Down by the riverside: Art and activism in Milwaukee

A local artist holds a water vigil in solidarity with West Virginia following the chemical spill.

Melanie was waiting when I double-parked in the small lot next to the Milwaukee River Bridge in the Third Ward. Her breath came out like a cloud as I approached. But with rosy cheeks and a buoyant spirit she greeted me cheerfully despite her wait in the –11° wind chill. Near the end of Milwaukee’s Riverwalk she had set up a shrine on a small silvery table. The location, where the Menomonee River meets the Milwaukee, was chosen to maximize the symbolism of the vigil for which the shrine was intended.

Because of the frigid conditions, the ceremony was brief and simple. Melanie knelt beside the shrine and stretched out a string of hand-printed prayer flags she had made for the occasion while I composed a few shots to document the vigil. Although no one else joined in, we were not alone on the river. We noted with curiosity the presence of ducks in a patch of open water. A pair of mallards and another of mergansers floated amid the steam rising off the river. Farther upstream a team of four coast guards were practicing winter water rescue from a hole they had cut in the solid ice.

Before I arrived Melanie had witnessed the passing of the barge that delivers coal to the We Energies Menomonee Valley Power Plant, taking note of the irony.

Melanie Ariens had invited me to participate and to document her Water Vigil. Nationally, the vigil was organized by 350.org, the global environmental activism organization founded by author Bill McKibben. On Tuesday, January 21 people around the country and the world were invited to “join in solidarity with West Virginians; to honor and protect all water!”

West Virginia, of course, is where a recent chemical spill polluted the Elk River so badly that tap water was shut down for thousands of residents in the capitol city of Charleston. A coal company was responsible for the spill.

Melanie told me, “I felt the need to participate in this vigil to show support from Milwaukee for those affected by the spill into the Elk River. It was the very small thing I could do. Imagine shutting down the water supply to Milwaukee for an extended period due to a chemical spill, then being told the water is ok, with only traces of the chemical in it. How would that make you feel about drinking it or bathing your child in it? It is a real statement of how unregulated and untested the chemical industry is.”

Melanie Ariens is not new to this combination of art and activism. A self-proclaimed “multi media artist, environmental advocate and volunteer community coordinator,” Ariens bills herself as an environmental artist. She has used the water shrine previously as an installation in other local waterways. She has a portfolio of digital images depicting a glass half full (or…?) on the Lake Michigan shoreline and in a variety of streams and other bodies of water. One of her best-known works is a wall-sized rendering of the Great Lakes in denim.

In her own words, “I make shrines, prayer flags, and other artwork as a way to honor the Great Lakes and freshwater. Making the work is a meditation for me, and hopefully an unusual presentation of an idea to get people to reflect on how important water is to life, and importantly to be stewards of this amazing resource.”

Ariens is both passionate and well versed on her issues. About the current vigil she said, “I know from the many years I have worked on pesticide reform that just because a chemical is listed with the EPA—in this case, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol—doesn't mean it has been tested; it just means they know it is out there. If we as individuals don't speak up and fiercely protect our water, abuse and contamination will happen.”

Ariens has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from UWM, where she specialized in painting, drawing and printmaking. Now her work frequently includes multi media and installations. When not out in the landscape, she can be found at RedLine, Milwaukee where she is among the Artists-in-Residence.  ​

After about ten minutes at the shrine my gloved fingers were stingingly numb; my face and feet not far behind. Melanie, who had been there a half-hour longer, was holding her prayer flags without gloves. Her enthusiasm never flagged however and her smile was radiant. When we finished and started to disassemble the shrine we discovered that the half-full glasses of water had frozen to the surface. We pried them loose and tossed the remaining water into the river below.

In addition to posting them here and on Facebook, two of our images have been uploaded to a flickr page set up by 350.org to demonstrate solidarity and share the spirit of the event. When I checked just before posting this there were 182 images on the site. To see them click here.

For more on Melanie Ariens go to her website.

Triptych: Water Vigil

Art and environmental remediation

In 1969 Patricia Johanson, inspired by close observations of the natural world, made simple pencil drawings of animals and plants in sketchbooks and on loose-leaf pages. Copious notes written in casual long hand surrounded the drawings. Johanson had a vision for designing artworks that were not merely representations of nature – what is more common than that? Nor was her idea to reflect on or abstract those sources.

Johanson, in tune with the Zeitgeist that led to the first Earth Day in 1970, wanted nothing less than to heal the earth using art.

She has been doing just that for decades now, often on a monumental scale.

This past Wednesday, the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, WI hosted Johanson for a talk entitled Science, Art, & Infrastructure. The event was sponsored by the Design Coalition Institute in partnership with UW-Marathon, UW-Madison, and UW-Extension.

Beginning with the humble ideas sketched so long ago, Johanson, who subsequently received a degree in architecture, went on to describe several of her major completed projects.

The Dallas Museum of Art is situated picturesquely on Fair Park Lagoon. Water quality in the lagoon, however, had been so badly degraded over the years that it was biologically dead. Johanson’s solution was a sculptural design based on plant forms that simultaneously buttressed eroding banks and created a series of microhabitats. Unlike most public sculpture projects, the obvious concrete structures are only the most visible tip of the iceberg. Native aquatic plants and animals introduced into the newly rehabilitated environment are as important, if not more so.

Not coincidentally, the sculpture doubles as a playground and outdoor classroom for people young and old who visit the newly invigorated site.

archival photo
courtesy Anthracite Heritage Museum

Scranton, Pennsylvania provided Johanson with one of the most daunting challenges: a landscape utterly ravaged by coal mining. She outlined the historical background, which includes human suffering along with environmental devastation. The many levels of now abandoned underground mines have become a defacto reservoir into which all surface waters, former streams, etc. have disappeared.

Her designs are sensitive to this history as well as current conditions, the needs of the local community, and the intention to help ameliorate environmental problems.

This aerial view of the water treatment facility under construction in Petaluma, California gives a sense of the enormous scale of some of her artistic accomplishments.

Aside from sheer wonder, delight, and appreciation for Johanson’s work, there were four main points that struck me:

This is work that requires enormous amounts of research and cooperation for it to be successful. No amount of self-reflection in the studio can produce such far-reaching and practical results.

Johanson reiterated several times the need for community involvement. She was not there, in whatever the location, to impose an aesthetic concept on the land. She listened to the public and the local stakeholders and her designs respect their needs as well as her own creative imagination.

The third point is sadder, I think. Her presentation as well as her work reminded me of Betsy Damon, who had given a talk at UWM a while ago. Afterwards, I asked Johanson about Damon. Unsurprisingly, they are friends. She went on to say that there were only a few like-minded artists doing these kinds of projects that combine imaginative artistic design with actual restoration and bio-remediation – and they are, like her, all getting along in years.

Young artists are not uninterested in the environment, she said, but they tend to want to draw attention to places or frame issues rather than dealing directly with healing the earth.

There were many young people, university students no doubt, in the audience. My hope is that some of them heard her message and found her example inspiring enough to turn that around.

Finally, as I did when I heard Damon speak, I couldn’t help wishing there is a way that one of these artists could be brought to Milwaukee to do their creative and restorative work. The Menomonee Valley would be the perfect location.

Project descriptions and more images can be found on Johanson's website.

Preposterous Ecological Art?

The concept of Ecological Art means something different than the more inclusive term Environmental Art. The latter is most famously embodied by the "Earthworks" of the latter third of the Twentieth Century. Artists such as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer created sculptures that went beyond "site specific" to incorporate the land itself into the work of art, often with little regard to the destructive nature of the work. As the movement evolved artists like Andy Goldsworthy became more sensitive to the impact their work had on the land and attempted to leave the environment unharmed.

Ecological Art is generally understood to go even further. There generally are two ways this is done. Some Eco-Artists use art to repair or restore damaged environments, as exemplified by Betsy Damon, who recently gave a talk at UWM about her remarkable work with Keepers of the Waters. Others create work that draws attention to ecological principles or deals with issues related to environmental relationships, sustainability, and the like without affecting them directly. A talk entitled "Preposterous Propositions" at MIAD last night by Linda Weintraub emphasized this last type of approach.

Read my full (and skeptical) review at my other blog: Arts Without Borders.

Art and Nature come together in Indianapolis

White River, 100 Acres Art and Nature Park

The other day I was interviewed for 1000 Friends of Wisconsin for a story. One of the questions I was asked was what I thought art can contribute to environmental advocacy. Of course the interviewer knew I had some strong convictions about that topic, since it's one of the things I do with my own art. Well, this isn't an answer to that question, but it relates to the topic of how art and nature can intersect and I hope you find it interesting. I visited Indianapolis last weekend and the art museum there recently opened what they bill as an art and nature park. It's ambition is to be more than a typical sculpture garden. Its unusual mission is to integrate art and nature on 100 acres of urban park land. For the full story - and more pictures - please go to my other blog: ArtsWithoutBorders.

Park of the Laments, by Alfredo Jaar, one of eight current temporary art installations in the park