Milwaukee Observatory Project Connects Art and Public Archeiology

Discovery World Creates Art Installation with Neighborhood High School Students

Aug. 26, 2012

8:07 p.m.

Milwaukee's Discovery World partnered with Bay View and Bradley Tech High School students to create new art installations based on history in two Milwaukee neighborhoods. Last Saturday, the Milwaukee Observatory featured local history so the city could recognize and remember its famous people and significant sites in this area of town. This included the newly expanded Groppi's Food Market, two blocks west and north of 2590 South Superior Street, the Milwaukee Observatory\'s first location.  Using this location on the grounds of the Beulah Briton House (1872) at the Historical Society of Bay View, Bay View High School students manned four tents that housed the multiple installations. A "Memory House," a place to record personal stories from the community, a place to document local artifacts and a tent to have a portrait taken for posterity were available for the city to appreciate and learn from. One tent also allowed anyone, especially the younger generation, to make an art project coordinating with the installation. To the east of the grounds a compass like circle of “street signs” pointed the way to important historical sites in Bay View accompanied by information regarding that particular site of interest. A large table map was available to locate these sites such as the Immaculate Conception Church and School, Chase Mounds and Chase Bottle Works and the Three Brothers Restaurant, or what was once known as the former Schiltz House, which at one time only served Schiltz brews.  Discovery World Archeologist Kevin Cullen supervises the students while assisting them through the research and implementation stages of the program along with other Discovery World staff members. The process applies methods of art, archeology, documentation, history and science for the students while providing them opportunities to build their self-confidence, writing and public speaking skills. This process culminates in Bay View's "Memory House" where they exhibited pictures of Elsa Ulbrecht (1885-1980), a Milwaukee artist, art educator and dancer. Another important Milwaukeean was landscape painter, Susan Frackelton (1848 -1932). Frackelton eventually went on to produce hand painted china that earned medals at the 1893 World's Fair and patent a home kiln. Recognized for her innovative designs and glazes, one titled “ Frackelton Blue and Grey was collected extensively then as it is now. The multi award-winning artist also presided over a committee named the Milwaukee Art Institute that eventually changed to the Milwaukee Art Museum, a contemporary world class institution. In 1887, Rafael Baez, Sr. became the first Latin American professor at Marquette University to teach in music after directing the choir and playing the organ at Gesu Church. Another name familiar in Milwaukee is Lapham, most likely named for Increase Lapham, a New Yorker invited in 1836 to become a chief engineer for Milwaukee who stayed 20 years to develop the 1st accurate map of the city while encouraging its growth. Documenting and recording public history such as this, and artifacts such as Frackelton's china or Lapham's maps, gives the present day world an alternate perspective on life by revising what can be known about a, city, culture or singular individual. How one person might change a specific history or industry, so finding an object records and substantiates this heritage. What archeologists now call the field of Public Archeology. Cullen believes, “Qualifying the stories of the historical records, the artifacts, is tangible, [as then is the history], something you can hold in the palm of your hand.” A relatively new field, Public Archeology mines and searches for details in the streets and homes of familiar city neighborhoods. Cullen and the students recently excavated an old hotel site in Walker's Point where several artifacts were uncovered to relate new stories about the past. How a location and neighborhood changes over time along with the people who once lived there.  One Bay View High School senior, Mariah, enjoys the Discovery World Milwaukee Observatory program because she's interested in art. Seeing how people designed and made objects in the past. A vintage sugar bowl minus it's cover, if it ever had one, found its way to the Milwaukee Observatory this year and was on display in her tent that she supervised on an August Saturday afternoon. Neighborhoods lose this history over time if no one records these rich details that might determine the future, facts often that could and need to be articulated better. Each neighborhood connects to the larger Milwaukee community adding dimension and cultural, industrial and/or social elements to the legacy that in turn builds the city into a brighter, more productive place to play and work. Cullen reinforces this crucial importance when he says, “You need to live it, be on the streets, look from another neighborhood and perspective, to know that's why were connected.” (For further information on Discovery World\'s Bay View Milwaukee Observatory and the upcoming Bradley Tech Milwaukee Observatory that runs through September 30, please visit Heidi Heistad at <a href=\"mailto:hheistad@discoveryworld.org\">hheistad@discoveryworld.org</a> or <a href=\"http://www.milwaukeeobservatory.com\">www.milwaukeeobservatory.com</a> where pictures from the actual excavation in Walker's Point are posted online.)<o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

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