Sink Mandala, Kohler Design Center, Kohler, Wisconsin, October 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
sinks, tubs, and faucets
beauty in beholder’s eye
form follows function
dazzled by bathrooms
Zen nests of relaxation
“sink into our tubs”
preconceived notions
dance and spin down spotless drains
life imitates art
We visited the Kohler Design Center after a writing retreat on Lake Michigan in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. Most fascinating to me was the history of Kohler Company, founded in 1873 when Austrian immigrant John Michael Kohler purchased a cast iron and steel 
foundry in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The company made anything you can imagine out of cast iron and porcelain — from radiators to the first sink dishwasher. From farm implements to a generator for Admiral Byrd for one of his Antarctic expeditions.
Many of these vintage items are housed in the basement museum where we spent at least an hour walking around last week. The top photo is a shot of the inside of a black porcelain sink reflecting daylight through a large picture window. Sinks, tubs, and toilets never looked better. After you visit Kohler Design Center, you’ll not only want a new bathroom, you won’t be able to imagine spending time anywhere else.
Last time I was in Sheboygan County for a writing retreat, our host Jude took us to visit the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Same family, in full support of the Arts. The museum’s director is artist Ruth DeYoung Kohler, granddaughter of John Michael Kohler (her portrait hangs in the Kohler Design Center). She must love her work; she’s been the director for 37 years. The museum is housed in the 19th-century Italianate mansion that once belonged to her grandfather.
An hour north of Milwaukee, the Kohler Arts Center is known for giving back and building community through the Arts. Each year, between 16 and 22 artists are selected from hundreds of applicants to spend two to six months working in Kohler Company’s Iron and Brass Foundries, Pottery, 
and Enamel Shop. Kohler Arts is also on the map for exhibiting Outsider or self-taught art with particular attention paid to large scale installations and architecture. You can read more about the Kohler in the New York Times article by Jori Finkel, Way Off the Beaten Path, Letting the Outsiders In.
Another thing the Kohler is famous for? Its 7 theme based bathrooms painted and designed by artists. What could be more natural? 
According to the website, “the washrooms were one of the few public spaces where permanently installed works of art would be considered, serving to uphold the Arts Center‘s philosophy that art can enliven, enrich, and inform every facet of our everyday lives.”
If you’re ever in Sheboygan County, add the Kohler Design Center and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center to your list of enriching experiences. And prepare to start saving for a newly designed bathroom.
The Arts Center shall continue its leadership roles of nourishing diversity and building community through the arts. In all programming, the Arts Center shall cultivate connections: between artists and audiences, between artists and communities, between emerging and established artists, between local and visiting artists, between the Arts Center and other organizations, between art forms, and between past and present.
Luxury Bath, Swirl, Black & White, Above: Wall Of Toilets, Kohler Design Center, Leave It All Behind, Everyday Art, Things That Are Round, Kohler Design Center, Kohler, Wisconsin, October 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, October 15th, 2009
-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), State Of The Arts (haiku for Kuan-Yin), Walking Your Talk (Do The Arts Matter), Martín Ramírez In Rain Taxi, Gripped By Cathy Wysocki
redravine.wordpress.com 
Please, do not miss either the Kohler Design Center or the Kohler Arts Center. These two little treasures are tucked away in the Sheybogan area. We were lucky enough to know someone who had visited both places and highly recommended that we see both of them.
The Kohler Arts Center, where the staff recommends that you see both the men’s and women’s restrooms because of the custom created fixtures, was a fantastic place.
Because I love bathrooms as habitats, the Kohler design center was it. Made me want to have 30 different bathrooms all in different styles. The infinity tub caught my attention.
The Village of Kohler where the design center is located is a little like Stepford in the uniformness of buildings, but a great place to eat chocolate, have lunch, and see a planned village.
QM, thanks for the memories on this cold, October morning in the heart of America.
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Bob, I’m up and getting ready for work. Out the door soon. Saw your comment and wanted to say thanks for reminding me of the chocolate place in Kohler. Do you remember the name of that chocolate place?
Remember how I bought Liz two turtles before we left? I just asked her how they were. She said, “Ohhhhh, those were freakin’ awesome. Where can I get more?!”
So now I’m wondering if you can order online from the Kohler chocolate place. I also remember them saying that (I believe) the head of Kohler tries all the chocolates and gives his stamp of approval. Did I make that up?
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Oh, I had one of the cookies at the chocolate place. Delicious. I thought of buying Liz a Kohler chocolate bar but I think they were $8 a piece. Maybe they are worth is after tasting the turtles. I also wanted to say, I’m with you. I highly recommend both of these art centers if people are in the area. You won’t be sorry. I remember last year when we were at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and they had an installation where they had moved a man’s house into the gallery. Do you remember that? I think he was from Texas. I need to look it up and get my facts straight. The Kohler does a lot of architectural Outsider art.
Kohler really did seem like a planned development in terms of the living spaces. But the people were so nice. The two chocolateers behind the Kohler counter were especially fun to talk to about the town. It’s cold here in Minnesota this morning, too. Supposed to be freezing rain. And it’s so dark!
I’m heading for Pennsylvania on Saturday, then driving to Georgia for a week. I wonder if it’s going to be warmer there? They’ve had some cold temps and rain this Fall.
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This is a great post and it definitely makes me want to visit. Your photos are wonderful QM, especially the way you’ve captured the movement of light in the sinks. In the last photo, the light appears similar to a swirl of water going down the drain, a fabulous effect!
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In the second photo from the top, you can see the wall where they have multi-colored toilets floor to ceiling on an enormous wall. How can toilets be astonishing? They were.
Being at the museum (and reading about how the Kohlers have used their wealth to give back to the community) was really inspiring. They’ve set things in place that will last far beyond their lives. Every time I go to a Carnegie Library I have the same sensation.
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Teri, the toilet photos and the multiples of sinks and other items also caught my attention. I love the multiples and how they’re displayed.
QM, also loved the sink drain mandalas. What gorgeous photos, all of them. They have such an organic feel to them.
I also read the NYT article on the Kohler Arts Center, and its focus on Outsider Art. They show some of the artists’ pieces in a slideshow. One is from a Vietnam Vet who since returning from Vietnam has painted skulls and floating eyeballs, until his entire apartment was filled with his art. The Center acquired all of it, 4,000 pieces. Amazing.
What a wonderful legacy the grandchildren of Kohler have created. Apparently they work together, one as director of the Center, the other as company president, to sponsor much of the work of the Center.
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Speaking of multiples, I watched a PBS documentary about Andy Warhol after we left Wisconsin (we almost went to see a Warhol exhibit in Milwaukee, but ran out of time).
Anyway, as a child Andy went to Mass many times a week with his mother. They showed the front of the church (behind the altar) where there were multiple pictures of saints stacked one on top of another. They thought this constant exposure to multiples likely influenced his art.
His famous Campbell’s Soup Paintings are at the Modern Museum of art. There are 32 of them; Andy never wanted them to be split up. Has anyone seen them?
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Wonderful to see this post! Thanks, QM. I love sharing some of Wisconsin’s many treasures with the rest of the country. There is a tendency for people who haven’t visited this state to think that dairy farms and breweries are all we do here. No no. The arts are thriving in Wisconsin.
The chocolate shop is called The Craverie, by the way. You can order chocolates by going to http://www.kohlerathome.com/c495631.html
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Jude,
Did you go see the Warhol exhibit yet?
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I haven’t gone yet, no. I want to.
By the way, the soup cans aren’t just at MOMA. There’s at least one at the Milwaukee Art Museum and I think I’ve seen one at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The current Warhol exhibit in Milwaukee is the artist’s later work. Different, I think, from soup cans. I’ll let you know after I’ve seen it.
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I’ve poked around on the Internet to see what the scoop is on the soup cans, as in the documentary, they were emphatic that the original 32 canvases of soup were kept together.
From what I can tell, the 32 are still intact at the MOMA, but Andy painted some subsequent soup cans…perhaps that’s what is at the Milwaukee museum. When you go to see the display, corner a curator and find out.
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Wonderful post QM – love it all. I’ll be back-tracking to check all the links but very informative and as usual, enthusiastic. You make me wish I had been there.
…. and did you realize you’re engendering ENVY with those photos?? Brilliant work; good eye.
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Norm, you got a new avatar. I love it — bright and makes me smile. Thank you for your comment about the photos. Hope you get to see Kohler Arts and the Kohler Design Center sometime. I was mesmerized by the Kohler Design Center.
There was so much to photograph there. And so many different ways of seeing. I think that’s part of what good design does for us — gives us a new way to think about and see what might seem ordinary. I have to admit, I am excited about these new photographs. I’m starting a new mandala series based on those and a few others I took at the writing retreat. Hope to post more of these as I go along.
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breathepeace, thank you, too. These photos sparked something in me. I took some time to learn more about my camera when I was at the writing retreat. It renewed and energized my photo practice. Partly because I now have to slow down to use the new settings. I’m inspired to take photos on the trip to Georgia and PA next week, too.
Thanks to you both for stopping by! I was so exhausted last night, I had to retire early and didn’t have time to comment. Squeezing a few in before work.
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Jude, yes, Craverie! You know what’s strange? When I was cleaning out my purple lunch bucket last night (yes, I have a lunch bucket) I found the other half of the Craverie cookie I bought in WI. I completely forgot it was there. Still moist and delicious, after all this time.
It’s been great to learn more about the Wisconsin Arts scene in the time before and after the writing retreats. I have thoroughly enjoyed how thriving the arts scene is in Wisconsin. Especially the off the beaten path Kohler Arts. I think when Arts are community based and give back to the community, they tend to thrive.
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Teri, I wish we had had more time to see the Warhol exhibit now. We needed a few more hours. But now that I think about it, we were kind of on overload after the silence when we went to the Kohler Design Center. Was it all the bathrooms, sinks, history, art? Or just coming off the silence?
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Oh, breathepeace, I hadn’t noticed the effect of the last photo being like water down the drain. Maybe my subconscious did. When I took these photos, I was very close to the sink, lens almost touching. And I could see the overall composition but didn’t quite know how these photos would translate into finished shots.
Another thing I didn’t see was the fine dust that had collected around the drain ring. Totally did not see it until I saw the photos larger than thumbnail. It made me think a black sink might be hard to keep clean. I hope to post more of these sink photos in the future.
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ybonesy, Jude sent that NY Times link to us a few days ago. And the timing was good for this post. A great article on the Kohler and the Outsider art of the Vietnam vet. It was amazing that the Kohler acquired all of his art. Preserving one person’s view of the impact of war and how it translates into art. How the Arts can help heal or, at the very least, provide an outlet for pain. Loved that article. Hope others get to read it.
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oh sure QM, now ya tell me there’s something in Wisconsin besides cheese…I saw cheese and COWS…
Great documentary photography for those of us that didn’t know about the place. I especially like the top shot (which I examined thoroughly) before finally reading it was a reflection! I thought it was a slow frame with movement! And the black and white has a very sensual quality like a sleek, black car…or a Harley with lots of chrome 😉 The 7 themed bathrooms are pretty cool. That’s dedication.
BTW, when you get a chance, go to my blog QM and see the answer Raina gives to your question. She put allot of thought into it and I didn’t want you to miss it.
and hows the new Job girl. Ya doing ok? H
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Glad you like the new avatar. I wrote about the ‘how’ of it here:
http://norm54.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/profile-pick-ture/
and ‘why’ here: http://norm54.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/bittersweet-change/
Still marvelling at your photos – amazing! I enjoyed roaming through all the links. You enjoy your trip!
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Norm, I’ll have to check out your story of the new avatar. Thanks for the links. Heading out of town tomorrow and a bit frazzled pulling everything together tonight. Why is packing so hard? I always wait until the last minute.
Heather, thank you. I promise to check out Raina’s response when I get a little time to catch up in blogworld. Hope things slow down a bit this week. Mom and I plan to stay put in Georgia and do more research. Maybe make a few day trips to cemeteries. But otherwise, I hope for relaxation. I bet you are gearing up for Halloween at your place. I’ll have to go and see what you’ve posted. I’ll be back just in time for the end of October. Oh, the new job is good. Really like the people I work with a lot. But it’s tiring and physical. I suddenly feel old. I do enjoy the days I drive truck around town. I have a whole new respect for those who deliver. 8) It also has a lot of variety which I like. Thanks for asking, Heather. I appreciate it.
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QM, the people you work with are key. I’m so glad to hear you’re doing well. Changing jobs at our age is tough, and goodness, there’s allot of folks in that situation right now. And yes Ma’am, right in the thick of of Witching Hour. Back aches, fingers numb, all is good in the Land of Halloween 😉
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[…] its good lines, was “Tension Zones,” installed in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1995 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. (Unfortunately, the only image I found of that was from a hard-to-read archived article from the […]
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[…] haiku for Kohler Arts […]
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I’ve landed in Taos, New Mexico–here for a week-long silent writing workshop. When I turned on my faucet in my room, I saw it was Kohler. Comforting. At dinner, one of my table mates was from Sheyboygan Falls. We had a nice long talk about the Kohler Museum. She said, “Oh, it’s so New York, don’t you think?”
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Teri, have a good week in Taos. And a good visit with Roma at the end. Hi to Natalie and to Taos Mountain. And, of course, Maria and all the Mabel Dodge Luhan staff. Don’t forget the ghost of Mabel. Kohler faucet in your room, eh? Never noticed that. Thinking about all of you in the silence. Happy writing.
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