Featuring contemporary art and fine crafts created by Wisconsin's finest artists in all media:

• Paintings - watercolors, oils, pastels, acrylics, pen and ink.
• Prints - monotypes, etchings, woodblocks, linocuts.
• Sculpture - wood, bronze, iron and glass, etched glass and marble, cast glass, painted wood, and outdoor sculptures and bird baths
• Pottery - functional ware, decorative, sculpture, wall hangings, raku.
• Art Furniture - tables, glass lamps, chairs, screens.
• Baskets - natural bark storage baskets, decorative pine needle baskets, sweet grass baskets.
• Woodworking - marquetry wood bowls and clocks, utensils and birds eye maple cutting boards and trays, wood sculptures, hardwood boxes.
• Glass - hand-blown glass vessels and vases, glass flowers - iris, roses, trillium, daisies; leaded glass lamps, cast glass sculptures, ornaments.
• Handmade Paper - pulp paintings, collages, sculptures, artist books, cards, stationery, marbled paper.
• Crafts - wheat weaving, Christmas ornaments in many media - birch bark, wood, glass, wheat, paper, beeswax; woven rugs and wall hangings.

Annual Calendar of Events

First weekend in May - Annual Spring Open House

Last full weekend in June - Opening of the Summer exhibition, the Wisconsin Artists Showcase, in conjunction with the Spring Green Art Fair.

Third full weekend in October - Spring Green headquarters for the Fall Art Tour, south west Wisconsin's self-guided open artist studio driving tour through Spring Green, Baraboo, Dodgeville, and Mineral Point.  Send a business-sized SASE with 74 cents stamp for brochure with driving maps or go to Fall Art Tour for more information and photos of artists' work.

Thanksgiving Friday until Christmas Eve   - A Handmade Christmas in Wisconsin, an exhibition of crafts and art for memorable holiday giving.

Gallery History

In the early 1900's, every small town along the railroad tracks in southwest Wisconsin had a cheese warehouse where the dairy farmers brought their cheeses for packaging and distribution to the large cities around the country.  Spring Green had two such cheese warehouses.  One is now the Jura Silverman Gallery housing the Wisconsin Artists Showcase, the other is the Spring Green General Store and Cafe.

The gallery still retains the old exhaust fan which carried off the fumes from the paraffin vat into which cheeses were dipped to seal them.  The floors are marked with nail gouges from the wooden crates that held the cheeses, as they were slid across the floor to the shipping area for loading into the box cars waiting on the railroad siding outside.  A large window has replaced the open doorway to the boxcars, though the large sliding wooden door still hangs outside.

Large cheddar hoop marks still form dark rings on the gallery floor, marking spots where the round cheddar boxes stood.  The floors creak like Japanese nightingale floors which protected the shoguns, announcing visitors to the gallery and serenading them through the many rooms and display spaces in the gallery, as they wander around to view the varied works of art throughout the large space.

The back room, which now houses the studio of papermaker and printmaker Jura Silverman, was the ice storage room where blocks of ice cut from the nearby Wisconsin River were hauled by sleigh in winter to be stored through the summer covered by sawdust in a room lined with thick cork on all sides and ceiling for insulation.  Now an intaglio etching press, vacuum table for pouring and forming paper, and work tables cover the area and handmade paper and prints hang on the wall, but the sense of history lingers on.
 

Hand Paper Making

Jura Silverman had been a printmaker and papermaker since the 1980's and is one of the founders of The Wisconsin Center for Paper Arts in Madison, Wisconsin.  She teaches papermaking in one-on-one tutorials, as well as creating work which is exhibited at the Jura Silverman Gallery in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  She accepts commissions for residential and corporate environments (resume and artist statement available on request).  For additional information, contact her during business hours at 608-588-7049 during her working season - Spring, Summer, or Autumn.

The Wisconsin Center for Book and Paper Arts

For information on classes offered by members of The Wisconsin Center for Book and Paper Arts, go to www.wibookandpaper.org.  

The Wisconsin Center for Book and Paper Arts is located at 811 Williamson Street in Madison, Wisconsin.
Telephone: 608-284-8394
E-mail: www.wcpaperarts@hotmail.com

For additional classes on artists books and other arts, contact artist Kathy Malkasian at Valley Ridge Art Studio. Her site is www.valleyridgeartstudio.com.