The Anomaly AND the Field Station, Stoughton, Wisconsin (Part One)
I recently (July 28-Sept 10, 2023) had a show I titled “Anomaly Field Station (Wisconsin)” at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton, Wisconsin. My installation was the “anomaly”, and the gallery was the “field station” to observe and study it. What I did not expect was that being in and with the place and people of the Gallery and the Town to be such a profoundly beautiful experience; it is an ongoing gift of teaching and experience on many levels that I would like to keep track of for myself and share with others.
I will begin at the beginning of arriving and installing the show. Able Contemporary Gallery was created by Theresa Abel and Tim O’Neill within an old tobacco warehouse they renovated on Main Street in Stoughton, a small town just south of Madison. The gallery is imbued with the memory of the warehouse with its 100 years plus beams and huge high ceilings. In the “No. 5 Space” where my show was, the original vaulted ceiling, floors, and two of the walls preserved the original wide wood planks. One window sits high in the peak, and I removed it’s covering to bring it into my installation. This space feels magical on its own and I was excited to see how it amplified what I was going to install, and vice versa. The art of installation is creating a room, an entire environment, and I love the way I get to take over and commandeer a whole space. It is also daunting because I typically have just a few days to make the installation manifest. The work is always made anew because making it in your studio will be close to what appears in the gallery, but it’s always different. That’s the thrill and the terror.
I arrived Stoughton about noon and was delighted to reconnect with the women who lead and work the gallery: Theresa Abel, Ann Orlowski, and Lauren Miller. Three exceptional artists-curators-writers. Three women who to me radiate the power of being confident in their own skins. Smart and funny. What a joy to be there.
As I began working, I saw that I wasn’t going to be able to get as close to the ceiling as I wanted or imagined and I would have to create more structure in order to suspend the black swirling mass of bird netting that becomes the cloud/storm/smoke/presence of something happening, occurring, being conjured. My photograph of the tamarack bog and the table would be able to take their place just as I imagined, and I began with that as I planned “the weather” above. I worked for a couple-few hours unpacking the car and hanging the photograph (made in segments). Then it was time to take a break and head over to the bed and breakfast I had booked to check in. Five minutes away was the stately-friendly brick home with the as advertised big front porch for guests to enjoy. And here I met Kim. One of the innkeepers.
Have you ever wondered if you should book a bed and breakfast or if you’d rather have more privacy…or a different kind of stay? Well, this B&B was just up the street from the gallery, and as I had researched where to stay, I found that I just could not bear to stay at a highway hotel miles away. I felt that this project of Anomaly Field Station was bigger than making the installation in the gallery. I am on sabbatical. My sabbatical proposal, “Earthling School” varies for me in what it means, but I felt/feel that is about growing. And enjoying and learning and living life on Earth in a beautiful and expanded way. It is about loosening the ways I saw/see myself and my work and losing the expectations of academia and its desire to have known outcomes. Grants and proposals always ask for tangible outcomes and a plan of what exactly you are going to do. Well, this sabbatical proposal had to do with “not knowing” and seeing what would emerge from an experiment of exploration of self and relationships with other earthlings, including non-human earthlings of the plant and animal kingdom and our planet.
So back to meeting Kim. I liked her immediately and immensely. She and her husband Scott run the Naeset-Roe B&B, built by architect Jens Naeset in 1878. To me their home-inn is also an artwork of installation. Furnishings of the era are surrounded and imbued with fascinating vignettes and materials of the present day. Example: they removed all the cabinet doors in the kitchen to showcase a mass of glittering copper cooking vessels and implements that take the space over with intention. It is alchemically beautiful. And functional. I had entered Kim’s dream and I loved it so much. But I needed to go back to work; the gallery had a closing time.
At workday end, I immediately headed out to wander the beautiful and historically intact Main Street to find dinner. I wandered into a bar which was filled with people drinking, and also eating - but it looked like a potluck as there was food set out to share at the big front table. And they seemed to all be playing a game? Or was it a raffle? OR? I was in Wisconsin now. This did not remind me of my Minnesota haunts. I liked that. I felt many eyes upon me - not in an unfriendly way - but more like I was from another planet. And as there was not an empty seat, I found my dinner down the street. Back at the Inn, I met my other innkeeper, Scott, who radiated warmth and humor. Their lovely dogs, Bella and Beatrix, were also in residence.
The second day held good progress for the installation. I again headed out immediately at closing time to find dinner. I was famished as I had not stopped for lunch. The Water Street Tavern was just down the street and indeed it was on the water; Stoughton had a river(!) which I had not realized until then, the Yahara River. As I took a seat outside, a couple was kayaking up to land at the restaurant’s dock. It was a kind of dream world to sit there and be served a Spotted Cow beer (available only in Wisconsin) by a server clad in pink shorts. And in fact, his whole sense of self and style was quite extraordinary. We talked here and there that evening. I asked him if he was an artist. He told me he was a drag queen (Instagram @laritzacracker) which was perfect; it is such an important art form.
There is much more to write about all the people I met in the gallery while I worked on my installation. And I will do that in another post, but for now, I’d like to close this one with a beautiful (true) story.
At breakfast on the morning of the show’s opening, Kim told me about dreams she had had the night before. Here is what I wrote in my notebook: “Kim told me that she had looked at my show info online last night and also looked at my website. She said she hadn’t remembered any dreams in months, but last night she remembered two. The first was that she had missed my opening and was distraught. After she fell back asleep, she had a second dream. She said, ‘There was a minotaur! And there was a black panther in the style of Mexican wrestlers. And there was a gun shot that saved me.’ This was amazing to her and utterly amazing to me.”
…There is actually a lot I could say about a minotaur and black panthers. I didn’t go into it at the time either for her or for me, but I have a feeling I will in the near future. To be continued… AND Kim, Scott, and their son Grant CAME TO MY OPENING! So wonderfully fun and generous of them.
Links:
Gallery’s page on my show and artist talk: Anomaly Field Station: Wisconsin
Naeset-Roe Bed & Breakfast Inn