I'm back; I have been very busy, but will be able to update more consistently now, I hope.
As I was walking through the thick woods at Los Trancos Regional Park, I had a sudden flashback to a rather spooky house I had visited many years ago as a young adult (not that I am exactly ancient now!). I must have been in my late teens/early twenties when my then-boyfriend convinced me to make a trip to the "Witch of Fox Point's House" one Halloween. I had visited the house before with my father, and had noted it's eccentric sculputres, but did not immediately link this to the "witch" story. Perhaps a bit more explanation is needed before I continue my story.
The wealthy suburbs of Milwaukee are comprised of rather pretentious, but well landscaped mansion blocks of houses. Well-groomed people walk well-groomed pets, and overdressed children play frantically, if less than enthusiastically, under the watchful eyes of their trophy-wife mothers. There is a certain artificial charm to these suburbs, but, one feels, also a dreary sameness and conformity to an ideal of what should be the life of the wealthy, rather than what is. I often wondered what went on behind the closed doors; when a nonconformist, but well-bred person such as myself encountered such people, I often sensed a certain emptiness and deep depression. People would often strike out at me socially through the dreaded "shunning"; I was present, but didn't exist. I often wondered what frightened these noveau riche families into complacent conformity. In one of these neighborhoods on Lake Michigan (Sheboygan) one non-conformist DID live out her life, but in quiet seclusion and aparent contentment.
My boyfriend at the time was from one of the up-and-coming families from that area; not quite rich, but definately upper-middle class. Like many people in the area, he was materialistic, lived largely, and rather narrowly focused on how to acquire "more stuff." One of his favorite activities was to drive through Sheboygan and gawk at the mega-houses on Lake Drive. He also knew people who lived there, and on this particular Halloween night, decided to use this acquaintanceship to get close to the Witch of Fox Point's house. The police patrol the area rather stringently (don't want the "wrong" folks around), but mercifully did not see us. His friend, as it turned out, had moved out of the area.
The house is set back from the road and surrounded by a tall hurricane fence. It is well shaded by large droopy trees, and has its own piece of Lake Michigan shore. There are masses and masses of rather groteque, but strangely compelling, sculptures dotting the yard. Human faces grin and animalistic forms rise up out of the landscape in startling ways. At night, these concrete humanoid statues appear to glow in the moonlight, no doubt adding to the "witches" legend. There is one larger-than-life grinning face atop a small torso that is really quite arresting; there is also a grinning dinosaur (for lack of a better description) rearing up fiercely. The sculptures complement the landscape in an odd sort of way; to move them off the property, as some art-haters have suggested (see commentary below), would cause them to lose some of their charm.
Well, my boyfriend began to tell the tale of the "Witch of Fox Point" as he had heard it from his friends. The old lady who lived in seclusion on the property had been a debutante from a rich lawyer's family, and had married the love of her life; in due time, she had also had a child by him as well. One clear moonlit night, the husband and his small child had decided to go out on Lake Michigan in a small boat for a cruise. No one knows what happened next, but the husband and child never returned. Some speculated that he had left his wife, others speculated that they had drowned. The woman slowly but steadily went mad and began making the sculptures of children to replace the one that she had lost. She was also said to wait in the moonlight on the beach for her lost husband and child to come home.
As my friend told his story, we cautiously peeked through the fence from the car. Disembodied faces of concrete leered back at us, and the sound of Lake Michigan's gentle waves echoed through the landscape. I felt, at the time, a great nostalgia for something indefinable. The feeling did not leave me for a long time, even after we drove away. I dearly wanted to meet the old woman, and hear her story from her own lips. I never got the chance.
Mary Nohl's story isn't nearly as romantic as it was told to me, but it is a remarkable one in it's own right. Ms. Nohl studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago, but chose to create her sculptures in a whimsical folk style. She never married; I like to think that the scultpures were her children. She taught art for several years, and then, with a comfortable inheritence, settled into the beach house in Fox Point. By all accounts, she lived frugally and quietly. An interview with her in the late seventies reveals a fiery and independent spirit, and a woman much amused by her "witch" reputation. "Vandals and hooligans" often played vicious pranks, such as setting small fires and stealing her sculptures. At one point, Ms. Nohl spelled out the word "BOO" with pebbles in concrete on her doorstep. She also chained down the sculptures. She passed away in December of 2002, and left the house to a non-profit group, as well as over 11 million dollars to charities and art funds (all of this information can be accessed through the sites below).
Now, the house is on the endangered Historical Landmarks list; a certain group of residents do not care to have their pseudo-gated community mentality disturbed by commoners (or, heaven-forbid, artists!). It will be interesting to see how the brewing "war" plays out. I sincerely hope that someone out there steps up and defends the estate and work of this remarkable artist. It kills me to think that her house might be moved, or even razed. Thinking members of the community will appreciate the acknowledgement of their beautiful piece of lakeshore; fortunately, the majority of the residents do recognize the value of having a unique piece of architecture in their neighborhood.
A good link to other links on Mary Nohl is:
nesaddictions.com/nohl01.htm
Photos of the house:
http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/wisc/nohl/nohl1.htm
http://www.agilitynut.com/h/nohl.html
The museum "war":
http://www.knowledgeplex.org/news/76054.html?p=1
http://www.kohlerfoundation.org/new_NohlSite.html
Fox Point is not in Sheboygan. It is a suburb of Milwaukee.
ReplyDeleteYou description of people from "the wealthy suburbs" is based on ignorance. There are mansions in Fox Point, mostly on Lake Drive and Beach Drive. However, if you had bothered to turn off Lake Drive and into the regular streets of Fox Point, you would have seen tri-levels, simple colonials, and tiny ranchers, where all kinds of people live and have lived. Factory workers, brewery workers, teachers, salesman. Regular people.
There is nothing "noveau riche" about the people of Fox Point. The wealthy people are mostly so-called "old money," and the rest are working people. I grew up in Fox Point, and my dad worked in the mall at Sears. My mother was a teacher's aid in a public school.
This post is clearly meant to showcase your superiority to the people of Fox Point--they're so empty and depressed!--but the finger you're pointing is turning around right back into your face. You're defining people by the neighborhood in which they live, and making all kinds of rude, immature, sweeping generalizations. This would not be appropriate if leveled at those who live in the inner city or in rural areas, and it was not appropriate here. Extremely insulting.
I stand by what I said. At the time (mid-nineties), there were quite a few old money AND noveau riche neighborhoods, and the arguement over what to do with the house was their arguement. They flat out said they didn't want the "wrong sort" coming to visit Ms. Nohl's house, and went so far as to suggest it should be torn down or destroyed as an eyesore (even though it was kept in relatively good repair...for an old lady). They then began harassing the resident artists, who were invited by her foundation to stay in her old house and work, by citing tax and residential zoning laws that had never been enforced before (or probably since). Cronyism at its best.
ReplyDeleteOf course, a few block away, there was a poor, and mostly black, section of town. There were also regular middle class neighborhoods; it is not of those regular, hard-working people I am speaking, however. I did sometimes feel unwelcome when driving my rusted-out Toyota Corolla through the streets...too many staring policemen!
I used Sheboygan merely as a reference point for those not from the area. Wisconsin is not exactly the center of the universe as far as the rest of the country is concerned!
If I told you I was from California originally (which I am), I bet certain prejudices and ideas would pop into your head! I lived with the stereotypes, class division, and prejudice for the 12 years that I lived in Wisconsin. I was reprimanded by my middle school in Waukesha, for example, for talking to a group of Hispanic students and befriending an African American student in my honors classes. It was tactfully suggested I try to integrate into the white upper middle-class cliques and ignore any student of color at the school if I wanted to succeed. I tried it for awhile, but I felt smothered by all the social restrictions; this is the emptiness of which I speak in certain parts of Fox Point.
I graduated with a 3.98,btw, so clearly the school was full of shit about who I should and shouldn't associate with (the African American boyfriend didn't go over well either, even though he got a full scholarship to a prestigious college).
Though California certainly has many, many faults, at least we all (generally) get along relatively well without firing off racial slurs and erecting artificial barriers. A man should be judged by his character, not by his background, to paraphrase MLK Jr. Although there are still pockets of racial and social tension, there are not really any boundaries for those who have the brains and character to succeed.
I am sorry that you took my comments as an insult; none was intended. Generalizations are just that, generalizations, and should not be taken as true for all; I was merely playing social anthropologist. This was a journal entry from over four years ago (see the date of the entry), so I am a bit surprised that you found it!
There's a feature film on the Fox Point Witch's House currently in production! Check out the Facebook page for more information...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/PilgrimageToTheWitchsHouse