Paintings chronicle prairie restoration

The first wildflower of a new spring. The “blue hour,” when the sun has just begun to think about setting. Shimmering ice crystals crowning a snow bank. The welcoming wave of tall grass in the west wind of summer. The sullen expanse of a night sky.

The once-and-future world of a particular place in northwestern Jefferson County has been chronicled in a free public exhibition at the Arboretum Visitor Center. Eighteen oil paintings, representing more than two years’ work by Marshall artist Leslie DeMuth, tell the story of the re-emerging landscape on David Musolf and Roger Packard’s farm near Lake Mills. Their property is part of the Madison Audubon Society’s Faville Grove Sanctuary.

Musolf, UW–Madison secretary of the faculty, and Packard, Department of Chemical Engineering administrator, have been restoring the prairie, wetlands and savanna on the 175-acre farm since 1993. Musolf says the project began with a UW–Madison landscape architecture course in ecology restoration. Students came to the farm as a class project.
“Since then we’ve restored the plant communities to an approximation of their pre-settlement state,” he says.

However, artist DeMuth, who has been painting for 27 years and teaching art at Columbus Elementary School for 11, says the restorations are only a part of the property’s history — generations who farmed the land have a place in the exhibition too.

“In addition to the absolute beauty of the prairie, I included some of the old farm buildings that were still standing. As I read the landscape I could begin to see the lives of the people who had lived there before, even as I was enthralled by the transformation occurring on this land,” DeMuth says. “The paintings are my way of celebrating the beauty of the Wisconsin landscape, and the Arboretum is a perfect setting for this exhibition.”

Musolf also hopes visitors will gain an appreciation for the region’s natural heritage. “I hope people will come away with both a sense of what was there before, and also what can be there again,” he says.

“Restoration: A Vision for the Land” will be on display at the Arboretum Visitor Center through Tuesday, Feb. 26. A reception for the artist is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 13 from 1-4 p.m. For more information, contact the visitor center, (608) 263-7888.