Bad debt is good business!

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The first thing I notice about the nondescript two-story brick building is the sign. Or, to be more precise, the wrong sign. I’m looking for Professional Placement Services (PPS). I check the address again. I’m at the corner of 12^th and Mount Vernon and number on the building matches. But I see only “Signarama” in bright red lettering. I wonder how much privacy a collection agency needs.

After confirming that I’m in the correct building the second thing I notice are the locks on the doors. In the main lobby I press the call button, identify myself and hear the familiar click of a lock disengaging. On the second floor I find myself in a glass cage confronted by another locked door and another call button. This time when I push it there is no answer. Immediately beyond the glass cage is a vacant reception desk. I tap on the glass, gingerly. To the concern for privacy add security.

The next thing I notice contradicts everything I’ve been seeing. Before long I am admitted and introduced to Craig, co-owner, with his wife Irina, of PPS. Craig’s face lights up with a genuineness that is disarming. His bright smile and warm greeting dispel the cloak and dagger aura evoked by the anonymous, locked-down facility.

Irina and Craig

PPS is a successful and growing business with 40 employees and 180 clients. “We’re experts in collection,” Craig says. “Our clients want to outsource collection activities to the experts.” Their clients include local and national retailers, banks, health care companies and various levels of government. And, yes, I’m told fervently, security is one of the primary concerns. The locked doors—and the surveillance cameras I hadn’t even noticed—are intended to protect the privacy of client businesses and debt-laden consumers alike.

I confess ignorance about the business of collection. Craig, who hears this all the time, is energized. The company makes 35,000 calls a day, he tells me. “We want to help people get out of debt. Our big message is, ‘Communicate with us’.” Clearly relishing the subject, he elaborates, “Some people have an image of us as the collector at the door with a baseball bat. We work hard to change that.” Their primary goal, he says, is to enable people to manage their finances. In a soft, compassionate tone he suggests, “Everyone goes through times that are tough. We want to understand the situation and work with them.”

Debt collection, says Craig, is important to the economy and the local community. “It's the backbone of a credit-based economy. The money we collect helps keep businesses operating, helps owners make payroll and provide benefits, helps to keep people employed. It also helps government avoid tax increases.”

When I ask why they located their business in the Menomonee Valley I am graced with another of Craig’s ingenuous smiles. He and Irina moved the company from the Third Ward to the Valley in 2008. He ticks off the advantages of the new location: its central location, proximity to bus lines, available parking, nearby eateries for lunch. “The Menomonee Valley is a great place for a company like us to start and grow.” In fact, PPS has tripled in size since its move to the Valley and could add 50-100 new employees in the next couple years, he declares confidently.

The Menomonee Valley is also in what is known in the collection industry as a Hub Zone. This is a federal designation that identifies places in need of revitalization. Being in the Valley qualifies PPS to offer its services to the federal government, a distinct advantage. It is one of the reasons that Craig and Irina chose not only to locate here but also to invest in the Valley by purchasing the property with expansion in mind.

Craig’s interest in the Valley goes beyond the material benefits to his business of the location, however. The disparity of our personal experiences begins to resolve into greater harmony as he asserts, “The whole story of the Valley is great. It went from swampland to the manufacturing age and now it’s turning another corner. You can see new businesses…and you see trout and salmon. There are fishermen in the river. Just a few short years ago you wouldn’t have seen that.”

I meet Irina, who is a brisk and businesslike foil to Craig’s gregariousness. “I’m the boss,” she says right off. I glance towards Craig. “He knows I’m the boss,” she adds with a smile. They have an infectious natural affinity as well as a mutual regard for their business. “We’ve been excited about the company for many years,” she says enthusiastically. Then Craig adds something I never expected to hear about a collection agency: “It’s a fun business!” I’m inclined to skepticism but Craig’s enthusiastic demeanor evaporates my doubt.

As I gather up my camera gear and head for the door Craig offers parting advice: “If you should ever get a call from us, talk to us!” He grins as he holds open the door for me.

Let me introduce a few of the PPS staff. Because privacy is in fact a genuine concern I am using only their first names.

Roberto, Account Representative

Ann, Account Representative

Dan, operations manager, with Craig

Jenaya, Account Representative

Josh, Account Representative

Jeff, Assistant Collection Manager

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

 

Light from lives lived: photography at the Jazz Gallery

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A young girl gazes intently at the camera, as if trying to dare the viewer to look away. Her T-shirt bears the photograph of another young girl, this one with a bright smile. Hand drawn in bold purple above the black and white image are the letters RIP. A smudge of purple runs across the shirt. The somber girl’s name is Alexis. The wall text quotes her saying, “This is a t-shirt in memory of my cousin, who was killed in a shooting."

courtesy Barbara Miner

Photographer and journalist Barbara Miner spent time with fifth graders at La Escuela Fratney where she posed the question, “What’s important to me?” The answers to that penetrating question stare out from a series of portraits. Some, like Alexis, have sobering stories to tell. Others, like Xavier, who proudly frames a subtle smile with his Mad Hot Ballroom dance shoes, are more cheerful. All present themselves with a potent intensity that I find profoundly moving.

Few subjects are as timeless and universal as the human condition. Miner is one of four Milwaukee photographers who narrow down that subject in a gem of an exhibit at the Jazz Gallery in Riverwest.

Despite being the middle of a holiday weekend the small gallery space was packed at the opening on Sunday. I’d like to think this testifies to the dedication of the Milwaukee art community. It may also indicate that these four veteran artists have devoted followers. I for one was familiar with all four and eager to see them brought together in one gallery. I was not disappointed.

The contributors weren’t asked to hold to a specific theme; nor were they all acquainted beforehand. But curator Mark Lawson clearly and insightfully saw coherence amongst them. They share an interest in the human family in general and the lives of individuals in our community in particular.

courtesy John Ruebartsch

Since 2009 John Ruebartsch has been documenting a wave of recent immigrants to Milwaukee. His sympathetic eye often catches them in domestic surroundings where they feel comfortable. Some of the portraits are posed, some appear candid, but all bear a sense of intimacy and companionship.

An exhibition of related work called “Here, There and Elsewhere: Refugee Families in Milwaukee” has traveled outside of Wisconsin as well as being shown in several local venues. However, the newly printed work at the Jazz Gallery has not been shown before.  

courtesy John Ruebartsch

I was struck in this one by the contrast between the colorful African clothing and the ordinary setting of a typically American kitchen.

Lois Bielefeld describes herself as a “conceptual photographer,” though she supplements her fine art practice with commercial and fashion photography. The work in this show is from her “Weeknight Dinners” series. If the work seems familiar it may be because Bielefeld was a recent Mary Nohl Fellowship award winner and selections from this series were displayed at Inova.

courtesy Lois Bielefeld

The series depicts individuals, couples and entire families eating dinner. To Bielefeld’s eye this common activity manages to appear simultaneously mundane and monumental. Details provide glimpses into private lives and suggest narratives that remain mysterious. In one composition more than the intervening living room space divides a couple. The man eats his dinner off a TV tray but a wall of pharmaceutical bottles obscures the food.

courtesy Lois Bielefeld

In another a man’s solitude is accentuated by the dark interior of his kitchen and also, curiously, by twin busts of president Kennedy that stand before him like sentinels as he sits before his simple fare staring into the gloom.

courtesy Paul Calhoun

In addition to his social justice oriented art practice, Paul Calhoun teaches at both MIAD and Mount Mary University. The work in this show travels more widely across Wisconsin than that of his colleagues. Travel is clearly not the point here, however. Each image packs an emotional punch. He takes us to a funeral for a veteran in Milwaukee and to the famous protests against Governor Walker in Madison.

courtesy Paul Calhoun

Most poignantly, to me at least, we see very young migrant laborers pausing from their work picking cucumbers on some undisclosed Wisconsin farm. Like children anywhere, they stand before the camera in a casually formal pose that is belied by their grimy faces and clothes. They hold each other’s hands. I am brought back abruptly to Barbara Miner’s question: What’s important to me?

courtesy Barbara Miner

Alejandro, according the the text panel next to this portrait, says, "My younger brother. We're best friends."

Light from lives lived runs through June 21. The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts is run by the Riverwest Artist’s Association. It’s located at 926 East Center Street. 

An installation shot of a portion of Miner's display.

Portraits of Cyclists: Biking to Work

 

“Do you know each other?” I asked after taking this shot of Bernadette and Jim on the Hank Aaron State Trail. No, they assured me cheerfully. She was traveling west to her job at Melk Music in West Allis. He was on his way downtown to MATC where he taught mechanical design. The chance encounter came about because they’d both stopped for coffee and a bite of pastry at the commuter station set up next to the Trail for Bike to Work Week.

I’d been asking people who were biking to work if they would mind being part of my effort to document the weeklong event. While only a single person shyly declined my request, Bernadette and Jim were the two strangers who symbolized for me the remarkable collegiality amongst the cyclists. For two hours each morning the station buzzed with lively chatter about workplaces, distances traveled, cycling, and of course the (generally bad) weather.

There were regulars, like Kevin (above), who said that he rides 26 miles round trip at least four days a week. And others like Joel (below) who told me that he was “just getting back into” riding to work. In fact, the timing of the annual Bike to Work Week is meant to inspire people to drag their bicycles out of the garage, where they’ve been stored for the (brutal) winter.

 

Please go to Urban Wilderness for the rest of this story and photos.


This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Menomonee Valley Artist Residency: Taking a chance on 3 Bridges Park

As familiar as I am with Three Bridges Park I can still be surprised. This time it was neither something recently added to the unfinished landscape nor a flower newly sprouted, our recalcitrant spring being slow to unfold. No, I was surprised and delighted by a new perspective, a way of seeing what has been there all along.

The day was overcast but mild for a change. An unusual number of people were enjoying the park. An intermittent parade of individuals, couples and families cycled or strolled along the trail. Walking west from Mitchell Park the land rolled on ahead towards the 35^th St. Viaduct; the hills still brown and bare, only a hint of green softening their edges.

I imagined how beautiful it will be when the grasses and trees mature.

Just across the fenced park boundary a string of rail cars sat idle on the tracks. I briefly registered a frieze of colorful graffiti, then scanned the debris-strewn slope beyond. The tangle of twisted trees and brush was just beginning to bud. In summer it was a lush screen of vibrant greenery. Now the feral shrubbery hid none of the degradation exacted upon it by years of abuse and neglect. I turned away.

Please go to Urban Wilderness for the rest of this story and additional photos.


This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Nicaragua book now available on Magcloud

My latest book is a selection of photographs from several of my regular trips to Nicaragua.

Between 1999 and 2010 I made six trips to Nicaragua under the auspices of a non-profit organization called Bridges to Community. The mission of Bridges is to promote cross-cultural interaction through the process of living and working with local communities. Volunteers from the United States work with local people to build houses, dig wells, or create other types of infrastructure sorely needed in these communities, many of which have been devastated by hurricanes and earthquakes. Most of the images in the book are portraits of the beautiful, hard-working, and resilient Nicaraguan people - and I have a special fondness for the children!

The book can be previewed and ordered on Magcloud by clicking here.

Arnold Newman at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee

Jonas Salk, creator of the first polio vaccine, stands upright and stares with a steady gaze at the viewer. His figure takes up a small proportion of the right half of a composition that is dominated by the massive and enveloping concrete forms of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. A series of square architectural voids recede into deep space on the left. The formal qualities of the picture, with its stark geometries, harsh lighting, and evocative use of space, would make for an intriguing image no matter who the subject was.

It is an example of what makes Arnold Newman an exceptional portraitist. The photograph of Salk is part of an exhibit called "One World, One People" on view at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.

Credited with originating what has come to be known as environmental portraiture, Newman specialized in the placement of his subjects within settings that were both meaningful and carefully controlled.

"I didn't just want to make a photograph with some things in the background," Newman once said. "The surroundings had to add to the composition and the understanding of the person. No matter who the subject was, it had to be an interesting photograph. Just to simply do a portrait of a famous person doesn't mean a thing."

The Newman technique is clearly evident in the portrait of another famous personality, Leonard Bernstein. In the exhibition the image is printed with dark, moody tonalities and the precisely centered conductor seems to brood in the shadows of a slightly disarranged middle ground soon to be occupied by the orchestra. A seemingly enormous score in the foreground and the repetitious lines of white chairs for the chorus frame his pensive form. The stillness of the pose and the composition’s symmetry belie the passion that will soon explode onstage as it fills with the music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (as revealed in the exhibition wall text.) Only the slashing diagonal of the baton that cuts across the outspread score suggests the imminent transformation.

Curators sometimes debate the virtues and failings of text panels – do they provide needed background or distract from the pure experience of the image? Well conceived labeling does the former without succumbing to the latter. The texts that accompany these images add supplementary narratives that I found helpful in humanizing what occasionally feels like overly engineered formal structures. They were well worth the time spent reading them and provided new insights for me into Newman’s working methods.

While the environmental approach lends depth to portraiture, Newman’s attention to abstract formalism can seem a bit forced – and sometimes repetitive. Authors, philosophers and politicians often appear in similarly book-lined rooms, as with the portrait of Golda Meir.

On the other hand, I was especially taken with the few portraits that broke away from Newman’s traditional methods. Woody Allen, for example, is portrayed in a tightly cropped but casual pose, splayed across his bed where he does his writing. He seems to have been arrested at a moment of creative insight, glancing up at the interruption by the photographer. We learn from the text panel that Allen had allowed only 45 minutes between takes on a movie. But Newman managed to strike up a conversation about “taking advantage of unexpected situations and other creative problems” and the session went overtime.

Highly atypical was the fragmented visage of a sculptor named
Yaacov Agam, the image constructed from crudely shaped slivers of collaged photographic paper.

By far the most moving piece in the show, for me as well as others I spoke with, was probably the least posed. In the house made famous by her unparalleled and heartbreaking story, the father of Anne Frank leans against a bare wooden pillar. In the unbalanced and deeply shadowed interior, the silhouette and simple posture of Otto Frank reveals what I can only imagine is a tiny fraction of the weight that he was experiencing by being there.

Here is a prime example of a picture that is worth a thousand words. We read that both subject and photographer wept and that Frank’s wife finally urged Newman to stop photographing because he “was killing my husband.” Newman himself is quoted as saying, “It was the most emotional experience I ever had in my life.”

In a lecture about portraiture in association with the exhibit, Lisa Hostetler, curator of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum, described Newman’s importance as one of the “triumvirate” of great mid 20th-century portraitists (the others being Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.)

At 39 prints this is not a major retrospective. But whether you are unfamiliar with his name or a long-time fan of Arnold Newman, as I am, this delightful show has something to offer.

For a medium in which monumentality has come to such prominence lately, it is also refreshing to see that modestly scaled black and white silver-gelatin images still can retain expressive power.

"One World, One people: Jewish Photographic Portraits by Arnold Newman" will be on display at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, 1360 N. Prospect Ave., through March 30.

This review first appeared in Art City.
 
Image credits, from top: portrait of Leonard Bernstein, 1968; portrait of Golda Meir, Jerusalem, Israel, 1970; portrait of Woody Allen, 1996; portrait of Otto Frank, 1960; all images courtesy the Jewish Museum Milwaukee and the Arnold Newman estate.

Photography illuminates an Urban Eden in Milwaukee

Pete appeared suddenly, seeming to materialize from nowhere. Perhaps from the street itself, which is where he calls home. He approached the wall cautiously, hesitant. His own face gazed back at him, enormous, calm, composed. Softly, he said, “I can’t believe this is happening.” In the deep shade under the brim of his cap his tired eyes glistened, first with pride, then tears. He repeated, his voice barely audible, “I can’t believe…, this is me.” After a long pause he added, “I’ve been on the streets for….” His thought trailed off, leaving me to wonder how long. He sat on a board that edged one of the planting beds in the community garden. He sat for a long while in silence, watching as the crew of volunteers pasted up face after face alongside his.

When Pete finally got up to leave he reiterated his disbelief. Then he said he was going to go invite all his friends to come see it.

Urban Eden is a photographic mural project named after the community garden that it faces. It was created by Sally Kuzma and John Ruebartsch. Kuzma is an artist and ESL teacher at the International Learning Center (ILC), a program of Neighborhood House of Milwaukee. She acted as project director, seeking out participants and recording their stories. Ruebartsch, a professional photographer, made the portraits. 

The subjects of the portraits all have some relationship to the garden and its neighborhood, which is in one of the city's poorest zip codes. At Urban Eden refugees who attend the ILC grow and harvest food alongside people from two multicultural neighborhood parishes, St. Paul’s Lutheran and Central United Methodist. A group of environmentally active students from Marquette University were instrumental in establishing Urban Eden. Some of them are included in the mural.

That the mural is more than an art installation is almost too obvious to mention. Kuzma shared with me the following stories:

“During the mural installation yesterday, some profound things were happening:

An artist who came to see the mural approached me about renting rooms to ILC refugees; she owns a rooming house in the neighborhood and feels called spiritually to do this.

A Marquette student who had helped initiate the garden came to paste up posters but ended up spending most of her time playing with neighborhood children in the ILC playground.

People from the neighborhood are asking how they can be part of the garden, and learning that the colorful Somali Bantu women they see at the bus stop on 25th St. are coming to school here.

It's almost as if the mural is an incidental thing that is making visible the very real good will that is being generated in this place by a lot of different people. Marking the spot where human beings are being human.”

The project is also much more than a single installation. Urban Eden is part of an international effort “to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world.” That effort, called INSIDE OUT, was inspired by the work of JR, an internationally acclaimed artist and winner of the 2011 TED prize. (If you haven’t heard of TED, which awards $100,000 annually to people with ideas that can change the world, check it out: TED prize.)

The portraits that make up the Urban Eden mural, along with the stories, will be archived online with similar projects from around the world at INSIDE OUT: A Global Art Project. The mural is located on 26th St. between Wisconsin Ave. and Michigan St., behind the US Bank building, facing south.

This is not the first collaborative project for Kuzma and Ruebartsch. Here, There and Elsewhere: Refugee Families inMilwaukee, a photo-documentary that debuted at Walker's Point Center for the Arts last summer, is currently touring to several locations around the country.

Here Kuzma and Ruebartsch stand in front of a section of the completed mural. To see more images from the installation, go to my flickr page.

Diverse trio of shows at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Diana Parker, grade 12, Surreal

One of the three very different shows currently on display as you enter MMoCA from State Street is immediately visible through the glass wall on your left. Maybe it’s my years of experience in teaching, but I love seeing art made by young people and I’m always delighted when distinguished institutions like this one provide space and therefore support for children’s creativity. In a time of fiscal austerity (and, in my opinion, misguided priorities that demote the arts in education, if not eliminating them altogether) it is most important to proclaim artistic achievements in our schools. Young at Art opened March 20. It showcases the complete range – from kindergarten through grade 12 – students from the Madison Metropolitan School District. According to their website, “the exhibition is the result of a long-standing collaboration between MMoCA and the school district’s Fine Arts Department.” Long may it continue! The show runs through May 15.

Alfred Leslie, self-portrait

A small but delightful show drawn from the permanent collection is tucked away in the museum’s Henry Street Gallery. True Self: The Search for Identity in Modern and Contemporary Art “explores the ways artists have understood and conveyed the essence of the self—through facial expression, body language, dress, and the particulars of setting—in a selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs.” I rarely tire of this fundamental genre and this show includes a wide variety of approaches to portraiture as well as the variety of media listed.

“The notion of the “self,” the essential quality that makes a person distinct from all others, is a core theme in modern and contemporary art. Its primary formats are the portrait and self-portrait, which focus on the identity and psychology of the model. For the artist, the true self is fluid, not fixed; layered, not clearly evident. The true self is both innate and determined by experience and culture. Never consistent, it is often self-contradictory.” True Self runs until June.

Bale, variant no. 17

The featured exhibition, Menagerie by Shinique Smith, fills the vast, open spaces of the second floor gallery. Her output is remarkable, not only for her facility with diverse materials and methods, but for how well they all integrate into a unified ensemble. There are nearly fifty installations that include paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and videos. Many of the pieces are mixed media assemblages of found materials. Bundles of cast off clothing are made into totemic sculptures, inspired by donations commonly made to African countries. Much of the show is composed of site-specific installations that combine the organic forms of these bundles with painting on the gallery walls. Their impact cannot be transferred to images online or in a gallery brochure. The show’s flamboyant visual energy could be overwhelming in a smaller space. With a less deft combination of concept and technique the work’s vibrancy might also threaten to swerve into pure sensual fantasy. But it packs a hefty emotional punch as well. 


In one video the artist herself becomes the bundle. Her face is never revealed, her identity hidden within the folds of fabric, as she struggles with the cords that will leave her bound and mute. You have until May 8 to check this one out. I heartily recommend it.

Shinique Smith, from Menagerie

For more information go to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Seeing portraits at the Museum of Wisconsin Art

The woman slouched in the corner of the gallery would be odd enough, wearing the mask as she is. That she’s a sculpture and not a woman makes the effect even eerier. If I hadn’t already been familiar with Marc Sijan’s super-realistic sculptures, however, I might have been turned back even before getting into the gallery. An intimidatingly stern-faced policeman greets visitors at the door. One could easily decide that you’d come into the wrong place by mistake, until you pull your gaze away from his disturbingly motionless stare and glance around to see the rest of the main gallery at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend. Yes, OK: this is art.

To See Ourselves as Others See Us: Contemporary Wisconsin Portraits closes today, so if you haven’t already been there I’m sorry to be the one to tell you how great a show you missed. A dozen artists working in a variety of media—photography, painting, drawing, sculpture—have one thing in common: they train their creative energies on the study of individuals. I didn’t make there until yesterday, but I’m glad I got the chance. Of course, portraiture is a venerable genre in art, but I think it takes an unusual talent to make portraits that have an audience beyond the subjects themselves. With little else to tie them all together, the works in this show manage to cohere because they succeed so well at this. Such a small sampling of Wisconsin artists can hardly be considered comprehensive, but it’s a fascinating sample.

Besides Sijan, I found other familiar favorites, especially David Lentz and Katie Musolf - predictable choices, but always satisfying. I particularly liked the inclusion of Musolf's preparatory drawings along with her finished paintings. That was a highlight of the show for me. The others were less familiar but no less satisfying. Thank you, MWA!