The Wisconsin Project: Found: Enjoying the "Dairy Air" in Wisconsin

7.12.12

Found: Enjoying the "Dairy Air" in Wisconsin

Found: Enjoying the "Dairy Air" in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Dairy Cow by Patrick Dean Photography, circa 2012

Found: Wisconsin is for • Lovers • of Lakes, Streams, Fishing, Camping, and Much, Much More.
Wisconsin is Whatever you Love by Wuttke Enterprises, Lake Geneva, WI, circa 1980s

Found: Greetings from Wisconsin by L. L. Cook Co. Milwaukee, Curteichcolor® 3-D Natural Color, circa 1970s

Found: Greetings from Wisconsin The Badger State. Wisconsin -- America's Dairyland
published by Johnson Printing, Eau Claire, Wis. circa 1970s

Found: Greetings from Wisconsin The Badger State, America's Dairyland,
The Vacationer's Paradise. Wisconsin is our 30th state.
Capital: Madison. Has 1,449 square miles of inland water
and is popular all-season playground. State Fish: Muskellunge.
Among the many other things for which it's famous,
Wisconsin is America's Dairyland.

Times they are a changing as illustrated by these postcards and song. Wisconsin technically lost its place as "America's Dairyland" to California based on milk production a decade or so ago. The state's "factory farms" super charge the "Dairy Air" to toxic odor levels wafting for miles beyond the pasture but may be helping to win back the "America's Dairyland" label. Here's an ode to Wisconsin sung by the incomparable Hildegarde (1906-2005), born in Adell, Wisconsin. Hildegarde memorializes a poetic list of the state's attributes in her souvenir record album circa 1960s:

"Wisconsin's northern lights twinkling, sparkling streams, rolling hills, daffodils, nature's wonderland, running deer, birds on high, sunlight bays, summer days, carefree dreaming in the sky, "She is blessed and caressed, this Wisconsinland I love...."

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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.