Sculptors Play in the Snow

By Andy McGivern, curator of exhibitions

Do you remember when you were a kid and school was called off due to an unusually heavy snowfall? It was like getting a Saturday during the school week; what a treat. My brothers and sisters and I would go sledding, build forts, have snowball fights, and just enjoy winter.

That’s what I figure it must’ve been like for the three talented snow carvers in Team USA, Mike Martino, Tom Queoff and Mike Sponholtz. I’m sure Tom, Mike and Sponz enjoyed the heck out of playing in the snow as kids and that they took to carving their first snow sculpture like fish to water.

I first met the guys back in 1989 to work out the details of their initial Woodson Art Museum sculpture.  It was called “The Hatchling” and was an elegant carving of a baby bird in a nest with its wings extended. In 1995, after a string of bird-themed carvings, Team USA began carving exhibition-related sculpture subjects. That year they carved a giant “Very Hungry Caterpillar” to coincide with an exhibition of  children’s book illustrations by Eric Carle.

Throughout 23 years of winter visits to Wausau and the Woodson Art Museum, Team USA has sculpted such subjects as a kangaroo, a gingerbread house, a giant one-eyed ogre, a cow and calf, a giant dragon slide, and a seated ball player from Colima. Last year they completed a figure riding a dinosaur to complement the popular James Gurney Dinotopia exhibition.

Team USA will be joining us Thursday through Saturday to  complete a twelve-foot-tall sculpture of a tropical tree frog scaling down a leaf in a giant picture frame, as seen in the Museum’s exhibition of paper sculpture by Toronto artist Calvin Nicholls.

Be sure to stop in and say hi to Tom, Mike, and Sponz. After coming back for so many years, they’re like family – family that likes to play in the snow.

Love Is in the Air

By Kathy Kelsey Foley, Director

Valentine’s Day is three weeks away, but I’m already feeling the love.

In fact, “love” is a theme that permeates our Woodson Wanderings’ posts. We love our work; we love this program and that, and the participants who bring wide-ranging experiences to the table; we love the opportunities we are offered – from attending conferences to considering artworks for the collection; and we love hearing what visitors think and how they react to exhibitions.

There isn’t much we don’t love. (I even love Brussels sprouts!)

Museum work is not for everyone – even though all of us at the Woodson Art Museum love it. It does require quite a bit of juggling, and for those of us who like to keep multiple balls concurrently in the air, the museum environment is perfect.

What I mean by this is that in order to keep projects flowing and moving forward, we’re always working months and even years ahead.

Case in point: this is an installation week. Two fabulous new exhibitions – Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami and Calvin Nicholls: Paper Sculpture by Design – will open on Saturday, and I’m confident that I’m going to love both.

Why? Because we’ve been working on developing the programming, graphics, audio tour, and more for many months, and I’ve also had the pleasure of a sneak peak as artworks for these exhibitions have been unpacked. (Another thing I love about my work!)

I’m thinking blog readers – and all visitors this winter – are going to love the origami and paper sculpture exhibitions, too. Hasten to the Museum on opening day – Saturday, January 26, Noon to 5:00 p.m. – to not only get a first look, but also to meet Wisconsin Public Radio host and origami artist Ruthanne Bessman and participate in “Flock to Fold,” a community art project that will grow with your help between now and April 7.

Think cranes. Think fun. Think you’re going to love this, too!

Shaker Exhibition Jogs Family Memories

By Catie Anderson, curator of education

Woodson Art Museum staff can easily get attached to exhibitions, and I have to admit that I’ll be sad to see the Shaker exhibition exit our galleries next week. This winter, Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection offered visitors a journey back to an intriguing chapter of American history. The story of the rise and decline of Shaker communities in America can be told through their inventions, craftsmanship, and utilitarian objects currently on view in the galleries. The Shakers, one of the longest surviving religious communities in America, were a dynamic and ever-evolving group of artisans and innovators.

The Andrews collection of decorative arts and Shaker artifacts is stunning in both breadth and quality. A collection this large – over 200 objects! – rarely travels and its presence in Wausau will not soon be forgotten.

I had an affinity for Shaker material culture before the arrival of this exhibition. I grew up an only child whose parents enjoyed antiques, historic homes, and museums. One of my family’s favorite get-away destinations for a fall road trip was Pleasant Hill, Kentucky – one of the best-preserved and most-popular historic Shaker villages open to the public. Pleasant Hill is the only Shaker settlement where visitors can stay overnight in the original rooms of stately dwelling houses carefully preserved to convey the community’s zenith in the mid-nineteenth century. I went through a brief phase of feigned athleticism as a pre-teen, and I remember losing a baseball down a gutter while playing catch with my dad at Pleasant Hill. I remember trying corn mush for the first time in the Pleasant Hill dining hall one morning and after adding a pad of butter and generous amounts of maple syrup found it to be quite palatable. My parents will drive up to Wausau from Chicago this weekend to visit – just in time to take in the exhibition before it closes on January 20. I look forward to recalling our visits to Pleasant Hill together as we create new memories in the galleries.

I never would have guessed that the Shakers – a community of individuals so foreign to me – would evoke such memories. But I suppose that’s what makes museum experiences so special; they can spark a memory or be the basis for a new one.

Have you created a museum memory in the New Year? It’s the perfect time to bring the family together and make a connection to art and one another. I promise, you’ll never see things the same way again.

A Hand- and Heart-warming Campaign

by Amy Beck, marketing and communications manager

About fifty Wausau-area community members will be a bit warmer during the remaining cold winter months, thanks to Woodson Art Museum visitors’ generosity through the Wisconsin Department of Tourism’s Big Bundle Up campaign.

The Woodson Art Museum, one of two Big Bundle Up drop-off locations in the Wausau area, collected forty pairs of kids’ gloves and mittens, two children’s hats, eight pairs of adults’ gloves and mittens, and two matching adults’ hats and donated them locally.

It warmed our hearts to see mittens and gloves pile up in the collection basket in the Museum’s main entrance and spill into a bulging bag that I delivered to the Marathon County Child Development Agency-Head Start main office in Wausau yesterday.

“We certainly appreciate being the recipients,” said Cindy Thorpe, Head Start family and community partnership specialist. “Be assured they’ll be put on hands just as soon as we can.”

The adult-size gloves and matching hats went to North Central Health Care for the clients and residents it serves.

Both organizations quickly responded to an inquiry about winter-gear needs, relayed to Wausau-area organizations by Shelly Kaiser, volunteer connection director at United Way of Marathon County. The joy that comes from connecting acts of kindness with people in need “is a side benefit of my job,” she said. I agree; involvement with this campaign certainly has wrapped many of us at the Museum in its warm glow, as well.

Throughout this year’s Big Bundle Up campaign, people statewide were encouraged to donate new or gently-used mittens, hats, scarves, earmuffs, hats, coats, sweaters, jackets, snow pants, and other warm clothing items. Drop-off sites such as ours were asked to report the collection tally and then donate the items to local charities. The Wisconsin Department of Tourism’s first-ever mitten collection program launched last winter yielded more than 3,100 mittens collected statewide.

Although this year’s statewide tally has not yet been released, the Big Bundle Up campaign got a jump start from Wisconsin Knitwear, which graciously donated 500 winter hats to the program. Packers fans also donated warm clothing items at Lambeau Field prior to the start of the Dec. 9, 2012 Packers/Lions game.

It’ll be heartwarming, no doubt, to read about the total statewide tally soon!

Happy and Healthy Artwork in 2013

by Jane Weinke, curator of collections

I write this so often, but at the start of 2013 it bears repeating. I love my job!

Recently Woodson Art Museum director Kathy Foley, longtime museum patron, Judy Cherwinka and I embarked on a day trip to Minneapolis. Our mission was to deliver five artworks to the Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC) and retrieve three recently treated works.

MACC is a non-profit regional center for preservation and conservation of art and artifacts. Think of their staff as doctors who repair artwork. If a painting’s surface is in need of cleaning, a work on paper is torn or stained, or if a sculpture is in need of repair, these are our “go to” friends. 

And yes, the folks at MACC are friends as well as colleagues. Over the years, through a series of successful grants, our dedicated associates have examined and documented nearly every artwork in the Woodson Art Museum collection. These examinations are critical for two reasons: they ensure the artworks are and will remain in good condition (think healthy), and from these reports we developed a long-range treatment plan. This prioritized list allows yearly budgeting for ongoing treatment.  

As you might imagine, the conservation of artworks is time consuming and costly. Just as when you visit your physician, myriad tests are needed to confirm the diagnosis. Following the examination, conservators write a lengthy report outlining their observations and proffering a treatment plan. The final detail on the report is an estimate of treatment costs. Can you imagine if this were standard with our personal physicians!

The Woodson Art Museum is fortunate to have ongoing commitment from the Board of Directors specifically for collection care. Another element key to our success is Judy Cherwinka; she is the Museum’s “conservation angel.” Her yearly support enables the Museum to have a relatively short long-range treatment list – an achievement made possible because of her ongoing commitment to collection care. Every museum should be blessed with such support.

While at the Conservation Center, another Museum patron, Anne Marie Gromme, joined our group. During 2012 we worked closely with Anne Marie on the exhibition of her father’s work, Owen J. Gromme: An Enduring Legacy. She, too, understands the importance of protecting and preserving artworks, which she has done so well with her father’s work.

The photos accompanying this blog show the hospital-like organization and cleanliness of MACC. The staff generously took time from their work to explain the various stages of their current projects. 

The drive home gave us time to discuss our experiences, the importance of the treatments, and the talented and dedicated staff of MACC. It not only takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to care for artwork – we certainly have a first place team.