The Wisconsin Project

11.3.13

Lake Michigan, Manitowoc, WI

Lake Michigan, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, cyanotype, July 14, 2010

9.3.13

Found: Sunset over Kewaguesaga Lake, Minocqua, Wisconsin.
By C.T. American Art Colored & the Specialty and Gift Shop, Minocqua, Wisconsin.
Written on the back in pencil:
"Here for a few days. Beautiful Country. Best to all. Fran & Bill."
Postmarked Minocqua, Wisconsin, August 15, 1935, 5:30 PM

Found: Driftwood, Greetings From Appleton, Wisconsin.
Much of the beauty of the North is its bleakness, captured here in the wild sky, rolling surf, and bleaching driftwood.
Genuine Natural Color Made by Dexter Press, Inc., West Nyack, NY.
Copyright 1951 The L.L. Cook Co.

8.3.13

Found: Sheboygan Yacht Club, Sheboygan, WI

Found: Boat Pier, Sheboygan Yacht Club, Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Distributed by Nery Sons, Sheboygan, Wis. Color by R. Nery.
Curteichcolor 3-D natural color reproduction. Circa 1960s.

7.3.13

Asymmetric Residence, Manitowoc, WI

Asymmetric Residence near Lake Michigan, North Fifth Street, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, November 10, 2010

6.3.13

House with TV Antenna, Manitowoc, WI

House with TV Antenna, North 7th Street, Manitowoc Wisconsin, October 2010

5.3.13

Found: Grand Portage Lake, Mercer, WI

Found: Moon Light on Grand Portage Lake near Mercer, Wisconsin.
Written on the back in fountain pen:
"Having a grand time. Saw a fox and a deer.
Will write first of next week. Love George and Georgie."
Postmarked Mercer, Wisocnsin, August 26, 1938 3 PM

4.3.13

Found: Washington Park, Manitowoc, WI

Found: Washington Park, Manitowoc, Wisconsin by Chas. & Pechtor Publishing circa 1910.
Written on the front in fountain pen: "We all have a bad cold" and continued on the back:
"Dear Cousin: Mother promised Grandma that she was going to see how they were getting along.
She was there yesterday and said she wa to go down today and she has a headache and cold
so she can't go down, so will you please go down and see if they don't need something."

3.3.13

Apartments, East Chicago Street, Manitowoc, WI

Vinyl-Sided Apartments, East Chicago Street, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, October 3, 2010

2.3.13

Found: Vollrath Bowl, Sheboygan, WI

Found: Vollrath Bowl, Sheboygan, Wis.
"This man-made amphitheatre is a succession of gently sloping terraces
built to accommodate huge audiences for outdoor programs.
It is the scene of many civic pageants and other special functions including high school graduations."
A genuine Kodachrome Reproduction by the L.L. Cook Company,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin copyright 1951.

1.3.13

Residences with Trimmed Trees, Manitowoc, WI

Residences with Trimmed Trees, North 9th Street, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, October 2010

28.2.13

Found: 50,000 Gal. Water Tank, Praire Du Sac, WI

Found: 50,000 Gal. Water Tank, Height 124 ft., Prairie Du Sac, Wisconsin.
December 9, 1913. Postmarked December 31, 1913, 4 PM

26.2.13

House with Shutters, Appleton, WI

House with Shutters, College Avenue, Appleton, Wisconsin, October 16, 2012

25.2.13

Found: Playground, Pine Lake, WI

Found: Playground, Bradley Point Resort, Pine Lake, Wisconsin. Written on back in fountain pen:
"Dear Marian: Thank you for your nice letter. We will let you know when to expect us.
I know Mrs. Birch was glad to get to her home for a little while.
Tell Art we will expect him to eat supper with us Sunday evening.
We are looking forward to seeing him. Love, Emma."
Postmarked Waupaca, Wisconsin, August 18, 1944, 6 PM

24.2.13

House with Blossoms and Siding, Appleton, WI

House with Blossoms and Siding, Washington & Rankin, Appleton, Wisconsin, May 2012

23.2.13

Found: Al Johnson's, Sister Bay, WI

Found: Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant and Butik,
Sister Bay, Door County, Wisconsin. Photo Jon Reilly. Circa 1980s.

Summer Residency

JM KOHLER ARTS CENTER
RESIDENCY EVENTS 2013!
TENTATIVE!

Saturday, June 8, 11-12 AM - Artist Talk and Three Sisters Garden Seed Sowing @ JMKAC, Sheboygan, WI. Native American Oaxacan corn (pronounced wä hä' kän), Cranberry and Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, and Waltham Butternut Squash will be companion planted on the JMKAC grounds. Shimon and Lindemann will speak about their Wisconsin Project and related JMKAC exhibition. Afterward, they'll sow seeds in a prepared plot planned to climb on poplar sapling structures the artists will construct with community. The Three Sisters Garden acknowledges Wisconsin's rich Native American and agricultural past.

Saturday, June 29, 10 AM-4 PM - Community Construction of Poplar Sapling Structure @ JMKAC, Sheboygan, WI. Community members will assist Shimon and Lindemann in constructing a sapling structure from poplar's harvested on their farm. The structure will incorporate Native American wigwam construction techniques and Buckminster Fuller's ideas about tensegrity.

Thursday, July 11, 2-4 PM - Artist Talk and Replica Workshop @ Wisconsin Concrete Park, Phillips, WI. Shimon and Lindemann will speak about their Wisconsin Project and related JMKAC exhibition then work with participants to make miniature replicas of Fred Smith's concrete figural sculptures using Sculpey Clay, tumbled glass, and beads.

Saturday, July 27, 10 AM-3 PM - Vegetable Gardener Studio Portrait Sessions @ Shimon & Lindemann's Studio, Manitowoc, WI. Up to 8 community vegetable gardeners may make an appointment to be photographed for free at Shimon & Lindemann's historic studio in downtown Manitowoc. Using vintage camera equipment and transparency film, the portraits will expand their ongoing Real Photo Postcard studio portrait work resulting in life size inkjet prints of select images to be included in their JMKAC exhibition.

Saturday, August 10, 10-12 AM - Artist Talk and Found Postcard Watercolor Modification Workshop @ Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden, Sheboygan, WI. Shimon and Lindemann will speak about their Wisconsin Project and related JMKAC exhibition and how found images are appropriated and altered by artists to make new statements. Afterwards, they will present a workshop about modifying "found" Wisconsin vintage postcards using watercolors, erasure, markers, and collage to add a contemporary commentary on place while participants join in on an improvisational music jam.

Saturday, October 19, 5-8 PM - Shimon & Lindemann's Wisconsin Darkness & Picturesque Exhibition opening and performance @ JMKAC, Sheboygan, WI. An installation incorporating photographs, assemblage, watercolors, and participatory artworks opens with a two 30 minute improvisational performances featuring Lawrence University faculty: Jesse Dochnahl (sax), John T. Gates (voice), Brian Pertl (Tibetan horn and didgeridoo), and John Shimon (guitar) responding to Wisconsin Death Trip (1973), the seminal book by Michael Lesy. It juxtaposes archival photographs by Charles Van Schaik (1890-1910, Black River Falls, WI) with 19th-century stories published in the Badger State Banner newspaper. Lesy wrote: "It is as much an exercise of history as it is an experiment of alchemy."

Saturday, February 8, 2014 - Exhibition continues @ JMKAC, Sheboygan, WI.

Wisconsin Project Exhibition

The culmination of Shimon & Lindemann's residency, workshops, artist talks, projects, and Exhibitions without Boundaries projects at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, will be the Wisconsin Darkness & Picturesque installation of photographs, objects, and ephemera exploring the meaning of place and the identity that comes with choosing to live and work in an obscure place over a long period of time. The exhibition is tentatively scheduled to run October 12, 2013-February 8, 2014 with an opening reception and performance on Saturday, October 19, 2013, 5-8 PM.

About the Wisconsin Project

The Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and identity 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 then mail them. 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.