I had lunch at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s restaurant today with a group of dear, old friends (going on 25 years!): Jo, Kathleen, and Karen.

The restaurant is a well-kept secret. Well, maybe not that secret, but I’m a museum member, and I didn’t know where it was!

(Shhh! The restaurant is on the lower level of the Calatrava addition. Very good food, with a beautiful view of the lake and the North Point water tower. Let’s keep that info just between ourselves so that word doesn’t get out.)

(And speaking of the North Point water tower, it was 30 years ago this past week that Milwaukee artist Terese Agnew mounted a 350-pound iridescent dragon high on the side of this tower, evoking fairy-tale associations with castles and princesses. Remember that, fellow Milwaukeeans? You can read the old Milwaukee Sentinel story here.)

Here’s a photo I took today as I approached the museum. I liked the way the white of the building blended with the gray clouds in the sky.

Compare today’s photo with the ones I took several weeks ago, on a beautiful late summer day.

But here’s the main thing I wanted to post today. As Karen and I walked toward our cars, we passed by the “Wind Leaves” sculpture by Ned Kahn (Wikipedia article on this public artwork here). We stood for a few minutes watching the giant, shimmering leaves turn slowly in the breeze. Usually the leaves look silver against a blue sky, but today they looked more pewter against the gray clouds and the dull autumn colors. And here’s a 12-second video of it that I shot. It’s short, but I hope you like it.