Cover art for the Collector’s Edition coloring book with Baylor’s drawing of The Wood Gatherer, 1881 by Jules Bastien-Lepage.
This coloring book is a perfect dialogue between myself as an artist and the art museum in my hometown. –Reginald Baylor
Ted and I visited Reginald Baylor’s studio space in development in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood to talk about his new coloring book collaboration with the Art Museum during a freakishly cold spring storm.
Car heater roaring and windshield wipers racing, we pulled up to a charming mid-century building on the corner of Sherman and North that was clearly undergoing an exciting renovation and re-invention by the Finney Arts Incubator.
Lineup of contest entries in the offices hallway. Photo by Donele Pettit-Mieding.
Want to know what energizes an art museum staff, beyond knowing that we share a world-class art collection with almost 400,000 people a year?
Believe it or not, for the Milwaukee Art Museum staff it was a coloring contest.
Of course, it helps when that coloring contest is both inspired by and judged by Wisconsin artist Reginald Baylor. (And also, when the prize involves a free lunch with the artist.)
