Roving Through the Driftless: A Guide to the 2024 Wormfarm Institute Farm/Art DTour

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Photo via Wormfarm Institute - wormfarminstitute.org

"Get to the Pie" by Brent Houzenga, 2020

"Get to the Pie" by Brent Houzenga, 2020

The Wisconsin Driftless Area consumes the southwestern part of the state, extending into Minnesota, Iowa and the northern tip of Illinois. It is an area untouched by the glacial drift of the last Ice Age, leaving the area’s valleys and hillsides uneven amidst flattened surroundings. Many geologists and naturalists have been attracted to this borderless region, which was originally occupied by Ho-Chunk and Dakota nations, in order to better understand how the unique geography and natural resources influenced human interactions with the land. 

The story of this land has changed over time, retold through the perspective of Western colonies, trained scientists, and exploitive practices. But through the Wormfarm Institute, Donna Neuwirth and Jay Salinas are working to restore balance by emphasizing agricultural sustainability, conservation, culture, and creative placemaking in the region. This October, the Wormfarm Institute activates the land with a 50-mile self-guided Farm/Art DTour that encircles Sauk County with site-responsive installations from artists all over the world. 

It is more than an arts showcase. Wormfarm touts a mission that is part agriculture, part ecology, and part bridge between urban and rural communities. Programming is intended to illuminate new economic potentials in the Driftless Area as it draws directly from the history of the region and its residents. The annual Farm/Art DTour now brings together four individual artists and four collaborations to intuit, respond, and integrate their practice into this storied landscape. I spoke with Preserve Collaborative, Matthew Vivirito, and Rachel Dohner and Olivia Comai about their upcoming installations. And while their perspectives and approaches to the task of making public-facing outdoor sculptures was varied, each felt connected to the same themes of placemaking, Midwest history, and appreciating what the land provides.

Mission of Activism

For the Preserve Collective, the DTour opportunity represents a chance to honor the region’s recent history as a major draw for naturalists. Cathy McCauley, one of three women in the Preserve Collaborative, is accustomed to blending activism, conservation, and creativity with her friends Shari Gullo and Pamela Self. The trio have worked together on community projects, but never on something of this scale or level of artistry. All she needed was to shift her mindset. “As a group, we haven’t studied art. Our backgrounds are in journalism, writing, and landscaping. We’re all creative, certainly. But we don’t really identify as artists.”

Inspiration for their DTour sculpture arrived in the form of a quote by Wisconsin naturalist Aldo Leopold, one of the grandfathers of conservation who conducted his research from a renovated chicken coop in Baraboo. In his influential text A Sand County Almanac, Leopold writes: “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” Was it possible to design a work of art that paid recognition to this process? Energized by the concept, the collaborative set about rebuilding the shack as a conceptual sculpture that is set up to contain a thousand canning jars holding images of the region’s native species. 

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Photo by Eric Baillles via Wormfarm Institute

"Monday is Wash Day" by Brenda Baker, 2015

"Monday is Wash Day" by Brenda Baker, 2015

As the group tinkered with reclaimed materials, they found it was possible to create a stained-glass effect using color, light, and shadow in the reconstructed coop. On site, visitors can walk through the installation and interact more closely with the elements, just as Aldo Leopold explored the bluffs and prairies that influenced his thesis of living in harmony with the land. The coop can be explored from inside its standing walls, but the roof will remain open to signify man’s inability to fully protect the natural world.

Massive Framework

Milwaukee-based artist Matthew Vivirito has been applying for this opportunity for years. Now, he finally has a chance to go big. Even in an unfinished state, “Framework” is massive. It nearly fills his entire studio space in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. In renderings, the sculpture sits atop a low hill, the shape of it an oculus that isolates a portal in the open Driftless sky. The bigger a sculpture becomes, the more it invites interactions and generates a sense of belonging to the space. “It’s humbling to work at this scale,” he says. “I keep saying I’m finished working big, but then I just do it again.” At approximately 17 feet tall, Vivirito’s “Framework” is one of his biggest pieces yet.

Vivirito was able to pick up a throughline that has appeared in much of his recent work: how architecture retains the soul of the natural materials employed in its structure. Using wood from ash and fir trees that were already damaged and dead, he believes in honoring the truth of the substance in the final sculpture without commodifying his materials. “Framework” asks the viewer to imagine the separation between the body and the mind, between structures and their environments, and then to connect them back together. It is a lens from which to consider ways to bridge these timeless divisions when confronted with the absence and memory of an object. In this case: how much of the ash and fir trees can he retain in the repurposed wood? It’s rather philosophical, but not unusual for a sculptor to consider.

Some of Vivirito’s artistic philosophy comes from playing chess. He acknowledges the best way forward is often to strategize from the opposing side. Environmental factors killed these trees, and creative factors give them new life. This is a concept that flows seamlessly through his practice, from repurposing materials into functional designs, to making his audience more aware of their bodies in relation to responsive environments. Vivirito’s installation will inspire visitors to think about their place in an enigmatic locale at a grand and imposing scale. 

Interactive Ladycorn

Artists Rachel Dohner and Olivia Comai are infusing the land with whimsy, play, and magical realism. Theirs is an interactive sculpture, inviting the audience to open doors and tug lines and make goofy faces out the window. A giant face pokes out of the ground, peering over a patch of land as if about to lift herself above the horizon. Atop her head, an ear of corn waves her arms at passerby. “She functions as a sort of lightbulb above the lady’s head,” Comai tells me in our conversation. 

“It’s a puppet. The lady’s eyes will move around too,” Dohner adds. 

Dohner and Comai base their art practices in Chicago, where they met at School of the Art Institute Chicago. Their separate practices fit naturally together in collaboration. Dohner constructs shelves, clocks, and tables that belong in a combination dollhouse/fun house. It’s giving The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari—but instead of a deranged hypnotist, a deranged Polly Pocket. Comai’s puppets appear designed to rush and flail, driven into spasmic spells by the hand that substitutes their souls. Both artists rely on an interdisciplinary approach to 3D and 2D media, video work, and performance to tease out a plushy sort of mania from the worlds their characters inhabit.

With roots in Michigan and Illinois, the pair are broadly inspired by girlhood experiences, home interiors, and Midwestern gothic. Ladycorn manages to evoke all three with bright pink and yellow hues and a waggish structure within which to operate the lady and her companion corn amid the Driftless expanse. Although the waving corn and peeking woman will be brightly colored and playful, the artists plan to use this lighthearted monument to touch on other topics, such as representation in fabrication, farming, and agriculture. Does the woman hide her true self, allowing the corn to speak for her abilities instead? Is she side-eyeing traditional roles in these rural lands? Has she removed her bow so as not to appear too feminine for the season ahead? Not too somber though—this is a lively affair.

Community Inclusion

Wormfarm Institute is committed to incorporating perspectives from throughout the rural community with whom it shares the land. The nine-day event will also include pasture performances, local chefs and craft vendors, a mezcal tasting event, a food park, roadside poetry, and more. Visitors will get the most out of the Farm/Art DTour during the kickoff weekend on October 5^th and 6^th, but the installations will stay on the land for a while longer, allowing for travelers to make their way to the area at their ow­n self-guided pace. In a region that has been home to human, plant, and animal cultures for nearly 9,000 years, Wormfarm Institute fosters an interwoven community that pays homage to its rich and variegated history.

The Wormfarm Institute Farm/Art DTour takes place on October 5 and concludes on October 14. Download the self-guided map and plan your visit at wormfarminstitute.org.