MILWAUKEE CENTER/SAINT KATE

One of the more interesting building complexes in downtown Milwaukee is the Milwaukee Center, which includes four theater venues, an office tower, and a hotel, all surrounding a central atrium.  The hotel recently changed hands and was remodeled as one with an arts motif that goes by the name Saint Kate--The Arts Hotel.  I recently visited the complex and hotel with my camera.

I was impressed with the new hotel.  Its common areas included a number of small galleries that feature, shall we say, "different" art displays.

One gallery included displays of items of dated technology devices.  Here are a couple.

The first is an array of laptops, the second a handsaw that is covered with a circuit board.

Another unusual piece was located in a stairway.

Other pieces were slightly more conventional, including this one that is comprised of symmetrically arrayed drawings of butterflies.

One piece that I especially liked was a mobile located in the hotel lobby.  I worked quite a bit in post processing to isolate the mobile visually from its background.

Here is a shot of one portion of the mobile.

But my favorite piece of art was a painting of an individual.  What was interesting was not the subject matter but the artist's technique, sort of a pointillism that featured "blobs" of paint rather than small dots.

In keeping with past practice, I took a number of shots of just a portion of the painting, which highlights the technique and shows that a seeming random collection of blotches of various colors can collectively create a recognizable subject.

It was at about this point that a security guard for the hotel approached to inform me that photography of the artwork in the hotel was forbidden.  Oops.  I thanked him and left the hotel with my camera to photograph the central atrium and related public portions of the building complex.

I did like the composition of one shot of an open staircase from a second level.

But most of the shots I took were of walkways between the various areas of the complex leading to the entrances.  It was a sunny day and I liked the patterns created by the sunlight streaming through the glass-panelled arches above the walkways, including the reflections off the highly polished floors.   Here are some of those shots.  Some I left in color.

Others I converted to black and whites.

My favorite was this last.

John