The Migration mural in the Jefferson Street pedestrian tunnel is one of several recent public art projects in Milwaukee organized by Milwaukee Downtown BID #21 employee Gabriel Yeager.
The streets of Milwaukee have been changed through the struggles and lives of the people who have lived there. The Milwaukee Downtown Placemaking Task Force is using murals to capture snapshots in time. The Taskforce is committed to including diverse voices, dedicating a majority of their resources to displaying artists of color’s work over the last three years. They along with Milwaukee Downtown BID #21—and in partnership with the Department of Public Works—have commissioned their seventh mural featuring local artist Ken Brown’s work The Hero in You.
The mural seeks to immortalize heroism during the pandemic by depicting more than 10 downtown essential workers with a 6 by 620 ft. mural. Off the Cuff recently caught up with Milwaukee Downtown Placemaking Task Forces’ Downtown Environment Specialist Gabriel Yeager to find out more about the process and goals of the mural.
What was your involvement in the process?
I serve as the Downtown Environment Specialist with Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21, and the liaison to our Downtown Placemaking Task Force. Essentially, I am charged with finding partners and artists, as well as securing funding and locations for our public art projects. Our conversations started in July 2019 with the City of Milwaukee's Department of Public Works to determine a downtown parking structure surface that could be transformed into a mural by a local artist. With financial support from both the Department of Public Works and Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21 in early 2020, we advanced the top 10 submissions from our 2nd Street skywalk Request for Qualifications and determined Ken Brown as the artist for MacArthur Square. Within the past three months, we’ve had ongoing conversations with Commissioner Polenske and his staff to pivot the mural’s content as our city’s tribute to frontline and essential workers, and hence the new mural is appropriately named The Hero in You.
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What were you looking for when discussing the mural and deciding what it would be of?
Our project planning began in July 2019, and at that time, we understood that the mural would be a critical component to the long-term vision to activate and enliven MacArthur Square and its green space. In recent months, however, conversations have shifted both locally and nationally, and the current affairs have ultimately influenced the mural’s content as a timestamp for what has been a pivotal year. The Hero in You is our tribute to our essential and frontline workers. You’ll see depictions across various sectors, including healthcare, grocery, delivery and city departments.
Why did you decide to do the mural now?
Planning began in July 2019, with the restoration efforts underway on the structure's facade. Perhaps most noticeable is new signage and decorative railing along the 620-ft. long length of the facade. Several important benchmarks occurred in the last year, including securing funding with the City of Milwaukee and determining the artist for the project. However, the mural is being installed in a very interesting time in history, and we wanted to ensure that the mural served as a timestamp for our community. You’ll see depictions of frontline and essential workers across various sectors, including healthcare, grocery, delivery and City of Milwaukee departments. It’s a very relevant theme in public art right now, and in a way, is a source of hope for all who interact with it.
Why did artist Ken Brown stand out to you as the best candidate? Did you consider others?
We ultimately advanced the top 10 artists from our 2nd Street Skywalk mural project, which is slated to begin in mid-July. We received over 60 submissions, with several well-qualified artists. To help streamline our requests from the local arts community, our Downtown Placemaking Task Force was able to select two artists, each with unique styles for two new downtown murals. Ken is a Milwaukee native, and has an incredible stained-glass, mosaic style to his designs that we are truly excited to showcase in such a prominent location downtown. The mural will be seen by the thousands of vehicles who utilize the Kilbourn tunnels daily.
What type of legacy are you hoping the mural to have?
We hope that this mural is a timestamp of our community in 2020 and will serve as a source of joy and inspiration for all who interact with it. Especially during these difficult times, even the smallest rays of hope enliven everyone to think optimistically about our future, both individually, and collectively as a community and nation.
Can you talk a little bit about the selection process for the frontline heroes featured in the mural?
We profiled a dozen downtown essential and frontline workers through our blog series, while leading up to this project. We were able to learn more about the motivation behind some of the essential workers who continue to keep our city in operation. From the Department of Public Works sanitation crew to our downtown homeless outreach coordinator, these stories truly encompass everything I love about the City of Milwaukee. When times get tough, we roll-up our sleeves and get to work, and now, more than ever, we feel that supporting local artists is integral to our community’s recovery.
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Is there any significance to the location of the mural?
MacArthur Square has been Milwaukee’s long-lost civic square for several decades. Over the years, the glimmer of the space has faded, however, it’s still a gem of a public space connecting key civic buildings, including the Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee County Courthouse and Milwaukee Police Department’s headquarters. It also has some of the best views of our downtown skyline. To the credit of the City, the Department of Public Works is truly committed to rethinking how the space can be activated for future events and programming, and the mural is the first step in changing public perceptions of the space.
Is there anything you would like to say that I haven’t covered?
Since 2017, the Milwaukee Downtown Placemaking Task Force has completed six major mural projects, of which five of the seven artists have been people of color, correlating to $116,000 of our total investment in public art of $146,000. These projects include utility box murals completed by Mauricio Ramirez in 2017; Migration in the Jefferson Street tunnel by Katie Batten and Janson Rapisarda in 2018; Westown in Bloom by Emma Daisy Gertel; Heart & Sol by Mauricio Ramirez in 2019; and Kindred on the 2nd Street skywalk by Jaime Brown and Karim Jabarri; and The Hero in You at MacArthur Square by Ken Brown.
To read more visual arts stories, click here.
To read more stories by Colleen Fischer, click here.
