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In Wisconsin Transcript #000417    Airdate: 01/19/2006
[Captioning made possible by U.S. Department of Education]
  Land Trust: Chippewa County
Sally Lewis still lives on the family farm in Chippewa County that was her childhood home. Her parents, Thomas and Doris Lewis, bought the dairy farm decades ago and lived on the land until they passed away. As the executor of her parents' estate, Lewis had an important responsibility. She had to decide how she could develop the land in a way that still met her parents desire to keep the farm intact and preserve the wild areas that are part of the property.
Lewis found a solution by working with the West Wisconsin Land Trust. Find out how she was able to honor her parents wishes to preserve their farm while still providing for some development of the property.

related links
Gathering Waters Conservancy Information on Land Trusts
Watch Land Trust Bayfield
Gathering Waters Conservancy
Watch Land Trust Brule
Watch Land Trust Chippewa County
West Wisconsin Land Trust
Northeast Wisconsin Land Trust
bulletpoint graphic Teen Shaman
As a baby in a Thai refugee camp, Cheng Vang was declared the youngest known shaman in the Hmong world. Soon he was performing healing ceremonies, a practice he's continued since his family emigrated to Wisconsin in the 1990's. more »
related links
Shamanism
Shamanism in Wikipedia
Watch Teen Shaman
Shaman Links
bulletpoint graphic The price of clothing
Milwaukee artist Terese Agnew has used her quilted creation, Portrait of a Textile Worker, to make visible one worker among millions. more »
related links
Portrait of a Textile Worker
Terese Agnew interview
Wilson Center for the Arts
  Postcard: Ice Boats
Ice boats race across a frozen Lake Geneva.

related links
Ice Flyer Ice Boats
Lake Geneva Water Activities
Four Lakes Ice Boating

We begin this week with the third in our series of reports about land trusts. Over the past few months we've brought you a number of reports about people who have used various types of land trusts to protect their land from future development. Last week we met a Douglas County man who must keep his rural riverfront property exactly as it was decades ago when his mother signed a conservation easement. He can't so much as clear the brush for a better view of the river, and he likes it that way. But what happens when you want to preserve just some of your land, work some of it, and maybe even allow some commercial development? That's what Chippewa County landowner Sally Lewis needed to find out. Producer Joanne Garrett shares her story.

Joanne Garrett:
Just off Highway 40 in Chippewa County is the Lewis Farm. It looks tranquil, peaceful. But this place is in transition, wrestling with the question of how to preserve the past and move into the future. This used to be a dairy farm, some 250 acres lovingly tended by Thomas and Doris Lewis. They brought their young family here, and for decades this was home. When they died they left the farm to their daughter, Sally.

Sally Lewis:
They left me with the responsibility of its future. For my parents, I just feel it is a big responsibility to be a good steward of the land. They've put so much hard work and energy into it, I just feel like I have to take good care of it.

Garrett:
There are memories to this place.

Lewis:
Catching frogs at the pond, getting the cows home for milking. I hunted a few deer out here. Missed a few deer out here. Am I supposed to admit that? Okay. I just did.

Garrett:
But most importantly, for Lewis, are those parts of the farm that form a special legacy. Take a look.

Lewis:
This is the prime section that I wanted to protect and preserve. I know my dad wanted to see this preserved and protected just because of its natural beauty. I've seen how development is cropping up everywhere. It used to be around big lakes, but now people are even invading the natural wild pond areas.

Garrett:
How to save what her parents had worked so hard to conserve. Enter an easement, a conservation easement.

Lewis:
The word easement, all I've heard before is, you know, like for a driveway purpose to cross somebody's land, that you can get permission that way.

Garrett:
To protect her property from subdivision, Lewis got a conservation easement placed on the farm.

Lewis:
So then this yellow border defines the property line as well as the easement boundaries. There's one of the larger wild ponds.

Garrett:
Lewis sold the right to develop this land. She sold it to a land trust in an easement, a conservation easement, that this land can't be subdivided or developed, was placed on her deed. In return, Lewis got some tax benefits, and the land stays as it is.

Lewis:
It gives me a peace of mind knowing that it's permanently protected from being subdivided and developed even after I'm gone.

Garrett:
Lewis worked with the west Wisconsin land trust for her easement. There are 55 different land trusts in Wisconsin. Vicki Elkin is the head of Gathering Waters, a consortium of all the different land trusts in the state.

Vicki Elkin:
A lot of these people find their way to a land trust because they're interested in protecting their land in the future. A lot of them are worried about what's going to happen when they pass away, or if they ever want to have to sell the land. They don't want to see it developed in the future. And so there are different ways a land trust can work with a private landowner, and it really depends on the interests and needs of the landowners. Once the landowner signs this agreement, it's permanent, and so it runs with the land. All future landowners are bound by the restrictions in that easement. But it's really a great tool, because when you're working with the land trust to negotiate the easement, it's very flexible. You can talk about whether or not you want to obtain a home site or two home sites for your kids. You can include that in the easement.

Lewis:
The actual homestead is in this triangular piece with the buildings and the barn.

Garrett:
Easements can be customized. Each landowner can specify what goes in, what stays out, what's to be done in the various parts of the property.

Lewis:
The homestead is going to remain the homestead. I can make improvements, build structures, do what I want on that residential zone that's defined. Around the buildings there's an agricultural zone where my brother rents land from me and continues to grow crops.

Garrett:
Not only can she still grow crops--

Lewis:
This part was left out because it has potential for a commercial site being at the intersection of Highway M and state road 40.

Garrett:
Lewis' easement even allows for commercial development on a portion of her property.

Lewis:
Essentially, you know, I can still plant, you know, restore prairies. I can still cut timber. I can plant trees. I can do a lot of things. But what can't happen here is it can't be subdivided, it can't be turned into just a commodity where you're demolishing the landscape to wring out every last dime you can of its value.

Garrett:
Lewis still owns this land. It's not a park. It's still her property.

Elkin:
There's no need for public access, and that's something landowners ask us a lot. If they enter into this, is the public going to be able to come on to their land whenever they want? And that's not true. They can allow public access if they want to, but it's not a standard part of these agreements.

Garrett:
For Lewis, public access, to at least part of the property, was important. It was a way to honor her father's wishes.

Lewis:
He had talked about creating an ice age park here at one time even, so I knew that that was his future wish and goal for the property.

Garrett:
Plans for this part of the property will allow for some public access, hunting, snowmobiling, and some no trace camping may be allowed. Places as beautiful as this face enormous pressures. The Lewis Farm was no exception.

Lewis:
The land company has approached me at least twice a year with a little mailing and a business card, and now they've resorted to phone calls, but I had the pleasure a few weeks ago of telling them to take me off their list because I've signed up for a conservation easement.

Garrett:
The farm was not for sale. The reaction of the realtors?

Lewis:
Oh, no! they said. And I said, Oh, yes! So I kindly asked them to take me off their list. It's just comforting to know that it will always stay the way it is. A lot of childhood memories like riding on the tractor maybe, or coming back to get the cows, picking blackberries and building a little bonfire. Just appreciating the beauty of it. Just appreciating my parents. Even though they've physically left, they're still here.

Loew:
You can find out more about land trusts and watch all of the reports that have been a part of our land trusts series by logging onto our Web site. The address is wpt.org/inwisconsin.



One of our goals here on `¿In Wisconsin¿¿ is to introduce you to the interesting array of people who live in our state. The fact is, almost everyone has a story to tell. Our next report is a great example. Cheng Vang is believed to be the youngest practicing shaman in the Hmong world, yet you'd never guess that he's a shaman if you saw him walking on campus at UW-Madison wearing the typical collegiate Bucky Badger hat and gloves. It's that merging of modern America and traditional Hmong culture that has prompted Vang to work with even younger members of the Hmong community. Producer Andy Soth gives us a look into the world of a shaman.

Andy Soth:
It's a Friday evening in Madison, and a group of Hmong boys in sneakers and T-shirts are practicing the cang. The contrast of the ancient instrument and the contemporary attire symbolizes how young Americans live in two worlds, modern and traditional. Their teacher, Cheng Vang, knows all about straddling different worlds. He's not only an expert on Hmong culture. He's also believed to be the youngest practicing shaman in the Hmong world.

Cheng Vang:
I'm happy to be the shaman. It's just like a gift.

Soth:
Traditional Hmong people believe the shaman is an intermediary between this world and the world of the spirits. Usually a person only becomes a shaman in the middle age only after an illness. But when Vang was ill as a baby in a Thai refugee camp in the 1980's, his mother brought him to a shaman.

Vang:
He told my mom, I still don't believe it myself. I think your baby's a shaman. You know, so that kind of like shocked everyone in the village.

Soth:
But the villagers in the refugee camp soon came to the young shaman for healing ceremonies, and Hmong people continued to do so even after Vang's family emigrated to Wisconsin. This young woman has come all the way from St. Paul for Vang's help because her hair had been mysteriously falling out.

Vang:
I have to be able to gain my power and to have connection with my spirit. So the first step is to gather all my spirits. We have a meeting. Tell them what's going on.

Soth:
What's going on is that, at an earlier ceremony, Vang promised an offering to spirits if the girl was cured. Her hair has since returned, so the spirits must be rewarded. Symbolic paper money is burned, and chickens sacrificed. In Hmong, shamanism it's thought that illnesses can be caused by an evil spirit capturing one of the person's 12 body spirits. Vang uses a rope that gathers the girl's body spirits to journey with him into the spirit world to retrieve the captured spirit.

Vang:
The meaning of blowing the water to scare the evil spirit away from her body. My spirit has a power to wash all your evil spirit away from your body.

Soth:
Vang puts a black cloth over his face to block out this world and prepares to enter the spirit world. He travels there on a wooden bench which in the spirit world becomes a horse.

Vang:
Every shaman have to have a horse, because I cannot go without my horse.

Soth:
In the spirit world, Vang travels to the girl's home where he reminds evil spirits there of the deal they made. They release the hostage body spirit, but to return that spirit to the girl, Vang has to capture it.

Vang:
It's kind of like an exciting moment, too, you know.
Soth:
He does this by using a metal ring like a Lasso as the ceremony climaxes.

Vang:
It's kind of like after you call a play, and then you holler and you go and you kind of make the play work, so¿

Soth:
Vang often uses sports analogies to explain the relationships he has with the spirits.

Vang:
I'm like your coach. I don't know how to play football, but I can coach and call the play. I'm the one that call the play, you know.

Soth:
The play that Vang is working on now is being the first in his family to go to college. He attends UW-Madison and plans to study anthropology to continue his work preserving Hmong traditions.
Vang:
I believe, without my spirits, I would not be here today sitting right here to talk to you or go to UW-Madison or educate Hmong culture very well. Because since I remember, my heart always think, what can I do to help the Hmong people have a better life? That's like my dream.


Loew:
We move now from a consideration of spiritual expression to one of artistic expression. Milwaukee artist Terese Agnew creates moving images with a sewing machine and tiny scraps of cloth. The cloth is actually thousands of labels from brand name clothing. The image they combine to create tells the story of sweat shop labor. Producer Laurie Gorman reports on Agnew's work to put a public face on those nameless workers.

Laurie Gorman:
Milwaukee artist, Terese Agnew, is on her way to get the mail. She gets a lot of mail.

Terese Agnew:
All right. I got one of these. The article's too large for your box. I love those. This is so fun. Hey, Australia. Nova Scotia. Cool. How did they find out?

Man:
Have a good day.

Agnew:
Thanks.

Gorman:
And what's in all these letters and packages from nova Scotia, Australia, and other locations across the globe? Labels, clothing labels to be exact.

Agnew:
For customs, contains fabric labels. No value.

Gorman:
For U.S. customs these labels may not have value, but for Terese Agnew they're her precious raw materials for her latest work of art.

Agnew:
Wow! Very organized. Great. Black. Excellent. This is a little more involved than just like going to the Utrecht Art Supply Store. It's a lot more fun. This is just what I need today. This is like what I need today.

Gorman:
Although she works alone, this piece is an international collaboration. `¿Portrait of a Textile Worker,¿¿ a quilt made entirely of garment labels has been two years in the making and would not have been possible if not for the hundreds of these letters and packages filled with labels.

Agnew:
All right. Low contrast black.

I'm just kind of floored that people are this generous in their time and energy. But it's so cool. It's like I feel like I know them, you know. These are the last of the labels I have to send you. Thanks for honoring labor. Cool.

Gorman:
Terese Agnew is no stranger to what could be called art with a message. Previous works include `¿The D.O.T. Straightens Things Out,¿¿ the `¿Wisconsin Worker's Memorial¿¿ at Zeidler Union Square in downtown Milwaukee.

Agnew:
We rebuilt a new gazebo out of salvaged tools and gears and things that you would associate with the workplace.

Gorman:
And a bomber range in the Mississippi Way. Her works can be found in the Smithsonian, Renwick Gallery, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. This latest work, based on a photo by Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee, is a black and white photo of a worker in Bangladesh. It began with an invitation.

Agnew:
How would you like to come to this talk at U.W.M.? Two women are coming from the plant in Nicaragua to talk about working conditions there. It's one thing to hear all about how bad sweat shops are, but it's a completely different thing to meet the people that we're talking about here, and I was so impressed. I thought they were brave and smart, and I just thought, these are the hardest working people on the planet. They deserve to be treated a lot better than they're being treated right now. About six months later I was walking through a department store and I was seeing the names of all these designers, Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, Kathy Lee, Tommy Hilfiger signs, and I just stopped and I was like, okay. But what are the names of the workers that made these things? And it was just like one of those things where it popped into my head. Hey, I should make a `¿Portrait of a Textile Worker¿¿ out of clothing labels. One of the things about meeting the two women was that it wasn't a sob story. I mean, these were like brave, smart women that were working, you know, 12 to 17 hours a day, and they were hopeful. So anyway, I thought, this absolutely cannot be a sob story. I want an image of a worker that commands respect.

Gorman:
A piece about work, a piece about the hidden cost behind the label. `¿Portrait of a Textile Worker¿¿ was unveiled in late January at the Center for the Arts in Brookfield.

Woman:
How many of these are you going to sign?

Man:
She had a real vision to put that all together.

Woman:
She's put voice to all those women's whispers of the work that they do and intertwined them into one voice. I just can't believe it. To see pictures of it is one thing, but to see it up close, the details, the fingernails, everything is just unbelievable.

Gorman:
Working on this piece has given Terese Agnew a new way of seeing.

Agnew:
Great. Oh, I love these. These are so great.

Gorman:
What do you see in this?

Agnew:
A gradation, a ready-made gradation. So if I was doing a drawing, this would all be black crosshatching and it moves over to sort of like white. So these are really great for transitions from light to medium. This medium has a lot of possibilities. I mean, one thing that I really like about it is that it's all about taking pieces and putting them together. You know, like ironies in the world like that we see all the time, because I think that's what we do in our minds, is we separate them, and we put things in categories, and we don't connect them. And I think that's the most exciting thing about quilting, really. It's actually a very intimate portrait, because it's like she's in her own little space there concentrating, and I always wonder what she's thinking. I mean, what I want people to do is just remember her face and work for making sure that people that make the things that we use every single day are treated well with appreciation, you know.

Gorman:
From small bits of cloth gathered from around the globe, Terese Agnew has pieced together an image she hopes will connect with the viewer, an image of the face behind the label, a `¿Portrait of a Textile Worker.¿¿

Loew:
Agnew is currently working on a new quilt called `¿The Age of Oil.¿¿ She clearly enjoys working with tiny pieces of fabric. Her new quilt will be constructed with thousands of layers. Join us next week when we get down and dirty on the floor of the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest looking for worms. They're not hard to find. The forest has been invaded, invaded by seven species of worms that are having a devastating effect on the soil and wildlife in the forest.

Man:
Two years ago we walked over 4,000 or 5,000 acres right in this area and tried really hard to find places that didn't have worms, and we were unsuccessful, and our supposition is that there might be only about 10% to 15% of the forest now without worms. I'd hate to take a guess at how many worms might be here, but it might be in the hundreds of thousands or millions per acre.

Loew:
Next week, find out more about the invasion of the earthworms in Wisconsin's northern forests. Finally tonight we take you for a fast ride on a frozen lake. It's ice boating on Geneva Lake. For `¿In Wisconsin,¿¿ I'm Patty Loew. See you next week.

 
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