Can-Can Dancers at the Milwaukee Art Museum

If you live in the Milwaukee, WI area or are planning a trip there, make sure you visit the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM.org).  Their latest installation, Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries will be available from June 1 to September 9, 2012.  As quoted from the website, the exhibit will include dazzling posters "that were the objects of intense fascination, even mania, and a new term was invented to describe it: affichomanie (poster mania). They were so popular that collectors stole them from billboards almost as soon as they were pasted up, bought posters from print dealers, and subscribed to portfolios that offered the most popular images of the day in reduced sizes for their collections or as home décor. Posters that found their way into private homes eventually entered the collections of museums all over the world."

Even in my own home I have collected a few French poster images.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Needless to say, I was honored and suuuper excited when MAM store buyer,  Brieanne Maldonado, contacted me with a request to create some custom pieces relating to the poster exhibit.  With Brieanne's approval and inspiration from the posters like the ones above I created these fun and unique Cancan dancer stick puppets, finger puppets and paper dolls.

Even more exciting, I have made a life-sized Cancan dress made of paper for display (and purchase) at the museum.  These projects were such a privilege to create and such fun to work on.  

More info. with pictures on my collaboration with the Milwaukee Art Museum Store will follow in another post....