wisc
people & ideas
s
pec d oubl ial i ssu e e
nsin the magazine of the wisconsin academy of sciences, arts and letters
The Water Issue
A renewed Waters of Wisconsin Initiative examines the state of our water systems and the people working to protect them
Power for the People
What will it take for Wisconsin to become a leader in smart energy use and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?
$5.00 Vol. 59, No. 2
Spring/Summer 2013
Our Fiction and Poetry Contest Winners Prizewinning works by emerging writers from across the state
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Contents
spring/summer 2013 FEATURES 4 FROM THE DIRECTOR Reading the Water The Steenbock Center, offices of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Wisconsin People & Ideas (ISSN 1558-9633) is published quarterly by the nonprofit Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters and is distributed free of charge to Wisconsin Academy members. For information about joining the Wisconsin Academy to receive this magazine, visit wisconsinacademy.org/join. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Copyright © 2013 by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. All rights reserved. Postage is paid at Madison. Postmaster: Send address changes to mailing address below.
Wisconsin People & Ideas Jason A. Smith, editor Jean Lang, copy editor Emily Eggleston, editorial assistant Designed by Huston Design, Madison Cover photo: Milwaukee’s Scott Jackson poses with his Lake Michigan catch of the day for photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki’s Perimeter project. See page 32
7 Upfront 7 Talk Like a Local with Pronounce Wisconsin 8 A Grand (re)Opening for the Museum of Wisconsin Art 9 Meet the 2013 Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award Winners 10 The Wisconsin Book Festival Finds a New Home 12 FEllows Forum Atmospheric scientist and Wisconsin Academy Fellow Steven Ackerman explains our state’s past and future connection to weather satellites
16 Think Like a Watershed In response to new threats to our water systems, the Wisconsin Academy recently revivified its Waters of Wisconsin initiative. After a year of scientific symposia and public discussion, Erik Ness discusses upstream highlights from the initiative and the turbulent waters that lie ahead
26 WATERS OF WISCONSIN—And Beyond Wisconsin is home to a world-renowned center for the study of inland lakes and streams. Robert G. Lange provides a brief history of the people and events behind the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology
32 PERIMETER In 2012 Kevin J. Miyazaki drove around the perimeter of Lake Michigan, taking photographs of people he met along the way. For our special issue on water, he shares selected images from the subsequent Perimeter exhibition
42 Power for the People How can Wisconsin plan its energy future if citizens don’t understand how we use energy or where it even comes from? Emily Eggleston outlines a common sense energy plan for our state Jane Elder, executive director Randall Berndt, James Watrous Gallery Jody Clowes, exhibitions manager, James Watrous Gallery Meg Domroese, Initiatives Program director Martha Glowacki, director, James Watrous Gallery Sarah Larsen, office and outreach manager Don Meyer, business operations manager Jennifer Smith, Academy Evenings director Jason A. Smith, director of communications and editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas Stephanie Smith, development and program associate
48 Doing Well By Doing Good Jennifer A. Smith introduces readers to four Wisconsin entrepreneurs who fuse business savvy with a concern for our climate and energy future
54 Systems for abstraction James Watrous Gallery director Martha Glowacki discusses process and practice with Wisconsin artists Jill Olm, Beth Racette, and Leslie Vansen
administrative offices/steenbock gallery 1922 university ave. | madison, WI 53726 tel. 608-263-1692 www.wisconsinacademy.org W isc o nsin
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Contents
spring/summer 2013 READ WISCONSIN
69 READ WISCONSIN Announcing the winners of our 2013 fiction and poetry contests 70 A Story By The 2013 Fiction Contest Winner Our first-place prizewinning story, Snow Day, by Amy Baker 71 Book Reviews 71 Joseph Heim reviews More Than They Bargained For: Scott Walker,
Our gallery, the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts, Madison
Unions and the Fight for Wisconsin, by Jason Stein and Patrick Marley 73 Laura Lane reviews The Repeat Year: A Novel, by Andrea Lochen 75 Bob Wake reviews Somewhere Piano: Poems, by Sarah Busse
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
78 Poems by The 2013 POETRY Contest Winners Featuring prizewinning works by poets Geoff Collins, William Quist,
Officers of the Council President: Millard Susman President-elect: Thomas Pleger Immediate-past President: Jim Armstrong Treasurer: Howard Marklein Secretary: James W. Perry Vice President of Sciences: Richard Burgess Vice President of Arts: Marianne Lubar Vice President of Letters: Linda Ware
and C.E. Perry
84 5q: B.J. BEst Five questions for B.J. Best, author of the new collection of prose poems,
But Our Princess Is in Another Castle
87 NEW & REcent Releases Selected titles by Wisconsin authors
88 Local Bookshop Spotlight Casey Thayer drops in on Bev Denor and her local bookshop, LaDeDa Books & Beans, in Manitowoc
Image credit: Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
The boat launch at Long Lake, near Plainfield, no longer reaches the water. In Wisconsin’s Central Sands, some lakes and streams have lowered or dried up in recent years as the number of high-capacity wells has exploded. See “Think Like a Watershed” by Erik Ness on page 16 for a detailed examination of our imperiled waters in Wisconsin
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Statewide Councilors-at-Large Les Alldritt, Washburn John Ashley, Sauk City Mark Bradley, Wausau Patricia Brady, Madison Reed Hall, Marshfield Joseph Heim, La Crosse Jesse Ishikawa, Madison La Moine MacLaughlin, Clayton John Mielke, Appleton Tim Riley, Appleton Tim Size, Sauk City Marty Wood, Eau Claire Officers of the Academy Foundation President: Jack Kussmaul Vice President: Andrew Richards Treasurer: Howard Marklein Secretary: David J. Ward Founder: Ira Baldwin Foundation Directors Jim Armstrong Marian Bolz Greg Dombrowski Jane Elder Terry Haller Douglas J. Hoerr James W. Perry Millard Susman
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NEWS for MEMBERS We hope that you enjoy this special Spring/Summer double issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas, with 88 pages of fascinating articles and interviews as well as fiction and poetry. Our next issue, Fall 2013 issue, will be available in October. To stay connected in between issues, visit us at www. wisconsinacademy.org and become our friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wisconsinacademy. If readers have questions about their membership status or are interested in becoming a member of the Wisconsin Academy, please contact our office at 608-263-1692 ext. 14. Also, have you thought about giving an annual Wisconsin Academy membership as a gift? Please share this magazine through a gift of membership today. The Fall 2013 season schedule of events and exhibitions will mail to members and friends of the Wisconsin Academy in late August 2013. If you aren’t a member and would like to receiven a printed, mailed version of our season schedule, please contact Sarah Larsen at 608-263-1692 ext. 10 or slarsen@wisconsinacademy.org. The Wisconsin Academy thanks the following institutional members for their continued support: Carroll University UW Colleges UW–Baraboo/Sauk County UW–Barron County UW–Eau Claire UW–Fond du Lac UW–Fox Valley UW–La Crosse UW–Madison UW–Manitowoc UW–Marathon County UW–Marinette UW–Marshfield/Wood County UW–Oshkosh UW–Richland UW–Rock County UW–Sheboygan UW–Washington County UW–Waukesha
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Robert G. Lange is a former executive director of the Wisconsin Academy (1999–2003) currently working as oral historian for the UW Archives & Records Management Oral History Program. Lange graduated from Carleton College and received his advanced degree at the School of Business, UW–Madison. Before joining the Wisconsin Academy, he was director of development for Arts and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin Foundation (1993-1999), director of development for the Madison Civic Music Association (1988–1993), and associate director of the Marshfield Medical Foundation—now the Lawton Research Foundation—in Marshfield (1979–1985). Erik Ness has been writing about science, health, and the environment for more than two decades for publications as diverse as Discover, OnEarth, Prevention, and The Progressive. He lives in Madison.
Emily Eggleston is spending some time abroad in Oxford, England, after recently completing her graduate degree in journalism at UW– Madison, where she specialized in science, environment, and food topics along with multimedia production. An Iowan by birth, Eggleston has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Iowa State University. See her portfolio at emilyeggleston.com. Kevin J. Miyazaki is a photographer who lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. His artwork focuses on themes of family history and memory. Work from Miyazaki’s series, Camp Home, in which he documents repurposed barracks from Japanese internment camps, will be included in the 2013 Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Jennifer A. Smith has a long track record of working in nonprofit and educational settings, including St. Catherine University, University of Wisconsin System Administration, UW Extension and UW–Madison. She is the Academy Evenings program director for the Wisconsin Academy. Outside of the Academy, Smith is a freelance journalist and grant writer who received a 2009 Excellence in Journalism award from the Milwaukee Press Club. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MA from the UW–Madison, both in art history. James Sajdak received an MA in linguistics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1989 and has taught English as a Second Language for more than twenty years at UW–Madison and Madison College. Since 1985 Sajdak has been writing and publishing articles about the arts, nature, and outdoor sports in Wisconsin and Canada. He also creates crossword puzzles, many of which have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and a Penguin Books anniversary tribute to their classic editions. Casey Thayer received an MFA from Northern Michigan University. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. A native of Two Rivers, Thayer is an assistant professor of English at the University of WisconsinRock County in Janesville. He is a frequent contributing writer for Wisconsin People & Ideas.
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F R O M T H E D I R E C TO R
Reading the Water JANE ELDER WISCONSIN ACADEMY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
My favorite passage from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi is the part in which Twain writes about learning from his river boat pilot how to “read the water.” “The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book,” writes Twain, a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with every re-perusal. I grew up on a tiny Michigan lake, punctuated with small boats. There I learned to read lake water: how the color changed when a thunderstorm was brewing, how the surface riffles warned of wind puffs that could flip an unwary sailor, when to mistrust the ice. When I married into a family of hardcore canoe trippers, I learned to read rivers, too. Our most memorable trip was a 21-day adventure down Alaska’s Noatak River. Seated in the bow of the lead canoe, my role became “scout”—likely because I had the best eyesight in the group at the time. Now, four people on their own crusing down a river in the middle of six million acres of wilderness need to know everything the water can tell about currents, rocks, rapids, rising levels, and safe places to pull out. Every day before we set out, we would discuss what the water was telling us about what lay ahead. We learned when we could relax, when to be vigilant, and when to change plans. Much like the Noatak River, our natural systems are changing rapidly from one moment to the next. We need ears and eyes— “educated passengers,” so to speak—that can read what our waters, our soils, our forests, and the communities that depend on them are trying to tell us. The Wisconsin Academy undertook two initiatives in the last year in an attempt to capture and collate what is being told: one initiative, a retrospective and prospective analysis of the waters of Wisconsin, and, another, an exploration of Wisconsin’s climate and energy status. The evolving product of countless discussions and collaborations, these initiatives have given us 4
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tools to help all of us better read the signs of change and potential risk around the next bend in Wisconsin’s future. Disappearing rivers and expanding algae blooms tell us one story; wild swings between a year of drought and a year of torrential rains tell another. Eagles in the sky and healthy fish returning to urban streams tell yet another story. These stories are really just chapters in a larger story of our intertwined relationship with the natural world and how we choose to live with it in Wisconsin. The more we learn to read and understand this story, the better we can navigate immediate—and potential or future—hazards and find the safest and most beautiful passage through a time of ecological and cultural transition. As a nonpartisan organization working at the intersection of the sciences, arts, and letters, we’re eager to bring scientific analysis and cultural context to the issues we face here in Wisconsin and in the world at large. We hope the articles in this special double issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas will spark your curiosity and challenge you to examine these topics in new ways. In this issue we take a look at the waters of Wisconsin, a decade after the Wisconsin Academy issued its first generation of landmark recommendations to safeguard Wisconsin’s freshwater ecosystems and water supply. We also consider Wisconsin’s role as an energy consumer, and how energy choices are shaping Wisconsin’s landscape—both literally and figuratively. And, we tell stories of Wisconsin innovators in the vanguard of fresh energy solutions. They’re not only reducing our carbon footprint; they are the “scouts” looking downstream for ways to navigate the challenges and opportunities of our times for a better passage on the way to sustainability and resilience. Mark Twain lamented that “the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river” once he had learned to read its navigational language. I find that the more I know, the greater my awe is for the complex life support systems on Earth and our role in them. The elegant interconnections that cycle air and water and energy through the biosphere have new stories to tell every day, if we’re willing to hear them. Tell us what you are “reading” in the water, the skies, or the pulse of your community, and how it is shaping your future. We’re all on this journey together.
Questions or comments? E-mail jelder@wisconsinacademy.org
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SCIENCE FESTIVAL C U R I O S I T Y U N L E A S H E D . 2 0 13
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SCIENCE FESTIVAL CURIOSITY UNLEASHED. 2013
UPFRONT
Talk Like a Local with Pronounce Wisconsin Thousands of people driving over the Highway 80 bridge on the lower Wisconsin River and seeing the sign have likely thought the same thing: How do you pronounce Muscoda? Of course here in Wisconsin we have the W’s—Wausaukee, Weyauwega, Wonewoc, and the like—all of which can be extremely challenging to non-natives. But what to make of places like Alma, Gotham, and Rio, whose pronunciations fly in the face of convention and befuddle longtime Wisconsin residents and visitors alike? Well, thanks to Pronounce Wisconsin, a new online mapping application released by the Wisconsin State Cartographer’s Office (SCO), you don’t have to feel like visitor to your own state. This creative tool locates and provides audio pronunciations for over 1,700 Wisconsin places—including counties, cities, villages, and unincorporated places—though an easy-to-use online map interface. By mousing over map locations, users can hear how the names of these places are pronounced. Pronounce Wisconsin is a collaborative effort between the SCO and Jackie Johnson, creator of misspronouncer. com, a website created in 2007 to help people correctly pronounce names of people, places, and phenomena specific to Wisconsin. A veteran reporter and anchor for the Madison-based Wisconsin Radio Network, Johnson had been through enough governmental meetings to hear Wisconsin people and place names butchered by legislators when she got the idea for a comprehensive online audio archive. Johnson records the audio files for place names herself after verifying correct pronunciation, often by picking up the phone and asking people who live there. “[I call] the tourism department, the city council, somebody. Often, the phone number on a website is actually the mayor’s home number,” she says. While the audio technology has been around for some time, Pronounce Wisconsin is the first to apply it to a comprehensive set of place names easily found through an interactive map to create a kind of online pronouncing gazetteer, a list of places used in conjunction with a map or atlas that provides place name pronunciations.
Pronounce Wisconsin actually began as an effort by the SCO to compile an authoritative map of Wisconsin’s more than one thousand unincorporated places. Areas with a concentration of people that is geographically excluded from an incorporated city or village, unincorporated palaces do not have legal boundaries or official government functions. Yet people from all over the state consider themselves residents of areas like Cayuga, East Krok, Langes Corners, and Valmy. One difficulty with unincorporated places is that they are not tracked by any single agency. For example, only a handful of the largest unincorporated places are identified by the US Census Bureau, which refers to them as CDPs. Attempts to enumerate and map unincorporated places in Wisconsin have led to inconsistent results, with no real consensus about how many of them exist. Students and staff at the SCO compared available data sources to create and integrated unincorporated place dataset. Sources included the Wisconsin Department of Transportation county map series, a listing prepared by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, and hardcopy and digital maps maintained by individual counties. Indeed, Pronounce Wisconsin is a project that has benefitted tremendously from student assistance and support. Data development, which included hours and hours of verifying unincorporated place names and locations, was provided by students in the GIS Certificate Program at UW– Madison. The current dataset for the site contains 1051 unincorporated places, all of which are displayed with their pronunciates. The Pronounce Wisconsin website was built using open source software, with a back end comprised of a Postgres/ PostGIS database as well as statatic GeoJSON files and a front end that utilizes CSS and Javascript for smooth navigation. Audio files for place names are links imported directly from MissPronouncer.com, where all the audio date is recorded and maintained by Johnson. For more information, visit sco.wisc.edu/pronouncewisconsin. —Jason A. Smith
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Image credit: Museum of Wisconsin Art
UPFRONT
A Grand (re)Opening for the Museum of Wisconsin Art Containing arguably the best collection of historic and contemporary Wisconsin art in the world, the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) in West Bend recently went through a move and expansive rebuild project to create a stunning new facility in downtown West Bend. With 12,000 square feet of gallery space, approximately 7,000 square feet of facility rental space for special events, a gift shop featuring Wisconsinmade items, two education studios, and an outdoor sculpture garden, the new Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) is the culmination of a $10 million capital campaign begun by the museum board of directors and now-emeritus executive director Tom Lidtke in 2007. Lidke, who announced his retirement in November of 2012, led the movement to expand the small, family-run gallery’s collection and focus it on Wisconsin art. He had been executive director at the museum since 1982, when it was called the West Bend Gallery of Fine Arts, and he was central to the establishment of the museum’s Early Wisconsin Collection and subsequent name change to the Museum of Wisconsin Art in 2007. Home to the best single collection of works by Milwaukee-born, Munichtrained artist Carl von Marr (including 8
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his 1889 magnum opus, The Flagellants), MOWA shows more contemporary Wisconsin artists, has a larger, more comprehensive archive—with over 8,000 files on artists plus many books, documents and audio-visual resources—and a deeper collection of historic Wisconsin art than any other institution in the state. The new MOWA building was built to showcase this collection and provide a more public gathering space for the exploration of Wisconsin arts and artists. Designed by the architectual firm of Hammel Green & Abrahamson Inc. and built by Mortenson Construction, the triangular edifice occupies the nook of a downtown West Bend lot diagonally bisected by the Milwaukee River. Crafted in Contemporary Modern style, the museum itself is a work of art. Striking in profile, the new museum is composed of three almost imperceptibly different white panel colors that bring life and visual interest to the outer walls. Enclosed with glass (and giving the building the look of a luxury yacht or spaceship), the acute angle of the wedge houses a stairway with soaring views upstream views of the river. At the southwest corner another convergence of glass creates the entrance to the building, allowing views of the city and P E O P L E
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river from an atrium balcony. A long glass corridor that serves as a community gallery provides more direct views of the river as well. With almost 5,100 square feet of windows, the building is a luminescent wonder that draws natural light from both the sky and adjacent river surface. According to Laurie Winters, who took over as MOWA’s executive director in November of 2012, this window-filled design style mirrors the museum’s philosophy of transparency and intentions of modern relevancy. “We are the custodians of Wisconsin art—telling the story of our state by connecting creative arts with our cultural heritage—and we now have a facility that does justice to the contemporary arts scene in Wisconsin,” says Winters. Visually stunning from the outside, the building is equally compelling on the inside. Designed as an energy-efficient structure, it features high-efficiency glass, radiant heat flooring, and rain gardens. A displacement ventilation system for the galleries circulates air at visitor level (rather than blowing air down from the ceiling). In addition to saving on heating and cooling costs, the ventilation system also helps to mitigate
UPFRONT dust-attracting static charges associated with typical, ceiling-mounted systems. One of the most innovative features of the new building is a visible storage area, with a capacity of 13,620 square feet of hanging space for artwork not currently on view in the galleries. The only system of its type in an art museum in Wisconsin, the glass-encased room allows visitors to see artwork as it hangs in climate-controlled storage. Conveniently located between the main exhibition gallery and the collection gallery, the storage area allows the museum to display additional artwork while simultaneously providing visitors a behind-the-scenes peek into the challenges of housing a massive permanent collection. Visitors will find most of the art on the museum’s upper floor, which contains a series of movable partitions in which are nestled discrete galleries that showcase works from the permanent collection in an informal chronological order, from early 19th-century objects to the work of contemporary artists. Winters says that the museum’s mission isn’t just as a showcase for some of the biggest names in Wisconsin art. “We see as equally important our role in cultivating our region’s artistic future and next generation of artists,” she says. The new facility opened on April 6, 2013, to much fanfare. Opening exhibitions included Antifragile: Contemporary Glass, which featured some of today’s hottest glass artists, and Milwaukee artist Reginald Baylor’s new Repetitive Patterns exhibition. The museum’s State Gallery hosted works from the Wisconsin Regional Artists Association, which works with UW–Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies to offer workshops, exhibitions, and critiques to help nonprofessional artists learn and flourish. The museum welcomed over 5,000 visitors during the three-day Grand Opening celebration. Since then, MOWA has attracted thousands more to see the new state-of-the-art building and world-class art on display in both the permanent collection and the changing exhibition galleries. For more information or to plan your visit to the new Museum of Wisconsin Art, visit wisconsinart.org. —Jason A. Smith
Congratulations to the 2013
Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award Winners Created to honor those that have contrib-
and maintains an independent workshop
uted to the wealth of artistic creativity in our
where he produces functional and non-func-
state and region, the Wisconsin Visual Art Life-
tional objects, which he exhibits nationally and
time Achievement Awards were given to 14
internationally.
individuals and organizations from across the
• Teacher and painter Laurence Rathsack was
state this year at a ceremony on May 19, 2013,
at different points in his career president of
at the new Museum of Wisconsin Art in West
Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors and the
Bend. Essentially the in-state “Hall of Fame”
Wisconsin Watercolor Society. His vigorous and
for individuals, groups and organizations who
precise pedagogy, along with his generous and
have supported the visual arts with distinc-
ongoing mentorship towards many students,
tion, the WVALAA’s were given to the following
led to a scholarship honoring him. • Sculptor Adolph Rosenblatt taught art at
awardees for 2013:
UW–Milwaukee for 33 years and his work can • John G. Balsley is a teacher, sculptor, and two-dimensional artist known for inventing
be found in public and private collections in Wisconsin and throughout the world.
Pyro Prints. Balsey retired from the Univer-
• Lucia Stern was a prolific Milwaukee-reared
sity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2005 after
artist and lecturer known for her eloquent
teaching there for almost 30 years.
advocacy of the visual arts as well as her non-
• World famous for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek, Lynda Barry was born
objective works based on simple geometric shapes and abstract designs. • In 1920, Father Mathias Wernerus started
in Richland Center, Wisconsin. • Russell Bowman became the Milwaukee
building his first works in concrete and stone
Art Museum’s chief curator in 1980 and its
for the benefit of the parishoners of Holy Ghost
director in 1985. He left in 2002 to found
Catholic Church. A folk art progression that
Russell Bowman Art Advisory.
includes a small artificial cave, statue alcoves,
• In 1974, the late painter/sculptor Guido Brink
arches and fountains, his Dickeyville Grotto
founded and became the first president of the
is unique in its combination of religious and
Milwaukee School of the Arts, now known as
patriotic-themed areas. • The Wisconsin Designer Crafts Council was
the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. • The Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee
established in 1916 to keep artists informed
was originally the home of Charles and Sarah
about the national crafts scene, to provide
Allis, who amassed a unique art collection
a vehicle for exhibiting and marketing their
that was generously bequeathed to the public
work, and to hold meetings with educational
along with the home to “delight, inspire, and
components. • The Wisconsin Historical Society’s collection
educate.” • Clay artist and painter Paul Donhauser taught
holds over 3,000,000 photographs, negatives,
at UW–Oshkosh from 1965-2004, receiving
films, cartoons, lithographs, posters, paint-
the John McNaughton Rosebush Profes-
ings, sculptures, decorative arts and ephemeral
sorship in 1983 and becoming an endowed
materials from private, business and govern-
professor in 1995. Donhauser crafted an
mental sources that document the rich social,
outstanding career as an artist, working in
economic and political history of Wisconsin
both clay and painting.
and the Upper Midwest as well as those ethnic
• Anne Haberland Emerson has been a longtime supporter of Wisconsin artists through
groups, who helped shape its history. • One of the largest collections of original
her founding and operating Edgewood
Wisconsin art in the state, the Wisconsin Union
Orchard Galleries near Fish Creek in Door
Art Collection contains art works gathered over
County.
many decades reflecting the joys and pains of
• Tom Loeser is a woodworking professor in
many generations of Wisconsin residents.
the Art Department at UW–Madison and is currently the Department Chair. He teaches
For more information or to view current and past
at the undergraduate and graduate levels
awardees, please visit wvalaa.com.
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UPFRONT
The Wisconsin Book Festival Finds a New Home in a Familiar Place
After eleven years of hosting the largest literary festival in the state, the Wisconsin Humanities Council (WHC) passed the Wisconsin Book Festival to the Madison Public Library (MPL). The first-ever Wisconsin Book Festival, of which the Wisconsin Academy was a sponsor, was held in the capital city in October, 2002. (It’s interesting to note that artist and James Watrous Gallery staffer Randall Berndt created the first Wisconsin Book Festival poster). A series of mostly free readings, lectures, book discussions, children’s events, writing workshops, and live interviews, the Wisconsin Book Festival was designed by the WHC to be a celebration of books, reading, and the experience of community book discussion. Since its debut, the Festival has established itself as a beloved fixture in Wisconsin. Through a unique partnership between the public, private, and academic sectors, the Festival has for years celebrated our state’s rich literary heritage, bringing some of America’s finest writers to the people of Wisconsin and encouraging people of all ages to participate in our state’s unique book culture. Growing from a two-day series of readings into a five-day literary extravaganza, the Festival had steadily increased attendance over the years: 11,388 book-lovers in 2011, up from 10,000 in 2009. About 8,200 attended in 2010. The event reached its apogee in 2012 when it featured nearly 200 authors and drew 14,213 people to some 100 events in the greater Madison metro area. It’s a popular event to be sure. Which also makes it a challenge to manage.
According to Wisconsin Humanities Council executive director Dena Wortzel, the Festival was growing beyond what the organization could support, consuming nearly half of annual National Endowment for the Humanities funds earmarked for statewide programming. The annual festival also required intensive fundraising by WHC staff and the coordination of a large volunteer corps. “While the Wisconsin Book Festival is something we’re very, very proud of— and we really believe in the Festival as a program—it was basically something that we thought was taking a disproportionate amount of the organization’s resources given its largely Madison focus,” says Wortzel. Few organizations have the capacity— or the will—to take over an event of this magnitude. So, it was with relief that the public learned in January 2013 of negotiations between the WHC and Madison Public Library Foundation in order to ensure the continuance of the Wisconsin Book Festival. The WHC will continue to support the event, but the majority of the $200,000 event budget will come from the MPL Foundation and private donations. Madison Public Library staff will organize and run the event, and, as part of the transition, longtime Festival director (and frequent contributor to this magazine) Alison Jones Chaim passed the reins to Oconomowoc native Conor Moran. Hired March 1, 2013, Moran brings his experience as assistant events coordinator at Politics & Prose, a successful independent bookseller in Washington DC, where he planned more than 400 events every year and acted as the store’s liaison for visiting authors.
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Moran is good at wrangling high-profile authors, and, considering past keynote speakers at the Festival include Wendell Berry and Jeffrey Eugenides, he’ll have his work cut out for him. Moran says he hopes to have a fairly complete 2013 Wisconsin Book Festival agenda by the end of August. While the Festival will remain an annual event under his direction, Moran sees its mission as central to the success of the MPL system as a whole. “I want people to think of Madison Public Library as a place to experience great book-related programming throughout the year,” he says, noting that the public should expect year-round book events co-hosted by the Madison Public Library and Wisconsin Book Festival at all of the MPL branches. Themes of vigorous public outreach and continual engagement reflect a shift in philosophy for the library system, which in some ways can be attributed to the leadership of library director, Greg Mickells. Mickells, who has a background in printmaking as well as library sciences, envisions the Festival as one of a multitude of ways that MPL is engaging the community in an ongoing conversation to celebrate ideas, promote creativity, connect people, and enrich lives. “It’s not a matter of securing content and then providing it anymore, it’s about providing access,” says Mickells. “I think libraries are becoming more of an experience. We provide experience rather than just content.” MPL programs like the Festival and a new “maker” initiative called The Bubbler—run by visual artist Trent
UPFRONT
Image credit: Madison Public Library
Miller—provide myriad points of access to traditional and non-traditional library audiences alike. Featuring makers of all stripes who wish to share their knowledge—from artistic techniques to culinary expertise to self-publishing advice—The Bubbler is series of recurring programs held at all nine MPL branches. It doesn’t hurt that the Festival, The Bubbler, and slew of other new MPL initiatives will be housed in a sparkling new facility. Indeed, the 2013 Wisconsin Book Festival will occur just weeks after a major renovation project for Madison’s Central Library is completed. The new Central Library building will be about 30,000 square feet larger than it was before, with multiple gathering spaces, a large auditorium, an art gallery, and about one hundred new public computers in addition to an enhanced print collection carried over from the old Central Library. “We really talk about this being designed to be the 21st century library,” says Jenni Collins, Madison Public Library Foundation executive director. “There are absolutely still books and bookshelves in this library but it is also designed to be very flexible and to accommodate all the technology that is a part of the information age in which we live.” The City of Madison spent $21 million on the project with $9 million coming from private donations through the MPL Foundation. Visit wisconsinbookfestival.org for more information on the Wisconsin Book Festival or check out the new Madison Central Library website at mynewlibrary. org. —Jason A. Smith
CONNECT: Book Festivals Across the State Southwest Wisconsin Book Festival – Mineral Point September 14, 2013 www.swwibookfestival.com Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books – Waukesha September 20–22, 2013 www.sewibookfest.com Sterling North Book Festival – Edgerton September 28, 2013 www.sterlingnorthbookfestival.com Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival – Ft. Atkinson October 11–12, 2013 www.lorineniedecker.org/festival Sheboygan Children’s Book Festival – Sheboygan October 11–13, 2013 www.sheboyganchildrensbookfestival.org Chippewa Valley Book Festival – Eau Claire area October 14–20, 2013 www.cvbookfest.org Wisconsin Book Festival – Madison area October 17–20, 2013 www.wisconsinbookfestival.org Great Lakes Writers Festival – Plymouth November 1–2, 2013 www.greatlakeswritersfestival.org Spring Green Literary Festival – Spring Green area April 2014 TBA www.springgreenlitfest.org Fox Cities Book Festival – Appleton area April 2014 TBA www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org
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Image credit: Jeff Miller/ © UW–Madison University Communications
Tracking Climate Change with Satellite Imagery: The Wisconsin Connection By Steven Ackerman Wisconsin Academy Fellow since 2011 Steven Ackerman’s research at UW– Madison’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), where he is director, has produced new methodologies for interpreting satellite observations of clouds, enhancing Wisconsin’s reputation as the birthplace of satellite meteorology. An internationally prominent agency with over 130 scientists and graduate students, CIMSS works with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to collect weather data from satellites to improve weather and climate forecasting. As a professor and CIMSS director, Ackerman encourages collaboration and the sharing of techniques, data, and expertise in order to foster advances in weather prediction that help save lives— and livelihoods—worldwide. Ackerman has also collaborated on the development of engaging online learning tools, written an award-winning textbook on introductory climatology concepts, and published a number of books and popular science articles on the subject. Ackerman shares climate insights through imaginative interdisciplinary connections, and his commitment to public science education is reflected in the work he does on weather exhibitions with museums across the country. He can be found discussing weather and climate issues as one of the “Weather Guys” on air at Wisconsin Public Radio and in the pages of the Wisconsin State Journal. His Wisconsin Weather Stories project for K–12 students, developed to generate interest in the science and folklore of weather, garnered acclaim in the form of the 2005 Dorothy Howard Prize for Folklore and Education.
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We have much to learn about the vagaries of climate. One of the most important means of doing so involves a fleet of satellites dedicated to the task of watching our changing planet. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, or Suomi NPP, is one of these spacecraft in continual orbit around Earth. Created and operated in a partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Suomi NPP carries instruments specifically designed to measure shifting weather systems, changing land conditions, and ocean circulations. The satellite is named in honor of the late Verner Suomi, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor today recognized as the father of satellite meteorology. Indeed, it can be said that the era of weather satellites began here in Wisconsin. Professor Suomi’s very first satellite instrument, the flat-plate radiometer, was part of the Explorer 7 mission in 1959. The instrument was designed to measure the energy balance of Earth by determining how much solar energy is absorbed by our planet and how much energy is emitted out to space. This balance between absorbed and reflected energy is a fundamental measure of our planet’s climate. Successful experiments like Suomi’s flat-plate radiometer established the P E O P L E
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foundation for modern meteorology and quickly led to more advanced satellites and instruments whose primary focus was to improve weather forecasting. Only later would these satellites be understood as essential in the quest to understand our changing climate. The modern age of weather satellites began on December 6, 1966, with the launch of the first Applications Technology Satellite (ATS-1). Aboard ATS-1, a new instrument called a spin-scan camera made it possible to continuously image the entire Western Hemisphere and routinely monitor weather-system movements. Satellites carrying these special cameras travel in a fixed, circular orbit around the Earth. This perfect synchronization of orbit makes these satellites appear stationary in the sky, leading to the name geostationary satellite. By 1967, ATS 3 provided the first full-color image of Earth from space. Professor Suomi led the effort to develop these geostationary instruments, as well as the computer tools to convert these new streams of weather data into visual images. Today, NOAA operates two geostationary satellites, one to view the eastern half of the U.S. and one to view the western half. Spare satellites are also kept in orbit in case of a sudden failure of one of the operational satellites. These satellite images now permeate the daily weather reports we see on television, the Internet, even our mobile phones.
Fellow’s Forum
Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC
While weather forecasters routinely analyze images from these weather satellites, much of the data never reaches forecasters’ eyes. Most satellite observations go directly into numerical weather-prediction models. A weather forecast is only as accurate as the observations that go into the forecast at the beginning of its run; this is referred to as initial conditions. In fact, today’s weatherforecast models rely on satellite data more than on any other source of weather observations to set these initial conditions. Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a particular location and moment. Each day current weather conditions are given in local weather reports, which include temperature, relative humidity, dew point, pressure, wind speed and direction, cloud cover, and precipitation. Such weather information is important to us because it influences our daily activities and plans. (Before we go outside, most of us want to know how cold or hot it will be and whether it will rain or snow.) Climate can be defined as the collective state of the atmosphere for a given place over a specified interval of time. There are three parts to this definition:
Location, because climate can be defined for a globe, a continent, a region, or a city. T i m e , because climate must be defined over a specified interval. Averages and extremes of variables such as temperature, precipitation, pressure, and winds. Local and national weather stations have for years kept recordings of temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed. If you are interested in the climate of, say, a city, we can derive that climate from the weather observations made over a long time period. But that climate story is an incomplete one, compared to what satellite observations can tell us. They provide the global view of various climaterelated parameters including temperature, humidity, ozone concentration, cloud distributions, land and sea surface temperatures, volcanic ash, lightning, precipitation, and wind speeds and directions. The disadvantage of satellites is that continuous observations thus far only span about the last thirty years: not a long time period in climate studies. Nonetheless, that thirty-year stretch provides extremely important satellite
observations in regions of the word that are undergoing rapid change. Here are some examples: • T h e c r y o s p h e r e d e s c r i b e s the portions of Earth’s surface covered with ice. The shrinking of mountain glaciers is only one component of Earth’s changing cryosphere—changes linked to a warmer climate. There have also been changes in the amount of sea ice, and these changes are monitored from satellites. • The melting of Greenland’s glaciers is also now measured with high accuracy from space by measuring the gravity field of Earth. This is a better measure of glacial melt than monitoring sea-level rise because the sheer mass of glaciers generates gravitational pull and draws water closer, raising nearby sea levels. As glaciers melt, this pull weakens and adjacent sea levels fall. Satellite data tells us that the Greenland ice shield lost 240 gigatons of mass between 2002 and 2011—enough water
ABOVE: These views of Earth’s city lights are composites assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took the satellite 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over detailed Blue Marble imagery, true-color imagery created through a collection of satellite-based observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds and turned into a seamless mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet
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to supply the state of Wisconsin for over 150 years (about 7,600 million gallons of water in 2000). • S a t e l l i t e s c a n m e a s u r e w h e n plants green up in spring and become dormant in fall. Observations over the northern latitudes show that vegetation growth increasingly resembles the lusher latitudes to the south. • S a t e l l i t e s c a n b e t t e r m o n i t o r cloud conditions across the globe. While patterns of clouds fluctuate in routine and random cycles, the total amount of cloud cover across the globe remains relatively constant at about 70%— despite changes in other climate parameters. We are currently in the apogee of satellite observations. Today, the U.S. has more than 110 space-based instruments observing our planet. But future systems in development will be even better, helping to improve our ability to monitor climate change. As climate is a global phenomenon, other nations have
just as much interest in observing Earth from space. International collaborations organized through the World Meteorological Organization offer a powerful way to understand weather and climate on a global scale. As an example, an ambitious project set to begin in 2015 called the Global Precipitation Mission aims to use a constellation of international satellites to map global precipitation patterns every three hours. Different countries are providing both satellite platforms and instruments that contribute to this mission; in addition to the two U.S. geostationary satellites orbiting in a fixed position about 22,500 miles above Earth, the Europeans will have two and Japan, India, China, and South Korea will each have one geostationary satellite contributing data on rainfall. Because weather moves rapidly from one place to another, tomorrow’s weather is influenced by today’s weather far upstream, and next week’s weather can be affected by today’s a continent away. For this reason, it is important to have lots of data from every part of the world. These satellite data are shared among participating countries (and with the public: see ssec.wisc.edu/data) so that we have
a complete global picture of clouds that capture the movement of weather systems across the globe. Another cooperative project is the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), an international collaboration dedicated to ensuring sufficient observation to characterize the state of our global climate system and its variability. GCOS focuses on integrating existing systems of data collection—from satellites to local air quality monitoring systems—to maximize the tracking of climate issues. We often take for granted the bird’seye view of Earth that satellites provide. Yet observations from satellites are foundational for decisions on climate, and are required to monitor the climate system as well as the natural and human effects on that system. While these satellites provide the fairly accurate weather forecasts available in nearly every media imaginable, think of what further insights about our Earth and our changing climate the next generation of satellites will provide. You can be sure that engineers and scientists across Wisconsin will be involved in the design and analysis of these wonderful and essential instruments. Z
Fellows in the News: Richard Davis On June 27, 2013, the National Endowment for the Arts named bassist and educator Richard Davis a 2014 NEA Jazz Master. The nation’s highest honor in the field, NEA Jazz Masters are recognized for their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz. In addition to the title of NEA Jazz Master, Davis will receive a one-time award of $25,000. Each year since 1982, the Arts Endowment has conferred the NEA Jazz Masters Award to living legends who have made major contributions to jazz. With the 2014 class—which includes along with Davis, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Braxton, and Jamey Aebersold—132 awards have been given to great American jazz figures like Count Basie, George Benson, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and many others. “The NEA is committed to supporting this uniquely American art form,” said NEA Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa, “whether it’s through educational materials such as NEA Jazz in the Schools, supporting
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performance and educational activities by the Jazz Masters through Jazz Masters Live, or in this case, honoring the individuals who have devoted their lives and careers to mastering, sharing, and expanding this music.” One of the premier jazz bassists in history, Richard Davis is widely recorded—not only in jazz settings but also in the pop, rock, and classical genres. In addition to his prowess on bass, Davis is a noted educator, having been a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1977. Davis was elected a Wisconsin Academy Fellow in 2004 in recognition of both his prowess as a musician and music educator as well as his work in bridging racial divides in the greater Madison metropolitan area. In 1993, he founded the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists Inc., which annually brings in seventeen masterful bass instructors/performers to teach young bassists ages 3–18. In 1998 he created the Retention Action Project at UW–Madison, which focused on open dialogues in subjects that educate all of us to multicultural differences. In addition to bringing to the UW campus renowned speakers and social change activists, Davis is devoted to equity issues and shares freely his wisdom, home, and resources to help create an environment where all can experience dignity and peace.
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“« Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.” —–_–-Luna B. Leopold, hydrogeologist and second son of Aldo Leopold
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Think Like a WATERSHED A NEW STRATEGy FOR THE WATERS OF WISCONSIN
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T’S SHAPING UP TO BE A THIRSTY CENTURY. All over the world demand for fresh water is increasing, but supplies are declining in both quantity and quality. Ten major rivers from the Yellow in China to the Colorado in Mexico regularly fade away before they
reach their outlets. By 2025 two-thirds of the Earth’s population may be water stressed, struggling through times when they simply don’t have enough, or when pollution limits use. Nearly two billion people will face severe water scarcity, placing local and global food production in jeopardy and crippling economies across the globe. PAGE SPREAD: The St. Croix River, pictured here, begins in Upper St. Croix and Namekagon Lake and drains through diverse ecological landscapes. Rich in groundwater, rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands, the St. Croix Basin—like many others in the state—is under increasing pressure as the human population continues to grow. Increasing runoff and habitat loss from development degrades water in both lakes and rivers alike, and eliminates or divides contiguous habitat needed by fish and wildlife. Changes in agricultural practices in the western prairie and farm-forest transition landscapes, including more row crops and a switch from small dairy farming to large confined animal feeding operations, enhance concerns over barnyard runoff, streambank erosion and manure management
Image credit: © JenniferPhotographyImaging
It’s hard to imagine this kind of scarcity here in Wisconsin. Great Lakes border our state to the east and north, and the mighty Mississippi guards the west. Into the tapestry of home are woven 15,000 lakes, 32,000 miles of perennial rivers and streams, and more than five million acres of wetlands. Four major aquifers swell below our feet with more than a quadrillion gallons of groundwater. Part of the reason for this bounty is our long tradition of stewardship for Wisconsin waters. The state constitution declares that all navigable waters are “common highways and forever free,” to be held in public trust. This declaration is often interpreted as a call to protect not just water navigability, but quality as well. In 1965 the state enacted the nation’s first shore land protection law. Filling a gap in the 1972 federal Clean Water Act, Wisconsin began in 1977 to tackle the complex problem of pollution from lawns and farm fields when it enacted its own nonpoint pollution law. In 1983, Wisconsin was the first to meet the Clean Water Act’s interim goal for municipal wastewater standards by achieving secondary treatment for all wastewater facilities in the state. Yet, towards the end of the millennium, Wisconsin water conservation efforts began to feel the deleterious effects of continued economic pressure. For conservation biologist and Aldo Leopold biographer Curt Meine, the sacrifice of water protections in the face of budgetary shortfalls is short sighted to say the least. “Water is not just an economic commodity, it is a necessity,” argues Meine. “And it involves ethical discussions of our relation to each other, to other species, and to future generations. Water responds to what we do. It reflects who we are, and what we prioritize.” Meine is part of a group of 25 dedicated scientists and conservationists who in 2000 began brainstorming at the behest of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Their effort, called The Waters of Wisconsin (WOW) project, was shaped by immediate concerns of the new millennium but also peered far ahead into the future of our water resources. “You can’t solve water problems in the short term,” says Meine, the WOW 18
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project’s lead dowser. “It’s not just a policy fix we need to solve problems. It’s a rethinking of our very notion of how water works in the landscape and in our lives and in the way we govern ourselves. These are huge undertakings.” A three-year project, WOW received input from hundreds of Wisconsin citi-
In some ways we are at a turning point here in Wisconsin. A decade of water conservation progress has been offset by a decade of growing thirst and climate disruption. zens and experts from across the state and concluded that the reactive policies of the past could not be relied upon to protect Wisconsin’s waters for the future. The state needed a comprehensive water policy, declared WOW participants, “to assure for this generation and future generations a safe and plentiful supply of water to meet essential human needs; to strive toward efficient use and environmentally responsible management of our waters; and to ensure the resilience, viability, and beauty of Wisconsin’s watersheds and aquatic ecosystems.”
From WOW to Now So where are we now, ten years after the publication of the first Waters of Wisconsin report? Todd Ambs participated in WOW as head of the River Alliance of Wisconsin. In 2003 Ambs was tapped to lead the Water Division of the Department of Natural Resources, where he remained until 2010. Ambs has always wanted Wisconsin to enact a comprehensive water policy like the one WOW recommended in 2003. But he knew that the state’s management infrastructure lacked both a strategic sense of purpose and the monitoring tools to accurately P E O P L E
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assess fundamental issues of water quality and quantity. Over the last decade, Wisconsin has built its water management capacities with the 2003 Groundwater Protection Act (Wisconsin Act 310), the Great Lakes Compact (negotiated with seven other states and signed in 2008), and a comprehensive water quality monitoring plan that includes citizen monitoring of lakes and streams. In 2010 Wisconsin adopted a landmark rule regulating phosphorus. The phosphorous rule is particularly intriguing, because if its new approach solves what has been—for decades—an intractable problem, it may help us solve other issues affecting our waters. And our waters need help. In some ways we are at a turning point here in Wisconsin. A decade of water conservation progress has been offset by a decade of growing thirst and climate disruption. Without a road map for addressing some of these water issues, Wisconsin could end up like many places in the United States where water is more damaged, much scarcer, and fiercely contested. Prolonged drought is extending through the American South. Southern California and the Colorado River Basin have been battling over water rights for more than a century and now face historic shortfalls. The national infrastructure for handling clean and waste water—given a grade of D by the American Society of Civil Engineers—needs $300 billion in upgrades, but is underfunded by half that much. Some water problems are created by regional mismanagement, others by larger climate shifts. Ambs argues that we have the potential to sidestep major problems—if we play it smart. “I’m not aware of any place across Wisconsin where, with reasonable management systems, you couldn’t have adequate amounts of water for industry, agriculture, municipalities, and ecosystems,” he says. “We’re blessed with plentiful water resources. We just need to be smarter about how we use them.”
Straws in the sand Like so many Wisconsin residents, some of Francie Roe’s earliest and most treasured memories were made lake side.
Roe remembers making mud pies on the seawall of her aunt and uncle’s cabin on Pleasant Lake in southwest Waushara County. In 1980, recalling childhood expeditions to Turtle Bay in search of frogs, she bought lake side property herself and raised four children there. Times have changed on Pleasant Lake, and today the lake and surrounding areas reflect a population with a desire for lake front property. “It’s a more fully inhabited lake now, with wild spaces few and far between,” says Roe, who heads the biology department at Madison’s Edgewood College. Fed by groundwater, Pleasant Lake is a seepage lake with no significant inlet or outlet. Residents have long cooperated to help keep it a crystalline example of the Wisconsin lake ideal. There are active bass and pan fisheries. Water quality is high; you can still stand waist deep and see your toes. Roe has measured clarity as deep as twenty feet. But the lake is also shrinking. Since 1994, Roe says it has lost several feet of depth. The affect is most dramatic at the shoreline: last year the stretch of bare sand from her seawall to the water’s edge reached 44 feet. Where has the water gone? That depends on whom you ask. But highcapacity wells used for irrigation and industry are the prime suspects. Where a well for a rural home might draw a few hundred gallons a day, high-capacity wells can pump more than 100,000 gallons of water per day from either an individual well or as part of a parcel. Before 1950 there were fewer than one hundred high-capacity wells in the sixcounty Central Sands region. Today there are more than 3,200. At first these wells replaced the highly destructive practice of pumping water directly from the lakes. And in this waterrich area, their impact seemed minimal, even nonexistent. Most people thought it impossible to empty a lake with a straw. “Wisconsin has vast water resources,” opined a pamphlet from the Wisconsin Agricultural Water Conservation Committee in 1959. “Irrigation ... has no permanent effect on the ground or surface water levels.... No reasonable person is concerned about this....” That same year the legislature held hearings
Spotlight on: The Great LakeS Compact By TOdd AMBs Director, Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes CoalitioN It became a law of the United States on December 8, 2008. Hundreds of news outlets from around the globe followed its approval by eight state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, then-President Bush, and two Canadian Provincial Parliaments. Yet today, the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Sustainable Water Resources Agreement and Compact (better known as the Great Lakes Compact) is little known by Wisconsinites other than as that law that will keep Waukesha from getting water from Lake Michigan. I was honored to be one of the lead negotiators for the State of Wisconsin when this law was being hotly debated across the Great Lakes Basin. Today, I view the Compact as having great potential to be one of the most significant sustainable water management tools on our planet—but only if we faithfully follow and fully implement all aspects of the law and its companion international agreement. The Compact and companion agreement were designed to be living, adaptively managed documents. The Compact was purposely set up to force the various jurisdictions around the Great Lakes Basin to assess, reevaluate, and update provisions of document as better science, changing conditions, and water management needs dictate. It is the best-fitting structure to ensure that we protect the most significant fresh water resource on Earth. The Compact is not just about diversions of water out of the Great Lakes Basin. Although, the law does ban diversions except for very limited exceptions that must be approved by all eight states on a case-by-case, science-based basis. Currently, the City of Waukesha is seeking an exception to the ban as a city within a straddling county. It is a significant case, deserving of careful attention and scrutiny. But in my view, the Waukesha case is not the most important part of the Compact by a long shot. The most important part of the Compact lies in its many provisions to sustainably manage all of the waters within the Great Lakes Basin for future generations. Management implies the application of attention and care. To do this effectively, the Compact sets many review provisions and milestone dates. For instance, Article 100, Section 1H, explicitly spells out “an Adaptive Management approach to the conservation and management of Basin Water resources, which recognizes, considers, and provides adjustments for the uncertainties in, and evolution of, scientific knowledge.” Article 206, Section 3, speaks directly to the case of Waukesha, requiring “programs for New or Increased Withdrawals and Consumptive Uses to evolve as may be necessary to protect Basin Waters. The Regional Body shall periodically assess the water management programs of the Parties. Such assessments may produce recommendations for the strengthening of the programs.” Article 209, Section 3, creates several mechanisms to conduct “a periodic assessment of the Cumulative Impacts of Withdrawals, Diversions and Consumptive Uses from the Waters of the Basin.” Article 300 establishes a process for a comprehensive water management program review, with provisions for review as the impacts of climate change become clearer, as more science better delineates the groundwater aquifers throughout the Basin, and as the impacts of new water withdrawals are assessed. Many of these reviews begin to kick in during the fall of 2013 as the Compact reaches its fifth birthday. What remains to be seen is if the jurisdictions, stakeholders, and ultimately the citizens of the Great Lakes Basin will maintain a commitment to truly and sustainably manage this precious world water resource for the generations to come. Z
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Image credit: Barb Feltz/Friends of the Little Plover River
ABOVE: Beginning in Stockton, Wisconsin, and joining the Wisconsin River west of Plover, the Little Plover River made state and national news in 2005 when the flow in sections of the river dried up completely. Since measurements began in the 1950’s the river’s flow had never been this low, despite the severe droughts which occurred over decades. The 2005 dry up was so severe that Brook Trout died in the pools where they congregated. Situated in an area of the state with over a thousand high-capacity wells, the Little Plover River competes for the 90% of its flow that comes groundwater. The river has dried up or been reduced to a trickle every year from 2005 through 2010
on the impact of pumping, but did not act on the hearings in any meaningful capacity. Scientists predicted trouble, but wells kept going in. And eventually—with enough straws—trouble began. At first the Little Plover River faded, then went dry in 2005, and has almost every year since. Long Lake near Plainfield, once ten-feet deep, is now more meadow than lake. Other lakes have withered enough to strand docks, close public recreational facilities, and cause winter fish kills. There is much debate over what’s going with these lakes, and discussions grow more heated with every permit application for a new well. The region is the epicenter of Wisconsin’s vegetable farming, and plenty of corn for ethanol is grown as well. In 2010 Milk Source, a large Wisconsin-based milk producer, sought two new high-capacity wells about two and a half miles from Pleasant Lake. Meanwhile, the Pleasant Lake Management District was monitoring the progress of the well application. Unhappy with the DNR’s initial approval of the high-capacity wells,
folks from the lake district decided on legal action and commissioned a second opinion on the DNR’s analysis. “We decided that this [approval] was a threat to our lake,” says Roe. George Kraft, hydrogeologist at the Center for Watershed Science and Education at UW–Stevens Point, disputed the DNR’s conclusion. According to Kraft, “Substantial water table drawdown and streamflow diversions already exist in the vicinity of the proposed Richfield wells,” to an extent that he argues is “in excess of what constitutes a ‘harm.’ ” Kraft concluded that new wells in the area will only serve to exacerbate the problem. After a contested case hearing in July of 2011, more data was collected and submitted. To the chagrin of lake district residents, in November of 2011 the DNR again approved the wells. The problem was that the DNR had no basis for which to reject the permit application. Under the 2004 revision of the state’s groundwater protection law, the DNR can only consider environmental impacts for the most pristine waters, and then only within a quarter mile of those
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waters. That’s a very small distance in groundwater impacts, and most lakes and streams are not protected. Furthermore, the DNR does not legally have authority to consider cumulative impacts. Of course, a consideration of cumulative impacts are precisely what Pleasant Lake advocates are arguing for in the circuit court of appeals. It’s difficult to solve the conflict in an over-allocated system like the Central Sands, where every drop of water seems to be spoken for. But what happens here may well set the precedent for what happens in other parts of the state as the drilling of high-capacity wells increases. “[This over-allocation] calls for a very high level of management,” Kraft concludes. Right now “there are no practical limits on how much water a person could get,” he worries. Kraft would like to see a more adaptive system where we closely monitor supply and adjust withdrawals in a way that reflects needs for agriculture, recreation, and nature. There are encouraging signs of the necessary cooperation, as some agricultural leaders are engaging with water
Image credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ABOVE: A tributary of the Marengo River and part of the Bad River Watershed of Lake Superior, Troutmere Creek is a high-quality trout stream. Yet perched culverts like the one near Marengo impede the upstream passage of fish. This perched culvert was recently repaired by a coalition of public and private partners, including the Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department, Bad River Watershed Association, Town of Marengo, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Ashland Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. A local landowner allowed weirs to be built on his property below the culvert order to raise the water level
researchers. But there are also disturbing trends. Milk Source recently sued the DNR over permit approval for another facility. They argue that, under 2011’s Act 21 (which changed the authority of a state agency to promulgate rules), the state cannot require the monitoring of wells. And without monitoring, intelligent management becomes nearly impossible. “We have a resource here that’s worth billions of dollars and we’re not managing it,” says Kraft. “Even if we decide we’re going to dry up all the lakes and streams, we need to have that discussion.”
Superior Culverts Can you imagine three quadrillion gallons of water? Looking at the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area (and the third largest by volume), it’s hard to imagine humans having much impact on Lake Superior’s magnificence. You might even convince yourself that we couldn’t scratch the surface if we tried. While it is true that Lake Superior is the cleanest of all the Great Lakes, with the fewest immediate problems,
keeping it this way is a tremendous challenge. More than $1.36 billion has been committed to Great Lakes restoration over the last four years, but this money has been largely earmarked for repairing existing damage, not protecting what’s still in good shape. In far northern Wisconsin, events long ago set the stage for current local water problems. The region formed from clay and sand deposited below the frigid waters of a huge, glacial Lake Duluth more than 10,000 years ago. Fast-forward to the late-19th century when the lumber industry clear-cut much of the majestic forest that covered northern Wisconsin. Logs were run down local streams and rivers toward market, ripping apart fragile shorelines and streambeds. With the great tree canopy and its deep filter of roots removed, rainstorms carried heavy loads of sediment to Lake Superior. But “even degraded areas tend to be in pretty good condition” today, explains Matt Hudson, watershed program coordinator at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute of Northland College in Ashland. W isc o nsin
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Supporting industries like shipping, forestry, and myriad recreational opportunities, Hudson says that this area of the Lake Superior watershed is “still a working landscape [that] maintains very high quality resources.” Superior’s relative health can be partially attributed to local watershed groups like the Bad River Watershed Association (BRWA), for which Hudson used to work. Groups like BRWA help to keep Lake Superior clean by monitoring what goes into it. And there are a lot of ways that water is moving toward the lake—so many that it can be hard to see how a feature as common and small as a culvert might make much difference. Two particular culverts allow a pair of un-named streams to flow from south to north under Hager Road toward the Marengo River. The streams are mere threads of water. You can’t spot them from Google Earth. You can jump over them without a running head start. But over time water rushing through the old culvert pipe under Hager Road had washed away the soil and stone on &
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the north side of the ditch—perched, is what the locals call it when this happens. When the Bad River Watershed Association said that they wanted to replace the culverts to create an upstream passage for fish, the folks living on Hager Road were skeptical. “People would say, ‘There’s no fish in there!’ And [then] we pulled hundreds of little trout out of there,” says Michelle Wheeler, who at the time was head of the BRWA but is now an aquatic specialist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Ashland. “They were small fish, young of the year, but people were amazed. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and I had no idea,’ they said.” Small headwater streams like the one running under Hager Road are an integral part of Lake Superior. “They’re tiny, but they’re important little tribs. Fish are moving up them in the fall to spawn. They’re up there when the water gets warm [downstream] in the Marengo and they need a cold place to be,” says Wheeler. Multiply these culverts across thousands of miles of rural roads and their importance quickly adds up. Wherever a road intersects with even the smallest stream, there’s a culvert; most were installed by the town road crew using whatever size pipe they had on hand at the time. You can cross hundreds on a Sunday drive in the country, and never even notice them. But managing them is a huge—and necessary—task in the Bad River Watershed. When the BRWA began to survey the area in 2005 they found some two hundred sites with fish passage problems. They also found that the Marengo River contributed the most sediment to the Bad River. Tracing the problem upstream, they discovered that perched culverts were not only problematic for fish, but that when they eventually blew out they were dumping tons of sediment into streams. In addition to the fish and sediment issues, blown culverts are a transportation infrastructure problem for cash-strapped rural townships. The BRWA tried different culvert techniques to optimize fish passage, but the real payoff came when the towns realized that these new culverts could handle storm flows better. And because the monitoring proved the fish passage worked,
the road budgets also got a boost from fish habitat money. So far the program has replaced thirteen culverts, reconnecting over seventeen miles of fish habitat. The BRWA’s success in culvert replacement reflects the essential role of citizen conservation groups committed to local watersheds, illustrating how they can be
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Although phosphorus is released into lakes and streams from discharge pipes, it also enters the water from a multitude of nonpoint sources that are difficult monitor: residential lawns, city streets, farm fields. part of the adaptive management puzzle by providing a link between lay people and scientists, between government resources and stakeholders, and between people and the water. “People don’t always know what they can do about the health of the water and their natural resources,” says Matt Hudson, noting that “the culverts provided a way to bring people in” to the discussion. By making the science more accessible and giving people a forum to tell their stories about the rivers and streams that are part of their everyday lives, the watershed evolves into a healthier whole. And all of this from a culvert.
From Sewer Wars to Sweet Water In the 1990s there was little evidence that the Milwaukee region would be a paragon of urban waste water management. When the sewer system hit capacity during major storm events, millions of gallons of sewage routinely overflowed into Lake Michigan. During the summer of 2001, there were 339 Lake Michigan beach closings—many &
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in the Chicago area—due to dangerously high bacteria levels. The beach closings were a reminder of the events that led to a 1977 lawsuit by the City of Chicago over the pollution emanating from Milwaukee. This lawsuit forced the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District (MMSD) to begin a $3 billion dollar sewage abatement program that culminated in the 1994 completion of a 405 million-gallon emergency overflow reservoir system called the Deep Tunnel. Critics decried the tunnel for focusing on the symptom—excess storm water flooding the system—and not the underlying problem: too much concrete and asphalt and not enough areas where the water could soak in. Protracted legal battles were fought over its cost. Almost two decades after these Sewer Wars, a seemingly unsolvable situation in the Milwaukee area has evolved into a model of cooperation and innovation in storm water management and waste water treatment. This winter MMSD inked a new pact with the Environmental Protection Agency to create five million gallons of green storage for rainwater. For perspective, it takes 18,000 rain barrels to store one million gallons—that’s sixty truckloads of barrels. While the Deep Tunnel is still in use, MMSD wants to harness newer storm water management approaches that use less energy and redefine how urban infrastructure can be sustainable: green streets and alleys incorporating rain gardens, porous pavement, and bioswales. All of this landscape is designed to capture storm water or slow its flow; to help trap, filter and remove pollution from runoff; and to allow the water to recharge groundwater instead of polluting Lake Michigan. How did the region move from litigation to cooperation and innovation? Even after the Deep Tunnel project went online, pollution problems continued to close Lake Michigan beaches. No one could pinpoint the exact source of the pollution. Aided by the DNR, MMSD and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission joined forces in 2002 to figure out the pollution source. In 2007 they concluded that the pollution problem had flipped: nonpoint sources such as runoff from lawns and streets
were causing nearly 90% of regional water pollution. It was no longer possible to blame any one source for the pollution harming local rivers and the lake. Everybody had a share of the responsibility to restore water quality. As civic leaders began to realize their interdependence, they decided they needed new institutions. In 2006 the Public Policy Forum, a respected and local good-government watchdog, argued in a major report on water resources that “leaders must think strategically and regionally about managing water assets in the long term.” In 2008, as communities began to connect the dots, a plan emerged for the Southeastern Wisconsin Watersheds Trust, now called Sweet Water. The nonprofit’s goal was to unify the region behind the clean water goal and to coordinate a cooperative approach.
Let’s Meet at the Water Scientists realized more than fifty years ago that too much phosphorus causes noxious algae to overrun lakes and rivers, but despite regulatory efforts, nothing has curbed the problem. Along with nitrogen and potassium, phosphorus is an essential nutrient for growing plants. Phosphorus is found in nature, but often in limited supply and in hard-to-reach places. Mined from rock formations for commercial use, phosphorus is the main ingredient in fertilizer. Phosphorus is also found in manure, which is frequently used for fertilizer. We now know that widespread use of fertilizer is one of the primary ways that phosphorus ends up accumulating in a watershed. Although phosphorus is released into lakes and streams from discharge pipes at sewage treatment plants and some manufacturers as well, phosphorus also enters the water from a multitude of nonpoint sources that are difficult monitor: residential lawns, city streets, farm fields. Leaves blowing into lakes and streams are a major source, too. Because phosphorus is usually found in low concentrations in nature, this limits the growth of aquatic algae. Just a little extra phosphorus in aquatic systems can lead to explosive and noxious algal blooms that smother lakes and streams.
Spotlight on: invasive species By jake vander zanden - university of wisconsin center for limnology Our waters are being transformed by human activity. Some changes are gradual and go largely unnoticed, while others are rapid and abrupt. For many Wisconsin residents who spend time on or around lakes and rivers, aquatic invasive species are probably the most conspicuous. It’s hard not to notice the razor-sharp shells of zebra mussels on a beach, or a boat motor entangled in green strands of Eurasian watermilfoil. These changes are unfortunately not for the better, and they often strike at the heart of what many of us love most about Wisconsin—the abundance and diversity of healthy lakes and rivers. We are now beginning to realize that it is impossible to unweave the thread of invasive species from the web of other changes to Wisconsin’s waters: excessive development, nutrients, habitat loss, and climate change. Where does this onslaught of invasive species come from? The short answer is that humans move them around, either intentionally or unintentionally. As our modern society has become more mobile and global, plant and animal life has often hitched along for the ride. As an example, the Great Lakes currently host a stunning 184 plant and animal species that originate from somewhere else. Many of these species are inconspicuous and have had no known impact, while others rapidly reached nuisance levels after introduction. And some have used the Great Lakes as a beachhead for invading the thousands of inland lakes and streams of Wisconsin. These “biological invasions” can have effects that ripple through the ecosystem. For instance, invasive filter feeders like zebra mussels clear the water and also release nutrients. Filamentous algae growing on the bottom of a lake take advantage of increased light and nutrients, courtesy of the zebra mussel, and often grow to nuisance levels. Eventually, currents break the algae loose and it washes up to rot on our beaches. This algae has also been linked to avian botulism outbreaks. Omnivorous rusty crayfish munch down on weedbeds and their inhabitants alike. In doing so, these invasive crayfish can convert a diverse and productive ecosystem into a lifeless sand-barren—the aquatic equivalent of desertification—in which a rich assemblage of aquatic plants, invertebrates, snails, and fish are lost. Eurasian watermilfoil often forms thick mats that cover a lake’s surface, providing a home for nuisance filamentous algae. In additional to the ecological toll, Eurasian watermilfoil reduces lakeshore property values in Wisconsin Though less than six inches in length, the voracious Rainbow smelt consumes baby walleye, perch, and whitefish. This invasive is linked to population collapses of popular sport fish in Wisconsin and beyond. Barring massive eradication campaigns, these invasive species are here to stay. Yet, there is reason for hope. First, only a small fraction of the invasive species found in the Great Lakes have spread to inland Wisconsin waters. They are spreading slowly, as they generally require humans to transport them. Second, biology is often on our side. For example, thousands of our lakes lack the physical, chemical, and biological conditions that certain invasive species require to thrive. And, finally, research suggests that some species don’t have particularly harmful impacts, and even the most notorious species don’t always reach nuisance levels. While humans are clearly part of the problem, we can also be part of the solution. As we strive to maintain healthy and resilient aquatic ecosystems, we must ultimately recognize that many invasive species are here to stay. Efforts to stop new species from moving in, and preventing the spread of those that are already here, are well worth the time and expense. In the case of invasive species, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. Z W isc o nsin
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At the same time that Sweet Water was coming together in Milwaukee, the DNR was putting into place its new phosphorus rules. Combined with the state’s 1977 program on polluted runoff, the new rules helped to fill an important gap in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (more commonly known as the Clean Water Act). This law lays the foundation for regulating direct pollution discharges into U.S. waters and sets quality standards to achieve healthy lakes and streams. It has never, however, regulated indirect discharges of nonpoint pollution like agricultural runoff or return flows from irrigated agriculture, each of which can carry heavy loads of sediment, pesticides, and fertilizers such as phosphorus and nitrogen. The EPA had been pressuring states to address phosphorus pollution for years, and Wisconsin regulators were searching for ways to fund state nonpoint programs to support water quality improvements. Meanwhile, Wisconsin researchers were improving analytical tools to understand and measure how phosphorus runs off the land. The new phosphorus rule addresses both EPA’s and Wisconsin’s regulatory needs, and takes advantage of the scientific advances in the field. Enforcement of the Clean Water Act largely relies upon regulating pollution at the point where it enters the water from a discharge pipe, or point source. Standards vary according to the type of point source (sewage treatment plants, storm water sewers, different industries) and the body of water receiving the pollution. However, a significant portion of phosphorus typically comes from sources not regulated by the Clean Water Act. Still, under the Clean Water Act, point sources are on the hook for meeting the local water quality standards, even if they aren’t the primary polluter. And, Wisconsin’s phosphorus rule sets strong new standards. As a result, there’s a big incentive for point sources to find ways to reduce those loads within their watershed. Otherwise, they’ll wind up investing in expensive technology that may or may not solve water quality problems. What makes the new phosphorus rule so potentially effective is that it creates a bridge between critical water quality programs. The regulated point-source
dischargers can now partner with the other sources (and sometimes the major sources) in their watershed to meet water quality standards. For example, a sewage treatment plant and a pulp mill could enter into contracts with farmers and pay the farmers to reduce land-based runoff through a variety of practices, from planting buffer strips along streams, to changing the diet of their livestock, to avoiding winter manure spreading. The farmers get paid for implementing conser-
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“Water supports every single job in the state of Wisconsin. No water, no life, no job. That’s the fundamental economic reality.” vation practices, and the point sources don’t have to invest in expensive technologies that might only result in incremental improvements in the water body. In this way partners can meet their water quality goals by reducing cumulative phosphorus loadings from other sources in the same waterway. Instead of expensive technology solutions, investments can improve water quality and even habitat in multiple ways within an entire watershed. This approach is one type of adaptive management, a flexible approach to achieving environmental goals that uses different tactics to reach clean water goals. The DNR’s new phosphorus standards are strict, but the new flexibility adaptive management affords is leading to even more cooperation in creating the first watershed-based storm water permit in the country. A National Research Council study in 2008 had advocated a watershed approach to nonpoint pollution, and the first of three watershed-based storm water permits was issued last fall for the Menominee River Basin. Originating in Washington County, the Menominee River flows southeasterly for about 32 miles before meeting the Milwaukee and Kinnickinnic Rivers in the Milwaukee Harbor Estuary. Under the old rules, each munici&
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pality—from Mequon to Milwaukee to Elm Grove—would have to meet a pollution target on its own. The watershed-based approach allows municipalities to pool resources to tackle the worst parts of the problem together. The broad progress toward watershedbased thinking in the Milwaukee region drew support from many places, from agencies at every level of government to private foundation to sewerage districts and local and statewide environmental organizations. But central to this whole process were the citizen volunteers who wade knee-deep into the local waterways, doing the critical monitoring needed to make this new approach work. For decades, thousands of citizens have kept alive the idea that Milwaukee’s rivers could be something other than urban backwaters. The River Edge Nature Center and the Urban Ecology Center began with cleanups, and then in 1989 started training citizen volunteers to test their local waters. That work has been continued and consolidated by organizations like Milwaukee Riverkeeper today. Citizen monitoring of phosphorus pollution is a central part of the process. It’s too early to declare victory, but it signals a deeper evolution of the region’s understanding of how water connects us. “It’s an acknowledgement that what happens in one part of the watershed affects other parts of the watershed,” says Sweet Water executive director Jeff Martinka. “Water doesn’t care about municipal boundaries.”
Thinking Like a Watershed In fact, water doesn’t care about any boundaries. Boundaries are about property: What’s on that side of the line is yours, and what’s on this side is mine. Water flows with the laws of nature, and reflects how you treat it when it is in your care. That is the ultimate lesson learned by the scores of watershed groups now active in the state. These groups face an uphill battle as political and market forces increasingly intrude into water management. Recent legislative actions on groundwater protection and mining are not just decisions about economy and environment. Rather, this legislation involves ethical decisions about who owns water, and
who has rights to water. And these decisions affect the long-term stability and resilience of our water systems. “The very concept of the commons is under assault as we try to privatize everything,” says Curt Meine. “Water supports every single job in the state of Wisconsin. No water, no life, no job. That’s the fundamental economic reality, and yet we keep sacrificing our water to some kind of short term economic growth instead of long-term economic well being.” Perhaps the most incredible part about water is its potential as a selfsustaining resource. A well-functioning landscape can clean and replenish its water, notes Meine, even as it produces food and works for us. Therefore, by carefully managing our water resources, we can have a healthy economy in northern Wisconsin without depending on a mine for jobs. Agriculture can flourish in central Wisconsin without draining the Little Plover River. But, as Meine notes, we cannot have the Wisconsin we know and cherish if we destroy our greatest common resource. The question remains: Can we safely steward our water wealth through a time of rising scarcity? Todd Ambs, now president of the national River Network, is hopeful that the flexibility being tested in the new
phosphorus rule could provide the backbone of a comprehensive state water policy. But this new flexibility requires accountability, and a willingness to keep trying until we get the problem solved and the waters clean. Water quantity—and allocating that water fairly—is likely to be a larger challenge. Ambs would like to see a mechanism for determining a watershed budget: how much water you can remove from a watershed safely, but also how to restore that balance if you exceed the budget. “I’m not suggesting that this is an easy thing to do,” he admits. “If it was easy to do, somebody would have done it.” While we are beginning to see progress at the watershed level, the next challenges are regional and even global. For example, we’ll need to figure out how to fairly and intelligently handle water issues now that areas that drain to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes are governed by different standards. Looming over progress and challenges alike is the threat of climate change. “One of the best things we can do to buffer ourselves from climate change is to protect water,” argues Melissa Malott, who directs water programs for Clean Wisconsin. Speaking at a recent Wisconsin Academy forum in Green Bay, Malott
discussed the exciting potential of watershed groups to lay the foundation for meeting these larger challenges. “I think there is something incredibly valuable to people [about] making decisions about the water resources where they live. There is something personal about it. It’s important. People talk more.” Malott says that it is citizen collaboration that “is building the infrastructure that we’re going to need at the local level to deal with some of the bigger challenges that are coming our way.” Meine concurs with Malott, pointing out that for any conservation effort to work “it’s all about how we understand the commons and our role as citizens in a democracy.” He likens the role of these sentinel citizens as the cultural embodiment of Aldo Leopold’s disciplined ritual of observing nature every day, in every place he went. This refined observation ultimately led to a deep understanding of the natural world, an understanding that is beginning to permeate our culture. “We can dwell on the things that divide us, but we dwell within landscapes that connect us,” says Meine. “Fundamentally we are connected by water. There are other things that connect us, obviously, but water is the connecting medium.” Z
CONNECT: The Waters of Wisconsin Initiative Wisconsin is home to 15,000 inland lakes, 3,000 miles of perennial rivers and streams, 5.3 million acres of wetlands, and our four aquifers hold 1.2 quadrillion gallons of groundwater. All these waters interact through an integrated hydrological system that holds life’s essential element … and an asset of inestimable global significance. We have a special responsibility to safeguard these waters for ourselves and the community of life that depends on them. Building on the successes of our first Waters of Wisconsin (WOW) initiative between 2000 and 2003 and with support from the Joyce Foundation, the Wisconsin Academy is renewing its commitment to Wisconsin waters by revisiting our WOW initiative. Many of the challenges of a decade ago are still with us today, and new and more complex threats to water will require a fresh examination of the way forward. Our aim is to foster nonpartisan, sciencebased strategies and solutions to safeguard Wisconsin’s freshwater ecosystems and water supply for generations to come. To this end we are engaging with a wide cross-section of Wisconsin people—leaders in science, policy, practice, education, arts and culture—to collaborate on needs and opportunities to advance Wisconsin water strategies. Through this collaboration we will provide information and insight to our members and wider public audiences through analysis and stories in Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine, Academy Evening talks, community forums, and our website, which will feature profiles of and blogs from leaders in Wisconsin water management and strategy. Flash the above QR code with your mobile device to view videos from our recent public forums or visit us online at wisconsinacademy.org/WOW for more content and information.
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Waters of Wisconsin–and Beyond
A New Era for the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology
by R obert G . L ange
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ATER DEFINES LIFE IN WISCONSIN. Our landscape, history, cultures, communities, ecosystems, and economy are fundamentally shaped by water. With the Great Lakes on Wisconsin’s eastern and northern borders, the Mississippi River to the west, and a vast network of surface waters, water may be our most
precious resource. Indeed, opinion poll responses in the wake of the Wisconsin Academy’s landmark three-year study of Wisconsin’s waters, Waters of Wisconsin: The Future of Our Aquatic Ecosystems and Resources, tell us
that “Wisconsinites don’t just value their waters—they love them.” Limnology, the study of inland waters, is an academic discipline of great interest to the citizens of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin–Madison limnologists have been studying the waters of Wisconsin since 1895 with the goal of finding solutions to the vexing and myriad challenges our waters continually face. Examining the causal relationships involved in nutrient pollution and lake food webs, studying the impact of dams (and their removal) on rivers, monitoring the health of the Great Lakes, and evaluating the impact of climate change on our waters are all in a day’s work for the scientists at the university’s Center for Limnology. Water is the essential condition for life on earth—one that has no substitute. Yet, freshwaters are the most altered ecosystems on the planet. As changes in human activity affect lakes and rivers—not only in Wisconsin but also across the world— scientific research from the Center for
Limnology and other academic centers becomes ever more central to our ability to responsibly manage water resources. Many Wisconsin Academy members will remember the Wisconsin Academy’s Waters of Wisconsin (WOW) project, which produced in 2003 a series of recommendations on the best policies and management of our waters for the beginning of the 21st century. Faculty from the Center helped lead this project and generate knowledge used in this landmark study. In 2013 and for the next few years, some of the original WOW participants from the Center—along with many more from across the state of Wisconsin— will help the Wisconsin Academy lead a renewed WOW initiative that will explore new and more complex threats to water which require a fresh examination of the way forward. The renewed WOW initiative will foster nonpartisan, science-based
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strategies and solutions to safeguard Wisconsin’s freshwater ecosystems and water supply for generations to come. The Center for Limnology has had a long and fruitful relationship with the Wisconsin Academy. Breaking New Waters: A Century of Limnology at the University of Wisconsin, is a detailed history of the first century (1875–1978) of the Center’s growth and development. Written by Annamarie Beckel and published in Transactions (1987), the Wisconsin Academy’s scholarly journal, this comprehensive review of the work of Edward A. Birge, Chancey Juday, and Arthur D. Hasler clearly established these scholars as foundational to the Center. The purpose of this article is to fortify the pillars of this foundation by tracing the development of the Center in the first three decades of its second century: 1978–2009. What follows is an overview of five of the most important events in
Photo credit: Shanna Wolf Photography
ABOVE: Representing three eras of leadership at the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology, John Magnuson, Steve Carpenter, and Jim Kitchell pose for a photo near the banks of Lake Mendota in Madison
this period under the leadership first of Professor John Magnuson (1982–2000) and, second, of Professor Jim Kitchell (2001–2009).
Creation of the Center for Lmnology Classes on the study of inland waters had been part of the UW–Madison Department of Zoology curriculum since 1875 and were largely conducted in the Laboratory of Limnology on the shore of Lake Mendota near Memorial Union. When Arthur D. Hasler came onboard, he placed a new emphasis on controlled experiments in the field. An intellectual giant in the field, Hasler for decades guided limnology-related work at UW– Madison. When he retired in 1978, his young associate, John Magnuson, took over leadership of studies in limnology.
At that time, if the limnology faculty— which consisted of Magnuson and Jim Kitchell—wanted to grow and develop the program, they had to compete with the whole Zoology Department for resources. Limnology was just one of the many interests of the Department of Zoology; as such the field often came up short on funding. Yet there was growing recognition that Wisconsin’s lakes were an important economic resource, deserving of more study. After a considerable amount of conversation and negotiation, Department of Zoology Chair Seymour Abrahamson, Dean Robert Bock of the Graduate School, and Dean David Cronon of the College of Letters and Science all agreed with Magnuson that limnological studies should be formally incorporated as an independent entity known as the Center for Limnology within the College of Letters and Science. Magnuson became W isc o nsin
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the Center’s first director until his retirement in 2000 when he turned the reins of leadership over to Kitchell. What was particularly important about the establishment of the Center in 1982 was the freedom of operation that it obtained. While the Center maintained strong formal and informal ties to the Department of Zoology, its subsequent growth into one of the most significant limnological research sites in the world owes much to the freedom to appeal directly to the university for necessary support through, for example, research grants from the Graduate School, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and Sea Grant Institute. Reflecting on the development of the Center in a recent interview, Magnuson observed that the feeling during those nascent years was that of a “commons.” Collaboration and collegiality governed all aspects of the work at the Center &
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for Limnology, both programmatic and administrative. This approach to intellectual activity was initiated by Hasler and has been successfully maintained by his successors ever since. For instance, the Center operates on a democratic basis using a system of committees: faculty, staff, and students all share power. Faculty at the Center interact continuously and regularly review each other’s work in the search for new knowledge and opportunities for collaboration. New faculty members are expected to pursue their own research interests but with a consistent commitment to determining the best way to apply the new knowledge and get it out into the world. A core principle of the Center, the importance of this collaborative approach cannot be overstated.
The Long Term Ecology Research Project
nary commitment to create and execute interdisciplinary research; the Center made great use of the university’s commitment in formulating their Long Term Ecology Research proposal to the NSF. While the Center for Limnology led the proposal effort, all of the faculty who would be involved in the project made major contributions. These faculty, who already had many years of working
Kitchell and Carpenter postulated that perhaps there was something else going on besides nutrient input that regulated algae production, a kind of “feedback” mechanism.
While the Center for Limnology was striving for recognition as a distinct research entity, an opportunity presented itself through the National Science Foundation (NSF) to become a much bigger player in the field. Magnuson, who had been invited to join the NSF in 1975 as Director of the Ecology Program, was part of an effort organized by the NSF to create a Long Term Ecology Research (LTER) program, which would look in detail at a variety of ecosystems across the U.S.—from rainforests on the Northwest coast to the tidelands of Georgia—and follow them over decades. The need for an LTER program arose from discussions at the time about how long-term ecological phenomena in lakes—nutrient and hydrologic cycles, for instance—cannot be adequately understood within the three-year time frame of traditional NSF grants. The grant cycle was simply too short. Among the eighteen systems the NSF initially targeted were north temperate lakes, the kind found in Northern Wisconsin. When the NSF called for proposals, the Magnuson sought out UW–Madison colleagues who might be interested in collaborating on a LTER project here in Wisconsin. One historical strength of UW–Madison is its extraordi-
together under the auspices of the Oceanography and Limnology Graduate Program, included Carl Bowser of geochemistry and hydrology, Mary Anderson of hydrology, Thomas Brock of microbiology and limnology, and Robert Ragotzkie of atmospheric science and physical oceanography. This talented group put together a proposal that addressed large, over-arching concepts and stressed the need to understand lakes’ relationships with their surrounding landscapes and how they are linked through surface and underground hydrologic flow systems. The end result was that the Center received one of the five NSF grants awarded out of a total of thirty submissions for the North Temperate Lakes program. Magnuson went on to direct this project on lake ecology until he stepped down and became an Emeritus Professor in 2000. The Center for Limnology’s Trout Lake Station in northern Wisconsin, which has been an important site for limnological studies since 1925 (for more information on the station, please see the sidebar
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beginning on the opposite page), was chosen as a research hub for the Center’s LTER project. In particular, a cluster of seven lakes located near the station are ideal for studying long-term lake changes and dynamics in a landscape context. Though situated fairly close to one another, the lakes differ greatly in fundamental properties like acidity, vegetation, and fish population. These differences can be used to successfully isolate important chemical, physical, and biological control factors for lake processes and thereby increase the understanding of how lakes operate and change over time, how internal versus external factors influence changes and year-to-year dynamics, and how lakes are influenced by major disturbances. The Center’s North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research Project has been renewed by NSF every six years since it was first awarded in 1981; other grants and researchers have built on the LTER’s science platform with its strong and continuing database. The NSF’s longterm support for the Center’s project provided a foundation for the continued excellence of limnology research in Wisconsin.
Trophic Cascade Theory Around the same time the LTER project was coming together in the 1980s, Jim Kitchell initiated another new area of research focused on re-evaluating how lake ecosystems worked. Working with friend and colleague Stephen Carpenter, a professor of biology at Notre Dame University, the two began to question the established concept of how lakes create food for fish. The thinking of the time was reflected in a bottom-to-top food chain: nutrients feed algae, which creates food for zooplankton, which become food for fish. However, this simple transfer of food up the chain could not explain variability in the amounts and types of algae and zooplankton among neighboring Wisconsin lakes, or among other lakes of the world. Kitchell and Carpenter postulated that perhaps there was something else going on besides nutrient input that
regulated algae production, a kind of “feedback” mechanism. That mechanism proved to be the predation pressure exerted by fish, which changes the zooplankton population and thereby changes the amount of algae. When the population of large predator fish dwindles, the number of small fish that feed on zooplankton increases. This in turn reduces the zooplankton population, allowing algae to thrive. By transplanting top predators like walleye and pike from one lake to another, Carpenter and Kitchell found they could transform the food chains of both lakes and dramatically change the levels of algae. The success of the experiment prompted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and area fishing clubs to undertake a major fishstocking program to improve the water quality of Lake Mendota. This biomanipulation project of 1987–1989 was supported by new fishery regulations that created a “trophy” fishery to protect and increase numbers of top predator fish. At the same time, DNR Director of Fisheries James Addis obtained funds for the massive stocking of walleye into Lake Mendota. Plankton and fish communities responded. Both fisheries and water quality improved. The effort was received with interest by fishery managers and scientists around the world, and led to the 1992 book edited by Kitchell, Food Web Management: A Case Study of Lake Mendota. This revision of the bottom-to-top food chain theory, called trophic cascade theory, also enabled Kitchell to explain the complex changes in Lake Michigan fisheries from the 1940s to about 2000. The ancestral top predator, the lake trout, disappeared by mid-century due to overfishing and the invasion of parasitic sea lamprey. Alewife, a small fish that had also invaded Lake Michigan, exploded in population and began feeding heavily on zooplankton. By the 1960s, mass dieoffs of alewife due to overpopulation were fouling Lake Michigan beaches. Drawing on the old, bottom-to-top food chain thinking, Pacific salmon species were stocked in the lake to control the alewife and create a sport fishery. But Kitchell had predicted that salmon would
SPOTLIGHt ON:
trout lake research station Trout Lake is deep blue today, the perfect backdrop for an open house at the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology’s Trout Lake Research Station. Boats are tied up at the dock, waiting to take visitors out on the placid waters. Held annually since 2011, the open house offers visitors a glimpse of the science behind lake preservation and restoration. University of Wisconsin lake biology pioneers Chancey Juday and Edward A. Birge founded this research station on the largest lake in Vilas County back in 1924. Nearly 4,000 acres in area and reaching a depth of 117 feet, Trout Lake is just one of about 2,500 lakes within 50 kilometers of the Station, making it the perfect companion field site (along with the Madison Lakes Region in southern Wisconsin) for the Center for Limnology’s North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research Project. Eighty-five years after Juday and Birge began their work in a rustic building on the northern shore, the research station continues to thrive—now on the other side of Trout Lake. The goals and quality of science at the Station remain steadfast, driven by the dedication and inquiring minds of researchers who study the long-term ecology of lakes across a broad scale, including relationships to atmospheric, geochemical, landscape and human processes. Some of the more accessible research at the Station revolves around ridding Wisconsin lakes of invasive species like the rainbow smelt and rusty crayfish. At the open house, researcher Emily Hilts explains to visitors how to identify rusty crayfish (or “rusties,” as researchers refer to them). Her research partner, Alex Latzka, picks up a rustie from the bucket and talks about the culinary pleasures of crayfish boils—“they taste a lot like lobster”—while Hilts points out defining features of these five-inch crustaceans. Native to the Ohio River Basin, rusty crayfish have hitchhiked their way to waters in both the northern United States and Canada. Their aggressive nature has enabled them to displace native crayfish here in Vilas County. Back in 2001, nearby Sparkling Lake was occupied by a hostile army of rusties. Omnivorous rusties eat fish eggs, aquatic plants, and a wide variety of invertibrates. A quick survey of the lake at the time revealed a severely damaged ecosystem with no fish and little underwater vegetation. Using dozens of crayfish traps, baited with beef liver, Trout Lake Station researchers began removing rusties in an attempt to restore the lake to pre-invaded conditions. Coupled with the introduction of predators like smallmouth and rock bass, removal was successful in reducing rusty crayfish catch rates by 95% over the following four years. Native bluegill and walleye populations began to rebound in tandem with underwater plants. Trapping efforts ceased in 2009, and it is unknown if the invasive species will again take over this small lake in the future. But, for now, the lake is reasonably healthy.
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Photo credit: Shanna Wolf Photography
ABOVE: Center for Limnology faculty (from left to right) Paul Hanson, director Steve Carpenter, Jake Vander Zanden, Emily Stanley, Peter McIntyre, and director emeritus John Magnuson
overshoot their food base, and his forecast proved correct. By the 1990s, salmon stocking had reached unsustainable levels as the alewife population declined. (In recent years, fisheries managers have adjusted salmon stocking levels toward a better balance with their prey and the rest of food chain.)
When Hasler retired in 1978, it was immediately clear to both Magnuson and Kitchell—who were the only limnological faculty at the time—that more faculty were needed if there was to be a successful limnology program at UW– Madison. With the 1982 formation of the Center for Limnology, they could begin looking for private resources to support additional faculty. Reed Coleman, a prominent Madison businessman and president of the philanthropic Norman Bassett Foundation, became acquainted with Magnuson through their work with the Sand County Foundation, which seeks to honor and perpetuate the work of Aldo Leopold. In the mid-1980s Coleman, who has a degree in ecological science, approached Magnuson with an offer to have the Bassett Foundation partially fund a new
faculty position in limnology, provided the university agreed to pick up full funding five years hence. Magnuson secured the additional required financial support by working with both the College of Letters and Science and the university’s fund-raising arm, the University of Wisconsin Foundation. As has been noted earlier, Kitchell had developed a good relationship with Notre Dame’s Stephen Carpenter, who had received his PhD in botany, oceanography, and limnology from the UW–Madison in 1979. Carpenter was interested in working at the Center and had a one-year sabbatical there in 1987– 1988. Thanks to Bassett Foundation support and his successful application for a faculty position in the Zoology Department, Carpenter joined the Center in 1989. Like Magnuson and Kitchell, Carpenter has distinguished himself with his work in the field. Besides his expertise in nutrient cycling and physical and chemical limnology, Carpenter brought a conceptual interest in ecosystem science and large-scale ecosystem modeling. Today Carpenter is director of the Center for Limnology. A decade after Carpenter joined the center, it became clear to the limnological leadership that an effort should be made
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to add a fourth faculty member, one with an interest in stream ecology. The Center submitted a proposal for an NSF training grant in collaboration with the University of Washington to integrate lake and stream ecology in graduate training. While funding of that NSF proposal generated momentum for the next faculty hire, additional resources were required. In response to a request from Magnuson, Coleman again applied funds from the Bassett Foundation to partially support a new faculty member in the field of stream ecology. UW–Madison and the Foundation followed suit. Carpenter, who was aware of the work of Emily Stanley at Oklahoma State University, encouraged Kitchell to attend one of Stanley’s research presentations at a national meeting. Shortly after, Stanley was hired through Zoology as the Center’s point person for a new research emphasis on stream and river ecosystems. In an August 22, 2012, letter to the author, Coleman said the following about his involvement with the Center: “I knew the Department of Limnology and its prominence all the way back to the time of Hasler. … It is obvious [to me] that [Magnuson and I] devised something that worked well. … The record compiled by Carpenter and Stanley stands tribute to the fact that it was a pretty good idea.”
Crystal Lake, one of the keystone lakes in
When first Magnuson, and then Kitchell, announced their retirements, the Center, again through Zoology, added new younger faculty: Jake Vander Zanden and Peter McIntyre, both of whom have an admirable breadth of knowledge and commitment to research. Vander Zanden has special interest in invasive species and food webs, while McIntyre studies the organism-ecosystem interface in rivers and lakes around the world. The Center also promoted Paul Hanson, who had secured his PhD from UW–Madison in 2003, to apply computer technology and software to ecosystems sciences.
the Station’s research core, is the front line of another battle against an invasive species: rainbow smelt. The main weapon against the smelt is a seemingly innocuous device called a Gradual Entrainment Lake Inverter (GELI). By repeatedly sinking and surfacing through the thermocline (the border between a lake’s warm surface waters and colder waters near the bottom), the GELI cycles warm water to the bottom of Crystal Lake and cold water to the surface, thereby making water conditions warmer overall and very uncomfortable for the smelt. Before this technology was created, people would poison whole lakes to remove the smelt—unfortunately killing prized yellow
The Education and Training of Graduate Students Beginning with Hasler and continuing today, the Center has emphasized the education and training of graduate students. Many faculty suggest that the most important product of the Center may not be scientific papers but the people who graduate; these bright young scholars move out into the worlds of academe or program management and policy—and they make a real difference. Many of the leading limnologists at American universities today are graduates of Wisconsin’s Center for Limnology. Because the Center for Limnology is so highly regarded in the field, admission to the graduate program is keenly competitive and rigorous. Applicants meet with several faculty prior to admission, and extreme care goes into selecting whom to accept. Among the qualities considered is commitment to collaboration and collegiality; much attention is paid to finding those intellectually qualified applicants who also share this approach to their work. Because of the universal high quality of accepted graduate students, faculty are able to greatly expand the number of areas they can investigate by engaging these talented students in new research projects. In many ways, past graduate students—now on their own—represent the legacy of their professors and their capacity to influence another generation of advocates for Wisconsin’s—and the world’s—inland waters. Z
perch and many other fish in the lake as well. The Station tour stops in front of one of Ken Morrison’s instrumented buoys—bristling with wires, sensors, and antennae—displayed in the “wet lab” at the Station for the open house. A research scientist for the Wisconsin DNR and full-time aquatic chemist at the Station, Morrison patiently explains to visitors how this data-gathering marvel can float out on a lake and transmit a dizzying array of information about lake temperature, dissolved oxygen levels, evaporation rate, water acidity, and much more. UW–Madison grad student Kate Zipp and student researcher Jasmine Jolitz show visitors their boater survey project, which uses a socio-economic-ecological hybrid model to examine lake issues. Survey questions they ask lakeshore owners, boaters, and tourists are aimed at determining how these groups view the economic and ecological values of, for example, restoring the native green frog population or eradicating invasive Eurasian milfoil (a kind of aquatic weed). Survey responses are tied to dollar amounts so respondents can indicate how much each alternative is worth to them. Zipp and Jolitz’s survey results indicate that boaters and cottage owners put weed removal and shoreline development well above frog preservation. Zipp and Jolitz note that, “the frogs almost always lose out.” The open house tour ends at the Station’s all-season cabins, which provide 37 year-round beds, and 48 in the summer. Well-equipped to support both short- and long-term visiting researchers, the Station buzzes with activity during the summer months. Over the course of May through August, ten full-time staff are joined by dozens of graduate and undergraduate researchers as well as visiting scholars. Students and researchers from UW–Madison are also joined by limnologists from around the Midwest who come to take advantage of the wet labs, aquaria, sensory equipment, electron microscopes, SCUBA gear, boats, and a close community devoted to aquatic research of all kinds. To learn more about the Center for Limology’s Trout Lake Station, visit limnology.wisc.edu. —James Sajdak All images © Center for Limnology and University of Wisconsin Regents
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PERIMETER P hotography by Kevin J . M iyaza k i
Perimeter is a project commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, which invited me to create new work addressing the topic of fresh water and the Great Lakes. I chose to examine Lake Michigan, which holds great presence in my own community of Milwaukee and borders the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. It’s the largest lake contained solely within the United States and the fifth largest lake in the world. Lake Michigan’s significance as a source of fresh water has never been more important in political, social, and environmental terms. In Milwaukee, the lake has been the impetus for growth in academic, environmental, and business interests, as the city positions itself as a hub for knowledge and growth in the area of fresh water research. Perimeter is a photography-based project aimed at capturing a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan by photographing people whose lives are closest to it. I’ve photographed a diverse group of individuals who all have connections to the lake: residents, beach-goers, scientists, dock workers, environmentalists, artists, community leaders, commercial fishermen, ferry captains, boat builders, and surfers. The majority of 277 portraits were made during a two-week, 1,800-mile drive around the lake’s perimeter. I traveled with a portable studio, which I set up on beaches and in parks, on boat docks and in back yards. Sometimes I photographed groups of individuals in the same location, and other times I set up to photograph just one person. There were some specific, compelling subjects I’d identified in advance, but most in the project are people I simply met while traveling. I asked the subjects to share their thoughts about the lake, many of which I’ve collected and published online at kevinmiyazaki.com/qa. The drive itself was an investigation of access, as I attempted to follow the actual lake perimeter as closely as possible. I stayed off all interstate highways and stuck to small state and county roads in search of water. At times it was easy to find, but often it was not. I created a series of waterscape images at access points, a visual log of my trip, which are both a print and video component of the project. Originally on view at the Haggerty Museum of Art from January 16–May 19, 2013, Perimeter (in the form of a video collection of images) also traveled with the Wisconsin Academy to Waters of Wisconsin forums held in Madison and Green Bay in spring of the same year. I’m pleased to share some selected images from Perimeter with readers of Wisconsin People & Ideas for this special double issue with a focus on the waters of Wisconsin. —Kevin J. Miyazaki
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Davis Chang – General King Park, Sheboygan
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Russell Cuhel and Carmen Aguilar – scientists at the UWM School of Freshwater Sciences
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Kaela Steele – Ephraim Yacht Club, Ephraim
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Pradeep Hirethota – senior fisheries biologist with the Wisconsin DNR
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Heiko Eggers – a longshoreman at the Port of Milwaukee
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Howa Khang – Milwaukee
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Chuck Sontag – educator and retired biologist, gathering bird statistics on Lake Michigan
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John Jones and his granddaughter Nessa – General King Park, Sheboygan
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POWER
FOR THE
PEOPLE
Planning For our energy Future Means seeing where we are today by E mily E ggleston
W
ISCONSIN IS A LEAD EXPORTER OF WHEAT, MILK, AND TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT as well as many other agricultural, dairy and industrial products. But what we don’t produce all that much of here in America’s Dairyland is something essential to generating and
bringing these products to market: energy.
Over 80% of Wisconsin’s energy supply derives from nonsustainable sources like petroleum, coal, and natural gas—none of which are natural resources in our state. And despite efforts to boost locally available renewable energy, today Wisconsin is a net importer of energy and extremely dependent on out-ofstate—and often, out-of-country—energy supplies. Logic would and should dictate that we do more here in Wisconsin to be energy independent in order to cultivate a healthy economy, grow business, conserve our natural resources, and ensure our quality of life. Yet, Wisconsin is falling behind neighboring states on sustainable energy development. Despite ranking 16th among the American Wind Energy Association’s top 20 states for wind energy potential, Wisconsin only added 18 megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity in 2012. In contrast, two other Midwestern states, Michigan and Ohio, installed 138 MW and 308 MW respectively in the first three quarters, reports Midwestern Energy News. Despite a large investment in biofuels research in the state, the practical application of this technology remains unclear. Biomass—both grass and woody—has received a tepid reception. At one point Wisconsin led the nation in installations of
anaerobic digesters for manure; but, despite enormous resources (cows, that is), the state is now falling behind other states. Wisconsin is home to aging nuclear facilities—including the recently shuttered Kewaunee nuclear plant, one of the oldest operating nuclear reactors in the country—and reliance on nuclear power remains a controversial issue. But, it was energy economics and the current price of natural gas that drove the decision to mothball the nuclear-powered Kewaunee Power Station this spring, rather than anti-nuclear sentiment. In the absence of a more deliberate and practical approach, including improvements in efficiency and “Wisconsin grown” renewable energy sources, our net reliance on fossil fuels will likely lead to less economic stability, higher costs for consumers, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Managing greenhouse gas emmissions and managing energy can and should go hand in hand. Wisconsin was on its way to becoming a leader in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and greater energy independence just a few years ago. The 2008 Global Warming Task Force commissioned by Wisconsin Governor James Doyle brought together stakeholders from industry, agriculture, utilities, labor, the environmental advocacy community, and other key sectors to formulate a list of policy
Thanks to Melissa Gavin and Meg Domroese, who contributed to this article. Data shown here is taken from the Wisconsin State Energy Office (http://stateenergyoffice.wi.gov) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.gov)
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nsin energy · · Wisco resources
coal
25.47%
natural gas 20.92%
gasoline 16.62%
biomass 8.17%
nuclear 7.71%
other renewables 0.64%
pennsylvania provided
2.8%
WYOMING provided
91.9%
of wisconsin’s coal
of wisconsin’s coal
60%
of our energy
comes from · Wis
Burning coal
consin Renewable · resources
HYDROELECTRIC 2.8%
WIND 2.5%
WOOD/wood waste 1.3%
WASTE/ LANDFILL GAS 0.17%
OTHER BIOMASS 0.1%
SOLAR 0.01%
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recommendations to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions while growing the state’s economy and creating new jobs. The process was consensus based and generated an extensive set of policy recommendations, despite a wide variety of interests represented on the task force. The task force completed their report in summer 2008. In January of 2010, bills for the Clean Energy Jobs Act were introduced in the state legislature, which included many of the recommendations from the task force with a particular focus on policies that would increase both renewable energy and energy efficiency. Many lauded the bill as the most extensive and inclu-
Any discussion about shifting production to renewable energy sources or changing levels of consumption is fraught with values—values that are rarely shared across the spectrum of energy users or political players. sive state-level climate policy in the country, and it had the support of a wide range of stakeholders. However, the omnibus bill arrived at a time when the economic recession and its impacts were overshadowing nearly all other policy. Timing, as we know, can make all the difference. The bill failed to muster sufficient support in the legislature, and no similar effort has risen since then. Leading up to 2010, Wisconsin was in the process of becoming a leader in the Midwest Governors Association’s Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, which sought to create a market-based approach to curbing regional greenhouse gas emissions. Similar to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast and the Western Climate Initiative in the West, this program would have linked our energy use to emissions and created a cap and trade system for carbon dioxide. As momentum gathered for federal climate legislation, however, support for regional efforts waned in anticipation of a promising new federal level policy. Private foundations, individuals and national environmental groups poured vast resources into a federal push for climate action and efforts for new regional programs were placed in the backseat. By the time efforts for a federal policy failed, Wisconsin and other Midwestern states had backed away from earlier interest in a regional approach. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wisconsin is one of only eighteen states that currently do not have a climate change action plan which lays out a strategy that includes
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specific policy recommendations to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the formal policy arena is only one avenue of change. In recent years there has been significant progress around sustainability in Wisconsin’s private sector (see Jennifer A. Smith’s profiles of Wisconsin climate innovators on page 48). Energy efficiency and low carbon emissions are key components of sustainability, and many Wisconsin leaders in business, health care, agriculture, and energy research see these as smart practices in a competitive global economy and have taken the plunge without the push from new policy.
What we talk about when we talk about Energy So why aren’t citizens up in arms about our lack of a statewide energy plan and a climate strategy? The short answer is that our dependence on energy networks is easy to overlook. As long as the gas keeps flowing for less than $4 per gallon and our utility bills don’t skyrocket, the status quo is good enough for most. But it is worth asking if we are even planning for short-term energy resiliency in the state. For instance, last winter Governor Scott Walker declared an energy emergency for the state when supplies of heating propane ran dangerously low for the northern part of the state. Wisconsin imports propane—along with most of our energy resources— and when the supply chain breaks down, we have to scramble to respond. A plan to counter the inherent risks associated with our dependence on imported energy, says Roy Thilly, former executive of Wisconsin Public Power Inc., would be a prudent first step toward energy sustainability. “All the fossil fuels that are used to generate electricity or heating in Wisconsin are imported through pipelines, transmission lines or railroads [for coal],” Thilly says. “That money is all going out of the state. It also makes us somewhat vulnerable, because we’re more dependent on those transportation systems than if we had indigenous energy.” Of course, any discussion about shifting production to renewable energy sources or changing levels of consumption is fraught with values—values that are rarely shared across the spectrum of energy users or political players. Recognizing this medley of values makes it difficult to call a state’s energy policy “bad” or “good.” Discussing the status of Wisconsin’s current and future energy consumption involves recognizing the metrics by which Wisconsinites are judging the state’s energy policy. Price is a common metric. A person may believe Wisconsin is doing well if its energy is cheap (as is shale gas right now). Public health is another metric. Perhaps a low level of particulates in the air is another person’s priority. Or low levels of energy importation, which increases energy security and resiliency in the face of market fluctuations. Thinking about energy security, could we not better address this topic with more renewables? And to what degree can we be responsible for greenhouse gas emissions? Whichever metrics matter to an individual or group are chosen via the values that drive their personal, professional, and political
316 million
1,800
btu’s used per person
1 BTU
trillion
140 thousand
roughly equivelant to the burning of one wooden match
ual wisconsinite · · ann energy use
btu’s used annually
btu’s per gallon of gas
decisions. At times, keeping a cross-spectrum discussion of energy policy afloat can feel like bailing water from a sinking canoe. But as a state whose per capita energy consumption keeps rising, we can’t afford to ignore the topic—especially if we hope to address climate change impacts that derive from our energy choices. “Climate change is a huge issue,” Thilly says. “In my judgment, it’s absolutely imprudent as a society to not take steps to limit our impact on climate. It is an ethical obligation. Even if you believe the models are wrong, it’s simply imprudent not to take steps to mitigate the many risks that the possibility of substantial warming presents for the health and welfare of future generations. You have to think long-term and invest in the future to effect positive change.”
WISCONSIN’S ENERGY PROFILE Given the highly erratic nature of energy prices, what is cheap and easy this year, may be exceedingly expensive and difficult next year—or next decade. In order to plan for the future, it is important to know Wisconsin’s current energy use profile. Let’s see where we are right now. Wisconsin uses 1,800 trillion Btus of energy every year. (One Btu—or, British Thermal Unit—is roughly the heat equivalent of the burning of an entire wooden match. So, imagine 1,800 trillion wooden matches and you’ll get the picture.) As a state, we are right in the middle of the national energy consumption per capita list. Ranking all fifty states and the District of Colombia in order from highest to lowest per capita energy consumption, Wisconsin is 26th with 316 million Btus used per person annually. Where are each person’s theoretical 316 million Btus going and how did the state acquire that energy in the first place? For a state that is by far a net importer of energy, those two questions are crucial for discussing and crafting the future of the state’s energy profile.
Residential and Commercial Residential use accounted for 23.8% of the state’s energy consumption in 2010. Your hot shower, cold milk, sizzling skillet, and temperate bedroom all contribute to the 427.7 trillion Btus Wisconsinites burned in private homes during 2010, which constitutes about a quarter of the energy pie. Some of your home’s energy comes directly from natural gas, and some is derived from natural gas, nuclear, coal and other resources converted into electricity. Accounting for 19.6% of Wisconsin’s annual energy consumption, the commercial sector uses 352 trillion Btus, much the same as the residential sector. Here again, importation is king: natural gas, coal, and petroleum are the fuel upon which Wisconsin businesses rely. The commercial energy consumption sector includes restaurant and retail businesses as well as government, religious, and community spaces. To light rooms, cook and chill food, and heat and cool air two large energy sources are at play: electricity and natural gas. Across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, 89.4% of Wisconsin natural gas sold in 2010 was used for space heating. As with petroleum, Wisconsin’s natural gas flows into the state via pipeline. Natural gas flows east out of Minnesota and north from Illinois through a vast network of pipes that pass under pasture and city alike. If you’re hooked into the state’s power grid, power plants burning coal provide most of your electricity. More than 60% of the state’s total electricity generation, about 40,000 gigawatthours, comes from burning coal. While most of our electricity is produced in these coal-burning plants, the coal comes from beyond Wisconsin’s borders. Of the 23.3 million tons of coal delivered to Wisconsin power plants in 2010, 23.0 million tons came by rail and hailed almost exclusively from the west. In 2010, Wyoming provided a staggering 91.9% of
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nsin energy · · Wisco consumption
19.6%
32.1%
industrial
commercial
23.8%
residential
24.6% transportation
the coal purchased by Wisconsin power plants. The next largest provider, at 2.8%, was Pennsylvania. So, if Wisconsin’s electricity consumption were a pie, over half of slices served are filled with coal (from Wyoming, no less). What about the rest of the slices? Besides coal, the other 37% of electricity streaming into Wisconsin power outlets is attributable to nuclear, natural gas, and renewable resources. Second after coal is nuclear, which has provided about 20% of the state’s electrical power. With the closing of the Kewaunee nuclear plant, that percentage will drop to about 13%. Next up is natural gas, at about 10% and renewable resource make up the rest. Before we get overwhelmed with percentages and numbers, perhaps it is important to note that the portion of electricity generated from renewable sources is slim, rising to just 8.4% in 2011. This is another number that places Wisconsin right in the middle of the list; for net generation of renewable energy in the fifty states and DC, we rank 27 out of 51. Slicing up Wisconsin electricity pie in twelve approximately equal pieces would mean that one piece is renewable, one is natural gas, two are nuclear, and the remaining eight pieces are all coal.
Transportation Shifting thought from your home to your car could be described, in energy terms, as shifting from your electrical outlets to your gas tank. Transportation weighed in at 24.6% of Wisconsin’s energy expenditures in 2010. Cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, and ships use 443.1 trillion Btus to carry people and goods around. Of that 443.1 trillion, about two-thirds is derived from gasoline. Diesel fuel—used for trucks, city buses, and locomotive engines—as well as jet fuel make up a significant portion of the remaining third. With most of the energy consumed for transportation in the form of gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, this is another energy category within which imports carry the day. We simply don’t have petro46
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leum to extract in Wisconsin. Underneath our dairy pastures lies, not minable pockets of hydrocarbons, but a crisscrossed network of petroleum pipelines. Though petroleum has some household and industrial uses, most of the state’s petroleum, 87.3% in 2010, is used for transportation. In 2010, Wisconsinites used about 2.3 billion gallons of gasoline, 2.3% more gasoline than in 2009. However, a UW Extension analysis reported that: “In 2010, petroleum use for transportation in Wisconsin was down 6% from 2000. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation the total vehicle miles traveled from 2000 to 2010 increased slightly, so it appears that transportation is becoming a bit more fuel efficient.” There is one type of transportation fuel for which the phrase “Made in Wisconsin” can be used: ethanol. In 2010, the state produced 456 million gallons but consumed only 254 million gallons. In the case of ethanol, we are exporters: with Wisconsin ranking ninth nationally for ethanol production. Ethanol pumped into Wisconsin vehicle tanks usually flows as a small proportion, 10% or less, of a gasoline blend. One percent, three million gallons, is used as E-85 with 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Energy consumption for transportation, in the form of both ethanol and petroleum, is on the rise in Wisconsin. Important to note is that one gallon of ethanol is not equal to one gallon of gasoline. Since ethanol and gasoline aren’t equivalent in fuel power, 3 million gallons of E-85 fuel isn’t equivalent to 3 million gallons of avoided gasoline. To make direct comparisons and calculate gasoline avoidance, the unit to use is gasoline equivalent gallons (geg). According to the US Energy Information Administration, Wisconsin E-85 vehicles displaced the equivalent of 1.7 million gallons of gasoline in 2010, rather than the full 3 million gallons of E-85 fuel drivers loaded into their tanks.
Industrial At 32.1%, the industrial sector occupies the largest single share of Wisconsin’s energy consumption. With industry using
approximately a third of the state’s energy, Wisconsin is again in the middle of the national state rankings. In some states, like Wyoming and Texas, where extractive industries dominate, the industrial sector claims 50% or more of the pie. In other states, like New York and Florida where population drives high residential, commercial, and transportation energy use, industrial consumption comprises than 12% of the state energy profile. Industrial uses made up 577.3 trillion Btus of Wisconsin’s energy consumption in 2010. Leading industrial coal consumption in Wisconsin is the paper industry. Wisconsin’s paper industry consumed more than thirteen times the amount of coal than all other Wisconsin manufacturing industries combined. At 1.7 million tons, the paper industry claimed almost 2% of the state’s total coal consumption. In addition, the industrial sector accounts for a third of both the state’s natural gas and electricity usage. Besides manufacturers, the industrial sector numbers include agriculture, forestry, mining, and construction. According to the US Energy Information Administration, “Overall energy use in this sector is largely for process heat and cooling and powering machinery, with lesser amounts used for facility heating, air conditioning, and lighting.” The Wisconsin State Energy Office notes that agriculture accounts for a slim portion, about 2%, of Wisconsin’s energy consumption.
MOVING FORWARD With this picture of current energy flow and usage in Wisconsin, what is the best energy future for Wisconsin? This is to say, if we are to create a plan, where do we begin? • Start with efficiency and conservation Many energy leaders argue that the low-hanging fruit for Wisconsin energy [policy] is efficiency. “We should put a very strong focus on becoming the most efficient user of energy as a state in the country,” says Roy Thilly. “That would include adopting a stronger energy efficiency building code, increasing our investment in energy efficiency programs and providing tax benefits for highly efficient construction and retrofits.” All this construction and retrofitting could be a boon to a business community engaged in reducing greenhouse gas emissions outside of policy requirements. Green builders in Wisconsin are demonstrating leadership in energy efficient design and construction. • Expand smart use of clean renewables and smart design Building on conservation practices and energy efficiency, innovators in many sectors are also exploring the best pairings with various renewable energy sources. Leaders in the agricultural sector are bringing wind, biomass, manure digesters, and solar technology to their farms as a way to reduce costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Health care providers such as Gundersen Health System are leading the way in energy independent corporate campus design that includes a mix of efficient design, coupled with wind-sourced electricity and methane from digesters and landfills. The transportation sector is another area where improvements in fuel efficiency, renewable fuels, and efficient mass
transit design have great promise. Many campuses in the University of Wisconsin System are also making strides in sustainability practices, coupling advances in efficiency and design with switches to cleaner fuels, and promoting campus behaviors that conserve resources. Researchers across the system are also advancing breakthroughs in a wide range of clean energy fields, from engineering and design to agricultural innovations and biofuels production. • Make monetizing carbon a priority Energy efficiency, smart design, and a broader renewables portfolio will only take us so far. The big missing piece, regionally and nationally, is establishing a monetary value for carbon. Among Wisconsin energy conservation leaders whom we surveyed last fall, there was strong agreement that monetizing carbon is necessary for change and for creating better clean energy standards.
The older generations— particularly those who have lived and worked on the land, from tribal elders to farmers, anglers and hunters—already know stories of how our state’s climate is changing our way of life. • Look to the past for guidance and wisdom Wisconsin’s younger generations will inherit the legacy of today’s energy choices, and the challenges of an unknown climate. The older generations—particularly those who have lived and worked on the land, from tribal elders to farmers, anglers and hunters—already know stories of how our state’s climate is changing our way of life. Too, Wisconsin’s historic role as a leader in forward-thinking policy provides undergirding and a deep pool of leaders to draw on for examining our choices and charting the way forward. Other states are planning for options that will help them navigate the winds of change in climate and energy resources. Why not us? We can draw on the innovations in the private sector, advances in research, the wisdom of elders and Wisconsin’s practical tradition of “let’s step up and get it done” in the face of big challenges. All of these “natural” Wisconsin resources can be foundational to a statewide plan to sustain Wisconsin’s energy security, reduce our carbon footprint, and build its resilience in the face of rapid change. Z
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Doing well by doing good Wisconsin entrepreneurs fuse business sense with a concern for our climate and energy future B y J ennifer A . S mith
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isconsin, like other states, faces serious challenges in the climate and energy arena. But we also boast more than our fair share of leaders who are employing creative and practical solutions for a brighter, cleaner
future. The Wisconsin Academy has been exploring challenges and solutions as part of an initiative called “Wisconsin’s Climate and Energy Future.” The Wisconsin
Academy convened nearly a dozen leaders at an Innovators’ Showcase at Discovery World in Milwaukee on April 29, 2013. ABOVE: A sign welcomes visitors to Fountain Prairie Farm near Fall River. Owners John and Dorothy Priske host farm-to-table dinners focusing on sustainable produce and featuring beef from the farm’s heritage cattle
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Image credit: Sharon Vanorny of SV Heart Photography
Here’s a look at several of those featured at the Innovators’ Showcase. These Wisconsinites are proving that doing good (for the planet) and doing well (for the bottom line) can go hand-in-hand. Their commitment to the environment and their entrepreneurial savvy are not at odds, but rather deeply intertwined ways of doing business.
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Home sustainable home Self-described “eco-entrepreneur” Sonya Newenhouse is passionate about her latest venture: developing a line of small, super-energy-efficient kit homes. She’s got an open-door policy— quite literally—when it comes to showing the prototype she lives in with her family in Viroqua. Newenhouse is so eager to have visitors learn about her aptly named NewenHouses that she’s issued a standing invitation for personal tours of her own home. Just call her mobile number (see page 53) if you’d like to drop by the cheery, two-story red house at 422 Hickory Street and have a look. While not everyone might be comfortable with visitors examining every nook and cranny of their home, Newenhouse relishes the chance to show people around. “It gives people the opportunity to see something and be inspired … and to take away what they like or don’t like [about the home]. It helps if they’re remodeling, or building new, and looking for inspiration.” Newenhouse’s home is probably unlike any you’ve visited. Most remarkable is its lack of a furnace—which seems almost unthinkable at first, given Wisconsin’s bone-chilling winters. Yet the airtight dwelling is 80% to 90% more energy efficient than conventional homes. There’s a 1300-watt electric heating system for the rare times it’s needed. But “we only ever need to turn on half of the heat system in the house, so it’s like half of a hair dryer” in terms of energy consumption, says Newenhouse. Top-quality windows, hefty insulation, and heat recovery ventilation (HRV) systems are key to building passive houses like the NewenHouse. As the website of the International Passive House Association (headquartered in Wisconsin’s sister state of Hessen, Germany) describes them, passive houses “make efficient use of the sun and heat recovery so that conventional heating systems are rendered unnecessary throughout even the coldest of winters.” In the summertime, strategic shading helps keep these homes cool. While passive houses sometimes cost more to build than conventional ones due to the high-quality materials needed, they save money in the long run due to drastically reduced energy needs—benefitting both the homeowner and the planet. While news stories have described the NewenHouse as “tiny” and “uber-compact,” this assessment may be more of a reflection of the bigger-is-better mentality that permeates much of new home construction these days. Until about 1950, 900-square-foot homes were the norm. Since then, new home sizes have increased approximately 300 square feet per decade—despite declining family size. Today the median size
of a new home is around 2,505 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Though Newenhouse built her 970-square-foot home with energy efficiency and living lightly as her top priorities, one shouldn’t get the impression that it is a drab or austere place. Sustainability, function, and fun find harmony in this bold prototype, which Newenhouse shares with her husband, Cecil Wright; their five-year-old son, Addisu; and roommate Bjorn Bergman. Outside, the building sports red siding with yellow and green trim. Inside, you’ll find abundant built-in storage, deep windowsills, and colorful paintings by acclaimed Wisconsin artist Charles Munch. If you can’t make the trek to Viroqua, you can tour it virtually via Newenhouse’s YouTube videos, which show both the completed home and various stages of construction. “Visitors are surprised at how big it feels, and also how quiet and peaceful it feels. All of the insulation and the airtight, triplepane windows make it very quiet and soothing. There’s no
“If you touch people in their daily lives, where they’re living or driving … you’re addressing their personal habits and where they’re spending a lot of time. How can that not influence them?” furnace noise, and it’s bright because of the large, south-facing windows. It’s lovely, even on a rainy, overcast day. There’s a complete connection with the outdoors. You can’t be in a bad mood here,” Newenhouse says with a laugh. At 484 square feet, the first floor’s open plan maximizes a feeling of spaciousness and brings the home’s residents together. “The study/living/dining all being connected with the kitchen has the added benefit of being connected to your family members. No longer am I in the next room working on the computer while Cecil is cooking. Building a smaller house builds community in the home.” For extra room to accommodate overnight guests or store camping and sports gear, the home also has a 270-squarefoot stuga (the Swedish word for cabin) connected to the main dwelling by a breezeway. Newenhouse observes that much of what we typically store doesn’t require heated space, just protection from moisture and mold. The NewenHouse stuga includes a root cellar, general storage area, porch, and sleeping loft for guests. With its wood-burning stove, the stuga can be heated up in a jiffy if guests arrive in cold weather. The NewenHouse kit homes concept is the latest in a line of entrepreneurial endeavors from Newenhouse, a dynamo with MS and PhD degrees in land resources from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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Image credit: Martin Jenich Photography
ABOVE: (left) with special insulation and triple-paned windows Sonya Newenhouse’s 970-square-foot NewenHouse prototype in Viroqua is Passive House Certified; the NewenHouse makes use of every inch for storage (center) and living/sleeping space (right)
She founded Madison Environmental Group, a consulting firm that she sold in 2011 in order to focus on the kit home concept. Newenhouse is also president of Community Car LLC, a Madisonbased company with more than 1,300 members that seeks to address air pollution and transportation equity though easy and affordable car sharing. The varied facets of Newenhouse’s career all reflect her commitment to tackling the planet’s climate change and energy issues. “After founding Community Car and looking at transportation as a way to mitigate global warming, I looked at the residential building sector. I wanted to address global warming and what we could do that doesn’t make people feel overwhelmed, like they can’t make a difference.” So far, Newenhouse’s experiment seems to be working: the NewenHouse prototype has surpassed her energy-efficiency expectations. The next step for her company is to market plans for one-, two- and three-bedroom versions, along with specialty building materials that are not always readily available: triplepane windows and doors, special building tape, efficient ventilation systems and certain paints and finishes. NewenHouse kit-home purchasers will also have access to consulting services and a community of like-minded homebuilders and green-living enthusiasts. Although Newenhouse’s work is focused on global problems, the way in which she addresses these problems is on a personal, local scale. “If you touch people in their daily lives, where they’re living or driving… you’re addressing their personal habits and where they’re spending a lot of time. How can that not influence them? Somebody might change jobs or interests, but you’ll always need to live and get around. And that can have a large impact.”
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B ette r b e e f, h e a lth i e r l a n d The beef produced by Fountain Prairie Farms of Fall River, owned by John and Dorothy Priske, is highly sought after by restaurants and consumers alike for its flavor and tenderness. Their meat is served in some of the region’s best restaurants, including L’Etoile and Graze, both owned by James Beard Award-winning chef Tory Miller and his sister, Traci Miller. But producing delicious food is just one part of the Priskes’ mission; being good stewards of the land is equally important. In fact, the couple were named Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Farmers of the Year in 2011 by the Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association. The same year, they also received a John Nolen Award for Excellence in Ecological Restoration Practices, part of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum’s Leopold Restoration Awards program. The quality of the Priskes’ meat and their meticulous attention to the health of the land are intertwined. The couple credit their long standing relationship with eco-conscious chef Tory Miller as a key ingredient to making their farm such a success. “We wouldn’t be where we are today without the support of L’Etoile and Graze,” they say. Having the seal of approval from a renowned chef—particularly one closely associated with the movement for local, responsibly sourced ingredients—has been a boost for their operation and helped them continue the sort of farming that feeds people not only physically, but in terms of feeling connected to the land. In turn, restaurants like L’Etoile can offer their customers a superior product while supporting local farms.
Image credit: Sharon Vanorny of SV Heart Photography
ABOVE: (left) Highland cattle, a Scottish breed known for their long, wavy coats and excellent quality of meat, at pasture on the Priske’s farm; (right) one of two wind turbines that power Fountain Prairie Farm and provide the Priske’s with surplus energy
Fountain Prairie Farm, which also includes a bed and breakfast in the couple’s 1899 Victorian farmhouse, incorporates a range of climate- and energy-conscious practices. The Priskes raise Highland cattle—a hardy Scottish breed distinctive for their long, wavy coats—and manage their pastures through a practice known as rotational grazing. These grass-fed cattle move from paddock to paddock, never grazing in one area long enough to eat the vegetation all the way to the ground. “By design, we figure out how much foraging is going on, and how long to keep them in a certain paddock. They eat, trample, fertilize and move on,” says John Priske. After that, a paddock is allowed to rest for at least 21 days. The vegetation that remains soaks up the sun, resulting in lush growth that the cattle can return to on a future rotation. The Priskes have also improved the land on their 280 acres by restoring a tall-grass prairie and wetland. They helped rejuvenate the prairie with over twenty species of grasses and plants. Says John, only half-jokingly, “We have a saying at the farm that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. We bought all local genotype grasses, which meant they actually came from the area. We knew they would grow, because they’re local.” The Priskes helped hand-harvest the seeds for the plant varieties they wanted. They also planted hazelnut bushes and white oak, red oak and burr oak trees. These plantings have, in turn, attracted a multitude of birds and waterfowl to the property. “A lot of nice things are happening to the land, in addition to having it looking, feeling and smelling good,” says John. Wind turbines power the Priskes’ operation—and then some. Turbines on the property produce more than double the energy they need, meaning the Priskes enjoy a credit on their monthly energy statement rather than a balance due. The turbines were installed in 2007 or 2008, says Dorothy, when incentives and
tax credits made experimenting with alternative energy sources attractive. One could describe the Priskes’ approach to their farm as holistic, encompassing a love of the land, the care of both farm animals and wildlife, and smart energy use. They’re motivated by something Aldo Leopold once wrote: “The landscape of any farm is the owner’s portrait of himself.” “Dorothy and I have taken that to heart,” says John. “More and more people are fully understanding that if we don’t take care of the soil, it won’t take care of us.” In addition to the writings of the legendary Wisconsin conservationist, the Priskes draw inspiration from Wendell Berry and Allan Savory—two authors recommended by their former local UW–Extension agent, Laura Paine. (Paine is now the Grazing and Organic Agriculture Specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.) Like Sonya Newenhouse, John and Dorothy Priske feel that inviting people into their home is the best way to share information about what they do. Not content to simply sell their products to restaurants and consumers, the Priskes have hosted a number of on-the-land dinners and pasture walks (some with over two hundred participants) to help people learn about sustainable farming practices.
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G r o w i n g a g r e e n b u s i n e s s n et w o r k In order for businesses to successfully “go green,” owners and operators need to educate themselves on best practices. Having a core group of established experts and a peer network from which one can draw wisdom and good ideas are two keys to success.
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Image credits: Sharon Vanorny of SV Heart Photography
ABOVE: (clockwise from upper left) L’Etoile chef Tory Miller shares a hug with Dorothy and John Priske at Fountain Prairie Farm in Fall River; guest await a delicious meal from Miller at a recent Fountain Prairie farm-to-table event; visitors on a guided tour of the farm, led by John and Dorothy
According to Tom Eggert, who has spent his career considering how to incorporate sustainability practices into private enterprise, “Wisconsin has a plethora of wonderful support, education, and other opportunities for businesses to learn about and engage on sustainability. There isn’t another state we’ve identified that has the [same] breadth and depth of programs.” Eggert founded and teaches in the Business, Environment and Social Responsibility Certificate Program in the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Business. Additionally, he is executive director of the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council and a partner in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Green Tier Program, which recognizes and rewards environmental performance that, according to Wisconsin statute, “voluntarily exceeds legal requirements related to health, safety and the environment, resulting in continuous improvement in this state’s environment, economy, and quality of life.” Eggert didn’t expect to wind up working at the intersection of business and sustainability. He completed a master’s in public administration at UW–Madison in the early 1990s and, at that time, was more interested in ways that government could help solve societal challenges. However, he began to see a transition in which more and more businesses were “playing a great leadership role that, in the past, we expected the public sector to play.” Around the time Eggert was finishing his master’s degree, he spoke to Professor Thomas Yuill, who was then director of what is now known as the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the UW–Madison. Eggert expressed interest in seeing a course in sustainable development, and Yuill suggested that Eggert, who was already working with the DNR by this time, be the one to teach it. From those beginnings, the UW’s first class in sustainable development was born in 1995, with Eggert teaching it as an adjunct lecturer.
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Sustainability as a concept was beginning to gain traction at this time, and student interest in the subject was high. The class was renewed and shifted from the Nelson Institute to the School of Business. In 2008, Eggert and Dan Anderson, a professor in the school’s risk management area, floated a proposal for a graduate certificate. This lead to the development of the Graduate Certificate in Business, Environment, and Social Responsibility (BESR) program at UW–Madison. The program guides students in both the strategic application of business principles to social and environmental challenges, as well the integration of sustainability practices into management decision-making. What distinguishes the program is that it’s not aimed solely at students in the School of Business. Graduate students from any area of the university can add the certificate on to their graduate degree. Non-business students completing the program have included those from engineering, interior design, and environmental studies. Eggert’s teaching goes hand-in-hand with his role as executive director of the Sustainable Business Council (SBC), which provides Wisconsin businesses with a network to share best management practices and sustainability resources. Among its offerings are a major conference held each December and the Green Masters Program, which recognizes businesses exhibiting leadership in sustainability issues. “It’s one thing for businesses to say, ‘Here are all the things we’re doing’ [to be sustainable]. It’s another to say, ‘We’re participating in an objective, third-party program.’ That’s how the Green Masters Program was born.” Businesses of any size, from any sector, can apply for the Green Master credential through the SBC website. In order to be certified, businesses are scrutinized for specific sustainable actions in areas such as energy use, water consumption, supply-chain prac-
ABOVE: (left) Tom Eggert has built his career at the intersection of business and environmental sustainability. (right) At the December 2012 Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council Conference, Lauterbach Group, a Sussex-based packaging and labeling company, was recognized as a Green Master. Lauterbach Group received the highest score— based on the Green Masters program’s points-based system recognizing sustainable actions—of all the 2012 honorees at the conference
tices, waste management, and community outreach, then graded through an objective, points-based program developed in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin. The program also strives to spur these businesses on to even greater sustainability by making them part of a network of like-minded enterprises. Watertown-based Berres Brothers Coffee Roasters is a good example of a Green Masters success story. The company reduced the amount of packaging film it uses to wrap bulk shipments, which saves them money while also reducing the amount of film that winds up in landfills. By testing its wholesale process to determine the minimum amount of necessary packaging film, Berres Brothers found that it could eliminate 3,000 to 4,000 feet of film per month. The SBC also provides online information resources for those striving to incorporate more sustainable practices into their everyday operations, including dozens of detailed case studies of Wisconsin businesses like Berres Brothers. These case studies are “very specific, very narrowly drawn improvements and actions that lay out the costs, benefits, who [the business] worked with, how long it took, and so forth. We are providing businesses in the state direct access to other businesses who have done what they’re thinking about doing,” says Eggert, noting how this type of peer learning helps make sustainability improvements more achievable. In Eggert’s view, Wisconsin’s green business future is bright as long as we have leaders willing to make substantial changes. He holds up historical examples like the late S.C. Johnson Jr., the first private-sector head of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development under President Clinton, to current leaders in such iconic Wisconsin industries as paper and brewing. “Our business community is ahead of the business community in most other states,” he says. “They are leading in their sectors.” Z
CONNECT: Wisconsin leaders are developing breakthroughs and forging creative and practical solutions that will make our climate, water, and energy f u t u re b r i g h t e r. V i s i t o u r website at wisconsinacademy. org/MKEforum or flash the above QR code with your mobile device to see videos from the April 29, 2013, Wisconsin Academy’s Innovators Showcase: Wisconsin Climate and Energy Leaders. Or, get in touch with the trailblazers from this article and explore their innovative work: NewenHouse Kit Homes/Madison Environmental Group: www.madisonenvironmental.com | 608-220-8029 Community Car: www.communitycar.com | 608-204-0000 Fountain Prairie Inn and Farms: www.fountainprairie.com | 608-484-3618 Sustainable Business Council: www.wisconsinsustainability.com | 608-267-2761 DNR Green Tier program: dnr.wi.gov/topic/GreenTier | (608) 267-3125
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systems for abstraction A D I S C U S S I O N o f C on t e m p o r a r y A b s t r ac t ion w i t h TH r e e Wisconsin A r t is t s
Systems for Abstraction is an exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery featuring three Wisconsin artists who use abstraction as a way to organize and present their views of the world. The work of Jill Olm, Beth Racette, and Leslie Vansen builds on the work of earlier artists in the Abstract Expressionist and Color Field movements of the twentieth century. Whereas Abstract Expressionists were interested in the materials and physical process of painting, regarding the finished painting as an “object” which recorded the artist’s struggle to create, these three artists turn their conversation with abstraction toward the exploration of systems. While Olm, Racette, and Vansen are each deeply interested in the formal elements of composition and color, they are also interested in synthesizing information gathered from fields beyond the visual arts. Jill Olm of Eau Claire is interested in the activity of mark-making as it pertains to social, geographical and anthropological systems. In her paintings, Olm creates complex, repetitive patterns referring to
the “exponential growth, abundance, and multiplicity produced by industry, technology, materialism, and consumerism.” Madison artist Beth Racette studies the theory of Gaia, which conceptualizes Earth as a self-regulating, complex living system with the capacity to maintain the conditions of life. “My aim is to learn about the many systems and aspects of Gaia—biosphere, technosphere, and noösphere—and to synthesize my findings visually,” says Racette. Milwaukee artist Leslie Vansen sees the swirling patterns of lines and color in her paintings as suggesting, by analogy and abstraction, the residue of human action on its immediate environment. She is interested in the interactions between work, time, and repetitive figurative movement through space. Systems for Abstraction resulted from the James Watrous Gallery’s 2011 call for exhibition proposals to Wisconsin visual artists. With that call, we noted with surprise and interest the high number of quality submissions from artists doing abstract work.
Typically, a majority of proposals come from artists who do figurative and landscape work. At the time, we wondered if abstract and non-objective art practices were on the upswing in Wisconsin. We scheduled several exhibitions for 2011 through 2014 by painters and sculptors doing abstract work, including solo shows by Madison artists Derrick Buisch, Rhea Vedro, and Trent Miller, as well as this group show by Olm, Racette, and Vansen. As Derrick Buisch notes, “the focus of this work on abstract information, the beauty of systems of visual interpretation, categorization, indexing, and quantifying—is perfectly relevant … in almost all aspects of our current culture.” Small group exhibitions like this one allow us to show a significant number of artworks from each artist, giving v i ew er s an oppor t uni t y t o se e h o w each artist develops her work and—we hope—de-mystify the way they approach abstraction. For those of you who read our magazine, we’ve also asked all three artists a few questions that offer another avenue into the work. —Martha Glowacki, director, James Watrous Gallery
TOP: Jill Olm, Familiar Embrace (detail), 2012. Ink on paper, 24 x 18 inches MIDDLE: Beth Racette, Cyber Clouds (detail), 2012. Acrylic ink on paper, 38.5 inches diameter BOTTOM: Leslie Vansen, Squinch (detail), 2012. Acrylic on paper, 35 x 26 inches
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Jill Olm Jill Olm received her MFA degree in painting from Syracuse University and her BFA degree in painting and BA in anthropology from the University of Montana, Missoula. Olm explores a wide range of techniques in her paintings, drawings, videos and site-specific works which examine mark-making as it pertains to social, geographical, and anthropological patternings and exposes the temporal and transient nature of these systems. Olm’s work has been exhibited at the national level, most recently at the University Art Gallery in Terre Haute, Indiana; the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts in Loveladies, New Jersey; the 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, Florida; and solo exhibitions at Company Gallery for Contemporary Art & Design in Syracuse, New York, and Riverviews Artspace in Lynchburg, Virginia. She lives in Eau Claire.
Do you consider yourself an abstract artist, or are you a visual artist with a specific body of abstract work? What role does your chosen media play in making this distinction? The majority of my work operates in the gap between abstraction and representation. In some regards, all drawing can be considered abstract as it translates information from one space (the external or internal world) into another space (a flat surface). Drawing can also be representative of abstract concepts—as real as math, a dream, or a fairy tale. The act of drawing provides a distance from the subjects by
placing them in different frames, yet I am physically closer to the drawing than I am to the ideas that I reference. This gap, then, is full of possibility. In my work a circle is a circle and a point represents a point. These elements function as both pure form and signifier. I do not necessarily understand or find interest with any one element in particular. What makes them fascinating to me is the combination of all the parts into one single being. Their violation of perceived natural orders can be both comforting and terrifying. Ink and pencil are used for their recognizable and consistent traits. On a technical level, these tools can provide a constant release of material, providing uniform size and color. On a social level, these materials are common; they are used in many contexts for a variety of functions. This removes the specialness or preciousness of the art material, thereby connecting the imagery to non-art documents such as doodles, letters, and notes. The marks and lines I make with these materials can be recognizable as individual units, but through layering they become collections of information reacting to unique occurrences. These materials also acknowledge the handmade and embrace the flaws. In a world that is becoming more and more dominated by the flawless deception of technology, I find it reassuring to see the slips and the mends. These materials allow me to react to the process, which is integral to the generative quality to the work. Working with a limited range of possibilities (shapes, marks, and mate-
rials) allows me to reveal the process in all of its precariousness.
Your work seems to reference discrete systems. How do you communicate or suggest these elements to viewers? What role does science or social science play in informing your work? Both the natural and social sciences can use quantifiable research to generate data that can then be looked at through a variety of statistical and analytical approaches. Within this process is the acknowledgement of human error, anomalies, and the miscellaneous. Here lies much of my interest. The systems and structures that I reference in my work mimic established means of classification, categorizing, and counting. Although the specificity of these sources are never revealed, I borrow the illustrative qualities of organization: grids, grouping, connections, and delineations. Charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps provide the look of structure and possibly fact (not to mistake this with truth). I then contradict these structures with mutations, ambiguities, and overlaps. The same visual vocabulary that signifies order can be rearranged and used to reference storytelling, magic, and myth (grains of sand can be sorted and counted by size/color or lumped together to make a sand castle; either way the individual units are the same). On the surface these entities seem to contradict logic and reason, when in fact they are the way that
The same visual vocabulary that signifies order can be rearranged and used to reference storytelling, magic, and myth.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Jill Olm, Routine Comfort, 2012. Ink on paper, 24 x 18 inches
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humans understand, communicate, and grapple with big questions (e.g. Einstein’s metaphor of riding alongside a beam of light as a way to understand the theory of relativity). These works are artificially constructed in a way that can read as both fact and fabrication. Drawing takes me out of the immediate reality where I am no longer obliged to obey the rules of nature. I continually extend and update the meaning of the formal elements that I explore. The work takes from everything that I experience and have learned historically and culturally and creates spaces for all these different beings and mentalities to coexist. I do not attempt to make this space perfect, but rather embrace the friction,
tensions, and conflicts. Perfection only exists in the imagination. On a more personal note, my work is often a record of how I get myself out of trouble for messing with too many things at the same time. I think this is obvious.
Abstract art is enjoying a resurgence in Wisconsin and across America right now. Do you feel allied to particular artists past or present? My personal interest in abstraction holds strong roots in art historical developments beginning with the responsive nature of materials and gestures of the abstract expressionists combined with
the mathematical and phenomenological nature of minimalism and process art. (Here again is my interest in what can be perceived as contradictory or divergent.) The process works of artists such as Robert Ryman and Robert Morris, and the wall drawings of Sol LeWitt, expose the activity of drawing/making itself. Simultaneously the works of artists such as Tara Donovan and James Siena use repetition and compulsive activities to generate mass. Contemporary storytellers such as Ernesto Caivano and Sandra Cinto inspire the imaginative aspect to my thinking. And it is no surprise that I take interest in artists who explore systems and structures: Julie Mehretu, Mark Lombardi, and Matthew Ritchie, to name a few.
ABOVE: (left) Jill Olm, Soft Plan, 2013. Ink on paper, 24 x 18 inches. (right) Jill Olm, Marginally Exact (detail), 2009. Marker on paper, 22 x 16 inches OPPOSITE PAGE: Jill Olm, Familiar Embrace, 2012. Ink on paper, 24 x 18 inches
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Beth Racette Beth Racette is an artist who works in many media: acrylic ink paintings, sculpture,and installation. While her installation work often integrates political and social concerns, Racette’s paintings are meditative and improvisational explorations of mind and metaphysical concepts. A native of Wichita, Kansas, Racette received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She lives in Madison, where she administers community and education programs at Overture Center for the Arts in Madison.
abstract work? What role does your chosen media play in making this distinction?
Do you consider yourself an abstract artist, or are you a visual artist with a specific body of
I work in many media and styles, so I don’t consider myself an abstract artist. When I make art, my goal is to involve and integrate my entire mind, body, and spirit. My abstract painting is a contemplative and improvisational practice. I develop my own visual language as a means to explore my internal landscape and external world. For most of my art-making career, painting has been a private process in which I try to untangle the complex overwhelm of life, world, and mind.
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My installations have been intentionally created for an audience. In installation work I utilize found and existing objects— often societal or natural debris—loaded with cultural context and connotations. Through this familiarity of objects, I aim to give the audience visual poems that explore human constructs and evolution. In contrast to the private process of my earlier paintings, with this James Watrous Gallery exhibition I intend to bring my painted explorations to a larger audience.
Your work seems to reference discrete systems. How do you communicate or suggest these elements to viewers? What role
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ABOVE: Beth Racette, Earth, 2013. Acrylic ink and pen on paper, 15 inches diameter OPPOSITE PAGE: (clockwise) Beth Racette, Human Made Boundaries, 2013, 23 inches diameter; Cardinal Directions with Primordial Cells, 2012, 21 inches diameter; Charred and Toxic, 2013, 33.5 inches diameter; Earth Core, 2013, 26 inches diameter. Acrylic ink on paper
I utilize found and existing objects—often societal or natural debris— loaded with cultural context and connotations. Through this familiarity of objects, I aim to give the audience visual poems that explore human constructs and evolution. W i s c o n s i n
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does science or social science play in informing your work? My paintings reference process and relationships more than data and quantifiable structure. I explore patterns of flow and interconnections of self, history, biology, contagion, and communication. This exploration is simultaneously micro- and macroscopic. Cells within the paintings can represent a biological cell, an organ, an organism, a super-organism, and an institution. Systems theory is an exciting scientific area. It focuses on the processes and properties that organize life. These properties are seen across various scales of systems, from atomic to galactic. Living systems constantly respond, grow, change and adapt, and they move towards complexity. At the Watrous Gallery, I will exhibit a series of paintings that explore Gaia, the theory that Earth is a self-regulating and
complex living system with the capacity to maintain the conditions for life. My aim is to learn about the many systems and aspects of Gaia: biosphere, noösphere, technosphere, evolutionary patterns, geological formations, and systems of flow. I also want to be aware of the current destruction of the biosphere, which is escalating exponentially. Hopefully with mindfulness of Gaia we can interrupt our own destructive patterns.
Abstract art is enjoying a resurgence in Wisconsin and across America right now. Do you feel allied to particular artists past or present? I’m informed by many different types of visual art, other creative fields as well as direct experience of the earth. I aim to ally myself with all artists. My interests vary widely and there is so much innovation by which I’m inspired and informed—it can
be overwhelming. In abstract painting, one of my favorite local painters is Teresa Getty. Lately I’ve looked at the paintings of Julie Mehretu, Alexis Avlamis and Sienna Shields. I’m currently viewing documentary films and images of earth. A fun book is Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information by Manuel Lima. Science writers also inform my work: Bill McKibben’s Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet is particularly eye opening. The new creation story inspires me, too. In this evolutionary long view, science and spiritual traditions inform each other and humans belong within an evolving universe interdependent with all life. This is in strict contrast to prominent religious and scientific mythology where humans arrogantly and rudely place ourselves at the top of a hierarchy. In my art, whether in painting or installation, I always want to cast a wide net of exploration, learn as much as I can, and visually synthesize my findings.
ABOVE: Beth Racette, Dead Zone, 2012. Acrylic ink on paper, 23 inches diameter OPPOSITE PAGE: (top) Beth Racette, Cyber Clouds, 2012. Acrylic ink on paper, 38.6 inches diameter; (bottom) Noösphere, 2012. Acrylic ink on paper, 28 inches diameter W i s c o n s i n
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I consider myself a painter who uses the material and formal conditions of my process to evoke my immediate physical environment, autobiographical memory, and social interactions.
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Leslie Vansen Leslie Vansen lives in Milwaukee and teaches painting and drawing courses from introductory through graduate levels. She makes acrylic paintings on canvas and paper that are presented regularly in invitational and juried exhibitions and are held in numerous public and private collections nationwide, including the Milwaukee Art Museum and Racine Art Museum. The paintings present metaphoric investigations into the functions of work, time, and repetitive figurative movement through space, suggesting, by analogy and abstraction, the residue of human action on its immediate environment.
Do you consider yourself an abstract artist, or are you a visual artist with a specific body of abstract work? What role does your chosen media play in making this distinction? I consider myself a painter who uses the material and formal conditions of my process to evoke my immediate physical environment, autobiographical memory, and social interactions. Although critics, curators, art historians and viewers consider these formal and material condi-
tions to be abstract, I think about them as real and entirely present. All elements of my chosen media— including the working surfaces and marks in addition to the applied paint, water, graphite, and mediums—are evident throughout the painting process and visible in the completed work. Maintaining this visibility contributes to what I consider real about the work, making it somehow less abstract in my mind.
Your work seems to reference discrete systems. How do you
ABOVE: Leslie Vansen, Squinch, 2012. Acrylic on paper, 35 x 46 inches OPPOSITE PAGE: Leslie Vansen, Doggerel, 2012. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches
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ABOVE: Leslie Vansen, Rete, 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches
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communicate or suggest these elements to viewers? What role does science or social science play in informing your work? No science or social science directly informs my work. If systems, data, or quantifiable structure references are evoked, they likely come from the generative approaches I use. The layered components of the paintings reveal these generative processes through four drawing methods used in each piece, as well as controlled color palette ranges, under-painting conditions, and masking applications. Unknowns moderate and extend this generative process and produce numerous unpredicted variables once initial choices are made. Intentional tensions and contradictions exist between the controlling generative actions and the direct choices made for every color used to transform the drawn sources.
While these four drawing methodologies are embedded in every painting, I don’t know the number of times each method will be used or the total number and types of layers. I also don’t know the amount of layered under-painted surface that will remain visible when the masking is removed—or even when the masking will be removed during the process. In short, what I don’t know ahead of time far outweighs what I do know.
Abstract art is enjoying a resurgence in Wisconsin and across America right now. Do you feel allied to particular artists, past or present? I’m particularly interested in the core idea that form and material can embody meaning, and how this concept manifests over time and across cultures. Clearly these embodiment possibilities remain open-ended and functional.
My connections to abstraction are many, but historical examples are far stronger influences on my thinking than current ideas about abstraction. Most significant—for my work—among art history’s abstractions are the following, (a) Italian Renaissance notions of composition and form as capable of expression along with the specifics of subject matter; (b) icons from a range of religions, or where religions avoided imagery and icons, the patterns and spaces that embody belief; (c) European Medieval imagery of many types; (d) paint application methods and effects after the development of oil paint, especially as the sciences and philosophies of vision expanded with the development of lenses; (e) early 20th century abstraction in Europe and the United States; and (f) sculptural and painterly abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s—both the artworks themselves and the discourses surrounding them. Z
CONNECT: Systems for Abstraction On view at James Watrous Gallery, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison July 12 – August 26, 2013 Jill Olm (Eau Claire), Beth Racette (Madison), and Leslie Vansen (Milwaukee) create meditative artworks that use color and patterns of mark-making to explore social, geographical, and biological systems. Visit wisconsinacademy.org/gallery to plan your visit to the James Watrous Gallery in Madison or to learn more about this imaginative exhibition. Join us for a free opening reception on Friday, July 12, 5:307:30 pm, with talks by all three artists beginning at 6:30 pm.
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READ WISCONSIN Congratulations to the winners of our 2013 fiction and poetry contests
Amy Baker - First Place Fiction
Rudy Koshar - Second Place Fiction
Geoff Collins - Third Place Fiction
Geoff Collins - First Place Poetry
William Quist - Second Place Poetry
C.E. Perry - Third Place Poetry
Every year our fiction and poetry contests bring out the best of Wisconsin’s writers. We’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that Wisconsin People & Ideas is the only quarterly magazine in the state that features Wisconsin fiction and poetry along with articles by and about the writers and poets who make our state great. If are a subscriber, please suggest this magazine and membership in the Wisconsin Academy to a friend or fellow writer. In addition to sharing four issues of the magazine of best contemporary Wisconsin thought and culture, you’ll connect them with great Wisconsin Academy arts and cultural events across the state. Participation in our annual contests by a lot of writers means that we can award some nice prizes. The winners of the poetry contest receive awards of $500 (first place, the John Lehman Poetry Award), $100 (second place), and $50 (third place). The first-place poet also receives a one-week residency at Shake Rag Alley School for Arts and Crafts in Mineral Point and a three-hour CD recording/editing session at Abella Studios. Fiction contest winners recieve awards of $500 (first place), $250 (second place), and $100 (third place). The first-place writer also receives a one-week residency at Shake Rag Alley.
And, of course, all of our winners are invited to read in Madison for the Wisconsin Book Festival (see page 87 for details). Both contests were coordinated by me this year. The poetry contest featured as preliminary poetry judges John Lehman (Cambridge) and Patrick Moran (Ft. Atkinson). Lead poetry contest judge (and former Wisconsin Poet Laureate) Bruce Dethlefsen waded through 693 poems to find three winners. This year the fiction contest lead judge was author and historian Jerry Apps (Madison) and I, along with Victoria Statz (Baraboo), acted as preliminary judges. The contest received 87 submissions. All judging was done blindly and ranking was done solely on the merit of individual poems and stories in the opinion of our judges. Thank you to our lead and preliminary judges for volunteering their time and efforts to the 2013 contest, and a special thanks to 2013 contest sponsors. Most important, thanks to everyone who participated in the 2013 contests. Your participation is what makes these contests work. More information on the contests, prizes, and sponsors can be found at wisconsinacademy.org/contests. —Jason A. Smith, editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas
TURN THE PAGE TO READ THE WINNING POEMS AND FIRST-PLACE STORY FROM OUR 2013 CONTESTS!
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PLACE
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Wisconsin People & Ideas 2013 Short Story Contest
snow day By amy baker
Willy presses the glowing doorbell and waits, hops from left to right on the thick, jute mat, balls his fingers into fists inside his gloves, trying to stay warm. Just as he turns to leave the massive stone house, a hot gush of air escapes as the big door’s seal is broken. “Quit ringing the God damned bell!” The man is a good six-foot three, with wiry white waves brushed back from his face and bushy, furrowed eyebrows. He wears a thin, plaid shirt tucked into tan corduroys, and a fat gold watch that must have cost a mint. “Well, what is it? I’m not paying to heat the outside.” Willy laughs; his father never cracks jokes. But the man isn’t joking, so Willy clears his throat and straightens his face.“Mr. Corregan? I’m Willy Meier, sir.” He holds out a limp-fingered glove, jamming his digits inside just in time to receive Corregan’s firm grip. “I’m
from St. Olaf’s.” The man stares at him blankly. “I called last night, sir. About the shoveling.” “I got the message. I don’t need any help.” Willy scratches an itch on his freckled cheek, brushes a lazy hank of brown hair back under his blaze orange hat. “But you were on the list, sir ... for confirmation class. Our service projects.” The man’s ears redden. “They tell you I can’t handle things on my own?” He looks like he might smack someone, which is crazy, since Willy is a kid and here from church. “No sir,” Willy says, which isn’t true. Mrs. Finch had given each of the catechists an assignment from a list of parishioners in need. “My daughter-in-law put me on the list. I don’t need help. If I do, my son will take care of it. Now get yourself home.”
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The door closes like it’s sealing a tomb. This can’t be what doing the Lord’s work is supposed to feel like, can it? Willy will tell Mrs. Finch he needs a different assignment; maybe this time he’ll get to babysit or pick up groceries from Lund’s or even work the phones a few nights a week at the rectory. On the way home, sure that he has escaped something, Willy crosses himself with his thick, gloved hand, gives thanks, and kicks a rock down the road. Inside the kitchen of the small bungalow on the other side of town, Willy’s mother is mounding pork roast and spätzle onto plates at the stove. From the next room comes the rattle of a newspaper and a faint sucking sound. “Well, did you introduce yourself?” His father’s voice is thick and resinous. “Yes, sir.” Willy swallows, a familiar sting clinging to his throat. The smell of his father’s pipe tobacco is like thistle
and honey: prickly, herby and sweet. “He doesn’t want any help,” Willy calls in a clear voice, making sure not to mumble. He can hear the drawing and blowing of smoke, almost see his father’s hooded eyes squint. “You’re to call your teacher and let her know what happened.” “Yes, sir.” “And do it tonight.” Why doesn’t he ever believe that Willy can do anything right? A civil engineer for the Wisconsin DOT, Willy’s father had joined the Air Force Reserves to put himself through school. He’d never been in combat and never travelled abroad, though Willy suspects he wishes he’d done both. He treats Willy like a dumbass private in one of those war movies Willy used to watch with his grandpa. Do it this way Willy. Use your head, Willy. Pay attention, Willy. Don’t you have a brain, Willy? They eat dinner in near silence, as usual. And as usual, his dad only tells his mom what’s wrong with the food. Willy fantasizes about her one day flipping the bastard off, or dumping his plate over his head, or mixing it all in a dog dish and leaving it in the garage for him to eat like his dad had done to Willy when he was ten. He tries hard not to wolf down his meal, sopping the last bits of leftover gravy with a thick piece of bread. He asks to be excused, then makes the call from the mudroom—out of his dad’s earshot— and leaves the message for his catechism teacher. Upstairs in his room, he lifts the window and leans across the deep sill to look outside. Tiny kisses dot his face as the snow begins to fall. This is his favorite weather, everything brown and dingy covered so easily by a blanket of white. Einstein said that we can learn everything we need to know by looking to nature. Willy wishes a snowfall could blanket his whole family, that they’d wake up with a clean, fresh start. Above his head, he watches remnants of a suet-filled potato sack flutter in the wind, still clinging to a nail he’d tacked to the soffit a few months back. From his perch, he would watch woodpeckers grip the mesh with their tiny, clawed feet and plunge their beaks deep into the fat. He’d count the feathers in each black and white stripe, study the variations of red
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{ Book Reviews }
More Than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions and the Fight for Wisconsin By Jason Stein and Patrick Marley University of Wisconsin Press, 302 pages, $26.95
Reviewed by Joseph Heim The new book by veteran reporters Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, More than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions, and the Fight for Wisconsin, is likely to be the definitive chronicle of the first two years of Scott Walker’s term as Governor of Wisconsin. Straddling the line between journalists and witnesses to history, Stein and Marley provide considerable detail on the events of this period—arguably the most politically significant for Wisconsin since the reform days of “Fighting Bob” La Follette’s Progressive Movement. Both award-winning journalists have covered Wisconsin politics for years before they joined the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom. Stein was a politics and business reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, and Marley covered local government for the Kenosha News. As such, they know many of the principals involved on a personal as well as professional level. What makes their new book so significant and perhaps unique is how Stein and Marley draw from a vast array of traditional resources—interviews, newspaper stories and other print research—and well as some new ones like social media, websites, and other digital outlets. The book itself has twenty chapters: some quite short (seven pages of Walker’s family history in Chapter 2) and some considerably more extensive (twenty-two pages on the “First Protests” in Chapter 7). Accessibly written in a journalistic rather than an academic style, the book is filled with first-hand accounts of events, personal profiles of many of the primary and even secondary characters, and anecdotes that enrich and personalize elements that might otherwise overwhelm the reader with facts or seem dryly historical. More than They Bargained For is a treasury of historical fact, drama, surprise, and even a little mystery. Some of the details described in the book might shock some readers, and likely dismay, disturb, or anger others. Chapters flow chronologically, beginning with a chapter on the Republican victories in the November 2010 elections and ending with the June 5, 2012, gubernatorial recall election. While each chapter is followed by Notes that provide detail on referenced materials and sources alike, footnotes would have eliminated a lot of page-flipping. Stein and Marley also include a separate and useful description of key actors, a six-page chronology of key dates, and several pages of illustrations. Of special interest is a short eight-page Conclusion that brings the story into the year 2013 and hints of future events with potential significance to Wisconsin and the United States. The principle focus of the narrative is, of course, on what is known to most as Act 19—also referred to as the Budget Repair Bill of 2011. This piece of legislation included fiscal items that had budgetary significance to Wisconsin’s state and local governments, but also contained highly controversial features that virtually stripped public unions of collective bargaining rights—a move that substantially diminishes their role as major forces in politics. Perhaps the most riveting chapter is one called “Dropping the Bomb” which details the events of February 2011 that led to massive public protests, the departure of the Democratic minority State Senators to Illinois, and ultimately the passage of Act 10. Other notable chapters describe the Capitol “In Lockdown,” the “End Game,” the legal
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2013 Fiction Contest First-Place Winner: Amy Baker Amy Baker lives and writes in the rolling hills of the Driftless Area, just west of Madison. Baker draws inspiration from all aspects of the natural world, and through her fiction she explores the confluence of place, identity, and perception. She is delighted to live in a home with no cell phone coverage, and is perpetually in awe of the discoveries that are possible when we still ourselves long enough to listen. Baker is at work on a series of short stories.
JUDGE’S NOTES
From Lead Judge Jerry Apps I was immediately drawn into “Snow Day.” Within the first two paragraphs in the story, the main characters—Willy, a young man, and Mr. Corregan, a grufftalking, mean-looking older person—captured my imagination. With careful use of detail and dialogue, these main characters come alive as they banter about the seeming simple task of shoveling Mr. Corregan’s snow. Willy then faces a dilemma as he encounters a situation he doesn’t understand, but feels compelled to do something about. “Snow Day” has all the elements of good fiction: strong characters, a good story, wonderful detail, a great sense of place— and an emotional wallop at the end.
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on their heads and bellies, marvel at the tiny lids blinking over glossy black eyes. But his dad had thrown open the window last week and yanked down the bag. “Those damn birds’ll wreak havoc with the trim and frame if they start congregating at the house. Take your binoculars and watch ’em in the woods.” If I acted like such a jerk, I’d get smacked, Willy thinks. Adults are so hypocritical. He is so sick of being told what to do. “Willy!” His father is coming through the door. “Huh?” He conks his head as he pulls himself inside. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Your mother’s been calling for you. There’s a message from the church.” He snatches a towel from the floor and tosses it at Willy, hard. Willy wipes the melted snow from his face. “You’re to shovel for Mr. Corregan after all.” Turning to leave, he pauses at the door, his voice tired and concerned. “Son, get to your books. You’ve got to get serious if you expect to succeed. You’ve got to quit waiting for someone to tell you what to do. Take some initiative, for God’s sake. Your mother and I aren’t going to be around to help you forever.” Willy listens to the floorboards creek and groan as his father’s footsteps disappear down the stairs, wondering how exactly he is being helped, wishing he could disappear, too. Sticking his head out again, Willy breathes in what’s now a chaotic bluster of darkness and light. A salt truck growls by, metal discs whirring in anticipation of a big storm. There’s a good chance school will be cancelled, and then he’ll have to go back to that old crank’s house. He can’t win. Willy pulls the window shut, puts on his headphones and clicks his computer to NOVA, where he listens to a dreadlocked physicist talk about parallel universes and supersymmetry— how disparate things might all be related, how everything, everyone might have a partner somewhere—as he watches the flakes tumble larger and faster, randomly, or not, from the sky.
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like something out of a storybook. The patio table pokes just above the snowline, and the bird feeder in the garden—a miniature replica of a barn—appears to have only a three-foot post. They must have at least twenty inches. Shit. He pulls on longies, thick wool socks, then jeans and a gray wool shirt that used to be his grandpa’s. If he leaves now, before they get up, he might avoid needing to shovel his own house, too. How’s that for initiative? Downstairs, he layers up in his ski clothes and hat, and stuffs his pockets with crullers from the breadbox. Willy loves being alone in the almostbright quiet of the snowy dawn. Not even a plow has passed yet, and everything— the lawns and streets and drives—is an endless sea of white. It is as if he’s the only one in the universe. The neighborhoods pass in slow motion as he carves his way through the streets, every few blocks the homes and yards growing, until, after forty-five minutes, he is in Corregan’s part of town, where houses are more like mansions and woods stretch along one side of the parkway, next to the river. Willy feels like he is trespassing. He’s brought his own shovel—an eighteen-inch, sky-blue aluminum job— and decides to begin to the right of the mailbox, just beside the road. Though he’s sweating by the time he gets there, the sun isn’t yet up and the cold air hurts his lungs. He plunges deep and heaves, once, twice, three times. Fast. The snow is hard and grainy, not packing snow, and though he doesn’t reach asphalt, he comes close. It should be easier than he thought. He gets a rhythm going and begins reciting in his head the lists he’s been learning in confirmation class. The Corporal Works of Mercy. Willy imagines a man in uniform—a marine corporal. Or is it army?—sounding off the list: Feed the hungry; Give drink to the thirsty; Clothe the naked. What were the others? Shelter the homeless. Visit the sick and imprisoned. Bury the dead. He’s making a path, working his way up the driveway like he eats cobs of corn, right and then left, left and then right. Each scoop like a bite. What would it be like to be a gravedigger, cutting steep edges in the earth? What would it feel
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{ Book Reviews } like to be down there, in the hole? His grandpa’s grave seemed enormous as he stared at it through the gap between the coffin and stretcher it sat upon. He can’t remember a word that the priest said, only the creased suit-pants and polished wingtips of the men, and the filmy black legs of the panty-hosed women, their pointy heels stuck in the mud. And those straight walls of dark brown earth, fragments of worms and roots sliced clean through. What is merciful about putting a body in a box and lowering it into the ground? No disrespect, but wouldn’t the worms eventually get to it? Wouldn’t the mud eventually sink in? And then everyone just leaves and goes to a party where the kids eat as many desserts as they want and the adults spend the rest of the day getting blitzed and your grandpa, no matter how hard you pray, will never come back again. “Be a good man,” his grandfather always said to him. But Willy doesn’t really know what that means. The voice he hears is muffled. He looks up and sees Mr. Corregan standing outside in a burgundy plaid robe and slippers, glasses askew, hair crazy and high, pumping a folded newspaper in the air. Willy stabs his shovel into the bank and jogs, like a man on the moon, to the front stoop. He’s really sweating now. He yanks off his orange hat and shakes his head hard, tugs off a glove and loosens his scarf behind his head. “Hi, Mr. Corregan.” Willy surveys the work he’s done so far, proud and a little exhilarated—doing good work, helping someone in need. “What in God’s green earth are you doing?” Willy stares, his face suddenly heavy. “Who taught you to shovel like that? And what the hell are you shoveling with?” Willy begins to answer, but Corregan shakes his head and slams the door. Moments later, a motor sounds and the garage door opens. Inside, a polished gold sedan is centered in the garage, its left tail light broken. A tool bench runs the length of the far wall, where rows of hammers and wrenches hang neatly on pegboard hooks. Bins of birdseed are lined up on a shelf, and an old, yellow tandem bicycle is suspended from the ceiling. Corregan shuffles down the ramp
maneuvering (Chapter 18, “A Court Divided”), and the role the Wisconsin Supreme Court plays in the story. Almost anticlimactic are the chapters that summarize the run up to the recall elections of Governor Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch (Chapters 19 and 20) as well as the campaigns and financing of these elections and the eventual outcomes. More than They Bargained For also reveals some details of this history previously unknown to the public. The authors are very good storytellers as well as excellent reporters of current events. Their carefully crafted chronicle emphasizes the human side of the storylines as much as the political and historical implications involved in epic clashes of human beliefs and values. Also noteworthy, for both present and potentially future significance is the description of “A State Divided” on many levels in terms of personal relationships, political ideology, and geography. Left unanswered is whether the political wounds from all this will heal eventually and the state will return to a more normal atmosphere. Or is this period merely a preface of or precursor to the state’s long-term future. Despite their proximity to these people and events over the past two years, Stein and Marley have managed to produce a very readable, well-researched, and thoroughly interesting narrative without any notable bias—a major accomplishment. For those interested in the political climate of Wisconsin’s recent past as well as the near future (and who isn’t?), More than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions, and the Fight for Wisconsin is a compelling read. And while their concluding essay leaves the reader with more questions than answers, it reflects the fact that the legal challenges to Act 10 are as of this date unsettled. Likewise, the political direction of Wisconsin is very much up in the air as well as the political future of Governor Walker. The book notes that while both parties have victories to claim over the past two years, the winners of the titular “Fight for Wisconsin” will not be revealed any time soon.
The Repeat Year By Andrea Lochen The Berkley Publishing Group, 393 pages, $16.00
Reviewed by Laura Lane What if you had to relive the last year of your life? Would you make different choices the second time around? The Repeat Year, the debut novel from Milwaukee author Andrea Lochen, explores the notions of fate and destiny while questioning how much control one has over a life. The Repeat Year chronicles a year in the life of the fictional Olive Watson, a twenty-five-year-old nurse living in Madison, Wisconsin. Waking up on New Year’s Day of what is supposed to be 2012, Olive realizes she is in fact reliving the first day of 2011—a year she desperately wants to forget. Olive’s 2011 was fraught with loss. She made a horrible mistake that caused her boyfriend, Phil, to end their four-year relationship. After their relationship ended, Olive moved out of the apartment she shared with long-time best friend, Kerrigan. The women’s friendship grew tense and distant shortly afterward. This was also the year of her mother’s marriage to Harry, a UW–Madison professor. Harry is the polar opposite of Olive’s late father, who died of cancer a few years earlier. Utterly opposed to her mother’s marriage and the prospect of her moving on, the death of her father haunts Olive as she tries to move forward in her own relationships and career.
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read WI that leads to the inside door, yanks his robe sash tighter and snatches a large barrel shovel from the wall. “Use this,” he says, thrusting it into Willy’s hand. “You have to get down to the pavement or it’ll end up a sheet of ice. She’ll break her neck!” He looks at Willy, who must have that blank stare his father always tells him to wipe off his face. Corregan snatches the shovel back. “Like this.” He steps onto the garage apron, the toes of his cracked leather slippers disappearing into the fluff. Deftly, he thrusts the shovel down and forward, releasing a steel-againstcement scrape into the air and revealing a wet, dark patch of pavement. “Get all the way down. Or don’t bother.” With that, he hands the shovel to Willy and walks back into the garage and up the ramp, massaging his right shoulder. Willy notices the blue and red spidery veins on the almost translucent legs, and an enormous bruise that, when Corregan bends down, seems to run the entire length of his thigh. The old man whacks each slipper twice on the doorjamb before replacing them and stepping back inside. With the sound of the motor, Willy jumps out of the garage, the overhead door stopping and retracting as he leaps under the sensor. This guy is freakin’ nuts, Willy thinks, with a combination of fear and loathing normally reserved for his dad. He tries to shake it off and begins again, this time near the house, working his way to the street. With the bushes so high, it’s hard to find places for all the snow. And it’s hard even to lift it now, this shovel so much heavier than his other. Willy thinks about switching back, but doesn’t dare. A large window faces the driveway and he won’t risk the old man catching him. For an hour he heaves and piles the snow until black pavement shows on half the driveway. He rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck, just wants to get the freakin’ job done. All around him, snow whispers and swirls, conjuring peaks and troughs and rivers that disappear as quickly as they come. Soon twenty more feet are clear; then a whole other row. He wishes he’d brought a water bottle. The sun is higher and he is dying of thirst, plus he needs to use the bathroom. At home he might pee in the bushes, but not 74
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in this neighborhood. No way. Everything is far too perfect. Willy walks into the garage and up the ramp, careful to stomp off his boots at the bottom. He knocks timidly at first, then harder. Cracking the door, he calls inside: “Hello? Mr. Corregan?” He slips off his boots and wet snowpants, opens the door wide and heads directly for the kitchen sink, just inside, where he gulps from the faucet. The house is hot, tropical hot, and he takes off his jacket for just a moment. Suddenly, he feels how tired he is.
It is supposed to be easy to tell right from wrong, to judge good from bad, but Willy isn’t sure what to think or believe. He is sure, though, that she is not okay. The kitchen is dark. Tons of copper and stone. A coo-coo clock ticks on the wall. In the dining room, just through the open door, are a huge, dark table and chairs, giant carved cabinets and a painting of what must be Corregan’s family long ago. Willy looks around quickly, then walks to the portrait and stares. Trim, tanned Corregan and an elegant, blond woman, two dark, wavyhaired boys (maybe ten or twelve years old), and a small girl with her arm around a big chocolate lab. They’re all sitting on a green lawn in front of glossy green bushes, under a bright blue sky, all wearing some combination of khaki and white. “No, no, no.” The voice is a whisper. Willy freezes. He wonders if there might be a ghost. “Pshhhhh, pshhhhhhhh, pshhhhhhhhh ...” Willy tiptoes through the far dining room door and down two wide, wooden steps. He is standing in a small room the color of wheat and tobacco. Tall, polished bookcases flank a red brick PEOP L E
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fireplace filled with dusty plants. A second set of stairs leads out of the room on the opposite side. In the corner, a tiny woman is curled in the couch, almost disappearing into the big green, leather cushions. Her eyes are huge and don’t seem to blink. Her mouth is a dark black hole. Her fine, white hair is fastened in a low ponytail that lays over her shoulder, and her papery hands are busy folding and unfolding a disposable napkin. She whispers something, but Willy needs to move closer to hear. “Ma’am?” He sits beside her on the couch. “Are you Mike?” Her breath smells of old fish and licorice. Tiny white globs stick in the corners of her mouth, and fine gooey strings connect her lips as she speaks. “No ma’am. I’m Willy. I just ...” “Is he gone? He’s gone.” Willy isn’t sure what to say. He has the strong feeling that he has stepped somewhere very out of bounds. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he says as he stands to leave—the room, and then the house. Get back to shoveling before Corregan knows he’s been inside, then get the hell home. “No, don’t go.” Her bony fingers tug on the edge of Willy’s shirt, then crumble to her lap. “I’m all alone.” It’s true; she is. And it doesn’t seem like she should be. He looks around for a book or magazine to give her, or a television to flip on—things his grandpa used to like—but there is nothing in the room but the crinkled lady and the furniture. “Did you come to help me?” She looks up at him, her voice an excited whisper. A few long hairs sprout from her chin, and a long, thin bruise—a ribbon of blue and green and yellow—runs along her jaw line. Willy’s brain is jumping. “What?” “That man. He’s trying to keep me here!” He doesn’t know if he wishes Corregan would just appear, or stay away. If he is doing something wrong, if he’s hurting her or keeping her or, Jesus! Willy doesn’t know what, then Willy can’t just do nothing, can he? Sweat is dripping down his back, soaking the waistband of his boxers. He would give anything to be back outside, shoveling. It occurs to him that somehow he should know what to
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{ Book Reviews } do. He’s going to be confirmed, isn’t he? Going to be an adult in the eyes of the church? Shit. He picks up the telephone on the dusty table and begins to call his mom, when he realizes the line is dead. The old woman pushes down on the armrest and strains to lift herself from the couch, her entire body trembling beneath a loose, white sweater. “I need to go.” She reaches toward the table and wobbles, then flops back down. “Wait. Please. Let me go find Mr. Corregan. He’s your husband, right?” “No!” Her eyes are bright, like Willy is finally catching on. “Then who ... ?” “I need to go home.” She stares at him, conspiratorial. “You can help me get out of here!” It is supposed to be easy to tell right from wrong, to judge good from bad, but Willy isn’t sure what to think or believe. He is sure, though, that she is not okay. He reaches out and carefully places his hand over hers. It is so cold, like a pile of bones. In two years, he will finish high school and leave, maybe even go far away, and come back when he feels like it and do what he wants and say what he wants with no one, not even his father, deciding whether or not he should. It is a horrible feeling, to be trapped. “It’s okay,” he says, unsure if it really is. “I’ll help you.” A snowplow rumbles past, its yellow flasher casting an eerie light through the drawn drapes. He recalls the flicker of the candles he lit when he would serve at eleven-thirty mass. He remembers donning the cassock and surplice, positioning the cruets, standing beside Father Berry, always so damn hot that he worried he would faint right there on the altar. Could she have taken communion from his station then? “How ‘bout I open the curtains?” Willy says, standing and pulling the heavy cord to let in the bright white light. The large window looks out onto a deep yard, ringed with a thick band of arching trees. Bird feeders are everywhere: perched on stakes, balanced on pedestals, dangling from tree limbs and hanging from hooks in the soffits. Each is empty, and covered with an enormous cap of snow. There are no birds in sight. “See!”
All of this family drama is matched by struggles at work. Olive also encounters severely injured and dying patients on a daily basis at work in the Intensive Care Unit. Witnessing other families’ tragedies only brings back her own painful memories and serves to focus and intensify her grief. Running parallel to Olive’s story is that of Sherry Witan. Olive meets Sherry at her mother’s New Year’s Day party and soon afterward discovers that Sherry is also a “repeater.” Sherry is reliving 2011, and she has relived previous years of her life as well; she had to repeat 2005 three times. The first two times, Sherry chose not to be with her mother when she passed away. Sherry tells Olive that she believes the mysterious force responsible for her repeat years would not allow her to move on to 2006 until she made amends with her mother before she died. “So what you’re saying is that the essential idea behind reliving this year is to correct something we did wrong last year?” Olive says to Sherry as she grapples with the concept. Like Sherry, Olive must make better decisions the second time around— she must “get it right”—before she can graduate to the next year. It’s an interesting literary device, but Lochen never provides a reason for the mysterious force or explains why only a chosen few such as Olive and Sherry must relive years over again, while the rest of us make mistakes but move forward anyway. Although Olive comes to see her repeat year as a chance for redemption, she spends a great deal of time ruminating over how best to correct the mistakes she made the first time around. The pace of the story drags a bit as Olive’s knowledge of future events often leaves unable to choose any action. Things get more interesting when Olive does take decisive action and dramatically intervenes to stop another nurse from making a fatal mistake. But Olive learns the hard way that what is good might not necessarily be what is right. Gradually it dawns on Olive that she can’t ever have complete control over the outcomes of her choices: “How could she have been so naïve? She was furious with herself … she’d been patting herself on the back and imagining a fairy-tale ending … when it came right down to it, they didn’t have the power to change much of anything.” Although Lochen dismisses the idea of “Fate with a capital F,” implicit in her use of the repeat year is the idea that, although our actions can take us down many paths, there is one best route for each of us. At the end of the novel, Olive realizes that her repeat year was just “a vehicle for her … to see all the different choices she could make” before realizing that one course of action was the best choice for her all along. The pace of the novel picks up when Olive finally goes after what she really wants in life and refuses to give up. In the end, Lochen offers readers a nuanced message: although we do not fully control the outcome of events, we must figure out our best course of action and pursue it wholeheartedly. In a sense, The Repeat Year is about knowing what matters most to you and living your life with no regrets the first time around. Although the pace is measured and the outcome predicable, the novel’s premise has a certain appeal for anyone who has wished for moments—if not years—they could do over again.
Somewhere Piano: Poems By Sarah Busse Mayapple Press, 72 pages, $14.95
Reviewed by Bob Wake Beginning with the eponymous poem of Wisconsin poet Sarah Busse’s new collection, Somewhere Piano, we find the author doubling down and rechristening it as “Somewhere Piano, Again.” It’s a poem about getting things right, not just on piano or paper, but in our heads:
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read WI Willy looks. She is craning her neck to get a better view, then tries to get up again. “Oh, there’s nothing there. Only snow.” He comes to her, and her angry eyes scold him. “Wait,” he says. In the corner is a walker like the one his grandpa had hated. This he can do. Bring her to the window. He wheels it over to her. “Can you use this?” Her hands tremble, tiny, rapid twitches, side to side, as if they have a mind of their own. She stares at the blue walker, the green stem of a pink silk rose twisted around the front brace, and seems to will her quaking left hand forward until it clutches the handgrip and is still. She is breathing hard. With her right arm she pushes against the couch until her knobby elbow is locked; then in one swift motion she flings her right arm to the walker, and is standing. Her eyes are shining, ready for what’s next, and he wants nothing but to cheer her on. She squeezes the triggers to unlock the brakes and begins to shuffle toward the window. Willy edges behind her. If she falls or topples backward, he will catch her. Then he sees the wet expanding mark on her gray pants, the pee glistening on her bony ankle and sopping her low gym sock. He wants to cry. “What in the hell is going on here?” Corregan is hovering in the second doorway, at the top step, looking down. Flecks of sawdust cling to tufts of white hair. A dark splotch seeps through a fat bandaid on his wrist. Willy quickly steps between Corregan and the woman. “Who let you in here?” Corregan hobbles down the stairs toward him. His face is beet red and just as Willy expects Corregan to grab his arm and throw him out, the walker rams into the back of Willy’s knee. He winces. “Go, go!” The old woman is crouched forward, holding the walker tight, jamming it into him. “Corrine!” Corregan scolds. “We’re going now. He’s taking me home.” She is glaring at Corregan, face flushed. “Don’t be silly.” Corregan reaches past Willy for her shoulder, and she reels. “Don’t touch me! Don’t let him touch me!” 76
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He steps back, but his giant figure still looms. “Go, young man.” Corregan stares at Willy, a “V”-shaped vein throbbing on his forehead. “Sir?” “I said go, God dammit. Leave.” He feels the frail fingers grab hold of his grandfather’s shirt and tug. He straightens. “No sir.” “Good. Good!” Her voice is gravelly but strong. “I’m not kidding, son. Leave here right now.” “No sir,” he says, voice trembling, stepping toward Corregan and pulling tall. “I can’t do that, sir.” Though he wants to. He wants to pick her up, and his mother, too, and take them all somewhere far away. “Can’t do what, for Christ sake?” The old man’s eyes are darting all around. “Corrine, sit down!” She sighs and begins to shuffle backward, pulling the walker, the space between it and her body growing. “Not like that!” Corregan yells. Willy turns to see her fall back into the couch, then tip sideways, her body a small question mark lopped over the soft, green cushions. From her throat come sad, tiny groans. The oily lids of her eyes are closed and fluttering. Corregan pushes past Willy and kneels down at the couch. “Corrine!” His voice is stern. He brings her legs up onto the sofa and straightens her out. She pinches her eyes and screws up her lips, starts batting at him like a toddler in a tantrum. Corregan mutters something, then pushes himself to his feet and zips his coat up fast. “Just stay here,” he says, bounding up the steps. “And don’t let her move!” With that he is out of the room, and then with a slam out the garage door. Willy is not sure what just happened. Willy sits down beside her on the rocking chair, his back to the window. Like a switch was flipped, she is sleeping. All around, he notices for the first time, are wildlife paintings: Geese in flight over a wintery sky. A flock of mergansers swimming in a marsh. A lone, red-winged blackbird perched on a bending stalk of grass. And on the couch, she looks so un-alive ... withered and bent, damp and decaying, on her way to becoming a corpse. He can see her in her coffin, like PEOP L E
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his grandpa—powdery makeup caked on her face, combed hair and pressed suit and folded hands surrounded by smooth white silk. He mashes his fists into his stinging eyes, and swallows what feels like a scream. Screw the meek inheriting the earth! Who is supposed to be able to live like that? He rushes into the bathroom at the top of the steps. Sometimes Willy feels like he is drowning. Like he is stuck in a marsh, hidden in the thick, sharp reeds, legs snagged in roots that come from all directions—past and present and future, from on high and down below. And he cannot figure out what to do next, which strand to untangle first, which limb to loose, what leads to what, and it seems that all he can do is strain to keep his head above water, keep his mouth from taking in the black sludge, filled with stink and slime and decay, that somehow feeds an entire world that lives there. But he does not live there. He needs to find a way out. Suddenly, clearly, Willy knows what he will do: lock the front and garage doors on his way back to the woman. Sit with her and wait until the phone works again. Yes. Call his mother, then call the police. The woman can come live with them, maybe. At their house. They have the room. He splashes water on his face, opens the bathroom door and stops. Two slush puddles pool on the top stair, leading down to the small room. He is too late. Corregan is on the rocking chair in front of her. His huge hands rise and, Willy sees, brush wisps of hair away from her eyes. They cradle her face and pull her forehead to his. “Shhhhhhh, my bird,” he says. “Shhh, shhh, shhhhhhhhh...” Willy watches them together, Corregan’s thick fingers stroking the fine, silver strands. He can feel the pair of them breathing and swaying just barely, their two white heads almost like one. Then Corregan begins to sing in a low, soft voice: Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer do I’m half crazy, All for the love of yoooou.
read WI Willy can see that her eyes are closed, her face soft, the corners of her lips just barely curled. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage But you’ll look sweet upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two. Corregan pauses for a long while, still cradling her head. When he finally continues, it is in a broken whisper: Oh you’ll look sweet. Upon the seat. Of our bicycle built ... for two. Willy lowers himself to the floor. He leans his head against the wall, presses his face to the cool, creamy plaster. The dirty puddle seeps into the seat of his jeans. “Look.” Corregan kisses her eyelids and turns her face to the window, where at least two dozen birds are clinging to suet pendants and gobbling seed from feeders and off the ground. Willy rises and steadies himself. Walks to the window. There are bright red cardinals on the dogwood, and at least a dozen black-capped chickadees. Cowlicked blue jays and muted mourning doves nestle in the branches and peck at the ground, and three red-bellied woodpeckers eat suet that hangs from the tree and is smeared on the trunk. Large footprints carve fresh paths in the snow from feeder to feeder to feeder. “Whoa,” Willy can’t help but whisper. It is perfect, like a dream. Corregan sighs and settles himself onto the couch beside her. Willy turns to look at them. Mrs. Corregan is pointing out the window. She is looking intently, moving her mouth, talking to no one, or talking to the birds. The old man’s nicked fingers push hard against his droopy eyes and pinch at the bridge of his nose. A fine stubble floats on his cheeks, and stray hairs spring from his neckline over the frayed collar of his shirt. He looks so weary, and so alone. Like the holy card picture on his father’s mirror— a painting of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. “Mr. Corregan? I ...” “Oh! Who are you?” The woman’s voice is bright. Her knobby hands now rest quietly in her lap, on top of the smooth, worn napkin. She tilts her head and smiles at Willy. “Have you come to see the children?” Z
These are the rehearsal rooms of the brain, strangely echoed, some, and others strangely dead. Wander once more the narrow, ill-lit halls. There’s no poetic triumphalism here. “Somewhere Piano, Again” suggests a painfully stalled dark night of the soul, a writer’s prayer for illumination: Rehearsing and rehearsing on the instrument of haunt, reversing again, and overheard through walls, muffled, a someone else, anonymous, not quite •••
in tune, remembered ever, trying and trying (how much we want) to get that passage right. Busse is a rare species of writer: a secular poet of the sacred. She has found a language to illustrate the all-too-brief moments of revelation that sneak into our days, the instances of what theologian Jean-Luc Marion has called “saturated phenomena,” when we’re astonished by unbidden hints of connectedness. Busse’s poems have the curious feature—not uncommon in religious poetry from Donne to Dickinson—of never quite being about what they presume to be about. Her work directs our gaze or our contemplation to something beyond the poem’s focus. She’ll grant you a stable ground outside your kitchen window, but then she’ll pull you seductively toward something chaotic and profound, undefined but ecstatically present at any given moment if you choose to engage it, take it on. Here, embedded within a poem framed around her eight-year-old son’s whimsical improvisations on the family piano (“To Robert Cabaste Wind on His Birthday”), a kind of cosmic disturbance invades the morning: He is playing imagined music for imagined listeners of imagined radio, the lit windows of morning kitchens dot the hills of the Driftless. The music launches, and a coffee cup suspends, dishes go unwashed, an argument hangs midair. Eyes go vacant at the curious passages … In the final stanza, mirroring her son’s improvised melodies, the poet/mother is inspired to improvise her own morning prayer or hymn, a suburban matins: Blessings on the marriages of the morning, blessings on the scrambled kids about to board buses, the dogwalkers and garbage trucks and gardeners who will let the music drift over and off and get on with their variegated days … Busse in the last few years has gained recognition as a tireless proselytizer for poetry, especially in her roles shared with fellow Wisconsin poet Wendy Vardaman, as co-editor of Verse Wisconsin and Cowfeather Press. Verse Wisconsin found its voice—or, to be accurate, voices plural, as in “multitude”—when in the thick of the winter 2011 labor protests in Madison, the magazine’s Facebook page became a living anthology of poets old, new, and spontaneously birthed, reacting in real time to a historic political crisis. In January of 2012, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin appointed Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman to a four-year term as the city’s Poets Laureate. While two chapbooks preceded it—Quiver (Red Dragonfly Press, 2009) and Given These Magics (Finishing Line Press, 2010)—this is Busse’s first full-length collection. “Silhouettes,” a chilling account of a home-invasion and sexual assault, garnered a Pushcart Prize in 2012. The award indicates the high-level of work in Busse’s collection of 47 diverse and rich offerings. Z
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winners
Winner of the First-Place Prize in Poetry: Before Dawn, the Crows
bio
In cold darkness calling from tree to tree Laughing at our foolish dreams Crooning love in a long lost key Feathers at once oil slick and trickster Switchblade beaks and talons like fish hooks Eyes of blown glass tricked out in starlight Eyes like deep space deeper than mothernight Like anthracite coal like hard carbon steel Shaped by hammers and grinding wheels Like blind caves where no sun enters Like stone faces in the depths of a harbor Like dredged up muck from down In the bedrock like fourteen men Lying trapped underground For 35 days with only the sounds Of each other breathing each other dying Like the mourners leaving in their Long black cars that’s how dark the crow’s eyes are
Geoff Collins grew up in the city of Milwaukee and has lived in Wisconsin for most of his life. He writes mostly late at night and early in the morning, and his stories and poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including Amoskeag, Blue Earth Review, Review, Interim, Stone Highway, Verse Wisconsin, and Waterstone. He lives with his wife and two daughters in a small town in Dane County, where he works in the local schools.
JUDGE’S NOTES
From Lead Judge Bruce Dethlefsen: I love the dark, pressing tone of “Before Dawn, the Crows” and the repetition of the sounds in the middle and end of the lines. There is a powerful, incessant march into the shadow world of the crows, skillfully drawn.
—Geoff Collins
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His Mother Begins to Cry and we sit here for hours at this folding table hoping we can save her. Fluorescent lights, metal chairs, linoleum tile floor. Finally, someone stands and brings tissue. She dabs at her eyes and lowers her head as if to thank us. We listen as she sobs quietly for her son, the angry young man and for herself, unable in all these years to change anything. He is afraid of his father, she says. Outside, the spring birds are singing. People are laughing in the courtyard. But here in this room, something is hunting us, something huge and silent closes in upon us. The walls of concrete block, the fog on the windows, the very air. We offer so little— a few kind words, a glimpse of hope. Names and numbers of people who may be able to help, or may not. A hand resting on her shoulder then taken away. The tissue of course— how her fingers are clutching it, how her whole body trembles. —Geoff Collins
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Second-Place Prizewinning Poem: bio
Following Up
William Quist lives in River Falls and commutes to a boring day job in
I guess you didn’t get my letter, since you died before I put it in the mail. But maybe that’s OK—I mean, what was left to say anyway? Confession (I never enjoyed hunting, or peeing in public)? Are you proud of me? Will I see you again? I’m taking a class on how to be less of a man. It involves a lot of poetry, and crying. I remember you saying, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” and now, finally, you have.
St. Paul, Minnesota. His poems have appeared in AltLit, Free Verse, Red Booth Review, and the Wisconsin Poets Calendar. He has pipe dreams of early retirement and more time to write.
—William Quist
JUDGE’S NOTES
From Lead Judge Bruce Dethlefsen: “Following Up” is an unsentimental but deeply felt poem that addresses how we all come to deal with loss. The best line for me is, “I’m taking a class on how to be less of a man.” And what an excellent twist at the end.
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Behind You, Somewhere I’m writing to you from some country, though how far from you I don’t know. Some things seem so familiar. The hills are still here, but the trees seem older, the cars newer, then when you were last seen. Someone said you lived in that house over there, but it was yellow then. And you climbed the blue water tower. I could never imagine your view. This letter may not reach you before I do. And if it did I doubt that you would read it anyhow. I didn’t bring my glasses, you’d say, I’ll read it later. And then you would lay it down on a table, or a cloud, to float away on an open window breeze. And I would follow. —William Quist
Ten honorable mention poems Congratulations to our ten honorable mention poets for their outstanding work: • “Serenade,” by Irene Zimmerman, Milwaukee • “A Tiny Village Due South of Guangzhou,” by Karen Loeb, Eau Claire • “Easy,” by Patricia Zontelli, Menomonie • “At the Laundromat,” by William Quist, River Falls • “Where the Evening Sun Goes Down,” by John Pidgeon, Green Bay • “Return Trip,” by Peggy Trojan, Brule
• “Spice Cake,” by Paul Terranova, Madison • “Birds in Flight,” by Hope McLeod, Washburn • “I Like November,” by Elizabeth Harmatys Park, Burlington • “Ecru, adj.” by Melissa E. McGraw, Wauwatosa Look for the honorable mention poems to appear in subsequent issues of Wisconsin People & Ideas. For more information, visit wisconsinacademy.org/poetrycontest.
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Third-Place Winning Poem: bio
Reservation Math
C. E. Perry is a graduate of the Iowa Writ-
Draw a line to five, when Frank Bitsue is hauling water from the well then count his living grandchildren and divide them by the ones who chased sheep into the rain. Subtract the crash. Add summers and sleep of nine kids laughing in the truck’s bed. Extend your line at a sloppy angle to the pickled sun, through his wife’s glance, into the velvet mines, down the green song of the black calf and up the climb of time. Calculate the rhythmic bell’s ringing under this curve then subtract water he spilled when the snake comes home to his mother’s ankle. She steps off the page, into the lurching gush where all things break apart and become other things: where a quick and slow snake equals time divided by time, a man equals red toy trucks required by a boy but there is no boy, I mean, no place for hopefulness.
er’s Workshop and Dartmouth Medical School. She spent three years working as a family medicine physician on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, NM, and now works and lives in Madison. Perry lives with her family in a 109-year-old house. They are growing three times as much kale in their garden this year. Her first book, Night Work, was published by Sarabande Books in 2009 and her poems have been published in Ploughshares, Pool, and Southeast Review.
JUDGE’S NOTES
—C.E. Perry
From Lead Judge Bruce Dethlefsen: Rich in detail, “Reservation Math” recounts how one person’s life adds up—or doesn’t. Here are powerful, haunting images placed in well-textured layers. How complicated we can be.
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The Blind Bitch of Shiprock is divinely established and of the desert is neither solid, nor liquid, nor gas is glowing with the residue of never mind is wretched and fat with pups, entirely is lame in one leg on Thursday, another on Friday is hoping neither for pardon nor passage is as uncertain as a curse repeated is in a crooked race with a crooked sun is making her way under the fence that divides us as far as our eyes can see. —C.E. Perry
CONNECT: Wisconsin People & Ideas 2013 Fiction & Poetry Contest Reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival A Room of One’s Own 315 West Gorham Street, Madison 5:30–7:30 pm, October 18, 2013 Join Wisconsin People & Ideas editor Jason A. Smith for an evening of the best poetry and fiction by up-and-coming Wisconsin writers at the Wisconsin People & Ideas 2013 Fiction and Poetry Contest reading event during the 2013 Wisconsin Book Festival. This showcase reading takes place at A Room of One’s Own in Madison and features the winners of our 2013 fiction and poetry contests. Featured poets for 2013 include Geoffrey Collins (Marshall), William Quist (River Falls), and C.E. Perry (Madison). Amy Baker (Blue Mounds), Rudy Koshar (Madison), and Geoffrey Collins (Marshall) will read their prize-winning stories from the 2013 contest as well. This event is free and open to the public. For more information on the Wisconsin Book Festival please visit wisconsinbookfestival.org. Or, to find out more about our annual fiction and poetry contests, please visit wisconsinacademy.org/contests.
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5Q { B.J. Best – Poet } B.J. Best is the author of But Our Princess Is in Another Castle (Rose Metal Press, 2013), Birds of Wisconsin (New Rivers Press, 2010), and State Sonnets (sunnyoutside, 2009). He is also the author of three chapbooks from Centennial Press, most recently Drag: Twenty Short Poems about Smoking (2011). He teaches at Carroll University in Waukesha and lives outside of West Bend with one wife, one son, three cats, and nine video game systems. He asserts he is the only person in the history of the world to have beaten Super Mario Bros.—with an actual Nintendo and television—on a pontoon boat.
Your newest collection of prose poems references the classics— classic video games, that is. But Our Princess Is in Another Castle is considered by your publisher an “ekphrastic project,” a way of providing commentary on a work of visual art. Are classic video games art? Certainly. Pop Art, but art nonetheless. We can look at these blocky, vibrant images and see the world refracted back to us. Classic video games are art because they use a minimal palette of colors to paint something transfixing to behold; then they make us respond, almost viscerally, to the scene before us. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has already anticipated this, and began displaying video games as part of its collection in late 2012. Probably the two movements in visual art that are most complementary to classic video games are Abstract Art and Surrealism. Due to the original—and extremely limited, by today’s standards—processing power of the games, representations were by nature abstract: a rectangle is a ping-pong paddle, a triangle a spaceship.
The linear geometries and primary colors of Pac-Man are something an abstract painter like Mondrian might love (and in fact, Pac-Mondrian is available to play online). And a Surrealist like Magritte would likely enjoy one of my favorite lesser-known games: in Mr. Do!, you are a clown who can shoot energy balls at the dinosaurs that are chasing you while tunneling through the earth to collect cherries. You can also drop candied apples on the dinosaurs’ heads. Certainly these games are visually hypnotizing, but they also offer cultural commentary. Pac-Man, for instance, could be viewed as a critique of rampant consumerism: no matter how many dots you eat, they’re never enough. You will eat and eat and eat and then you will die. (This critique is ironic, as the game was so popular in Japan as to cause a shortage of yen coins.) The story of Super Mario Bros. is inherently political: one monarchy has been overthrown by another. When do we decide to meddle in other nations’ affairs, and if we do, who is best suited to resolve these crises? (Lone Italian plumbers, apparently.) And although in Space Invaders you are blasting aliens, it’s easy to conceive
their relentless, ordered attack as mirroring an imminent—at least in 1978, when the game was created—attack by Soviet forces. My poem about that game continues that thought. On a more basic level, classic video games cause us to feel more than think. And they trade on some rather dark emotions. Death is omnipresent, and intentionally so—the faster players died, the more money machines would make at the arcade. You are constantly hunted or haunted by ghosts, aliens, robots— even evil pickles and hostile fried eggs in the case of BurgerTime—and there’s an anxiety to outwitting these villains (not to mention paranoia about where they’ll be coming from next). But there’s also a fierce sense of independence that surely resonated with the initial demographic of teenage boys: it’s you versus the world. You have been called upon to defeat those evil pickles. Only your joystick-burned hands and button-mashing fingers, and yours alone, will determine the outcome. In some ways it’s a digital version of Horatio Alger’s American Dream. If you play well enough, you can become a local hero—you started with a quarter but finished with 83,429 points!—and your Continued on page 86...
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Frogger Sometimes, in the closet of 3 a.m., I imagine the journey we didn’t take. The go-kart track in Fargo where we slammed around corners as easily as swinging a stopwatch on its lanyard. The clouds slinking like submarines through the ocean of an Oklahoma sky. Otters in the Snake River. The girl in the sporting goods store in Cranbrook, British Columbia—purple dress, pink hair, a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on her ankle—standing between us and the fishing poles, saying, “It’s all in the wrist, boys, it’s all in the wrist.” Then I get out of bed, stand on the deck, look at the stars. The bullfrogs glunk their love songs to the moon. The grass blades gather beads for their morning tiaras of dew. Even the highway is done with driving for now. I go back to bed, try dipping my toes in the river of sleep. I can almost picture the sunset over the Platte River we didn’t see, ripe as a nectarine, or hear water churning like an engine in a ravine below while I straddle a fallen log. Some things are too dangerous to cross.
Rampage Alright, Peoria, I’m tired of this three-building town. The people shrieking like teakettles. The apothecary that glows in the dark. The riflemen shooting as if they were frosting a cake—nothing but petaled sugar. In school, we’ve all seen movies about lizards, the way they sit still except for the rotating turrets of their eyes, until they unroll their tongue like a party favor at the funeral of some poor ant. We learn scientists pour questions into capsules, label them Eat Me, then tell us to report should we experience any answers. We know toasters and cigarettes both smoke. O Peoria, don’t you love St. Louis anymore? And what about that lovely little Davenport? The way its lock could talk for hours with your dam. It’s getting late, helicopters dragging dark netting behind them. Will I play in Peoria? Am I ready to rock? Because I only break two things on purpose: My ex-lovers’ windows. My future lovers’ hearts.
From But Our Princess Is in Another Castle, by B.J. Best. Published by Rose Metal Press, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by B.J. Best. Reprinted by permission of the author and Rose Metal Press
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5Q { B.J. Best – Poet } initials on the high score screen will be a testament to all the mortals thereafter who dare try to best you. Some of your chapbooks are published in nontraditional forms. How does the media in which your poems are delivered affect their interpretation? I’m very interested in the form of my books, both internally (in terms of organization of the poems) and externally (in terms of the physical manifestation of a book). Mimesis is important to me, as it shows my work is in dialogue with and companion to the actual world it represents, rather than some abstraction removed from it. Thus, the structure of my books is very intentional. In But Our Princess, for example, there are a total of eight “worlds”—not coincidentally the same number as the classic Nintendo game, Super Mario Bros. Each world has either six or seven poems in it, mimicking how video game levels are often of similar lengths. In Birds of Wisconsin, the book is divided into three sections to be birdlike: the first and third sections are long, to represent wings, and the second section is a compact body. In Mead Lake, This, there are three main characters and the number three is very important: three sections, each with nine poems. The exact middle poem of the book is “walking the bachelor’s avenue bridge”—a division and connection between the first half and the second. Drag: Twenty Short Poems about Smoking has twenty poems because there are twenty cigarettes in a pack, and so on. The physical presentations of my books are very important to me. I’ve been fortu-
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nate to work all along with publishers who care deeply about the physical object of the book as a work of art in itself. In Milwaukee, I’ve published three chapbooks through Centennial Press, most recently Drag. Charles Nevsimal, the editor, approached me with the idea of producing the book to look like an old-time pack of cigarettes. Thus the chapbook is delivered in a box with a gorgeous wraparound cover, and the poems are printed separately on cardstock about the size of business cards. For But Our Princess, the editors deliberately chose a seven-by-seven-inch book size because it’s reminiscent of a TV screen on which you might play some of these video games at home. State Sonnets is five-by-six inches, not just because sonnets fit nicely in that space, but also because it’s approximately the size of a postcard. All these examples show that words printed then glued into an eight-and-a-halfby-five-and-a-half shape do not necessarily the best book make. We do in fact judge books by their covers, at least when considering whether or not to pick one up, so I appreciate each of my publishers—they’ve made my books look professional and intriguing. They’re compelling to pick up. How does your life in West Bend— and Wisconsin—influence your work? I grew up on Big Cedar Lake, outside of West Bend. With the exception of my schooling and a six-month stint in northwest Illinois, I have always lived in Wisconsin. I currently live in the house I grew up in with my wife and son, having bought it from my parents. The strongest influence is the natural landscape around me. This is probably
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most evident in Birds of Wisconsin. I never considered myself much of a birder, but I had absorbed enough through osmosis, thanks to my family and neighbors. The names for birds—indigo bunting, goshawk, nightjar—are beautiful and evocative, so I’d unconsciously retained them until I realized they could become poetry. Having lived next to a lake for almost all of my life, I also get a little antsy when I’m not near a sizeable body of water; this was problematic going to school in Des Moines and St. Louis, where there are rivers, but they aren’t the same as lakes to me. At least one Wisconsin lake is mentioned in almost every book of mine—Big Cedar, Mead, Tichigan, Winnebago. The glacial landscape is also deep in my bones. Big Cedar is a moraine-dammed lake, and I’ve carried the glacial language with me ever since I learned it in sixth grade. My poems have used kame, esker, and moraine—and it doesn’t trouble me if people have to look them up. The landscape in which we’re raised determines our vision—what we can and can’t see—for the rest of our lives. I can’t see cities very well; they seem like nervous places to me. But I can read the wind on the water, or what the clouds portend. So that’s what I choose to write about. Are there other Wisconsin poets or writers you admire? I think Wisconsin has a very strong community of very strong poets. I’m particularly grateful for and impressed by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (WFOP). At the biannual conferences, WFOP brings poets together from all over the state to meet, socialize, and discuss serious issues of craft and theory. I’ve
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JUNE 2013 Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill Holy Cow! Press met some of my closest poetry friends through that organization. It’s difficult for me to single out any person for recognition, because there are so many poets here I admire. The thing that pleases me most is a strong majority of them don’t teach at a university level. I’m extremely grateful for my teaching job, but I find academia can be isolating—we tend to be our own little enclaves of writing. Organizations like WFOP remind us there are many, many good poets in Wisconsin who don’t teach for a living, and who are interested in building a broader community of writers. But two people I particularly admire— as poets, and as people—are the poetry sisters Cathryn Cofell and Karla Huston. They recently released a collaborative chapbook, Split Personality, and each has a new book in 2013. Huston’s A Theory of Lipstick was just released, and Cofell’s Sister Satellite is coming out from Madison-based Cowfeather Press in the fall. Their works complement one another’s well. Huston’s poetry is measured, carefully deploying imagery to achieve resonant themes of love, desire, regret, and loss. Cofell’s poems are explosive, at times ebullient and other times like shrapnel, ripping open ideas of womanhood, death, sex, and faith. Your collections generally revolve around themes. Why is this? What themes or projects are exploring or planning for the near future? I believe a book should be greater than the sum of its parts, and themes help accomplish that. In addition to the meanings of the individual
poems, I want my books to offer a larger commentary about the subject (video games, birds, travel, etc.) as a whole. That’s how we expect most books in other genres to operate, because it yields a richer experience. I’m usually not as fond of books that are simply an assemblage of an author’s good poems—it’s like visiting island after island, all of them fairly small and similar, to the point where they become indistinguishable and blur in memory. But there’s a practical reason, too. I simply write better and more easily when I’m given a fenced-in area, rather than the entire world, as a surface subject. It’s much easier for me to sit down and think, “Okay, I’d like to write another poem about a video game today,” rather than, “Okay, I’d like to write a poem today.” Of course, the theme is often strictly superficial—what the poems are really “about” are the old, good abstractions all literature is about: things like love, death, and faith. My next book is due out from sunnyoutside press by the end of the year. “I got off the train at Ash Lake” is a novella-in-verse set in about 1920 on an inland lake in Wisconsin. It has a fullfledged narrative, including characters such as a clairvoyant, a magician’s assistant, and the King of Milwaukee. I love Big Cedar Lake, but often find it hard to write about, because I know it too well. But I wanted to set a story there. Thus, this “I got off the train” is removed in time but also reality—Ash Lake is a surreal and often dark place. Beyond that, my next manuscript deals with the surface subject of weather— all the humidity and blizzards and rain gauges I’ve assimilated into my life by virtue of calling Wisconsin home. Z
Deerland: America’s Hunt for Ecological Balance and the Essence of Wildness by Al Cambronne Lyons Press Editors’s Pick: Cambronne’s detailed examination of America’s multibillion-dollar deer hunting industry and the challenges inherent in managing a burgeoning deer population is an essential read for Wisconsin hunters and policy makers alike.
JULY 2013 The Sixteenth Rail: The Evidence, the Scientist, and the Lindbergh Kidnapping by Adam J. Schrager Fulcrum Publishing The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane by Kelly Harms Thomas Dunne Books Sea Creatures by Susanna Daniel Harper AUGUST 2013 The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters by Jerry Apps Wisconsin Historical Society Press Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State (Languages and Folklore of Upper Midwest) by Thomas Purnell (Editor), Eric Raimy (Editor), Joseph Salmons (Editor) University of Wisconsin Press One Small Farm: Photographs of a Wisconsin Way of Life by Craig Schreiner Wisconsin Historical Society Press SEPTEMBER 2013 Wheel Fever: How Wisconsin Became a Great Bicycling State by Jesse J. Gant and Nicholas J. Hoffman Wisconsin Historical Society Press Learning to Tell (A Life)Time by Kathie Giorgio Main Street Rag Did we miss something? E-mail jsmith@wisconsinacademy.org with other current or forthcoming titles from Wisconsin authors.
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Local Bookshop Spotlight { LaDeDa Books & Beans – Manitowoc } LaDeDa Books & Beans is nestled on a quiet residential street a few steps from Citizen’s Park in Manitowoc. The local bookstore features the kind of eye-catching storefront display one might expect to see downtown, and indeed, LaDeDa Books did first open in downtown Manitowoc. However, after seven years, owner/operator Bev Denor moved locations in order to join a smaller community. Her store has been operating at its present location on quiet New York Avenue for the past eight years. “I love being in a neighborhood,” she says. “I think people miss the idea of a neighborhood, [being able] to walk to a place to get the things they need.” Denor says she has even had people suggest she carry bread, milk, and other necessities for the daily shopper. But there’s no mistaking LaDeDa for a minimart. Inside, blue and orange walls stand in bright contrast to red and green paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Small toys decorate the bookshelves, and signs identifying each section by subject are uniquely decorated— feathered party masks flank the Mystery Section sign, a penguin angler in a Hawaiian shirt casts his pole from the top of the Humor Section sign. The smell of fresh coffee is in the air, and Denor also offers chai, smoothies, and sodas. But her specialty—and selfprofessed passion—is books: best sellers to cookbooks to a large selection of children’s books to everything in between. Denor has even renovated the hallway in the back of the store in order to accommodate a growing used books section.
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Denor says her passion for books can be traced back to her childhood days spent in the old Carnegie Library in Manitowoc. She grew up right around the corner from the library and spent many afternoons buried in the stacks. Denor recalls a fourth-grade teacher who left books on her desk to read, and a high-school teacher who provided reading suggestions to sate her voracious appetite for books. In college, Denor majored in English and Theatre before serving as an adjunct instructor at the University of Wisconsin–Manitowoc and then teaching high school English in Valders—where she was the one suggesting books to her students. “I’ve been a book-pusher all my life,” she says with a laugh. Denor sees her store as an extension of her love for literature, and she connects with her customers through the experience of reading and sharing what’s important and interesting to her. What she loves most, though, is matching a customer with the right book: “Customers come in and say, ‘You fixed me up with a book a year ago. Let’s do it again.’ I love that.” This personal connection with customers and the neighborhood feel of LaDeDa keeps readers coming back for more. Too, Denor supports a variety of community programs; currently, she is organizing a project to send books to the families affected by the Sandy Hook School shooting in Connecticut. “In the Midwest when something happens, you take a casserole over to their house,” she says. “We can’t do that, but perhaps some comfort can be offered [to the families] by what we’re doing.”
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Through all of these efforts, Denor has become a valued member of the neighborhood. She regularly receives invitations to graduation parties thrown by customers and shoppers often bring new pets by for a visit or flip open their wallets to show Denor pictures of their grandchildren. “To them, I’m a neighbor,” she says, and for the people in Manitowoc, it’s hard to imagine New York Avenue without LaDeDa Books & Beans. Denor believes that the store is important to this community and hopes that when she’s no longer able to work, “someone will keep the store alive, or at least, something like it.” But, she assures her friends and customers, “I’m not ready to end just yet.” Visit LaDeDa Books & Beans at 1624 New York Avenue in Manitowoc or online at ladedabooks.com for hours, upcoming events, and book recommendations. —Casey Thayer
Great Radio. Amazing App. (Did we mention that it’s free?)
Introducing the all new Wisconsin Public Radio app — all the shows you love, with features you won’t find on your radio. Listen to all three WPR networks, pause live broadcasts, explore our schedules and archives while you track WPR news headlines.
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Wisconsin Poet Laureate Reception
An Evening with Terry Tempest Williams
Friday, October 18, 7:45–10:00 pm Eau Claire Golf & Country Club, 828 Clubview Lane, Altoona
Tuesday, October 22, 7:00 pm Mills Concert Hall, Mosse Humanities Building, UW–Madison, 455 North Park Street
Join Wisconsin Poet Laureate Max Garland for a celebretory cocktail reception and three-course dinner, hosted by the Chippewa Valley Book Festival with support from the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. The evening includes a reading by Garland and brief show by the band, Eggplant Heroes. Make reservations for the meal (approximately $35) and the program at the L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library Reference Desk: 715-839-5004 or reference@eauclaire.lib.wi.us.
Author Terry Tempest Williams comes to Madison for the second annual Jordahl Lecture, held by the Nelson Institute in partnership with the Wisconsin Academy. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, Williams has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. Named for Wisconsin conservation pioneer Harold “Bud” Jordahl, the annual Jordahl lecture highlights the latest thinking in public lands acquisition, stewardship, and science.
The Inhabited Landscape On view September 10–October 27, 2013 Opening reception Sunday, September 15, 2–5:00 pm, with artists’ talks at 3:00 pm. Free and open to the public
The James Watrous Gallery hosts a group show of paintings, drawings, and prints inspired by the artists’ relationships to the Wisconsin landscape. Featuring work by Barry Carlsen, David Lenz, Cathy Martin, John Miller, Charles Munch, Dennis Nechvatel, and Tom Uttech.
Left: David Lenz, Cold Front, 2002. Oil on board, 9.25 x 11 inches. From the collection of Kevin Walsh and Sue Clausing. Reprinted by permission.
Visit www.wisconsinacademy.org for more details