Name/Title
American DarlingContext
During the renovation of Forest Home branch in 2000, Wisconsin artist Peter Flanary was commissioned to create an installation for that occasion. Each item was something he found within a 5-block radius of Forest Home Library. The pieces (which included leaves, household items, auto parts, and more) were molded, then cast in bronze. The full work was split into four [six?] parts that were mounted around the Circulation Desk at Forest Home until staff prepared to move to Mitchell Street in 2017. At that time, Flanary took all parts of the piece and repurposed it into the one piece which was re-installed at Mitchell St.
From the artist statement for the original Forest Home Library installation, "American Darling (110 for Forest Home)" dated April 1999:
"TO COUNTER AMBIVALENCY TOWARD PLACE
My stance is this: Sculpture, like architecture in that it occupies real space, relates directly to our bodies and to the environment. It can depict, but more importantly it must engage the body. This point of engagement is both physical and conceptual, and is at the heart of my body of work. The idea of community is predicated upon complex and interactive relationships of person to person, and of person to place. Sculpture as part of this dialogue can work to counter ambivalency towards place, as it is, in it's [sic] essence, a physical and expressive mediation in form to person and place. Whether my work originates through studio exploration, or by public commission, it's [sic] mission is intrinsically communitarian in this sense.
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK: The various components are intrinsically linked to locale. My premise was to find all of the elements within a five block radius of the library.
The parts are molded, then cast in bronze. The castings are assembled in my studio, and mounted into the grid-like steel structure. The structure is then mounted to surround the circulation desk. The glass blocks, and the overall structure of the sculpture formally link sculpture and architecture.
Drawn from the physical environment, the sculpture is specifically located in place and time. The elements are various, and in many cases surprising. They range from children's toys and masks, to auto parts, to what I believe are parts of a horse bridle (found in an excavation). I walked the streets in the fall of 1999 finding objects and making casts of utility covers, fire hydrants (the American Darling of the title), and sidewalk markings. A craft tradition of marking sidewalks by the maker is seen throughout Milwaukee, and I have included one signed "F.Brzezinski, 1910." Many casts were made from leaves in reference and homage to the name 'Forest Home.'"
There are 110 cast elements."
From artist information for the original Forest Home Library installation (2000):
"The lattices across the wide window expanses at the library incorporate brass casts of objects Flanary found around the Forest Home neighborhood. Things like a gas company pipeline cover, paint brushes, children's toys, leather straps and buckles and things from nature like leaves and dried flowers become part of the lattice 'slats' that weave across the glass panels.
Flanary spent fall days scouring the streets and walks. As well as casts of found objects, he also took on-the-spot castings of sidewalk graffiti and what he calls 'Milwaukee craft signatures,' those sidewalk cement markings that show the date a particular piece of sidewalk was laid. One resident was concerned that Flanary had come to remove one of the last remaining inset metal plates that used to mark the year a walk was laid. Flanary quickly assured him he was only tak[ing] a plaster mold to be later cast in metal and incorporated into the finished lattice.
One of his most interesting finds was at a house demolition site, where he unearthed old metal rings and pieces from horse harnesses.
The mix of soft pieces from nature and found detris of a neighborhood have now become part of a piece of art that represents Forest Home Library, its history, its locale and its residents."Acquisition
Source (if not Accessioned)
Peter FlanaryMade/Created
Date made
2000 - 2017Notes
Remade in 2017 from a work created by the artist in 2000.