The Wisconsin Project

27.3.15

Clouds and High Tension, Appleton, WI

Clouds and High Tension Lines, CE and Rail Road Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, July 2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Suburban bleakness among suburban bleakness with clouds being caught in the high tension lines.

And I love the U.S.A.
So share the modern world with me
'Cause I'm in love with the U.S.A. now
I'm in love with the modern world now
Put down your cigarette
Well out on Route 9 it's bleak and nearly dying
Well the modern world is not so bad
-- Jonathan Richmond from "Modern Lovers"(1976)

22.3.15

Found: Cherry Orchard, Door County, WI

Found: Cherry Orchard in Full Bloom, Door County, Wisconsin.
E. A. Bishop, Publisher, Racine, Wis. circa 1910

The first cherry orchards in Door County were planted in 1896. The market for the fruit grew and 10,000 acres of orchards planted. Finding labor to help with the harvest remained an issue until the mechanical cherry shaker was developed. At first cherries were hand harvested and workers paid by the bucked. The new machine harvested 60 to 100 trees per hour and eliminated the need to recruit hundreds of workers each season. Cherries are turned into juice, jam, infamous Wisconsin red tart cherry, and the maraschino cherry that work so great in old-fashioneds and Manhattans.

17.3.15

Back of the Barn Harvestore, Chilton, WI

Back of the Barn Harvestore, Schneider Road at Highway 57, Chilton, Wisconsin, 12.30.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A lone Harvestore completes this sprawling dairy set-up.

12.3.15

Urban Harvestore, Sherwood, WI

Urban Harestore, Highway 55, Sherwood, Wisconsin, 12.03.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Photographed from the sidewalk in downtown Sherwood, Wisconsin.

8.3.15

Descending Harvestores, Calumet County, WI

Descending Harvestores, Calumet County, Wisconsin, 12.03.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Silos of varying heights against a cloudless sky accent a tidy farm yard. Everything has a place, all machinery is safely inside a shed, the buildings are perfectly maintained. The rural American Dream.

4.3.15

Nestled Harvestore, Forest Junction, WI

Nestled Harvestore, Military Road, near Forest Junction, Wisconsin, 12.03.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Part of a cluster of feed dispensing structures, this Harvestore is sandwiched between a concrete block and a concrete stave silo.

28.2.15

Lone Harvestore, Brillion, WI

Lone Harvestore, Hugh Road, Brillion, Wisconsin, 12.03.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A lone Harvestore looms along Hugh Road. Separated from the building that it was originally attached to, there is a void framed by trees where the building once stood.

25.2.15

4 Harvestores, St. John, WI

4 Harvestores in the Snow, St. John, Wisconsin, 12.30.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A collection of four Harvestores erected over a span of decades show a dedication to farming, progress, place, and faithful consumption of a luxury silo brand.

21.2.15

Gravity Park USA, Chilton, WI

Gravity Park USA, 2571 Hickory Hills Road, Chilton, Wisconsin, 12.30.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A farmyard converted into an "extreme race facility" accented by a Harvestore at the entrace. Opened in 2000 as Gravity park, it was converted in 2005 to Gravity Park USA with a new track, club house, and gear shop according to the web site. Dirt Grinders welcome!

13.2.15

Dairyland's Best Harvestore, Appleton, WI

Dairyland's Best Harvestore, Lamers Dairy & Store, Speel School Drive, Appleton, Wisconsin, September 2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A Harvestore repurposed as a dairy store entrance is eye catching in suburban Appleton among strip malls, Lowe's and rehab centers. Lamers Dairy & Store, locally owned, distributes milk throughout the region in returnable glass bottles. The store design reflects the farming legacy of the milk, cheese, ice cream, and Wisconsin souvenirs it sells not far from busy Highway 441. Visitors are invited to watch milk being bottled through an observatory window.

7.2.15

3 Harvestores, Calumet County, WI

Three Harvestores in Various Heights, Calumet County, Wisconsin, 12.03.2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

A whole lot of silage going on with four vertical silos and an expansive horizontal silage bunker and mound.

30.1.15

Found: Beautiful Washington Park, Milwaukee, WI

Found: In "Beautiful Washington Park," Milwaukee.
© E. C. Kropp Co. Publishing, Milwaukee No. 4201. Circa 1900.
Handwritten in fountain pen on the frontside: "The lilies in this pound are as big as a plate."

Washington Park in Milwaukee, designed by American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, included a band shell and a zoo. Begun in 1891, the park faced financial challenges throughout the 20th century. The zoo moved away to expand in 1958 but the Urban Ecology Center located in the 135 acre park in 2007. The Center's mission is to carry out Olmsted's vision of municipal parks as respite for people form all walks of life. Olmsted believed that parks could connect city people with nature thus providing "spiritual uplift." Today, volunteers and neighbors work to restore native plants, wetlands, animals, and maintain gardens in the park.

25.1.15

Quonset Huts, Appleton, WI

Quonset Huts along Railroad Tracks, East Randall Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, September 2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Quonset Hut along Railroad Tracks, East Randall Avenue Appleton, Wisconsin, September 2014
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Designed to be lightweight and easy to assemble without skilled labor, the Quonset hut served more than 86 official military uses during the World War II era. Sometimes built along railroad tracks in small Wisconsin towns, they could be used to store supplies needed for the war effort. In Appleton, for example, Kimberly-Clark made bomb fuses that needed to be stored and accessible. After the war, Quonset huts were repurposed as housing, churches, libraries, liquor stores, movie theaters, and more.

21.1.15

Harvestore Twins, Brillion, WI

The sign of double prosperity, with two matching Harvestores towering above
previous farm structures and still, predict the bunker silos that co-exist there now.

15.1.15

Found: Indian Basket Maker, Northern Wisconsin

Found: Indian Basket Maker, Northern Wisconsin #5. Real Photo Post Card. Kruxo EKD circa 1923.

Our friend from Madison, Tom Jones, has been researching Ho-Chunk baskets and we thought of him when we dredged up this real photo post card portrait of a basket maker from the recesses of our collection. He has contributed to important books examining photographs of native peoples mainly People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaik and For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw.

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.