The Wisconsin Project: Found: Holy Innocents Church, Manitowoc, WI

28.1.14

Found: Holy Innocents Church, Manitowoc, WI

Found: Holy Innocents Catholic Church, Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
From an Ektachrome Transparency.
Copyright 1959 The L.L. Cook Co., Milwaukee, Wisc.

Holy Innocents Catholic Church (affectionately known as HI), dedicated in 1950 by Bishop Bona, features a giant light-up rosary (far right). Hovering over statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying children, and lambs made of concrete, the grouping commemorates the secret message of Fatima. The blue electric rosary remains one of our favorite after-dark Manitowoc sites and is easily viewed from the car while cruising down Waldo Boulevard. The church was named for the martyred Holy Innocents more specifically for the male infants that were "slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men." HI and five other churches were "consolidated" into one named St. Francis of Assisi Parish to serve all of the city of Manitowoc in 2005. Names like Holy Innocents or St. Boniface were jettisoned and the facilities are now referred to as the Waldo site or the Marshall site, etc. relating to their street address. We knew these churches best through their basement rummage and bake sales held in the fall and spring and orchestrated by community-members to raise funds for church operations. In the 1990s, these sales were ripe with mid-century consumer goods like dishware, rhinestones, wool suits, statuary, hankies, and LPs for sale for nickels and dimes. In contrast the St. Francis website features an apparel store along with the church bulletin, a media center, and updates on the school. The mission statement remains as mysterious as the Virgin Mary's message at Fatima: The Manitowoc Catholic Community exists as a sacramental body of Christ, to love as Christ loved, by boldly proclaiming our faith, teaching our youth, spreading the Good News of Jesus, and serving one another and others in an ever-changing community.

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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.