission to you
and then I'm gonna talk a little bit
about my background and how I ended up
with LOLA and how LOLA actually got started.
Our mission is dedicated to promoting the arts
in northern Wisconsin
and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
LOLA will support local artists in fulfilling
their artistic potential while also bringing
enrichment, art education and beautification
to the people of the area,
which contributes to the vitality of the larger community.
It's important that we started with a mission statement
so we could move forward and continue
to remind ourselves how important
our mission statement is.
I moved to Land O'Lakes from Mercer
approximately 11, 12 years ago
and in Mercer I was very involved
on the Iron County development
and Mercer's development group.
Mercer's development group started with
myself and two other people and grew
and became quite a force in the community.
It really has done a great deal of education
for myself to learn how to be a leader.
We worked very hard with the UW.
I'm a big proponent of working with the UW.
They have all the resources you could ever need
or at least direct you in the right way.
So I would recommend that no matter
what you do,
whatever your life experiences become,
go ahead and partner with the UW.
LOLA started by a small development group
that was started in Land O'Lakes.
A gentleman on that group said he thought
arts was something that we should look into,
and he sent a survey out to all of the artists
that were listed in the Headwaters Art League
in the area,
and he got a 100% response for a survey,
which is amazing to get 100% response,
but we did.
And from that they held a meeting
and there were over 30-some people
of the artists that came to this first meeting
and that's where LOLA started.
In the very beginning we saw ourselves
with artists working and selling their artwork
and LOLA teaching art.
And when we did our 501(c)(3),
we found out that no,
we couldn't do that because we would be making,
we could not be a non-profit and make
so much money from the arts.
So we separated and there is Artistree Gallery,
totally separate from us,
a cooperative gallery of over 30 people
that do their artwork.
LOLA teaches, and that's our mission,
is to teach as I said.
We want to educate.
We want to beautify.
We want to bring vitality to our community.
We were lucky enough that people have
supported us right from the very beginning,
both emotionally, which we need a lot of,
and financially.
We just recently, a year ago in September,
bought the building that we had been renting.
Artistree Gallery is in that building
and they are a renter of ours now.
So that's worked,
that's been a great symbiotic relationship
because people come in to see the artwork,
then all of a sudden they see that they
have art classes and they direct them to us
and we have people come in that read
about our art classes,
take art classes and go oh my gosh,
this is a gorgeous gallery.
We invite all of you to come up and visit us.
Please let us know.
You can call our phone number.
We'll make sure you all get a business card
and we'd be glad to give you tours.
We love to have people come and see tours of our building.
So when we first started
we have a variety of board members
and that's part of that leadership
that when you have,
you were talking earlier about how
you work with your own core values
and yet you need to work with other people.
That's a real key component when you have
both artist and non-artist working
on a board together,
because artists, um, are wonderful.
(laughs)
(audience laughter)
Very flighty.
Not all of them, but many of them are,
and so we have to reign them in.
And then we had a bunch of business people.
And sometimes business people,
you have to remind them what the mission
statement is, and that's me.
I'm more on the business side.
I'm on the development.
I like to see that happen.
Periodically Wendy will remind me
when I come up with this great idea
she'll say, "You know, that's really not
"our core mission."
And go back, read that,
and go yeah, that's not,
you're right, Wendy.
We also in the very beginning did some things
like we knew we needed to have a website,
so somebody for $125 dollars, we had a Yahoo website.
Yeah, we didn't know anything about Facebook
and Instagram and all that stuff,
but it has become important
and we have found,
we actually have 42 Instagram followers.
We have a 15-year-old doing our Instagram.
(audience laughter)
- [Voiceover] It's their language.
- Yeah, exactly.
And we now have a Facebook page.
We partnered, now this is gonna sound interesting,
but we partnered with the University of Louisville.
Through networking we partnered with them
and they as a class took on LOLA
for our website.
Because we're a non-profit they were
able to do that and we are going to be
introducing our new website
which is 3000 times better than the one we had.
The other one, I used to tell people,
okay, you can go to our website,
but I'm really sorry.
It's really bad.
And just, honest, we're getting a new one.
Honest, we're getting a new one.
And so that will be introduced in February, I believe.
So you will be able to look on and see this
great new website that we have.
We also in the beginning did a strategic plan.
We did by-laws.
Not only did we do that
and a lot of times 501(c)(3)s,
you know, it's a little loosey-goosey.
We actually review them and make changes.
As we grow and change we actually make
changes to those.
We use Robert's Rules of Orders
at our meeting
which is also a good thing to have in place.
In the very beginning we didn't always do that
and sometimes that kind of bit us.
And as I said we've worked with the UW.
Chris has been invited to come to all
of our various meetings,
so as many as he can make he comes
and he's just there to give us little words
of advice and to make sure we're staying
true to what we need to do.
We use volunteers.
I am so happy to see two high school kids involved.
When we did the development group in Mercer
we had high school kids on our development board.
I wish that we could have high school kids
on the LOLA board.
I'm sure that our meetings just aren't
gonna work with high school being
as far away as it is.
That's gonna take up,
our meetings usually run two and a half
to three hours and then the travel time
wouldn't probably work,
but we would love to have that kind of input.
Networking,
as I said we work with the University of Louisville.
We've also worked with the University
of Wisconsin out of yeah,
Whitewater,
through their dance program.
The professor of dance there actually has
a home in Land O'Lakes and she--
-[Audience Question] (inaudible) - Say again?
- [Audience Question] Robin? - No, Barb Grub el.
And Barb's family's from Land O'Lakes.
She ended up dancing in New York
for many, many years.
Traveled the world with the Rockefeller Center
teaching dance.
Moved back to Wisconsin and ended up
teaching at Whitewater.
She developed a program for us
so we had a dance teacher come up in the summer
and teach dance to young and old.
And then the second year, and that was grant,
so we got a grant through the UW for that.
The second year we didn't have a grant for Miss Kelly
but we had another teacher that did theater.
So we, LOLA, paid for Miss Kelly to teach dance
and we had a theater program going
for the youth.
We've done that for five years.
This last year we didn't do theater.
Next year we're going to try to make sure
we get theater back along with dance.
It's been a very, very successful.
It is great to watch the production at the end.
The kids are joyful to watch dance.
Along with that networking comes networking
with various organizations
like Vilas County Development.
Like with our other chambers.
We are members of not only Land O'Lakes chambers,
but Phelps, Conover, Boulder Junction.
That's a real key component to network
and make sure that everybody knows what you're doing.
And we have
held events at our business that
are really not art-related at all.
It was just talking about economic development.
And we have found that we are
one of the cornerstones in our community
for economic development.
Who would've thought?
But we really are.
Wendy and I were recently in a local business,
all right, it was a bar,
and we were having a cocktail
(audience laughter)
and the bartender, when we walked in,
he goes, "Oh, here comes LOLA"
and we didn't even know the bartender.
And as we were leaving he said,
"You, LOLA, bring so much to the community.
"Thank you so much.
"You bring so much."
I mean, that's from a bartender in a little local bar.
We know our patrons.
We know that the rug hookers that come
every Monday,
that the knitters that come every Friday
and the watercolorists that come every Wednesday.
These are just free.
They come in, do they're little programs.
How much they appreciate that they have
a nice space to be able to be in.
Wendy works with homeschoolers.
She's gonna tell you all about the various
programs we do.
But we do try to reach out to the entire communities.
We do not think of ourselves as Land O'Lakes.
We are area.
That's where that first name came in
is that we added area to it because we are.
We're also a border town so we have Michigan
that we help.
A lot of the students in the Michigan area
as well as the adults.
We are not in competition
with any other art organization.
I don't think any business should ever
be in competition with any other like business.
You work together.
You bring more people in.
We are so fortunate with the arts groups
throughout our area.
Gay Sheffon has coined the phrase
"art corridor," and it really is.
It starts in Three Lakes and runs all the way
up through Eagle River, Land O'Lakes,
all the way up into Michigan.
And why not?
We really should work together.
The more there is the more reason
people will come to our area.
So that's a very, very important thing.
Ann Katz this past summer was visiting LOLA
and she said, "Are you guys comin' to the
"rural development thing that's being held in Mercer?"
And we went, huh?
And 'cause we're arts.
Why would we go to that?
And she said, "No, you really need to."
So another board member and I went.
And as you know Ann is a big personality
and is absolutely wonderful to have around.
Mary and I walked in and Ann announced
very loudly, "Thank goodness the arts are here."
(audience laughter)
We made connections at that meeting
that were so helpful to us.
Part of it was meeting representative from the governor.
So MaryAnn Lippert,
we're now on an email list, so we get,
well, Wendy and I went to the Governor's
rural development conference,
the governor's conference, rather,
on economic development.
And we weren't really sure
if this was something that we needed to go to,
that this was going to be of benefit to us,
but through that snowstorm,
driving 45 miles an hour to Trego, Wisconsin.
Do you all know where Trego is?
Yeah, it's way--
- [Voiceover] It's not near here.
- No, it's way.
And we drove slowly, got there,
and made wonderful connections.
One of the sad things we felt was
the Department of Tourism was there
and they had heads of all the different departments.
There was no arts.
Arts is now part of the Department of Tourism,
but there was no representation for the arts.
Right, so, but you will be happy to know
the prisoner, the head of the prison was there,
and she got up and she said,
"You know,"
they were talking,
they were talking about this governor's thing
and we were all saying what's going on with that?
Why are we not invited?
And she said, "We kind of pushed our way in."
And she says, "We're part of economic development."
She said, "Look at all the employees we have.
"They spend money.
"Look at all of the prison guards that we have
"in that whole system."
Not only that, she says, "We have a base
"of future employees that will be coming out of prison."
And so yeah, why wasn't arts there?
Arts is a big part of development.
So we all are gonna be writin' letters
to the Department of Tourism,
to Stephanie Klett,
and saying hey, we would like to see some
representation from the Wisconsin Arts Board
at the next governor's conference.
I want you all to be writing her too, please.
(audience laughter)
- [Voiceover] Make sure we have her address.
- Okay, we will.
Just Department of Tourism.
It's okay.
We constantly need to make sure,
step back and make sure that we're doing
with our arts what our community wants.
So as Ann alluded to,
we are going to be doing a round table.
We've done this once before
when we were doing our strategic plan.
Chris was involved with that,
helping us put that on.
This time we have a separate group
of community leaders who believe in LOLA
that will be monitoring the tables
because we don't feel it is a good idea
if we on the board are sitting at the tables
because if you had some complaint about us,
you're not gonna want to say it.
Whereas to a stranger, to not a board member,
you'd be able to say,
eh, you know, they do this,
I think that's dumb.
We will be giving them some ideas
of some of the things that we would
like to see happen or that we think
maybe the community would like to see happen.
Years ago one of our board members
talked about an art bus
and being able to take an art bus
up to Watersmeet
where they do not have art.
Taking it out to different resorts in the summer.
So we're looking at that.
Is that something they want to do?
We did find out that we're not doing a bus.
We're probably gonna do a trailer.
Um, Wendy said, "I'm not getting a CDL
"to drive any doggone bus."
So okay.
So I can barely wait to see her 'cause she's
this little, tiny car with this big trailer.
That's gonna be interesting.
But anyway,
so is the community interested in that?
Is the community interested in pottery?
And if they're interested in pottery,
are they interested in helping us
develop a place where we can do pottery?
Because we can't do it in the building
that we have now.
There's just a myriad of things that could happen.
Is it stuff that the community wants?
So that's what we're going to be doing
at that round table.
And from there we're going to be taking it
further steps to find out how we can
afford to do that.
We do do a bunch of free events for our community
and that's real, real important.
And I'm now going to hand this over to Wendy
because Wendy can explain to you
all the really cool things that we do.
(audience applause)
- So to follow Ann and Lynn,
but I'd like to talk directly about art again
and what art brings to us
and answer Chris's question to me which was,
"How does art bring vitality to a community?"
And I think LOLA does that
in a couple different ways.
First, I'm the programming director with LOLA,
and I've been with LOLA since its inception.
I was one of those people who answered that survey
that came back.
I said yes to every question.
The questions were "Do you want to see art in your community?"
Yes.
So you show up at a meeting and pretty soon you're on a board
and pretty soon you're hired and working part-time
and then pretty soon you're a full-time
programming director.
So I organize and coordinate all the classes.
I get to work with artists every day,
which is great for me.
I am myself an artist, as well.
Self-employed artist since the '90s.
And art has been a part of my life all my life.
I also rent studio space in downtown,
at Land O'Lakes.
So another little way of bringing some
vitality to the community,
having artists embedded there.
I'm also a member of that cooperative gallery
that sprung up from LOLA,
which is a great, great place.
There's so many artists up here.
And I love that all of you said that you had
something in your life that's creative.
We all do.
I think sometimes we don't even recognize
the things about us that are creative
in preparing a meal,
or putting a little extra flourish in something,
or thinking of something new to do
with a dish as we go along.
That's art.
Right there you've just created something totally new.
Or maybe even the way that you have
a little extra flourish on your signature.
That's an artful expression.
That art is everywhere,
every day in all of us
and why it's important here to continue
to grow that in our souls and in our spirit
and in our communities.
It's just something that we all seek
and we all need, all the time.
I think as this community,
we've identified that we have a variety of people,
but a lot of people who have retired here
and are looking to rekindle some of
that art that they had earlier in their lives,
so we're providing classes for them.
We're providing classes for students
within our school system.
An extra experience in art.
So these are some of the things
that an art center in your community can do.
Giving vitality back to the community.
First it's for personal vitality,
for yourself to seek out those opportunities,
a place to go and participate in art.
Maybe learning something new that you've
always wanted to try
or meet an artist.
Sometimes people I think seem afraid
to approach an artist and ask some questions.
Artists are very willing to share.
It was part of my experience.
I wanted to share what I did always
and why I joined in LOLA right away.
And happy to work with such a hardworking board.
They do so much for the community
and behind the scene, too.
It's just a really pleasant experience.
I had all these great notes here
and I thought well,
I'm just gonna talk about what we do
actually for the community
and all these things that we do do
bring the vitality.
First starting at that personal level.
If you're empowered and feel good
about your community and you have
a place to go to do those things
that you've always wanted to do or learn
or share what you do,
it's gonna come back.
And having an arts center within a small town
like ours gives a sense of pride
to the residents.
We have this here in our community.
Come see us.
We've become a destination place.
I hear it over and over again.
So great that you're here.
People can come and view art,
see if they wanna take a class,
see what others are doing.
We're hoping to expand some of our programming
into more musical or performance art venues
so that's gonna be another offering
that we're looking at down the road.
So LOLA does quite a bit
and I keep hearing it over and over.
We're so glad you're here.
So needed in our community.
And we're a town of about 800.
It's just wonderful to hear that everyone
who comes through that door is surprised.
This is so unexpected.
There are so many artists who live up here
and one of the things LOLA had recognized
when we first started with that first survey,
all these people that answered these questions,
they're all out here.
And we just tap them for sharing their talents.
The basis of our programs come directly
from our community members, the majority.
I have had some other artists
come from another part of the state.
Now that we own the building
we're lucky that we have an apartment area
where we can house artists
coming in from other areas.
This fall we had a very distinguished
watercolor artist come from Sweden.
How do you know about Land O'Lakes?
That's a long story.
Friend of a friend of a, and a Facebook,
and all of that.
But he was incredible and shared his talent
with our members
and the people who took his class
were just so tickled.
He was a very interesting person
and to have someone come from Sweden
to see Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin was pretty cool.
We also have another artist coming soon
from Madison.
This is her second time coming with us.
She is making glass beads with our students
and is so popular that she's coming back
for a second class,
so she'll stay in that apartment, too.
So that building is getting utilized
for a lot of things in a lot of different ways.
Also the fee programming that we do,
LOLA felt it was very important
to have access to art as much as possible
and in many ways,
and I knew that there were several groups
who met in homes.
Now they come to the art center.
We have a rug hooking guild
and they're called the Land O'Lakes Hookers.
They have a lot of fun with that name.
(audience laughter)
So every Monday they're there doing their craft
which is intricate, detailed and beautiful.
And all original work.
And there's about 12 of them that come
every Monday and use the space.
We offer that space for free.
Wednesday is for Watercolor Wednesdays
and painters of all sorts, water media come,
and hang out and support one another
and learn from one another.
We have knitters on Friday
and now we have a new formed group.
It's coloring book sessions for adults.
Everyone is into coloring books.
Now we talked about stress relief
and that is a big thing right now
that everybody's getting back into
that creative side,
that child within that allows ourselves to draw,
and coloring is a nice way to start.
And from there they're gonna take maybe
a drawing class or a painting class.
So yeah, lots of different free events
that LOLA has done throughout the community
and become I would call successful.
And people always wanting to come in and share,
and we're continually working on some
new ways to do that.
We've also done,
and you're gonna see some of these pictures,
projects outside.
And one of our tag lines is we are a campus
for the creative spirit.
Our space is quite small,
so we didn't need that overture center,
but we needed a room
and we needed to have our supplies,
but when we have some other events going on
we are utilizing the elementary school
which puts our community members
in touch with the school and what's happening there
and our children.
It's a beautiful school.
They have a wonderful stage.
We use our church basements, as well.
They're great places to hold bigger functions
and line dancing.
We have line dancing every Tuesday
all summer long.
That group has expanded.
They're spilling out of the church.
I don't know where I'm gonna put them now,
but I'll find another spot.
So a lot of socialization for our community members
through the arts here.
All of these things bringing I think
a great vitality back to the area.
LOLA did approach
the building as a rental first.
It had been closed for two and a half years,
so here we are coming in,
offering our services.
The owner said, "Yeah, I think this sounds like
"a good idea.
"I'll let you rent in there."
So we took up a space that was vacant.
I'm looking forward to this summer
working on some of the other vacant spaces
that are in our community as pop up places
for music or galleries or exhibit spaces.
So something to think about within the community.
Don't look at it as a bad thing.
Look at it as an opportunity I think
to go forward and put something new in there.
And arts can always turn to an artist,
they'll help you out, I think,
and they do so much with so little.
They'd be willing to sit in an empty space
to share what they do.
Okay, I think I will show you some of these pictures now.
So just to overview
of a lot of the things we have done.
There are state-liners there.
Pictures speak a thousand words, right?
Here's our coloring book people.
That is 18 people stuffed in our room coloring away.
Those are the rugs from the rug hookers.
And that was an exhibit called the Floor Show
that we did.
This was a rustic craft class that we just did
for the holiday season.
An English high tea.
You can see we have quite a bit of variety.
This is one of the kids with their leather work.
We have summer classes for kids.
We see over 195 students this past summer
in an eight week period.
There's our bugle boy from our dance recital.
This is his first time dancing.
This is a local teacher from Three Lakes
doing a painting class.
There's an arty monster created from clay.
So all kinds of materials kids have access to.
We also do a program, Youth Art Month.
Here's one of our artists.
He was critiquing kid's work that we hang and show.
Some grandkids in there, I think, of Lynn.
More dance students.
LOLA just has such a fun time with such
a great variety.
And this is some of our patrons at a fundraiser
that we do.
And all ages taking classes and learning new things.
This is at Sunrise Lodge.
We did go out there and bring our materials
and work with those people out there.
Here's our Swedish artist painting with the adults
at a church basement.
And they were learning all kinds of new techniques
that unfamiliar to us here in America.
And materials.
He brought over some European materials
they got to use.
We like to feed people. (audience laughter)
Come visit us.
Every time we have a function there's a lot
of good food.
Here's our girls.
They're all smiling there.
We had a board at the Blizzard Blast
that we painted up and people could take their picture.
That was at our holiday event.
A harpist came and demonstrated.
More painting.
Lucky I get to have such a great family
of artists coming from the cooperative gallery
that's right next door.
I have 32 friends that I get to call on
and teach for us.
And there's our board members working hard
at our new room.
Yeah, an artist demonstrating within the gallery space.
Some felting.
Cooking classes, very popular.
The culinary arts, everybody loves that.
She's a local chef.
Jessica from Eagle River.
Chef Mike McAdams.
He's a Land O'Lakes resident.
Was a restaurant owner.
Here's that coloring book and they're drinking tea.
Tea, crumpets, and colors for that.
And so many wonderful volunteers.
One thing I loved about this community
and why I moved up north from the Milwaukee area,
the volunteerism and the connection
with community people have here.
One of our game nights.
This is a Kandinsky project.
Kids get to learn about artists.
More coloring. So popular.
That was at Halloween time.
Picasso self portraits.
I just did that with my homeschool class.
Yesterday one of the students said to me,
"That Picasso, he's a crazy dude, but I like him."
(audience laughter)
So I'm glad they got to learn about Picasso.
This is the glass bead making.
Such an unusual thing.
I was quite worried about 10 torches
being lit up in our small art room,
but they did well.
No one burned the place down.
We remodeled this year.
As we have grown, gotten new cabinetry.
We didn't expand our space,
we just made it more efficient.
We brought in the kiters.
A kite club from Milwaukee area here.
They flew their kites over the Land O'Lakes
airport in July.
That's one of our theater images.
We give scholarships.
These three students,
maybe some of you know them from the high school,
got to go to a music camp at UW Stevens Point.
More Kandinsky work.
This is part of the Youth Art Month.
LOLA frames over 125 pieces of art,
one from each student at the elementary school
and we hang it in the gallery.
The artists take down their work
and we put up the work for them.
We give them our artist's reception.
They get to see their work hung in a gallery setting.
It's pretty cool.
That's coming up.
I'll be working with artist Debbie Gersick
on some collaborative art
with the homeschool students.
We also incorporate their work into that exhibit.
We hire an intern for the summer.
We actually pay them a stipend to work
and teach with us.
They are usually arts education majors.
Our last one was a fine arts major
and she did a great job.
LOLA likes to have a lot of fun at Halloween.
This is a quilt lecture.
An artist from our community, a quilt artist,
is also a historian.
She brought her Civil War era quilts
that we got to view and talk about.
This year we did 28 classes
for adults for the year.
35 for kids.
And 27 free offerings
this summer alone.
And that has grown from our very first year with four.
We started with four classes
and it just took off like a rocket.
Everybody was so happy to have something to do.
We've become that destination place.
We've become that gathering place for community.
We've come to that place for creativity.
Creativity, the energy that happens within
an art space is pretty incredible.
It feeds off of one another.
If you're afraid about doing anything,
come to a class and try it.
You will sit next to a child and they will say
get in there and do it.
This is the Before I Die wall.
This was an international mural project
that we had put up.
That was a fantastic summer offering.
It was up all summer on a business outside.
People got to write their hopes and dreams.
Really gets you to see the pulse of the community.
It was great.
More images from our Youth Art Month.
Those kids are so proud to have their work framed.
Another event there.
And bead making.
We do just a huge variety of classes.
So our high tea,
we learned about the history of tea,
how to make tea properly,
and of course they dressed up.
(audience laughter)
And LOLA gets funky outside.
We love to decorate our building
and we get artists to help us with the outdoors.
Another goal for the future would be
some additional public art
in our community.
I think again another draw as a destination place.
Let's have our talented people put the art outside
where people can see it or touch it.
Experience it.
So that's all I have for you.
I encourage you like Lynn said to come
and visit LOLA.
See what's going on in our community for art.
Meet your neighbors who are creative people
who are making a living doing what
they do up here and sharing what they love.
We all moved up here I think for the reason
that it's beautiful.
That art that surrounds us, inspires us all the time,
and make sure art is a part of what you do
and who you are.
I think you'll enjoy your life much better
if you keep in touch with that artistic child
that's still there
and have that good stress relief
that we need so much in this day and age especially.
I'll let this just run.
You can kind of look.
And does anyone have any questions
for me directly?
(audience applause)