While the county has launched a planning initiative called Parks with Purpose to help determine the future of the parks system, a nonprofit watchdog group Preserve Our Parks aims to keep Milwaukee area parks open and green while battling for funds to maintain them.
Local landscape painter Beth Stoddard plans to paint each of the County’s urban green spaces in a project called Parkscapes. Stoddard was initially dismayed by the lack of landscapes in Milwaukee County, until she began partaking in plein air sessions at nearby parks, which she discovered were ideal for her purpose.
Stoddard’s paintings feature imagery of the lush greenery, tranquil bodies of water and wandering paths that sheathe the County’s 158 parks and 11 parkways.
“These paintings are works of art responding to a cultural, natural, and civic inheritance worth preserving,” Stoddard says in her artist statement.
The first wave of Stoddard’s plein air oil paintings can be viewed or purchased now through Dec. 2 at the Leenhouts Gallery (1342 N. Astor St.).
