New Menomonee Valley book now available

A Year in the Valley:

Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization

As followers of this blog know, I served as the 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence. During that time I created two small books. One, entitled Gestures, is a photo essay that explores the visual vocabulary of the Valley in intimate detail. It is a slim, meditative volume.

Link to preview or purchase Gestures.

The second, also slim, serves as a portfolio of images from the year. Titled simply 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence, it’s basically a sampling of highlights from a year of photographing in the Valley.

Link to preview or purchase 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence.

However, my newest book, entitled A Year in the Valley: Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization, is a comprehensive compilation of the work done during the residency period (January through December, 2014). In addition to an expansive selection of images, this book includes the text of most of the essays, stories and profiles that I wrote during the year. These were originally published on my blogs.

A Year in the Valley also represents in book form what I’ve posted on the website created specifically for the Menomonee Valley project. 

Link to preview or purchase A Year in the Valley: Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization.

Project goals included documenting physical transformation in the Menomonee Valley, promoting public awareness of this nationally renowned redevelopment model, fostering connections amongst the diverse communities who work and recreate in the Valley, and highlighting the importance of art and culture in carrying out future developments as well as developing a sense of place.

The history of the Menomonee Valley is one of continual transformation. The original environment, a fertile wild rice marsh, was completely filled as the Valley became Milwaukee’s industrial powerhouse. By the late twentieth century most of the industries had moved out, leaving a legacy of blight and pollution. The last 15 years have seen a concerted effort by the city, business interests and environmental advocates to revitalize the Valley. Visionary plans are underway that combine economic and community development with environmental restoration. Businesses have returned, the river has been rehabilitated and new parks have been created, along with new opportunities for arts, culture and recreation.

This project and this book captures a 12-month slice of the ongoing story of the transformation of the Menomonee Valley.

The 2014 Artist in Residency was sponsored my Menomonee Valley Partners and Zimmerman Architectural Studios.

To go to the Menomonee Valley AiR website, click here.

 

A Year in the Menomonee Valley on exhibit at WPCA

You're invited!

 

Please join me for

Eddee Daniel: A Year in the Valley
Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization

May 29 - July 11

Opening reception: Friday, May 29, 5-9 pm.

Walker's Point Center for the Arts
839 South 5th Street
Milwaukee, WI

The exhibition will feature photography and stories from my 2014 tenure as the Menomonee Valley Partners' inaugural Artist in Residence.

The Menomonee Valley, once blighted and shunned, is in the midst of a dramatic and well-orchestrated transformation and has become a nationally renowned model for sustainable urban redevelopment. It was an honor and a joy to have had the opportunity to observe and document part of that transformation. I hope you'll come to see the results.

In addition to the opening reception, there will be a panel discussion on Thursday, June 18, 6–9 pm. Representatives from Menomonee Valley Partners, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Urban Ecology
Center, Sixteenth Street Community Health Center and the Harbor District will join me to discuss Menomonee Valley revitalization – its history, ongoing development and future plans.

For more information about the exhibit go to WPCA.

For a lot more information about my year in the Menomonee Valley, including photographs, essays, and stories, go to the website that I created for the purpose.

Zimmerman is open for gallery night

You're invited!

Menomonee Valley Artist Residency

Open House

Along with my hosts at Zimmerman Architectural Studios I invite you to visit with me on gallery night. Come see my latest artworks. 

Zimmerman Architectural Studios
2122 W. Mount Vernon St.

Friday, July 25
5:00 - 8:00 p.m.

New work and works in progress will be on display.
If you have never been to the historic gas building that Zimmerman remodeled for their offices, it's worth a visit in itself!

Refreshments will be served.

Zimmerman is easy to see but hard to find. It is the large brick structure behind the tall octagonal tower near 25th Street between St. Paul and Canal Streets. Access is from 25th Street.

If you can't make it on gallery night, feel free to contact me to make an appointment: eddee@eddeedaniel.com

To learn more about the Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency and for links to blog posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Why have an Artist in Residence in the Menomonee Valley?

I read a news article recently about a guy named Jesse Welter who has started a tourist business in Detroit. He guides clients through abandoned buildings because, apparently, there is a great demand to see the devastation and decay of a once great city. (Welter works surreptitiously because what he’s doing is both illegal and risky.) Detroit also has become a mecca for photographers attracted to the opportunities it provides for producing images of ruin and social upheaval. There is a book by two French photographers called, “The Ruins of Detroit.”

Using ruins as an artistic motif has historical roots tracing back at least to the Italian Renaissance, of course, when ancient civilizations were unearthed and used as a springboard for modern transformations of a medieval society. But what is being done in Detroit has been dubbed “ruin porn” by residents who see it as exploiting the decay without offering any solutions to the problems facing their community.

When I first began photographing the Menomonee Valley about 15 years ago, Milwaukee was often compared to Detroit and many thought our city to be on the verge of slipping into a similar abyss. The Menomonee Valley, the geographical center of the city, was also the epicenter of urban decay. We had ruins, too, particularly at the west end of the Valley where the Milwaukee Road once was the city’s largest employer. For a while, until they became unstable and had to be torn down, the chimneys that were the last vestiges of those ruins acquired value as monuments.

Chimneys, 2009

Although Milwaukee still has work to do, we have not suffered Detroit’s fate. The story of Milwaukee diverged from that of Detroit and one of the most important chapters in that story is the one about the Menomonee Valley. Ever since white settlers drove out the indigenous inhabitants, the history of the Valley has been one of repeated transformations.

The verdant wild rice marsh became the locus of urban expansion as the surrounding bluffs were torn down to fill it in. The Valley became Milwaukee’s industrial core—“machine shop to the world.” By the late Twentieth Century industry had moved on. The Valley had been abandoned, blighted with pollution, and hollowed out, much like Detroit.

The Valley is now seeing its fourth major period of transformation. This new transformation has been led, in no small measure, by Menomonee Valley Partners (MVP), a non-profit organization created for the purpose. While the revitalization of Milwaukee is part of a global trend of urbanization, the story of the Menomonee Valley diverges, again, in important ways. As in most cities, jobs and economic development are appropriately a primary concern. But from its inception MVP has had a larger vision.  

What first attracted me to the Valley weren’t the ruins. It was the resurgent wildness that had grown up around them. Neglect, contamination and blight had driven out the people and, ironically, made the valley once again attractive to wildlife. In contrast to the first transformation of the Valley, which filled the marshes, channeled the river and drove out wildlife, the new vision for redevelopment has included restoration of the river and natural areas along with business development.

Spiderwort, ca. 2001

Instead of destroying natural habitats in the name of progress, there is a new understanding that a sustainable future involves the integration of the natural environment with human activity. The vision for the Valley layers on a third component to economic development and ecological rehabilitation: cultural revitalization. After all, what distinguish great cities from merely dense population centers are their cultural assets. They are places made vibrant by their histories, their recreational opportunities and by the arts.

If Detroit is to be saved it won’t be because Jesse Welter saw in it a business opportunity. It won’t be due to a flock of photographers who descend on the city for a day or a week and leave with images, however poignant and metaphorical. It will be the result of community efforts, including the many artists who have taken up residence there and whose work is about transformation and hope rather than decay and despair.

The latest chapter in the on-going story of the Menomonee Valley is one of transformation and hope. It is a story worth telling. Stay tuned.