facebook-wisconsinproject

Little blonde girl wearing red coat and saddle shoes points to rock formations on this postcard promoting Cave of the Mounds. A performative photographic ploy to direct viewer attention in a vast dark space. Cave of the Mounds is often referred to as the "jewel box of America's major caves because of the variety, color and delicacy of its formations,"in tourist materials. The Cave was discovered on August 4, 1939 on a Wisconsin farm during a blasting session to mine limestone... eventually becoming a tourist attraction with spaces with names like Painted Waterfall, Gem Room, and Dream River Room. Hosting millions of visitors with a gift shop, hiking trails, and Prairie and Savanna Restoration Gardens, the land formation acts as spectacle like nearby Wisconsin Dells.

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.

The bears of Milwaukee once existed in a simulated natural landscape while spectators,
empowered by a 15 foot moat, ogled them from afar at the Washington Park Zoo. After seeing Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, this scene takes on sinister overtones though the sender of this card saw the barless bear den as visual proof of Milwaukee's dynamism:
"Having a wonderful time here. A big and growing city.
Weather nice and warm. Edith Allard"
Post marked August 24, 1953

Viewing Samson in his baby blue tile display case at the Milwaukee Zoo, with its thick glass smeared from his pounding fists and accented by his pungent odor, remains a vivid childhood memory. Ever a performer, Samson reportedly watched and reacted to people watching him acting outrageously make spectators jump back and gasp. Samson was legendary even to Wisconsin rural kids like us. His death from a heart attack in November 1981 at the age of 32 made the news. This herbivore whose diet included bread and meat for a time suffered five major heart attacks before pounding his chest one last time and falling dead before an audience.

Water and trees surround most places in Wisconsin. These resources have become increasingly mediated in the 21st century meaning more development along shores, signage indicating dangers or attractions, and the ever present Lyme Disease (from deer ticks) in the northwoods and West Nile Virus (from mosquitoes) everywhere else. Postcards from the 1960s depict the pleasures of looking in an "Up North" seemingly free of bugs and hazards while mists of DDT linger (invisibly) in the air.

Brown glass Purex bleach bottle bottoms, red DeSoto tail lights, Rhinelander shorty bottles plus an array of multi-colored glass shards applied to concrete portrait-figures half-century ago still make Fred Smith's sculptures glimmer in the setting sun. The Wisconsin elements chip away at the statues as the Wisconsin Concrete Park staff collect fallen glass fragments then label them in anticipation of future restoration efforts. When we visited WCP on July 11, 2013 to give a replicas workshop as part of our JM Kohler Arts Center residency, the grounds were dense with sculptures and trees compared with the old real photo post cards from the 1950s in our collection (see our "rephotographs" above). The ambition of Smith's project remains remarkable. Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi's 1991 book The Art of Fred Smith describes a man driven by a vision and inspired by "his sense of local or national history." Smith's ongoing project was not ignored by travelers in his time. A Chicago Tribune Magazine article referred to Smith as a "North Woods Picasso" in 1964. According to Stone and Zanzi, Life Magazine called him the "Grandpa Moses of Cement" in 1969. To this day some of WCP's closest neighbors have never taken a stroll through Smith's wonderland. Writes Leslie Umberger in Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), "While some folks in the area were interested in his art project, others believed he was crazy and that his work was just clutter in the landscape. Nevertheless, Smith remained deeply committed to his art and always believed that it was important for people to see it" (178). His project retained the attention of creatives whose combined fascination and efforts have served to preserve WCP. Included on the Kohler Foundation and Kohler Arts Center's Wandering Wisconsin Road Trip Itineray, WCP and other Wisconsin art environments remain mystic places of pilgrimage.

Curator Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi's 1991 book, The Art of Fred Smith, quotes Fred Smith (1886-1976), a self-taught artist, fiddle player, Christmas Tree/Ginseng farmer, and Rock Garden Tavern owner, as saying:"It's gotta be in ya to do it." That says it all and is something we try to convey to students when we teach. Smith worked on his Concrete Museum (see above real photo postcards) from 1948 until 1964 when a stroke hit him just after finishing his Budweiser Clydesdale tableau. Smith landed in a rest home and lived another decade. Stone and Zanzi presented Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park rationale in the below passage. The WCP remains an attraction in Phillips with active programs and efforts to preserve Smith's creation.