M'Lou Wilkie
Viroqua, Wisconsin
 

That apostrophe says a lot about M’Lou Wilkie. A Mary-Lou at birth, she disliked hearing her name shortened to Mary. So she did something about it. With support from her mother, a Mary Jane with a similar complaint, she re-labeled herself.
 
Wilkie knows what she wants. That’s why she and her husband, cabinet- and furniture-maker Jim Beske, decided to settle in Southwestern Wisconsin. Known throughout the Driftless Region, and beyond, for her beaded jewelry and stained glass creations, Wilkie says, “I love the pace of life here.”

She has had ample opportunity to explore alternatives. The Wilkie family has its roots in Boston but her father’s various management assignments with General Motors saw the family relocate regularly, eventually settling in Milwaukee.

M’Lou Wilkie discovered her interest in art, and her love for small town life, while a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. After graduation, a teaching job took her and Jim to Maine. They remained there, living near Augusta, for three years, but the Wisconsin idea drew them back, ultimately to the Driftless Region, to teach and to create.

Wilkie has experimented in painting, pottery and weaving but is most comfortable with beadwork and stained glass. And she balances her life by teaching part-time at the Jefferson elementary school in nearby Richland Center.

The one passion her choice of small town life does not support is art therapy, a specialty she studied in weekend classes at Mount Mary College in Waukesha. After a logging a lot of commuter miles she got her Masters Degree in that field in 1994. “There are just no opportunities to work in that field here,” she says, “at least not at the moment.”

Art therapy focuses on the use of visual story telling to inspire self-understanding. Wilkie has used its techniques in work with abused women, the terminally ill and with the youthful survivors of families burdened with the pain of the loss of a loved one through illness.

But there is plenty to occupy her time and energies, not least of which is the four-acre home site she and Jim share on the outskirts of Viroqua. There is also her teaching duties and her art, of course.

Wilkie is a member of Viroqua Independent Visual Artists, or VIVA, a co-operative Gallery in Viroqua and cheerfully hosts gallery visitors on a weekly schedule.

She creates in a studio her husband built her in their home, located directly above the woodworking shop he built for himself.
   
“Jim does all of my frames and he really does terrific work,” she says.
  
A recurring theme in her work is birds, especially water birds – egrets, herons and terns. She has, in fact, pursued her study of one species, cranes, tracing their migratory routes between Korea through China into Siberia, on a study cruise she took under the auspices of the Baraboo, Wisconsin-based International Crane Foundation.

Wilkie sees herself as a story-teller, whether she is using the intricate glass beads she buys from exotic lands or the colorful, textured glass she uses in her windows.
  
“I love manipulating the materials I’ve chosen to work with, whether it’s the intricate stitchery of beadwork or the cutting and grinding of glass.”
  
Ah, yes, the easy pace of her life, creating, teaching, gallery work, tending her garden. And, there’s more, she says. “I’d love to return to teaching fulltime. I just don’t know, if that happens, how I’ll fit everything in.”