"To commit to memory" at Miller Art Museum

This reminds me of the June 4th, 1969 tornado on the farm where I grew up. My parents insured the 40-foot cement block silo for $800 as they thought a windstorm would only take the metal roof but the silo was completely totaled. The tornado did $1200 worth of damage just to the house but we lost the machine shed, horse barn, cow barn, the corn crib, the garage, and the barn across the road. Dad was in the cellar prepping potatoes to plant but came up during the middle of the storm to investigate. I think mother found her steel mixing bowl out with the silo cement blocks in the pasture. 

I came out to my parents in 2007 over the telephone (at the time I lived in Brooklyn). Both my parents were on the line and I distinctly remember sitting on the floor in my closet. I was 29 years old and deeply worried my parents would disown me, much like how my mom ceased contact with a sister who moved in with a boyfriend prior to marriage. The worst-case scenario did not materialize, however, a fissure opened that day. My parents chose, and continue to choose, not to repair, rejecting some of the most vibrant parts of me. 2023, 2026

Sturgeon Bay, WI – The Miller Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of its latest exhibition in the 12 x 12 Project, which features Milwaukee-based multimedia artist Lois Bielefeld. The exhibition will be on view in downtown Sturgeon Bay from August 1 through August 31. The public is invited to attend an Artist Talk with the artist on Saturday, August 1 at 4 pm. A public reception will follow the talk and is free and open to the public.

Featured in Lois Bielefeld | 12 x 12 Project is a portion of their ongoing series, To commit to memory. Developed over the past several years, the work centers on Bielefeld’s parents and the home that has shaped their shared history. It began with a recurring morning ritual: the artist’s mother, an Evangelical Christian, reciting passages of Scripture from memory while holding a plank position. Rather than treating the gesture as an anecdote, Bielefeld approaches it as a system of meaning through which belief is practiced, embodied, and carried forward—tracing how memory resides not only in recollection, but in the body, the home, and the repeated actions that organize everyday life.

Collaboration is central to the project. The portraits—carefully orchestrated reenactments of lived experiences—are built through negotiation between artist and subject. Rather than resolving difference, the work occupies the space where opposing beliefs continue to coexist within a shared act of making. As Bielefeld’s parents age and caregiving becomes part of the exchange, the project gains an added dimension without shifting its central inquiry: time becomes visible, and looking is transformed from passive observation into an act of presence.

Exhibition Dates: Aug 1-Aug 31
Artist Talk: Aug 1 4PM with reception to follow
Miller Art Museum
107 S. 4th Ave,
Sturgeon Bay
Door County, Wisconsin, 54235