CACHE IS NOT AT THE ABOVE COORDINATES It is at N44°AB.CDE W88°FG.HIJ
Inspired by recent conversations with some of my artist friends, I decided to explore the valley a bit and share with you some of the places where each of them have left an impact on the physical and metaphysical landscape of the Valley. The Artisans of Appleton series will reveal to you just how much our cherished Fox Valley artists have contributed to the arts and culture of this place. It should make you proud call the Valley your home.
Rob Neilson, the Frederick R. Layton Professor of Art at Lawrence University, has been teaching sculpture in the Valley for a decade and a half, but until last year, had a relatively small visual footprint in the community. Manholes of Compassion, which you may be familiar with, is one such existing but low-key public art series Rob did with his sculpture class in 2011 and you will be introduced to another when you complete this cache.
2017 was a turning point, however, and presented public art opportunities that hit him like a tidal wave. Aside from doing a slew of solo exhibitions in the Fox Valley, Ripon and Milwaukee (to name a few), Neilson was also selected to produce three monumental installations of Public Art for the new exhibition center. Neilson’s You Are Here, We Are Here and Community Caryatids, are prominently placed works that can be seen a number of vantage points outside the glass box Expo Center and should be viewed up close and personal by venturing inside.
You Are Here, features a cutout of the state of Wisconsin from notepaper with a giant red pushpin inserted where the Fox Cities would be on the map. Its compliment, We Are Here, features a series of 10 oversized portraits of community members. In fact, it's quite possible that some of you are "Part of the Art" as Rob's desire to provide an artistic connection between the Expo Center, the people and communities who built it and the visitors who it will come to serve, manifested in the 10,000 headshots of citizens from throughout the Fox Cities that make up the 10 portriats. Rob was challenged to select the final 10 portraits and as I understand it, Rob's wife would look at his 'final' selection and say something like "but every guy in that mix has a full beard" and Rob would have to start over. I think he did OK in the end, though the final composition still has mostly bearded fellows but a good bespectacled balance of J people with glasses and only A with headgear.
"The project really was me in the community, talking with people, meeting with people, people collaborating with us, telling us how happy they were. That was meaningful in a way I wasn’t prepared for and it was a great surprise." Neilson said the photography project is one that will stay with him forever. "I go through those photos and I know these are my neighbors, my friends, people I work with, people I’ve met, people I interacted with. I don’t know how many opportunities we get to experience that kind of thing in our lives. But I’m fortunate to have had that opportunity and I will never forget that.”
The center’s third project came at the request of Miron Construction, the building’s general contractor, who wanted to also recognize the communities involved with its construction, and asked Neilson for ideas, “I just stood up and said what it was on top of my head. You need columns, you need pillars, something that is holding this place up, figuratively and literally.” The finished product is a series of 10, I -colored I-beams.
This triple indoor installation opportunity is not the norm for Neilson who often submits proposals for singular outdoor public art projects. If fact Rob has numerous pieces of Public Art and is particularly favored by the Long Beach arts commission. In creating public sculpture I strive to bring an understanding of place that I hope will enliven the environment and encourage user interaction. I want the work to be understanding of, respectful to, and appreciative (yet demanding) of those who encounter it. Take a street view tour and you'll see just what Rob means. Bus Riders Monument, a nod to kids coming home from the library, shows a figure carrying of stack of C books about to mount Fsteps to get into the bus while Playing Chase is another playful representation of children chasing each other, the girls of which have H pigtails. "Art can and should tell us something about our values, tastes, our priorities, and how we view our communities and ourselves."
About Place, About Face is a perfect example of Rob's art reflecting the community. Created from oversized cast iron recreations of 5G actual resident faces, this massive installation graces multiple train terminal shelters overlooking the daily commutes of untold thousands traveling on the Long Beach Transit line. "To engage the viewer on a daily basis, I try to create public art that is user-friendly but that simultaneously has the ability to carry sustainable meaning on multiple levels. I attempt to engage the viewer through my choice of imagery and the sometimes fantastic or slightly humorous manner in which that imagery is realized." You can see this humorous and often whimsical take in Neilson's Unboundedness, a playful sculpture with magnetic attraction emanating from its B poles and in Learning Curve, a spherical form consisting of a multi-colored string of characters, D of which are white, and E are numbers 'au natural'.
The correct solve will take you to the final, another work by Neilson that is often overlooked, though you may have seen it at times in your caching career.