The Wisconsin Project: Found: Bethesda Mineral Spring, Waukesha, WI

6.1.15

Found: Bethesda Mineral Spring, Waukesha, WI

Found: Bethesda Mineral Spring, Waukesha, Wisconsin. Circa 1910s. © E. C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee. Written in cursive in fountain pen on the backside: "Dear Fran & family. This is a handy place & we all like it. I hope to feel better before I leave here. I will see the Dr. to-day. Take care of Babe. Best love, Stella."

Native Americans pointed early settlers toward the healing springs throughout Wisconsin. What became Bethesda Mineral Spring was one of them. Historian accounts explain that "people flocked to the spring, hoping to be cured by the magic waters." Cures included diabetes, constipation and other maladies were documented. But in time, Waukesha's many springs dried up. Nineteenth-century civilization--from out houses to pavement to overuse--made it impossible for the springs to replenish with rain water and then they were gone. No more water bubbling up from the ground. Increased demand for water from the growing city also required deeper and deeper wells which also drew from the water table. By the late 20th-century even the deep weels became contaminated with radium and were dangerous to citizens. What was once a paradise of more than 50 fresh water springs is gone and Waukesha is now asking that water be piped in from Lake Michigan.

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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.