Since swallowing a city block a century ago, the structure at 1915 E. Kenilworth Place has participated in the Ford Motor Company’s affordable automobile revolution and undertaken a tour of duty as a munitions factory during World War II, which inadvertently invigorated the feminist movement by offering women higher wages and recognition outside the home.
A storied history, to be sure, but the present goings-on in the Kenilworth Building yield to no era in cultural and industrial significance. The annual Kenilworth Open Studios makes this case compellingly. On Saturday, April 9, more than 100 faculty, graduate students and undergrads in UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts will open the doors to their labs, studios and rehearsal spaces in this six-story building to offer the public a glimpse of the future. Turns out, the path to the future often involves a detour through the past.
Voices from the Past
Music is part of the Saturday open house, starting with a look back at Paramount Records, a major force in 20th-century music by any measure. Improbably, this major force was headquartered up the road in Grafton. Even more improbably, the company had been founded to offer customers of the Wisconsin Chair Company—Paramount’s parent—something to fill their new record cabinet.
UWM’s Music Library has acquired a two-volume box set of scholarly tomes, vintage advertisements and 1,600 recordings made by Paramount between 1917 and 1932. “Paramount was especially critical in documenting early American finger-style guitar,” says John Stropes, director of UWM’s finger-style program, “We study the records of Blind Blake and his ‘piano-sounding guitar.’ He was simply without equal. No one wanted to play after him.”
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During student performances from 1-2 p.m., Rachael Carlson will tackle two inimitable compositions by Paramount recording artist Blind Blake. To explain how the public can access the Paramount box sets and UWM’s music library in general, music librarian Rebecca Littman will give a presentation.
Listening to voices of the past is similarly central in Performing Grace, a project by Portia Cobb, associate professor of film and the director of the Community Media Project. Last year’s massacre of nine Charleston, S.C., churchgoers brought the story of Denmark Vesey (c. 1767-1822) to Cobb’s mind. “Vesey was a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,” explains Cobb. He was accused of planning a slave revolt and, after a brief trial, hanged along with several others. “There’s still a lot of bad blood about that history in South Carolina,” says Cobb, “A sort of forced forgetting is at work. All that suppressed history showed up last year when Dylan Roof chose June 17 to kill at the church. That’s the date that Denmark Vesey had allegedly intended for the insurrection.”
Cobb’s film blends abstraction, narrative storytelling and documentary elements to ask questions about grace: Where does it come from? What is it? How do we perform grace? “The first part incorporates audio of President Obama singing ‘Amazing Grace’ during his eulogy for the church’s pastor over footage of my mother shelling cowpeas. We’re discussing forgiveness and, like others I’ve spoken with, she doesn’t understand how the victims’ families forgave so quickly.”
Performing Grace examines suppressed history through contemporary echoes in hopes of finding a way of healing that does not involve forced forgetting and false forgiving. “Talking about race is difficult,” Cobb notes, “But there is still trauma, and getting people to open their mouths and speak is the way forward.”
Working for the Environment
Other occupants of the Kenilworth Building respond to problems of an environmental nature. Associate professor in design and visual communication Kim Beckmann has teamed up with researchers at the School of Fresh Water Sciences to develop an ecological habitat map of the Milwaukee harbor. Beckmann explains, “It’s my job to translate the data into an understandable map that can diagnose and predict real-world problems. For instance, a developer has purchased all these properties and is planning to remove an old wooden retaining wall. It just so happens that this wooden wall is important for many different fish species. The map arms advocates with a tool to justify responsible stewardship of our waterways.”
This marriage of environmental stewardship and artistic communication also describes the work of Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, assistant professor and the print and narrative forms area head. During the Open Studios, Meuninck-Ganger and crew are breaking ground on a new PaperMaker’s Farm situated on the third-floor patio of the Kenilworth Building. “This will be a community garden,” she says, “Everyone is welcome to participate in the paper-making process. We’ll be growing native plants and we’ll be fighting invasive species by using them in the paper.”
Kenilworth Open Studios run 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 9, at the Kenilworth Building, 1915 E. Kenilworth Place. For more information on the event and on UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, visit www4.uwm.edu/psoa.
