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Road Trip: Outsider art teaches valuable lessons

Mary Bergin  —  5/13/2008 11:44 am

HOLLANDALE -- Nick Engelbert was a dairy farmer and self-taught artist who created his own sculptures out of concrete and found objects -- and his work has led to an artistic education for some Wisconsin elementary school students.

For 30 years, Engelbert lovingly and obsessively created concrete sculptures of elves, peacocks and other creatures throughout his yard and home. All are embellished with stones, shells, colorful glass bits and throwaway materials. His former homestead, called Grandview, is named for the peaceful and pretty surrounding landscape.

Friday's Great Grandview Parade is a nine-year tradition in the small Iowa County town of Hollandale, about 40 miles southwest of Madison. For the event, about 235 children trek one mile uphill from school to Grandview. They bring personal treasures -- and the stories that travel with them -- to the unusual art environment on Wisconsin 39, between New Glarus and Mineral Point.

There, the children give up their material goods and cement the memories, just like Engelbert did. This month they will add personal items to a wall of a storage shed, built on Grandview in 2001.

No one knows if the adornments Engelbert used are simply scraps of trash or more. Look closely, and one can occasionally see something more personal than broken bottles, lightning rod insulators and shards of unidentifiable origin.

Are remnants of porcelain figurines, for example, in the mix on purpose or by accident? That's where the exercise for children comes in.

"They leave a piece of their own history, their own time capsule," embedded in wet cement, said Marilyn Rolfsmeyer, a K-12 art teacher in the Argyle School District. "They each bring one thing to immortalize" their lives.

"When you are old and gray, what would you want others to see as a reminder of you?" she asks her students. "You'd be surprised by what they bring, and the stories."

It could be a piece of grandma's jewelry, or a cherished little toy. Marilyn's own contribution was a baby spoon, one that fed all three of her children.

She advises her students to "Think like Nick." The artist-farmer died in 1962.

Nick's Grandview was inspired by his visit to the garish but glistening Dickeyville Grotto -- an art environment of similar spirit at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, 50 miles southwest of Hollandale.

Both Grandview and the Dickeyville Grotto are manmade shrines of self-expression, produced by people with no formal art training. Wisconsin is a global leader in the identification and preservation of such projects, also known as outsider art.

Curators, art historians and others will make presentations at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Grandview, the first such gathering since the site's grand opening to the public in 1997.

For more about Grandview, visit www.nicksgrandview.com, or call 967-2151. Grounds are open until dark daily. The house/museum is open by appointment and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

More outsider art

* Opening this month at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, is "American Masterpieces," a new exhibit about art environments -- like Nick's Grandview -- in the art center's collection. The show is in place until the end of 2008. For more: www.jmkac.org, 920-458-6144. The art center is at 608 New York Ave.

* To plan a tour of outsider art on your own, go to www.kohlerfoundation.org, where eight art environments are described. For questions: 920-458-1972.

* The Dickeyville Grotto is not a part of the Kohler preservation sites; the owner is the Catholic Church. For more: www.dickeyvillegrotto.com, 608-568-3119. The grotto is at 305 W. Main St., Dickeyville.

* A similar outsider art celebration to the Great Grandview Parade will occur at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Painted Forest, an art environment created by drifter Ernest Hupeden in Valton, 40 miles northwest of Baraboo. This get-together includes an art activity for families. Admission is free; contact Amy Ruffo at 920-458-6144 with questions.

* Other related events will take place June 7 at Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park, Phillips; June 15 at Herman Rusch's Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden, Cochrane; June 22 at James Tellen's Woodland Sculpture Garden, Sheboygan; and July 12 at Albert Zahn's Birds Park, Baileys Harbor.

* A June 25-26 field trip about outsider art, available for continuing education credit through UW-Platteville and Edgewood College, also can be audited through the Pecatonica Educational Charitable Foundation, which owns and maintains Grandview. The audit cost is $65, which includes transportation, admission to six art environments, presentations and one night of lodging in La Crosse. The group will visit Grandview, the Painted Forest, Dickeyville Grotto (Grant County), Dr. Evermor's Art Park (Sauk County), Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden (Buffalo County) and Paul and Matilda Wegner Grotto (Monroe County).

* The foundation also presents the annual Grandview Academy, three- to six-hour art classes, throughout June. The registration fee is a steal, a mere $2 per class, including materials. The schedule begins with Native American weaving on June 10. Other topics include concrete steppingstones, garden markers, rug braiding and scarf dying.

Mary Bergin  —  5/13/2008 11:44 am