Thriving Through Adaptations
NURTURING RESILIENCE THROUGH ARTIST-LED INITIATIVES
Upon relocating to Milwaukee in 1996 for a teaching position, I found myself an outsider, armed with only a superficial understanding of the city, primarily associated with its reputation for beer and cheese. While this simplistic stereotype continues to linger and influence perceptions of Milwaukee, I have discovered the city is exceptionally complex and replete with contrasts akin to other urban areas. With the city’s socialist history with a progressive mindset, it is still one of America’s most segregated cities. Despite the lack of state funding for the arts, the artistic community in Milwaukee demonstrates remarkable resilience and the ability to flourish in a challenging environment.
Milwaukee embodies a do-it-yourself ethos, particularly evident within the artistic community. The city's landscape, characterized by aging factories, breweries, and warehouses, serves as a constant reminder of the industrious and hands-on mentality prevalent in the city. While much of the city’s gritty environment has now been gentrified, I often draw parallels between the city's industrial landscape and artists’ adaptations to the environment when discussing Milwaukee's artistic milieu. Numerous artist communities and studio enclaves are in previously underused, artist-renovated warehouses and industrial complexes throughout the city. While they all have individual characteristics and community cultures, genuine support exists to nurture a citywide, inclusive network of artists.
The Rust Spot exhibitions of 2000 through 2002 serve as exemplary illustrations of artists capitalizing on adversity. A cohort of determined young artists, committed to remaining in Milwaukee despite limited prospects, successfully persuaded the Third Ward Association and the proprietor of an unoccupied warehouse to grant them unrestricted use for a one-night exhibition. The aptly named Rust Spot (possibly referring to the “Rust Belt” manufacturing legacy) garnered the art world's attention regionally and nationally. The exhibitions questioned the established systems within the contemporary art arena and rebelled against the white cube spaces. The works were excitingly haphazard and fully displayed the impulses of making without concern for fitting into any expectations of the art world.
Since then, Milwaukee has sprouted countless artist-led grassroots organizations and collectives that acknowledge and even lean on the city’s complicated history. The Grilled Cheese Grant, run by a collective of artists, supports Milwaukee artists through a one-day event selling grilled cheese sandwiches to raise funds for a select group of artists for their studio practice. Yours Truly, an artist support space in the Riverwest neighborhood, provides a platform for sharing, making, and community dialogue. Their newest project, “Midwest Disability Arts Series,” features collaborations with other Midwest art studios to facilitate discussions and support artists with disabilities. THE CR8TV HOUSE in the neglected North Milwaukee neighborhood is a space to empower people to “Dream Radically” and confront issues of systemic racism and economic disparity through art. What was once the founder of THE CR8TV HOUSE’s childhood home has been transformed into an inclusive space for imagination and problem-solving through exhibitions, residencies, and other community-based programs.
Plum Blossom Initiative was formed in 2014—after a lengthy conversation between me and Leah Kolb, then a curator based in Madison, Wisconsin—with a mission to enrich Milwaukee’s art scene. Over a cup of coffee, we lamented the prevalent and misguided perceptions that moving to a larger metropolitan city was mandatory to succeed as an artist. Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin, needed to recalibrate this mentality and highlight our community's richness and opportunities. Our project, the Bridge Work Professional Development Program, annually provides opportunities for recent art school graduates to implement disciplined work habits, present their work, develop audiences, and establish networks of support and mentorship. In addition to facilitating exhibition opportunities, the program helps foster participants' artistic practices by providing cost-free studio space, ongoing critiques, public speaking opportunities, and studio visits by arts professionals and industry stakeholders.
Furthermore, over time, Plum Blossom Initiative cultivated partnerships with other arts organizations, including VAR Gallery (Milwaukee), the University of Wisconsin-OshKosh, Arts & Literature Lab (Madison, WI), Cultivate (Grand Rapids, MI), and 2nd Story (Lexington, KY) to deepen program participants’ relationships with the broader art world. Plum Blossom Initiative has also joined the Creative Allies, a joint program of Milwaukee Recreational Program and Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, to place select Bridge Work artists in urban elementary schools to offer after-school art enrichment opportunities to students in need. As funding for arts education has been decimated in the public school system, this provides additional ways for artists to serve and invest in their community.
Plum Blossom Initiative is having a tenth anniversary exhibition of the Bridge Work Program in January 2025 at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. The organization of the exhibition provided a moment of reflection on all the Bridge Work artists we have worked with. Past Bridge Work artists have relocated to other regions and made their mark. Dominic Chambers and Brennen Steines thrive in their practices with gallery representation in New York City. Still, the majority of Bridge Work artists have stayed and made a significant impact on the creative culture in Milwaukee. For example, Phoenix Brown is a recipient of the 2024 Wisconsin Emerging Artist Achievement Award and a Senior Curator at the Charles Allis & Villa Terrace Art Museums in Milwaukee. She is a transplant from the Cincinnati area and, after graduating with a BFA degree, decided to remain in Milwaukee instead of returning to the comforts of her hometown or seeking perceived opportunities in larger cities. She talks about the support system in Milwaukee and her ethos of “being kind to people and lending an ear.” This generous spirit is at the core of what the Plum Blossom Initiative instills in the younger generation of Milwaukee artists through the Bridge Work program.
Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion centered around the mentoring and support of fellow artists in Milwaukee. The audience actively engaged in the dialogue, raising concerns about the inadequate support for artists in the city. The conversation quickly shifted toward the specific challenges of obtaining collector support and grants for individual artists. These challenges, substantiated by actual data, serve as a sobering reality of the undervaluation of artists.
Since moving to Milwaukee, I have observed a gradual dissolution in arts funding from the city and the state, further exacerbating challenges faced by the area's underwhelming art market. Thankfully, various philanthropic organizations have stepped in to address the funding gap for the arts. However, it is important to acknowledge that Milwaukee maintains an extraordinarily vibrant and thriving art scene. In contrast to the diminishing funding support from municipal and state governments, Milwaukee’s art community provides abundant support through mentorships, apprenticeships, and a culture of resource sharing and kindness within the community.
Despite challenges, in alignment with Milwaukee’s disposition for hands-on work and earnest labor, artists actively pursue ways to sustain their artistic practices and cultivate meaningful community dialogue. Compared to other larger cities, the availability and affordability of studio spaces enables artists to integrate into the various neighborhoods and establish a robust support network extending throughout the city. The Milwaukee art community’s distinctive resourcefulness, ability to adapt, and deep-rooted pride compel artists to simultaneously advocate for and critically examine the complex nuances of the city to which they belong.
In anticipation of the opening of our new space in September 2024, we invited active participants and longtime contributors to the artistic communities in Wisconsin to write about the cultural context of this region. While we recognized the impossibility of capturing this state in its entirety through this one endeavour, the goal was to gather a range of perspectives to provide a fuller and more complex understanding of the artistic production of this region. We welcomed thoughtful, critical pieces that allow readers to see the artistic milieu, or this place, in a new light, reflections on Wisconsin's histories that have defined its present, or future-facing pieces that guide us towards new directions.