The Wisconsin Project: Found: Front View and Builder, Dickeyville, WI

27.9.12

Found: Front View and Builder, Dickeyville, WI

Found: "Front View and Builder, Dickeyville, Wis. on DOPS paper, circa 1930

Father Matthias Wernerus sculpted the Dickeyville Grotto of bits of colored glass, minerals, shells, pottery and other shards embedded in mortar. After driving along Highway 151 heading southwest out of Madison the place looks like a colorful mirage of pop culture intersections with patriotism and religiosity. An adjacent gift shop sells holy water, holy cards, and rosaries. Our first visit to the grotto with college friends in the 1980s pointied toward the surreal possibilities of making fantastical realities in hidden away places. Some art historians believe Father Wernerus gained inspiration from the much vaster Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend Iowa and that Wernerus' creation in turn inspired similar mystic grotto projects in Wisconsin.

Found: Front View of Grotto at Dickeyville, Wis., © 1929 Rev. Math. Wernerus Genuine Curteich-Chicago "C.T. American Art" "The Grotto of Christ, the Kind and of Mary his Mother, was conceived, esigned, and bult by a priest from thousands of pebbles, stones, shells, and corals from all parts of the world. Its beauty and originality must be seen to be appreciated.

Found: Holy Ghost Cemetery, Dickeyville, Wis. Genuine Curteich-Chicago "C.T. American Art" circa 1929

Found: Park Scene, Dickeyville, Wis. Genuine Curteich-Chicago "C.T. American Art" circa 1929

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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.