Discovering outsider art environments
Unique creations captivate visitors
Frank Kovac loves stars and the night sky so much that in the late 1990s he felt the need to try to replicate them, using paint, common building materials and an unrelenting passion.
After five years of hard work, Kovak completed the Kovac Planetarium on his property midway between Rhinelander and Crandon. The planetarium is a special piece of craftsmanship, scientific knowledge and engineering skill. It also is a unique piece of outsider art, and a prime example of an “artist-built environment.”
Created by artists who often take years to create large-scale bodies of work, these projects are designed to submerge visitors in all-consuming worlds. Wisconsin and other Upper Midwest states are a hotbed for such works, said Laura Bickford, curator of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and its Arts Preserve in Sheboygan.
Wisconsin and neighboring states historically teemed with farmers and loggers and other outdoor workers. Weather often slowed workloads, but not their internal drive to do and create. So they turned to art, and as people who didn’t have formal training, found unique ways to express themselves. Kovak chose building a planetarium. Others have created sculpture gardens, grottoes and more.
The Arts Preserve is devoted to preserving and promoting artist-built environments. Each is “a work of art that is one total art project, and shouldn’t be separated,” said Laura Bickford, the curator of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Arts Preserve. “It should be experienced together.”
Tourists from across the world visit some of the more famous sites, which include The House on the Rock near Spring Green, Dr. Evermor’s Sculpture Park near Baraboo and Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips.
But there are many artist-created sites in the state that are lesser known. Here are five of these hidden gems recommended by Bickford.
An immigrant couple’s inspiration in retirement led to Wegner Grotto
Paul and Matilda Wegner moved to the United States from Germany in 1885, settling in 1889 on a small farm near Cataract in Monroe County. The farm was run by a son when couple moved to nearby Bangor in 1916, where Paul owned and operated a Ford garage. When he retired, he and Matilda started living on the farm in the summers. From 1929 until 1936, they worked on the Wegner Grotto, or what locals call “the Glass Church.”
The gotto includes works made from concrete, decorated with shards of glass and broken pottery. The Wegners created a sculpture of the Bremen ocean liner, an American flag and a small chapel, or the Glass Church. The grotto is open for visitors from Memorial Day through Labor Day. For more information including driving directions, visit www.monroecountyhistory.org and click the Wegner Grotto link.
This farmer sprained his ankle (reportedly) and created Grandview
Nick Englebert started working on his first concrete sculptures in the 1930s, and eventually made more than 40 of them to create Grandview, located near Hollandale between New Glarus and Mineral Point. According to the Welcome to Grandview website, Englebert began his quest “reportedly while recovering from a sprained ankle.” Over the next 15 years he created more than 40 sculptures in his yard. When he wasn’t able to make sculptures anymore, he turned to painting at age 70 and produced 200 oils until his death in 1962.
Englebert created sculptures out of concrete inlaid with shards of chinaware, glass, beads, buttons and sea shells. He produced works that mixed patriotic themes, according to the Grandview website, with “imagery from history, fairy tales, mythology and his own imagination.” The grounds are open year round during daylight hours. For more information and directions, visit nicksgrandview.com.
He staved off boredom by conceiving the Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden and Museum
After retiring from farming, Herman Rusch transformed the Prairie River Moon Dance Pavilion south of Cochrane in the Mississippi River Valley. “Rusch filled the arched-roof building to the bursting point with natural phenomena, curios, unusual machines and personal mementos,” according to the
Kohler Foundation website. Then he started making gardens, planters and sculptures to give the grounds some pizzazz. Rusch told people that he embarked on the project so that he wouldn’t get bored.
Sculptures at Prairie River include a “Rocket to the Stars,” a Hindu temple, dinosaurs and a miniature mountain. Like other artists before him, he decorated the pieces with glass, pottery, seashells and shards of mirrors. The grounds are open year-round during daylight hours at S2727 Prairie Moon Road, Cochrane. The museum is open by appointment, call 608-687-8250. The site also has a Facebook page.
A traveling painter created The Painted Forest murals in Valton
In 1897, a German immigrant and painter named Ernest Hupeden arrived in the small town of Valton, about 15 miles south of Elroy. Organizers of the local unit of Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal society, were finishing up their meeting hall. In the spring of 1898, the group hired Hupeden to decorate a stage curtain in exchange for room and board, according to an Edgewood College website devoted to Hupeden and The Painted Forest.
The group was impressed with his work, and hired him to paint murals in the hall. Nearly two years later, in November of 1899, Hupeden’s work was complete, and nearly every surface of the hall had been covered.
The work encompasses depictions of Woodmen’s initiation rites, fraternal activities and visions of shared ideals. Edgewood College of Madison is the steward of the folk-art site, and holds workshops, lectures, seminars and artist residencies on the property. The site, E846 Painted Forest Dr., Wonewoc, is open from June 1 through Oct. 13 on weekends. Visit finearts.edgewood.edu/ painted-forest for more information.
Lifelong love of space inspired the Kovac Planetarium in Monico
Frank Kovac designed and built what he calls “the world’s largest mechanical globe planetarium” over the course of five years, from 1997 to 2002, including painstakingly painting about 5,000 stars using a small brush and glow-inthe-dark paint. The project was the culmination of a lifelong obsession with science, space and star-gazing. The result is a two-ton, 22-foot diameter globe that turns on tracks using motors and wiring.
Kovac offers programs about the stars and space in his creation; small groups sit inside the sphere as he talks about space and the stars. Located at 2392 Mud Creek Road, Monico, call Kovac at 715-490-6956 to reserve a spot for his programs. For more information, log on to frankkovacplanetarium.com.
Keith Uhlig is a regional features reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin based in Wausau. Contact him at 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett. Follow him at @UhligK on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram or on Facebook.