Art museum patrons love to wear their cultural visits on their lapels. In New York, you spy folks all over midtown with little MoMA pins attached with that fold-over metal flap.
Milwaukee Art Museum’s round white sticker depicting the iconic brise soleil in blue had perhaps even more cache here in Brew City. It didn’t take long for the stickers to fuel a little tradition, too.
When folks would leave the museum, often they’d slap their sticker onto one of a couple light posts along Lincoln Memorial Drive, near the northerly entrance to Art Museum Drive. The poles have, consequently, been practically wallpapered with stickers from ground level up to a level just out of arm’s reach for humans of average height.
But now that tradition may begin to diminish as quickly as the blue decoration on the old stickers has faded in the sun.
When I went to check out "Color Rush" I found that MAM has changed its tickets and the little round brise soleil sticker is no more.
I learned that MAM changed its ticket printing system to allow tickets to be adorned with images from the current exhibition, which is nice. But the lapel sticker is now square and lacks the aesthetic touch of its predecessor.
While the entire ticket looks flashier now, the admission sticker itself has been diminished. It is no longer something you want to affix to a post for all passersby to see.
But, on the other hand, the DPW will probably rejoice that this is the kind of a sticker a patron peels off and tosses in the trash at the Milwaukee Art Museum exit.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
