The day I moved to Milwaukee was the day Pizza Man burned. Sitting in Alterra on Prospect, as my boss laid out the details of the role I’d be stepping into and a chorus of sirens blared, I felt stirred.
Maybe it was adrenaline, but my excitement was validated in the following months, getting to know Milwaukee through my new employer Present Music’s concert at Turner Hall, meeting artists and finding my way into their attic galleries and basement shows, volunteering at WMSE and witnessing its unpretentious awesomeness up close. This place is real, and special. There’s a resourceful humility that exists in within the creative community here, alongside its genius.
It's remarkable how creativity thrives here, given that Wisconsin ranks last for public funding for the arts. Milwaukee is the only city of its size to operate without a centralized Office of Arts and Culture. Beginning in 2017, a group of artists and community leaders came together to imagine a future in which the arts were more valued, and scarcity, a thing of the past. From these sessions, Imagine MKE was born. Since 2019, we’ve been advocating for the power of creatives to drive Milwaukee towards a brighter future.
In my role at Imagine, I’m a storyteller—platforming the individuals and organizations who make up our arts landscape. Since June of 2022, I’ve been producing and hosting the Creative MKE podcast in which I feature diverse talents and changemakers to illustrate how they shape this place, its aesthetic, its culture – and fuel growth in this region.
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Today, I’m even more jazzed about Milwaukee’s creative sector and its potential—relieved that Pizza Man seems to be thriving—and am honored to showcase Milwaukee’s creative magic through my work. I hope the podcast can promote what I know to be true: the best kept secret is that Milwaukee artists who find wider acclaim are actually just the tip of an iceberg. In our city, you can’t help but find expressive brilliance everywhere, across mediums: from murals to world class exhibitions, to powerful performances in mighty venues, to bustling makers markets, vibrant entrepreneurs, and the output of filmmakers, musicians and designers whose work reaches worldwide.
Milwaukee as a community must find more avenues to support, sustain, and honor our creatives, and step into our greatness as a global destination for arts and culture.
Visit: the Creative MKE podcast, and the work of Imagine MKE.
Photo Credit: Erol Reyal
