The Wisconsin Project: Found: C & O's Badger, Lake Michigan, WI

29.10.12

Found: C & O's Badger, Lake Michigan, WI


Found: Chessie's water-borne links between Ludington, Michigan and the Wisconsin ports of Milwaukee, Manitowoc and Kewaunee move 175,000 passengers, 50,000 autos and 100,000 cars of freight annually across Lake Michigan. Vactionists from many states choose C & O's cross lake short cut as pleasant and restful interludes in a busy schedule. C & O's fleet of seven ships (including the Badger) operate round the clock every day throughout the year by anonymous, circa 1953

The now historic LMC S. S. Badger runs part of the year across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc, Wisconsin to Ludington, Michigan. The ferry carries passengers and their autos and offering Sea Breeze cocktails to calm the stomach when the waves get choppy. Embroiled in an EPA controversy over disposing of its coal ash in the lake, the ferry is investigating switching to natural gas for fuel. Says the website: "The amount of mercury, arsenic and lead in the coal ash is not only below standards that would make it harmful, but also hundreds of times lower than what others are allowed to discharge into Lake Michigan." Nothing is as simple as it used to be.

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THE WISCONSIN PROJECT

Our research-driven Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and state-of-mind resulting from inhabiting a single place, our native Wisconsin, for a long time. Through critiquing postcard views both made and found, we learn a great deal about past and present Wisconsin. We began making postcard views of the places immediately around our studio and on our drives around Wisconsin in about 2008. We use the vintage postcard film format and print the cards in palladium and cyanotype. By communicating details of a specific place, seeming to register only marginally on the national radar, the project seeks to bring audiences into a Wisconsin mental space. Some in the art world would argue that the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, makes for banal “fly over” subject matter. Our project challenges that by finding meaning in the ordinary and inviting audiences to examine, dialog, and reflect on the particular emotional quality of the idiosyncrasies of place and the perceptions of those both inside and outside of it. Sometimes distant memories are involved and a longing for a time now gone. Wisconsin’s glacier inflected landscape and proximity to the Great Lakes creates an exotic arena for living that informs our project. The life cycle plays out and rural and urban ruins serve as monuments to existences as people, places, and ideas surface then vanish. Ultimately, we aim to grapple with complex perceptions of Wisconsin ranging from nostalgic, romantic, and idealized--as depicted on myriad real photo postcard and standard tourist postcards--to mysterious, dark, and Gothic as conveyed in works of art and literature such as Michael Lesy's "Wisconsin Death Trip" book and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" film. The project culminated in a residency with workshops and community collaborations and the installation "We Go From Where We Know" at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 10.13.2013-3.7.2014 and later the Harvestore Bandshell for Fermentation Fest in 10.2014. The blog continues the exploration of postcards.