UW Madison Arboretum
Original sketches drawn by UW-Madison physical plant director Albert Gallistel are in storage at the Arboretum. His original signs (right) are still in use.
Madison metal artist and sculptor Michael Burns, originally from the Kettle Moraine area, has at times drawn inspiration from the “intimate little hills” of that area. But for his work at the UW Arboretum — the large metal archways to Longenecker Gardens and the steel memorial benches — he looked to one of his predecessors for direction. No one, it appears, was more instrumental in setting the visual tone of the Arboretum than Albert F. Gallistel.
If Madisonians today know the name Gallistel, it’s largely due to his namesake Gallistel Woods, the section of forest northeast of the visitor’s center, once known as Camp Woods. But Gallistel was truly a Renaissance man, whose contributions to UW-Madison as its longtime physical plant director are enormous.
Gallistel studied art and architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago before coming to Madison in 1907 to help develop the campus. He was also heavily involved with planning the Arboretum. “His influence and contributions touched every aspect of Arboretum development, from the formation of Arboretum governance to the design of its stone walls, its CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] camp, its main road, and its restored prairies,” writes Franklin Court in Pioneers of Ecological Restoration The People and the Legacy of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
Gallistel laid out McCaffrey Drive, the winding central artery of the main parcel. But perhaps more crucial to the enduring look and feel of the place were his designs for the signs that still line the roadway and mark boundaries between ecological communities.
“We have two oversized sheets here of [original] drawings for metal sign designs,” says Arboretum communications coordinator Susan Day, whom we asked to dig up anything she could find on Gallistel. “Both are undated, and both say Gallistel as the designer.”
Michael Burns
Jeff Miller-UW Madison
Contemporary works by metal artist Michael Burns, including the Longenecker archways and memorial benches, draw on Gallistel’s Arts and Crafts style.
Burns notes that Gallistel borrowed from design elements commonly found in CCC work, which grew out of the Arts and Crafts movement. That style, still in vogue in the 1920s and ‘30s, rejected industrial design in favor of folk style and human craftsmanship.
Gallistel often worked with silhouettes; creating “an effective use of positive and negative space,” says Burns. Gallistel’s work “gave the place a lot of identity.”
Burns in turn played off some of those elements for his Longenecker archways and memorial benches. Like Gallistel’s signs, the arch motif is in silhouette — a big burr oak, dominating a forest of evergreens and native deciduous trees very much reminiscent of shapes used by Gallistel in his original signs. The benches use the same motif, “but with fewer holes, so you don’t fall through,” Burns observes with a smile.
When Burns first started doing work in the Arboretum, memorial benches were all different — it looked “confused,” says Burns. “There was not an overall bench philosophy.” He also felt uncomfortable that the wooden benches were often made with imported woods not appropriate for a plant community devoted to native plants.
Like Gallistel, Burns often flies under the radar at the Arb. His works, as large as they are, “are not identified very conspicuously,” says Burns. “I don’t really sign them, either.” But every so often he meets someone who says, “‘Oh, you were the guy who did that?’ Yeah, I’m the guy.”
This story is part of our Arboretum Issue. Read the rest of our Arb coverage.
