Woodland Pattern Book Center is a bookshop—an independent bookseller that has survived the alleged collapse of bookshops in the face of Amazon. It’s also an art gallery and a venue for music and other performances. Given the unconventional tastes of the founders of this non-profit organization, Woodland Pattern can also be called a cultural laboratory. But as much as anything else, it has been an anchor in its Riverwest community since opening in 1980.
As it inches into its 38th year, Woodland Pattern’s leadership is contemplating the past while pondering the future. Co-founder Anne Kingsbury has announced her resignation as executive director, effective March 30, 2018. Her co-founder, Karl Gartung, has already stepped down as board president but remains active in the organization.
“It was the only building we could afford at the time,” Gartung says of Woodland Pattern’s location at 720 E. Locust St. But he quickly ticks off other reasons for situating the bookshop-arts center in Riverwest. “It’s close enough to UWM but not tied to it. And it’s an old working-class neighborhood, a mixed area ethnically.”
The outer rooms of Woodland Pattern are devoted to books, its walls covered in shelves full of primarily small press publications with a particular emphasis on poetry. But the inner room serves dual purpose as a gallery for displaying artwork and a performance space. The room is relatively small—Laurie Anderson packed it with a hundred people just before she became a star—but the acoustics are good. “We thought the boundaries between literature, visual art, performance art and music are fluid. We wanted to do a center that would include all those things,” Gartung says.
The Retail Experience of Art
“I’d like to think we’re letting people choose the classics of today. People need access to those things in a place that’s welcoming,” Kingsbury says. Gartung describes this as “the retail experience of art. I wanted a place where I could expand my horizon—a place where people could walk in off the street and educate themselves.”
“The physicality of it,” Kingsbury says when asked why bookshops remain important in the digital era. “You can pick up a book and turn the pages, feel the paper, see the book next to it. When you come to a physical space, you can talk to people about what you’re reading and get suggestions.”
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Woodland Pattern quickly became a meeting place for community groups. Openness to the concerns of the surrounding neighborhood was established early on when Gartung and Kingsbury covered the building’s street façade with a giant blackboard, complete with chalk and erasers. “It was a community message board,” Kingsbury explains. Eventually, they replaced the chalkboard with a series of murals by local artists.
Filling the Gaps
Long before author talks were an almost nightly occurrence in Milwaukee, Woodland Pattern hosted readings. It has also worked outside the walls of its Riverwest home—facilitating workshops in local schools and promoting major events in other venues across the city, including African American poet-musicologist Amira Baraka and rock singer-poet Jim Carroll.
Says Gartung, “We always tried to fill functions not being filled by others in the city. We used to have an active film series, but when that wasn’t necessary any longer, we devoted our resources to music;” that is, to an ongoing series of experimental and free improvisational concerts curated over the years by Milwaukee musicians Thomas Gaudynski and Hal Rammel. “We will always have to be aware of what’s going on in Milwaukee. It would be stupid for us to try to duplicate the Milwaukee Art Museum or even Present Music. We are a chamber arts situation,” Gartung continues.
Woodland Pattern has had enduring significance to Milwaukee artists. “From its free programs for urban youth, to its unparalleled Native American literature collection, to the platform it long has provided to a wide diversity of artists (especially those whose voices have otherwise been less than fully heard), Woodland Pattern has been a constant inspiration to an uncounted number of artists,” says Paul McComas, a Milwaukee-born writer-performer-musician who has lived in the Chicago area since the ’80s. “For those for whom the arts comprise a spiritual realm, Woodland Pattern is a sacred space. I can tell you, within the much larger Windy City, there is nothing like Woodland Pattern.”
Goals and Going Forward
Woodland Pattern’s current capital campaign has already raised $265,000 toward a goal of $750,000. According to board member Ed Krishok, the goals include “updating the building—including renovations to improve accessibility—and funding an operating reserve to support programming and facilities maintenance. We will be announcing some additional details about the capital campaign and our plans at the Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon in late January.”
For Kansas City native and recently added board member Franklin K.R. Cline, Woodland Pattern’s national reputation was one reason to move to Milwaukee. “I was a PhD candidate in creative writing, and as I was applying to universities, it was ‘UWM has a great program, and Milwaukee has Woodland Pattern.’” He is representative of the younger generation Gartung and Kingsbury have involved in Woodland Pattern’s future.
Cline is also on the committee conducting a nationwide search for Kingsbury’s replacement. “The question we’re asking candidates is: What are you excited about? What changes would you propose?” he says. “We’re sad to see Anne go, but we’re very energized about what’s around the corner for the next 40 years.”
“The template is in place,” Kingsbury adds. “We want an executive director who respects what’s here but can bring a fresh set of eyes to it. Founders are mortal. A successful founder will create a situation that allows their work to go on.”
