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Wisconsin People & Ideas – Fall 2022

In this issue: A profile of novelist David Rhodes, acclaimed author of Driftless, provides a glimpse into his time in the Driftless community of Wonewoc and the role of that community in his work. Monday nights food trucks at Vollrath Park draw people together along the lake in Sheboygan. Get a sneak peek at the James Watrous Gallery’s new paired solo exhibitions: Herbarium and Clash/Meld. Learn about the history of the Marlin Johnson’s work with friends at UW-Milwaukee’s Field Station and their stories of this restored prairie. This issue winners from our 2022 writing contests, as well as reviews of Wisconsin books you won’t want to miss.

Volume:

Issue Number:

From the Director

A Calm Place for Shared Explorations

By:

Erika Monroe-Kane

Every election, my parents would joke about how their votes would cancel each other’s out. They agreed to disagree and there were some topics my parents did not debate.

Editors Note

Finding Connections in the Real World

By:

Christopher Chambers

About the time I started thinking about the editor’s note for this issue, my wife and I went up north for a weekend with my cousin and her husband who have a place in Sawyer County, near Exeland where my grandparents lived during Prohibition.

Wisconsin Table

Sheboygan’s Food Truck Extravaganza

By:

Leo Aguilar

Once a week, from late spring to early fall, Vollrath Park on the northeast side of Sheboygan transforms from a serene lakeside park to a bustling mall of hungry people and colorful food trucks.

An oak opening, late August, in the Marlin Johnson Prairie in Waukesha County.

Essay

Stories from a Restored Prairie

By:

Meg Muthupandiyan

Within days of the prescribed burn in April, the forbs and grasses of the Marlin Johnson Prairie emerged and began hardening, greening.

David Rhodes at home, 2009. Photo by Lewis Koch

Profile

David Rhodes in the Driftless

By:

Ron Kuka

One morning in 1978, the novelist David Rhodes rolled his wheelchair to the door of his farmhouse in rural Wisconsin to find his neighbor, Dick Woolever, waiting to make him an offer.

@ the Watrous Gallery

Herbarium

By:

Joseph Mougel

Joseph Mougel’s Herbarium project is a series of photographs inspired by plant archives and the desire to capture and preserve things that comprise a place.

@ the Watrous Gallery

Clash / Meld

By:

Richard Moninski

Richard Moninski’s recent work explores several themes: the systemization of nature, the decorative impulse, the choices between representation and abstraction, and the history and culture of specific places.

Spotlight

Branching Out in Milwaukee

By:

Felice Green

Earlier this year, the nonprofit Milwaukee Water Commons launched a green infrastructure initiative to increase the urban tree canopy in the city’s neighborhoods.

Fiction

In Rock Springs When the Angel Trumpets Sound

By:

Tom Pamperin

When fire began to fall from the sky and the stars started going out one by one, Burnhardt’s car was in the shop for new brake pads, or maybe the muffler—he’d been through a lot of cars and it was hard to keep track sometimes...

Book Review

News of the Air by Jill Stukenberg

By:

Angela Woodward

Unease crackles through an otherwise familiar Wisconsin Northwoods setting in Jill Stukenberg’s debut novel, News of the Air, winner of the Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press.

Book Review

Painting Beyond Walls by David Rhodes

By:

Guy Thorvaldsen

In his new novel, Painting Beyond Walls, David Rhodes returns to the hamlet of Words, Wisconsin, the setting of his two most recent novels, Driftless, and Jewelweed.

Book Review

Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth by Mrill Ingram

By:

Emily Park

In Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth, Mrill Ingram explores the forgotten spaces of both urban and rural landscapes, and finds grace in neglected pockets of human landscapes.