Sooooo – what did you do during pandemic lockdown? Try new recipes? Watch Netflix nonstop? Zoom with friends? Yeah, me too.
Also, after about the first four months or so of lockdown I finally admitted to myself that this thing was not ending anytime soon. The spot on the couch where I’d lodged myself needed a break, and I needed to get myself moving. As in literally moving my body, on a regular basis, for my physical health and mental wellbeing.
I started walking.
First just through the park near my house – which is a world class gorgeous park, btw. Lake Park in Milwaukee was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, same guy who designed the Chicago World’s Fair more than a century ago, and has been a favorite spot of mine since I was a child. I often snap pics of the park while I am there. The designer and artist in me can’t help but be wowed by the sights, and I am compelled to grab my phone and snap, snap, snap.
My daily walks started growing in length as the weeks and months progressed. I started heading further and further north along the avenues and boulevards of treelined neighborhoods around here – Murray Hill, Historic Water Tower Neighborhood, Upper East Side, Downer Woods. And further on still to the north I continued, into Shorewood and up to Atwater Park, and then on to Whitefish Bay, and Big Bay Park.
I don’t walk fast, but I walk far.
I monitored my walks with an app – because that’s what we do now. My average walk started at around 2-3 miles and now has increased to a daily walk of 6-7 miles. Days when I have extra time I go up to 9 miles.
The reason I share all this – besides the fact that my pants fit a lot better now – is that during these walks I have been snapping photos. For a year now. Photos almost every day. I got…a lot…of photos.
What does one do with all these photos? Post to Facebook, of course. Initial posts were just on my personal page, and I added to each one the hashtag #mkebeautiful. This grew into a Facebook page specifically for my MKE Beautiful photos. And this has now grown into a book idea.
I’m no writer
While I liked the concept of publishing a book of photos, I was at a loss as to developing content. While I write stuff like this – my blog – I bear no illusions that I would be able to tackle becoming an author out of the blue. Instead, at the suggestion of my husband, I contacted Bobby Tanzilo. Those interested in Milwaukee might recognize his name as the columnist at OnMilwaukee that writes “Urban Spelunking”. In this column is Bobby tours local places of architectural interest, researches their history, interviews inhabitants or people who know history of the place, and writes up charming and informative narratives about them. I’d been following the column for a long time and was thrilled when Bobby agreed to work on this book idea with me.
East side architecture
The photos I’ve been taking are of all sorts of things that catch my eye, but a big theme are the homes in the area. Those who are not familiar, this side of town is filled with beautiful homes of all shapes and sizes, most of which were built a century ago. I’ve always been interested in architecture, so it seemed a good fit to ask Bobby to write up a chapter on the architecture of each different neighborhood that is on my regular walking route. On top of that, we’ve singled out 7 different architects who worked in the area some from a century ago, some more recent – to focus on for their own chapters. In all, the book will have 14 chapters.
Oh yeah, I can draw
In addition to the photos that will fill the book with color, I plan to also incorporate illustrations, maps and possibly portraits of the architects (if I can find source material – which is proving to be difficult).
All in all, I’m pretty excited about this. We have decided to shoot for a publishing date of summer 2022, which gives me plenty of time to get this project together. And plenty of time to keep taking more photos too. (That reminds me, I may have to increase storage space on my phone…)
Pre-sales are the way to go
Next spring, I plan to start a crowdfunding page where I’ll be able to take orders for pre-sales of the book. Seems to make sense to me to get a hand in the costs of publishing (this is not cheap) and also to get a read on how many folks are interested in buying. I’ve had a lot of interest expressed in this book but you don’t know until you know, right? There’s some line about chickens and eggs, I think.
