Mike Merg
I’m no art critic, but I know what I like, and I like dogs.
I like art as well, but my dog comes first. Her name is Angel, and she demands walks. The great thing about these constant walks is that while Angel stops to smell everything, it’s given me the opportunity to find all the art around the east end of Williamson Street. Over the last year, I’ve worked out what one might call an art crawl through my little corner of Madison.
We start at Evolution Arts Collective, 202 S. Dickinson St. This gallery and studio space has displayed the works of artists of all stripes. It’s open during shows, events, fundraisers, or if an artist working in the studio feels like turning on the open sign.
“We’ve had classically trained artists. We’ve had skateboard artists,” says Bijon Ronaghy, who co-owns Evolution with Kim Roberts.
They welcome Angel and me into the studio space, where Ronaghy shows me a hydraulic hoist — a massive hook on a track attached to the ceiling. It’s left over from the days when the building was used to construct satellites (part of the Hubble was built there). I asked if artists use it in any way. “They can if they want to,” says Ronaghy. “It holds 3,000 pounds. If you wanted, you could paint the bottom of your truck.”
From there, I follow Dewey Court onto Schley Pass and then to the 1300 block of East Wilson Street. The gardens of this stretch of Craftsman-style bungalows are populated by a notable amount of statuary: two giant ants fighting each other, a glowering creepy sun, a propped-up baby grand’s sounding board standing guard. Angel takes interest in a buddha, sniffing at its belly for enlightenment.
We pop back to Willy Street at Baldwin. A sign on the door of the charming Hatch Art House, 1248 Williamson, announces “Super Cool, Well-Behaved Dogs Welcome.” In we go. Hatch is a gallery and gift shop filled with prints, upcycled art, mixed-media pieces, handmade jewelry and other accessories, all made by Wisconsin artists. “It’s a good feeling knowing you’ve helped out an artist who may live down the street from you,” says owner Tammy Schreiter.
We head down another block to see what’s new at Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, 1101 Williamson. For over a decade, Mother Fool’s has offered its east wall up to local graffiti artists to display their skills. As of this writing, it features a cruel yellow face demanding “I WANT DUV,” which I’m sure means something. I choose to embrace the mystery. By the time this is published, the wall may display a different mural, as new work goes up every month or two.
The inside of Mother Fool’s is an art gallery too, but being that I’m with a dog, we can only peek through the plate glass to see what it has to offer. We then move on to Jenifer Street and turn left back towards home.
Mike Merg
Behind the Weary Traveler on the corner of Willy and Few is the most unexpected art display in town. Sixteen paintings by a variety of artists are screwed onto the railing leading to the second-story apartments. They’ve been up there for a couple of years, and they look great, despite exposure to all the weather that Wisconsin has to offer.
According to bartender Evan Query, the paintings were discovered by Weary owner Chris Berge, who salvaged them from someone’s trash and screwed them to the stairs. This slash of art brings a bit of magic and amusement into what was once just another dull back lot. Art should be applied this way more often — as something that jolts us awake so that we might see the world better.
This jolt is not always a positive thing. Take, for instance, the mural on the side of the Willy Street Co-op, 1221 Williamson. It’s entitled “Utopia,” but you may know it as “Two Topless Teenage Twins Twined Together.” To complain about it, though, is to fall into the old artist’s trap: Criticize and “you can’t handle the female form.” I don’t object to the nudity here; I object to the execution. The whole thing fails at being profound, and ends up being awkward for everyone involved.
I avoid the whole thing by crossing Willy Street. Down a block, Angel stops to smell something important. Maybe a crumb from a Lazy Jane’s scone — or maybe a bone, since we are outside Great Plains Paleontology, 1334 Willy. Believe it or not, owner Craig Pfister is a dinosaur bone dealer. He excavates, cleans and sells dino fossils (though the store has no regular open hours, you can look at bones by appointment; call 608-294-9386). While Angel continues to explore, my eyes drift down and I notice five dinosaur-shaped cookie cutters embedded in the cement next to the building.
Earlier at Evolution Arts, Ronaghy told me that “Art is whatever you call art.” Here are manmade dinosaur fossils. It’s simple. It’s funny. A child could get that joke, and discovering it makes me excited as a child; I know that whenever I walk past here, my eyes will glance down to discover it all over again. I think I’ll call it art.