The Wisconsin Project: deer hunting

19.9.13

Found:Greetings from Minocqua, WI

Found: Plenty of Young "Deers" Here, Greetings from Minocqua, Wis.
Made by E.C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee, Wis. circa 1930s.
Handwritten text on backside:
Dear Aunt Mary, We have lots of swimming and fishing here, also hiking and golfing,
but we don't do the golfing. There is a baby deer here of seven weeks old.
Love Gertrude" postmarked July 29, 1937

Minocqua's website boasts of November being the opening of deer hunting season, which is "practically an official holiday and an important part of our Northwoods heritage." Ike Eisenhower was a "regular Minocqua visitor" due to its wilderness beauty and the town is the birthplace of the Association of Wisconsin Snowmobile clubs. This postcard of young "Deers" grazing shows the creatures inhabiting a landscape of birch and cedar where they became a spectacle for the Minocqua tourist of yore.

19.11.12

Found: Ready, Aim, Greetings from Crivitz, Wis.


Found: Greetings from CRIVITZ, WIS., "Ready, Aim -- but hold your fire. The deer is in the velvet and to shoot at one like him will make you a violator. Be a true sportsman an shoot only at legal game. That way we'll all have more legal game to shoot at." Vactionland Scene copyright The L. L. Cook Co.. Milwaukee, "A Genuine Kodachrome Reproduction," 1954.

Found: Silver Street at Night, Hurley, Wis., all rights reserved the L.L. Cook Co. Milwaukee. Written on back in ballpoint pen "Dear Nel: It looks better at night. Ken" posted marked Hurley, WI, May 1, 1956 5PM

On opening day of "gun hunting season" in Wisconsin, men in pickups wearing blaze orange fill the the roads heading north they populate typically tranquil rural side roads. Weeks before the season, Fleet Farm displays show off blaze orange fashions, scent elimination sprays, and products like Buck Bomb Doe-in-Estrus Aersol Fogger and Code Blue Whitetail Doe Urine. The press operators at the local printing plant used to get so distracted preparing for the hunt that we found it imperative to avoid scheduling runs in around the season. Hunter friends describe the sublime symbiosis with nature experienced while sitting for hours in a tree-stand pondering the landscape awaiting the perfect buck. Fresh air and meditation counter the complexities of 21st century hunting -- the Chronic Wasting Disease some believed would wipe out Wisconsin's deer herd and high-tech gizmos like Stealth Cam Rogue Digital Video Scouting Cameras and GPS. The "Ready Aim" postcard illustrates the uninformed photographer's naive misunderstanding of the issues. A summertime Kodachrome portrays a hunter taking aim at a buck "in velvet" (note: didactic postcard caption above). The legendary night time post-hunt activities include tales of strippers around Manitowoc heading up north with the hunters to dance at the Boom Bay Bar in Rhinelander or on the strip in Hurley a/k/a Sin City (note: density of bars in postcard above). These days, liquor stores hang "welcome hunter" banners while meat market parking lots are bumper to bumper with pickups waiting to drop off their wild game for processing.

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.