- The following program
is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
- Coming up on Wisconsin Life:
meet a restaurateur cooking up authentic Chinese noodles,
a coffin artist,
a couple of hatmakers,
an arcade game collector,
and an author bracing for the winter weather.
That's all ahead on Wisconsin Life.
? ?
- Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided by
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
Alliant Energy,
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
American Transmission Company,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
- Hi, I'm Angela Fitzgerald, and welcome to Wisconsin Life.
We're visiting the Folklore Village,
a place celebrating folk arts and culture
from around the world.
This 94-acre property in Dodgeville
sits on the edge of a restored tallgrass prairie
and houses a number of historic buildings.
The tours, classes, and events offered here
focus on celebrating and experiencing
ethnic and traditional folklife.
Visitors can try folk dancing in the red barn,
walk through the woods to a church built in 1882,
learn a lesson in a one-room schoolhouse,
or explore an authentic Norwegian cabin.
It's an interactive way to explore art and folklife
that's been a part of this community since the 1960s.
We'll explore more here later, but first,
let's meet a Wisconsinite keeping traditions alive.
We visit a restaurateur in Middleton
who is serving up
authentic Chinese noodles
that remind her of home.
? ?
[sizzling]
- There's a saying that, "If you want to try Chinese noodles,
you need to go to Shanxi province."
That's where Hong Gao is from.
- Taigu is her Shanxi noodle restaurant in Middleton.
- Her dream came true.
However, at the start, the restaurant wasn't a hit.
Following her customer's advice,
Hong decided to rename the restaurant.
- Hong's noodles today
are rooted deeply in these memories of home.
- Another secret of Hong's noodles
is mature vinegar.
- Her taste for nostalgia paid off.
[laughing]
- When not making noodles,
Hong enjoys painting.
Her art can be seen on the walls in her restaurant.
She donates the paintings to her daughter's high school
and other area non-profit organizations.
- Giving back helps Hong to connect with the city
she now calls home.
- It's the attachment to her grandmother's noodles
that has become a way for Hong to offer Middleton
a taste of her hometown.
- Thank you very much! - Yeah, you have a good day!
- Now, we travel to Madison
to meet a coffin artist
whose work honors those
who have passed.
[sawing friction]
[pounding nail in]
[planer scraping]
- The sounds of a carpenter.
[pencil scratches against wood]
Listen closer, and you hear a family legacy.
[scrape, scrape]
Eric Adjetey Anang is a third-generation craftsman,
and his art is to die for.
[rich laughter]
- Usually, first thing, they will be like,
"What are you building?"
So, I start by answering them.
"I'm building a coffin," and they'll be like, "Oh?"
- Eric's coffins are one
of Ghana's most unique cultural exports.
A business his grandfather started
when he merged carpentry and art.
- They were building the Kotoka International Airport in 1951.
So, it was during that time this old woman was like,
"Oh, I would love to travel in one of those planes."
But she never got to do it until she passed away
so he built her a coffin in the form of an airplane.
- That woman was Eric's grandmother.
[scrape, scrape]
As a little boy,
he remembers his curiosity around the family business.
- Growing up as a kid in the backyard of the house,
when you point, you know, the cemetery or the coffins,
we would have to bite our fingertips.
It was something very scary to us.
- Honoring his birthright,
Eric took up the tools of the trade.
In Ghana,
his design coffins
can sell for $500 to $1,000
and are steeped in a rich tradition.
- Eric Adjetey Anang: So, in Ghana, when somebody dies,
we have a period of three weeks to one month or more
for the ceremony.
- Sending loved ones out in style
is a fashionable way to celebrate life
and is growing in popularity.
- So, on Saturday,
when you have a crowd of between 500 to 2,000 people,
that is how the coffin becomes so important
because everybody wants to have a glimpse of it
and take a photo of it.
[speaking in a Ghanaian language]
- People would also start to ask,
"Oh, who did that?
"Who was the artist?
Where was that coffin built?"
So that is where we get our praises.
- Behind each design coffin, there's a story.
- The bumblebee also goes
with the story of the disappearance of bees.
The corncob was a piece I built during my five days' workshop
in Iowa State University.
- The coffins can also symbolize a hobby,
a favorite item,
or a person's importance to her community.
- A coffin of that shape would be made for a chief.
- The Chazen Museum of Art in Madison
is home to Eric's eagle coffin.
It's a design reserved for people of prominence.
- Anang: Something like the eagle we have behind us,
they are symbolic coffins: the eagle, the tiger,
this tool,
the chief's status.
When I see a piece like that,
I kind of want to see the inside.
Sometimes people look at it
and they will say, "Oh, this is not big enough.
This cannot contain the body."
But anytime I build a piece,
I build it to my size.
And the reason I do that is
I consider myself as an average human being.
- In 2018, Eric took on a project
at the Madison Public Library Bubbler.
[scrape, scrape]
In a creative space
where the smell of fresh-cut pine fills the air.
- That's knotty white pine.
I think it is the best wood I've ever used here.
- This time, his saw and hammer
are pounding out a dinosaur,
bringing awareness to endangered and extinct animals.
- It's easy for me but with this,
I always have to carry the model with me
and, you know,
be thinking of how I want the shape to look like
because sometimes you might get to a point
where you need to stop and think about it.
[exhales loudly]
[taps wood]
I'm also figuring out how slope it is here on the back.
[murmuring to himself] So four, two.
Think out this slopes.
But as soon as you get it, and it is flowing,
that is when you kind of work really fast.
- And if you're wondering,
Eric has already decided on the coffin design
for his journey into the afterlife.
- I do have my coffin already.
I have it in the shape of my wooden hand plane
that I keep with me all the time.
That's the plane I've been working with
for a very long time.
- Design coffins are
one of the most celebrated forms of African art
and he is fiercely proud of his grandfather's legacy.
- The reason I built the airplane was
that was how he started.
I would say the airplane was his first coffin
he built for the grandmom.
So, I sort of built it too.
This is really a dream to be here,
to share with people
the story of my family
and what we do.
I mean, that's what has made me who I am today.
[board clacks]
- I'm at the Folklore Village in Dodgeville,
learning about their work
and how this community resource came to be.
- The idea for the Folklore Village
began with one woman's love for art, dancing,
and bringing community together.
Today, a diverse array of cultural traditions
are being explored and celebrated at the village,
according to executive director Terri Van Orman.
- All kinds of wonderful things go on here
from folk dancing to singing to craft making.
We host special groups who come here.
They're usually musical groups or dancing groups.
Another thing is something started just three years ago
and it's-- we're calling it our folk school
where people sign up with a particular artist or instructor
to spend anywhere from half a day to several days,
and generally, they are focusing on
learning skills by making a thing.
I mean, it allows a lot of different types of expressions
and that's one thing I love about our mission.
- Another learning opportunity and ongoing project on-site
is the Norwegian Cabin Rebuild.
Originally constructed by hand in the 1840s,
and recently saved by the Folklore Village.
We did that and they took the building down
and they numbered every log
and they did a big schematic
about how to put it back together.
Mr. Nels Diller,
he wanted to do it because he had just retired
and he needed a project
and he would like to adopt this project.
- Since I finished my career as a carpenter,
I've doing Norwegian woodworking
and I like to explain that actually, I may be Swedish,
but I'm a born again Norwegian, I feel.
- Soon after, the work to rebuild the cabin began.
Volunteers and interns like Lauren Newby
had the opportunity to experience
using tools from another era.
- I would say my favorite part about this experience
is learning from Nels.
He's really has a lot of really amazing information,
both about what it means to work with wood,
the way he approaches life and building;
I feel like should not be lost in this generation.
And I think that's really surprising
to see how far we can take hand tools.
And to make something so large and so useful [laughs]
has been really, really amazing to see it come into fruition.
[sawing]
? ?
From restoration of this cabin to other interactive events,
it takes a village to keep these folk traditions
thriving in our state.
We're off to Green Bay
to find a collector
celebrating the nostalgia
that comes with playing arcade games.
? ?
- Bradley Czech: I grew up in that golden era
of video arcade games.
[coin clinks in slot]
[1980s pop music]
I remember going to the arcades years ago
and seeing some of these new titles that are coming out.
- Norbert of Storylords: Got' em!
- I remember going to the arcades
and seeing these elaborate cabinets
with incredible artwork on them
and hearing these new sounds.
[Pac-Man repeats an ambulance siren]
- And seeing the graphics.
And, really, that's kind of what comes to mind
when I think about the old memories of,
"What do I remember growing up about arcade games?"
[tires skid]
[percussion music]
I got my first arcade game at the age of 13.
And I ended up spending $60 to buy an Asteroids game.
That's what started it.
And it just sort of happened
that I just started acquiring
more and more games over the years.
[electronic arcade sounds]
[game over sound]
I would say probably just over 200 games.
It's hard to say exactly because I'm always adding things in.
And once in a while, I'll let something go.
But I would say probably 200, 225 games.
[points scored sound]
Well, storage is always an issue.
I do have quite a few games in my house in my basement.
[garage door creaks]
And then, I have a lot in my garage that are stored there.
And then, I also have a warehouse location
that I store many games at.
[garage door slides up track]
Right now, we're at one of my storage locations,
where I keep all my overflow parts.
With them being as old as they are,
they need repairs all the time.
Those parts take up a lot of space,
so I keep a lot of them here.
[computerized voice says, "I can fix it."]
Restoration is far more extensive
than most people would realize.
You're talking about
going to the absolute basic foundation of these games,
stripping them down to the bare wood a lot of times,
and starting over.
The process can take months and months.
Actually, just recently,
I finished up three titles that I started a year ago.
I got to thinking, "How can I show these to people again
so that they can appreciate and enjoy them?"
So then I started approaching some different museums
about the idea of
actually bringing arcades
to be shown off to the public.
[1980s pop music]
The games bring me back to a time of the 1980s,
where life is very simple.
Today, I love the conveniences that we have
with the Internet and all that.
But there was a simplicity to that time
where people were just enjoying these games
and having fun with that.
And to me, having these, and seeing people play them,
and seeing people enjoy them,
it kind of brings me back to that time.
[video game sound effects]
- We now head to Milwaukee,
where a couple is keeping
a different tradition alive:
handcrafting hats.
? ?
- John McLaughlin: It's the last thing you put on,
but it's the first thing people see.
- Hats are sculptures that we just choose to wear
and that are really-- signify personality.
- We're the Brass Rooster Hat Company.
We are traditional hatters here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- Milwaukee hasn't had a hatter in over 15 years.
I made my first hat when I was a junior in high school.
My husband was always a hat guy.
He had been wearing hats
ever since he found his grandfather's.
- When a hat lover marries a hatmaker,
she makes the hat lover into a hatmaker.
And we opened up this place.
- What we started seeing was in media, in film,
in entertainment, in print,
hats were coming back in vogue.
- We saw the need, and we're stepping up
because people want them,
and we know the quality of what used to be made,
and that's what we're making right here.
When you make something by hand,
it takes a little piece of you with it.
It's got that extra bit of care that's given to it.
If you want something that's extremely high quality,
it's always made by hand
because we're better than any machine will ever be.
To me, it's being able to continue something
that was almost lost.
It's like saving an endangered animal.
- Every piece of equipment we find is golden to us
because the equipment has become so rare.
Our line of hats is two-fold.
We have our Stand-Out, which is the more contemporary side.
Our Look Sharp are the hats in our line
that are all taken
from real traditional styling of men's hats.
- With every hat that I make, it's a sense of pride.
It's art that somebody gets to use every day.
- There's the term called "cock of the walk."
When men leave the hat store wearing their hat,
they've got a strut, they've got a movement about them.
- This country used to make great things,
and we can make great things again.
This country was built by small companies
that were husbands and wives
and brothers and friends
that knew that they could make something that was fantastic.
- The most natural thing for our progression
is to go from making custom hats
to presenting and designing a line of hats
that we are so proud of, of being American-made,
of continuing a hat craft.
- Every cent that we've made,
every hour that we've spent in here,
we've put into this shop because we believe it's worthwhile,
we believe it's something that we can pass on to our kids.
And we believe it's a craft worth saving.
- Our last story
is an animated tale
by author Christina Clancy,
who shares how she prepares
for the impending cold season.
[chimes playing a tune]
- Like a dieter thinking about the New Year,
I think about the approaching winter
and make plans for how I'll deal with it.
I'll be honest, what I really want to do
is curl up in my flannel sheets
and come out of hibernation when the lilacs are in bloom.
But since that's not an option,
I tell myself this will be the winter
that I'll get out there so much
that my blood will get as thick as petroleum jelly.
I'll go for brisk walks in my sleeping bag coat
and suck up vitamin D through my face.
I'll use the skis in my garage
that are getting brittle from disuse.
I'll try to be more like the crazy people I know and envy
who don't mind and even relish the cold.
My brother-in-law could spend all day in hockey skates
clearing snow off a frozen lake with a broom
to make a gigantic skating rink.
I know cross country skiers and snowshoers who can't wait
to put on their ultra-light down jackets and head outdoors
as soon as the snow falls.
I have cycling friends who stud their bike tires
and clean road salt out of their derailers
when they get home.
For them, winter is the best season.
They sleep with their window open a crack.
They find beauty in the snow on the branches,
the low, clear light, and the sight of their breath
suspended in air in front of them.
Don't these icicle huggers know
that winter is supposed to be
unloveable, punishing, dangerous?
Jack Frost kills his victims by covering them with snow.
Exposed to the elements for too long,
our digits can turn blue and fall off.
Winter means the search for the missing glove,
slipping on black ice,
clearing crud off our windshields
with the edge of a credit card,
the gross dampness on your wool scarf
after it's been on our mouth,
the mushroomy smell of boots,
and wind like rocks in your face.
Winter lovers will tell you
that it's all about having the right gear.
I wish it were that simple.
I'm one of those people who think of cold as a form of pain.
What I love about winter isn't the cold
but the way I protect myself from it.
I like the contrast the bitterness creates
between warmth, like sea salt on dark chocolate.
When I try to think about what I love about winter,
I think of soup on the stove, my favorite sweater,
of curling up on a couch with a down throw and book.
I think of hot chocolate and fires and steaming radiators.
I think I could handle winter better
if it didn't stick around so long.
But I reach a point when the snow turns to dirty slush,
my happy-lamp stops working,
and the heating bill
could be mistaken for a college tuition invoice. [chime]
Winter's okay until I hate it,
and it gets ugly when I cross that line,
something that could happen
in a matter of months, weeks, or days.
But for now, the season of fender-benders
and broken hips has just begun,
and I'm cautiously optimistic.
[chimes playing a tune] ? ?
- We learned a bit about folk traditions today
while sharing stories of people who make our state wonderful.
If you'd like to learn more about the Folklore Village
or see more stories on folk arts in our state,
visit WisconsinLife.org.
Share your experiences and ideas with us
by emailing Stories@WisconsinLife.org.
I hope that inspires you to get out there and create.
I'm Angela Fitzgerald, and this is our Wisconsin Life.
Bye.
- Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided by
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
Alliant Energy,
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
American Transmission Company,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.