Our July 2013 Picks

One thing I love about living in the Midwest is how the color and light of the landscape change so dramatically from month to month. The fields and hills around Madison seem at their most vibrant this time of year, a situation artist Amy J. Johnson captures beautifully in her oil paintings. Her combination of careful observation and expressiveness makes you feel as if you know exactly where and when she created each painting.

Check out Johnson’s newest pursuit—still life paintings—in an exhibition running July 8 to September 15 at Overture Galleries.

Fresh-cut grass. Brats on a charcoal grill. Sunscreen and citronella. Given the extra-long winter we endured, let’s take a minute and appreciate these quintessential scents of summer in Wisconsin. After all, they’ll be gone far too soon.

The only thing better than a refreshing cocktail on a sweltering day is sipping one on a rooftop bar. Nab a spot on Fresco’s perch atop the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and savor a strawberry basil mojito.

(Check out this story for a roundup of great outdoor dining spots!)

Whether you’re sixteen, sixty or somewhere in between, a round of mini golf makes for a fun date, and Vitense Golfland has been a putt-putt destination since 1955. Challenge your mate to the Wisconsin or California course (but look out for the pesky windmill on the latter). Want to sweeten the deal? Put a wager on the game—the loser buys ice cream at Michael’s Frozen Custard across the street.

If you partook in fashion trends in the early ’90s, you probably swore you’d never again wear neon. But then Tory Burch had to go and make an awesome highlighter-hued bag. This mini cross-body comes in shocking shades of pink, orange, green and yellow.

Pick one up at Twigs at Hilldale.