THE BRIGHT SIDE
The Winter Show at Gallery 223, hosted by Geneva Lake Arts Foundation, has begun.
Founded in 2014, the Geneva Lake Arts Foundation (GLAF) is a charitable, educational, not-for-profit organization led by an elected Board of Directors. Their mission is to encourage individual artistic growth and excellence while expanding community awareness and appreciation of the visual arts.
Susan Disbrow Schroeder
One of the artists featured in the exhibit is Susan Disbrow Schroeder. She is an Arlington Heights, Illinois, native whohas lived in Lake Geneva for over a decade. She works primarily in oil, while also exploring pastel, encaustic wax, and sketching. Susan has been drawing and painting in oil since early grade school, developing a lifelong connection to creative expression. Although her professional career led her into interior design, Susan remained deeply rooted in the arts. She is a licensed, NCIDQ-certified professional interior designer and has overseen numerous commercial, healthcare, educational, and residential projects throughout her career. After years of working within the structured demands of architectural and interior documentation, she now focuses on her lifelong love of creating more personal artwork across a wide range of subject matters. Susan’s inspiration comes from travel, walking the surrounding environment and architectural spaces near her home, and photographs shared by her sons and their wives from across the country and abroad, including Japan. Creating art has always felt like home to her, both challenging and restorative, and offers a sense of freedom beyond the constraints of her design background.
Currently on display is an abstract oil painting that reflects her enjoyment of working intuitively with color and shape. Also featured are oil giclée prints inspired by photographs taken by her son at a butterfly haven in Virginia. Susan is a juried artist and a member of Oil Painters of America and the Geneva Lake Arts Foundation, which she joined in the fall of 2025. She was educated at the Illinois Institute of Art and the SIU Carbondale School of Interior Design and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Roosevelt University in Chicago. The show runs through February 15th.
A proposal to build a natural gas plant in rural Walworth County is getting varied reactions from people who live and work in the area.
This is the proposed location for the Foundry Ridge Energy Center, a new 324-megawatt natural gas “peaker” power plant by Invenergy in the Town of Darien, aiming to meet growing energy demands, especially from data centers, with potential operation in 2027, currently undergoing review by the Public Service Commission (PSC). A “peaker” plant means it runs during peak electricity demand times. The facility, planned near existing solar projects, would use natural gas turbines and connect to the North Creek Substation. The plant is expected to be operational by 2027, with construction potentially starting in 2026. Right now, the status of the plant is seeking approval from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
The project faces mixed local reactions, with concerns raised about environmental impacts, though supporters note it’s cleaner than coal. Supporters highlight job creation (construction & operations) and increased local tax revenue. The development would add $940,000 in additional local revenue, and they said the center could attract new families to the area and would help the tax base. The center would add up to 150 construction jobs, plus full-time operations roles. (The construction jobs would be gone in months, and it only takes between ten and forty employees to run a whole huge data center, and those jobs would mostly come from the outside)
People who live near the proposed building site have created a petition aiming to stop the plans for the project. Some residents are concerned that the natural gas plant raises environmental and health questions for the community. The PSC will hold public hearings for community input before making a decision. When it comes to data centers around the country, they usually come with the other “D” word…Death.
