Winter Where Winter Works: Art of Solitude and Contemplation
The sun slowly dips toward the horizon and the days shorten. Indian Summer gives way to breezy, brisk days anticipating what will be another long cold winter for folks in the Upper Midwest. The hardy stock from the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin will prepare for the event by preserving food and slowing down in a manner not dissimilar from the regional fauna that sinks into hibernation. That Winter journey begins with a bracing defiance that knows that solitude, restraint, and preparation will be the best strategies for the hope of future fruits. The art world in the North manifests this spirit in a particularly wonderful and idiosyncratic manner. Winter Where Winter Works: Art of Solitude and Contemplation showcases art that reflects the spirit of that specific type of winter labor. Jason Vaughn’s ghostly deer stands function as both a vision of and a metaphor for, isolation and focus. Danielle Winger’s paintings capture the creaky quiet of winter across the “dark fields of the Republic” as Nick Carraway reflected in Gatsby. Her paintings freeze the haunting solitude of those fields in place. Leif Larson’s snow globe installation in the Vitrine will place the viewer into a similar space as they admire his playful and colorful painting. It was once remarked that the culture around ice fishing might be the greatest performance artform the Northern Midwest ever created, and the work in the Closet will take viewers into the depths of that bizarre ecosystem as it springs to life every year on Lake Winnebago. Saint Kate’s artist-in-residence Megan Woodard Johnson, for her part, considers the potential that the chilly interlude might bring to the act of creativity in a series of works about how private creativity pushes up against social interconnectedness.
Under the Ice
Directed by Michael Sternoff
Written by Beth Bennett and Michael Sternoff
Single-channel HD Video
Running time: 29 minutes
There may be no form of performant art more reflective of Wisconsin’s winter culture than ice fishing. On its face, it seems like a straightforward enough act. Fishing is a practical pursuit, so ice fishing seems fairly unremarkable. But in fact, the culture that has developed around ice fishing is like nothing you’ve seen from a rowboat in July. Rituals, characters, lore, and even basic urban planning have evolved around the sport. Filmmakers Beth Bennett and Michael Sternoff explore this bizarre and fascinating world as it takes over Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin during sturgeon spear fishing season.
The heroes of the story are a certain brand of patient, focused, solitary, and persistent hunters. A type of folk Wisconsin knows well. Their weapons are chainsaws, augers, pickup trucks, snowmobiles, ice shanties, Leinenkugel’s, and spears that Poseidon himself would envy. All activated in the pursuit of an elusive and ancient deep-water serpent called the Lake Sturgeon.
