Carolyn Fath
Marcia Yapp’s mural “Passing Through Time,” on the Southwest Commuter Bike Path.
Before the city of Madison began tearing apart Monroe Street, city planners knew they had to tackle the obvious elements of reconstruction: sidewalks, gutters, underground utilities. They needed to think about traffic signals for the busy thoroughfare, home to many local businesses, to make the area safer for pedestrians and bikers.
But as all this was underway, Karin Wolf and Ben Zellers, both with the Department of Planning and Development, were tasked with another component of the project: public art.
Wolf, Madison’s art administrator, says the city has had the goal of incorporating art into major reconstruction projects since the 1970s. “The community values art and wants a well-designed city,” Wolf says. “And public art is good for tourism, attracting talent and community health.”
Wolf and Zellers focused on two areas that could be redesigned to create more desirable public spaces. “We want to give people a reason to be there,” Zellers says. The first is the triangular-shaped “Crazylegs Plaza,” across from Camp Randall Stadium and bordered by Regent and Monroe Streets and Breese Terrace. The other area is the official entrance to Wingra Park near Commonwealth Avenue. Wolf and Zellers asked design teams to submit proposals with public art components to redesign those spaces.
Last year the city council passed an ordinance that requires the city, starting in 2020, to designate funds for public art in city capital projects that exceed $5 million. But until then, city planners have to be creative to keep art in the mix. “With new projects we think ‘what resources do we already have, and what opportunities do we have to fit art in within our budget?’” Wolf says.
One cost-effective project includes poetry; the construction crews are stamping 14 poems, including one by Fabu, a former Madison poet laureate, into Monroe Street’s new sidewalks. The city also offered design teams the opportunity to incorporate two pieces it already had the rights to into their design proposals — “Anchorlily” by artist William Turnbull and “Badger” by Harry Whitehorse.
Ken Saiki and Julia Schilling of Saiki Design, the landscape architecture design firm whose proposal was chosen by the city, included both sculptures in their design plans. Saiki and Schilling also brought on local mosaic artist Marcia Yapp to their design team. “You can put mosaics anywhere — on the walls, the ground — so she gave us flexibility in how her art would be incorporated,” says Saiki.
After several meetings with neighbors, city staff and business owners, Saiki says they identified priorities for each space, including a rain garden in the Crazylegs Plaza intended to collect runoff. Yapp also met with community members before coming up with custom designs for mosaic murals. For the Wingra Park mosaic, Yapp says neighbors didn’t want anything to block the view of the lake and they wanted something that was “subtle, warm and calming.”
On a morning in early October, Yapp is working feverishly on the Wingra Park mural in her basement workshop in her north side home; she wants to complete the piece in time for installation before the end of the month. Yapp works with smalti glass, hand-cut glass tiles that were originally developed for mosaics during the Byzantine era. The tiles, says Yapp, are challenging to work with but “look great from a distance, which is the best way to view mosaic.” The mosaic will be placed on a low wall next to Turnbull’s “Anchorlily,” and serve as a gateway to the park.
Yapp’s other mural, “Passing Through Time,” was installed in Crazylegs Plaza in time for the Monroe Street Festival on Sept. 22. Placed on a wall that winds along the Southwest Commuter Bike Path, Yapp says the mural represents the confluence of neighborhoods and also the idea of journey, as Monroe Street was once a Ho-Chunk trail.
Crazylegs Plaza will also be the future home of “Badger,” a bronze statue designed by Whitehorse before he passed away in November 2017. Whitehorse, a member of the Ho-Chunk Bear Clan, was an accomplished multimedia artist and longtime Monona resident. Deb Whitehorse, Harry’s wife, says the statue is a gift from her family. “Harry’s goal was to have people touch his art,” Deb says. “He wanted to have people, especially kids, interact with it.” The sculpture is currently being cast at Vanguard Sculpture in Milwaukee and is set to be installed in spring 2019.
Standing in Crazylegs Plaza after the mural dedication on Sept. 22, Saiki stood away from the gathering and admired Yapp’s mosaic. “It’s a tribute to the city of Madison that they put high value on public art,” Saiki says. “With big projects like these, the cost of art is insignificant, but the art is the thing that people will remember.”
