Perimeter Project becomes a book

 Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee originally commissioned photographer

Kevin J. Miyazaki

    to create a modern portrait of Lake Michigan.

He decided to drive around the lake, taking portraits of the water and of the people along the shoreline.
What emerged, as Mary Louise Schumacher, art and architecture critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says, was a 
"A wonderfully perceptive interrogation of landscape, portraiture, cartography, and place."

Kevin J. Miyazaki at the Perimeter installation at the Haggerty Museum

A wall of human portraits faced a wall of lake portraits 

Celebrating the opening of Perimeter with Miyazaki 

I was honored to be a subject of this project and to attend opening night.

The project has now evolved into a lovely selection of these portraits in book form published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

The book

Many shots of Lake Michigan are included

Amy Lukas and Mary Catterlin -- who traversed the perimeter of the lake in a dugout canoe that they made -- are featured

Kids at Lake Michigan 

Workers on the Mackinac Bridge

Police chief and park ranger

My portrait and quote about Lake Michigan

The vast waters of Lake Michigan

Heartfelt congratulations to Kevin on this lovely book. For more information and to order a signed copy of your own, click HERE.

Perimeter: Photographs by Kevin J. Miyazaki

The intersection of long-distance hiking and fine art photography doesn't happen too often, but when it does...WOW.

Meeting up with the artist, Kevin J. Miyazaki, at the opening

When Kevin J. Miyazaki contacted me last summer about being part of his photography project commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, I was intrigued. 

I met Kevin in the lakeshore town of Saugatuck, Michigan, where he told me more about the project. He was attempting to create a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan through images of people connected to the lake: residents, beachgoers, scientists, dock and iron workers, environmentalists, artists, fishermen, ferry captains, boat builders, and more.

And when he searched for people with connections to the lake, my name came up. He asked me to bring all of my hiking gear along for the portrait:

Portrait by Kevin J. Miyazaki

 Kevin sifted through the hundreds of portraits he took on his drive around the perimeter of Lake Michigan. He also took hundreds of images of the lake and sky.

In the exhibit space at the Haggerty Museum of Art, he covered one wall with portraits, and the other with the images of Lake Michigan. 

The effect is stunning. The diverse people with their various connections to the lake look at you from one wall, and the lake gives movement and depth to the opposite wall. 

These images speak to each other, and there is always something new to discover as you stand in the midst of Miyazaki's work.

My mom (right) and my sister, Leslie (center), travelled with me to Milwaukee for the opening of the exhibit

How cool is that?

My mom (Left) and sister (Right)

The catalogue from the exhibit includes quotes from people photographed

  My quote:

I am magnetically drawn to that place where water meets the sand. 

There's something about that edge. 

I feel as if I've "clicked in" when I walk it. 

It is along the shores of Lake Michigan that I return to center myself, to contemplate life, to think the long, unbroken thoughts that modern life interrupts.

Me and my lake!

The photographer with his work

The exhibit will be at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, through May 19 of this year. After that, there are plans for the exhibit to travel, so I'll post that information when it is available on my Facebook Author Page (please "Like" it to get updates).

THE PERIMETER PROJECT

I had the great pleasure of meeting the photographer 

Kevin J. Miyazaki yesterday in Saugatuck, Michigan.  

He is making his way around Lake Michigan over two weeks.  The Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee has commissioned Miyazaki journey.  He is searching for people connected to Lake Michigan.

Kevin J. Miyazaki, Photographer

From Miyazaki's statement about the project:

When completed, I hope to have a collection of portraits which represent Lake Michigan in human terms - in the faces of people spanning its 1600 miles of shoreline - whose lives are connected and enriched by the presence of this beautiful body of water.

Some of the Portraits for the PERIMETER PROJECT

I am honored to be included in this project.

The exhibit will open at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee in January 2013.  

Here's the photo of me that will be included in the exhibit!

Learn more about Miyazaki's work and the Perimeter Project HERE and HERE.