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Jay Berry McIntyre told the story of his bench, “Native Plants,” at Green Tech Station on May 4, 2024. Photo by Michael Timm.
These are benches to sit on, but they are also works of art, and they also convey a certain ecological message.
The benches are being painted by students and interns from ArtWorks for Milwaukee and will eventually be installed and seated at Green Tech Station, a green infrastructure research and demonstration site near 31st Street and Capitol Drive. Green Tech Station is a former brownfield that now hosts outdoor tours showcasing the various ways stormwater management can be used, and these benches will help tell and explain that story.
Throughout 2024, 10 high school students served as paid environmental art interns, designing and painting their own artworks on the benches under the mentorship of the nonprofit Artworks, which for many years has focused on community water projects in the 30th Street Corridor.
Though the goal was to tell a story about stormwater management, “we had a lot of creative freedom with this project,” says Golda Meir High School student DeAnthony Roaf. Roaf’s bench, “Mario’s Pipe Dream,” features the green pipes from the popular Super Mario Bros. video game, and even has a little Mario hidden for people to find. “The idea came from a field trip to the Green Tech Station, where we saw how a simple system like a pipe could benefit our community,” Roaf says.
Back row left to right: Noah Calvin, Kayla Teague, Shamauri Harrington, Marco Vallejo, Rachel Rebeck, De’Anthony Roaf. Front row left to right: Jay Berry McIntyre, Adriana Rios, Ali Benjamin. Photo by Michael Timm.
Milwaukee High School of the Arts student Marco Vallejo’s bench is titled “Below the Surface.” The design reflects the waterways that run through green infrastructure like bioswales that the intern learned about during the tour. Bioswales are vegetated ditches designed to manage water. “There are plants, there are little trees, there’s a pond, and you can see the water flowing into this part of the bench,” Vallejo explained.
Jaye Berry McIntyre, a student at Whitefish Bay High School, titled her piece “Native Plants.” She wanted her design to be colorful and bold. “I wanted to show what water is used for, why we should be grateful for water, and why we should protect water,” Berry McIntyre says. The bench’s panels depict scenes of washing, showering, drinking and watering plants. “On the back of the bench is a big G for the Green Tech Station.”
The “Big G” is also connected to the arts. It’s a water marker, a 30-foot-tall solar-powered illuminated letter that flashes when the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Department (MMSD) issues a drip alert and advises residents to limit water use during heavy rainfall that could overwhelm the sewer system. As of 2024, there are four water markers installed in the city, with plans to install at least six more.
The letters on each watermarker were chosen to represent a community theme, with G representing rough, coming together, growth and the Garden Homes neighborhood, and also connecting with local art projects supported by the citywide Watermarker Initiative. At Green Tech Station, artist Glenn Williams created two sculptures inspired by African waterwheels on either side of the south sidewalk. The sculptures feature the sayings “Water Has No Enemy” and “Water is Ancestor.”
Water marker lettering was incorporated into the bench design.
Close-up of the side panel of Ari Benjamin’s painted bench, “From a Trickle to a Roar.” Photo by Michael Timm.
“From a Trickle to a Roar,” a bench designed by Pius XI student Ari Benjamin, surrounds the fiery letters A, Ñ, G, and H from previous watermarker installations with a swirling explosion of warm colors. “The watermarker is a light source, so the red, yellow, and orange represent that light source,” Benjamin says. “And I wanted an element that would draw people in, so I put my hands on either side. On one side there’s a light source, and on the other side there’s running water.”
The kaleidoscope of artistic perspectives that can be gained by painting a simple place to sit tells a story of community and how we value all people and forms of life.
Nathan Hale High School student Rachel Rebeck created a design called “Protect Pollinators” that includes vibrant butterflies and ruby-throated hummingbirds, including species names in Ojibwe and Potawatomi. “I thought if we’re talking native plants and native pollinators, why not incorporate the languages of the people who were here before us,” Rebeck said.
The interns gained a keen awareness of their intimate connection to water and the need to protect it.
“Water touches everything we do. It touches the food we eat and drink. It’s inside of us and we use it every day,” said Golda Meir High School student Shamauri Harrington, who called her bench “Water-Based Relationships.” Her piece depicts a community centered around a basin filled with flowers. On the back is a water-related prayer: “Help the water, help us.”
Our relationship with water hasn’t always been good. As part of their preparation, the trainees learned how storms that hit the metro area in 2008 and 2010 caused widespread flooding along the entirety of Milwaukee’s 30th Street. To address flood risk, MMSD constructed a city-block-sized vegetated stormwater retention pond in the Garden Homes neighborhood, northeast of Green Tech Station.
Adriana Rios, a student at Franklin High School, was inspired by the story to create a bench called “Flood of Connection.” Rios depicted the various homes of Milwaukee towering over blue fields. Rios’ own family experienced a flooded basement, and she wanted to highlight the unity that people have shown in the face of flooding. “What if we took the positive aspect of the flood and made it happen? [basins and bioswales] “It helps reduce flooding and also increases community cohesion through recreational opportunities,” Rios said.
“Neighborhood Resilience” is the title of Pius XI High School student Kayla Teague’s bench, but her design has come to focus on one tool in the green infrastructure toolkit: The seat reads “AQUABLOX,” a trademark for the plastic, box-like modules used to manage stormwater flooding.
When these hollow blocks are stacked underground and sealed, the empty space is used to store water, while the lightweight lattice structure supports the weight of the ground above. The Green Tech Station plaza sits on a cistern made of the blocks that can hold 20,000 gallons of water collected from four bioswales. The water can be pumped to irrigate the more than 400 trees planted on the site, or released slowly instead of down the sewer.
Teague’s design was inspired by a lattice pattern of individual blocks, each the size of a large cooler, on display to illustrate the system hidden underneath.
For some interns, creating art was less technical and more personal, providing healing and solace.
Noah Calvin, a student at Alliance High School, titled his bench “Seasonal Change.” It depicts all four seasons. “There are parts of my life that are broken, that I can’t fix,” Calvin says. The winter scene features cracks in the ice to symbolize this fragility, but Calvin also painted an autumn “love tree” to symbolize happy memories with family. The jagged lightning bolts of summer represent the sudden force of things we can’t control that can change our lives. On the back, he painted a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.
Ability Kostecki’s design features a rainbow surrounding the sun and moon. “It’s so inspiring and joyful to be able to see the simple things in nature,” Kostecki said of her bench, Simple Significance. She is a graduate of the Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education, works as a chef, and looks forward to studying environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Interns benefited from mentors who were just a few years older.
“I learned a lot about how far kids this age can go with just a little encouragement. They’re very talented,” said Sydney Ethelcaln, one of three lead artist assistants hired by Artworks to support the interns, who she said have watched them grow into “very professional people.”
At Mentor’s own bench, Ethelcaln has teamed up with Lilly Grunewald and Mitchell Liebhauser for “Unearthed,” depicting subterranean creatures, fossils, invertebrates, and hidden passages beneath the earth.
Lead artist Marco Romantini led the ArtWorks Environmental Arts Internship and Tracy Lomenzo managed the program. The bench project was done in partnership with the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation, the nonprofit that manages the Green Tech Station, and ReFlo, which fabricated the benches and supports the site.
Aerial view of the Green Tech Station in 2023. WCMP does not fund drone photography. Photo by Reflo.
The benches were unveiled on May 4th after which volunteers worked to pull weeds, spread wood chips and haul gravel, allowing proud parents and partners to see the results of months of hard work.
Interns also created a custom mural around the storm drains at nearby Samuel Clemens School to remind people that these drains carry water to our rivers and Lake Michigan.
The watermark art by Mikal Floyd Pruitt will be installed at nearby Melvina Park, a city park where green infrastructure expansion is underway, along with a new “big C” watermarker that represents community, Century City, connection, cleanliness and collaboration. Another watermarker and art is also planned for MMSD’s West Basin Stormwater Management Project, on the site of the former Bee Bus Line.
The Green Tech Station can be toured by appointment through the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation website.
Photo by Michael Timm
Photo by Michael Timm
Writer Michael Timm, a Milwaukee Water Storyteller for the nonprofit organization Reflo, wrote an earlier series on the reintroduction of sturgeon to the Milwaukee River.
This project is funded by the Wisconsin Department of Administration, the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the terms of Wisconsin Coastal Management Program Grant Agreement No. AD239125-024.21. Funding is provided by the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coastal Management under the Coastal Zone Management Act. Award No. NA22NOS4190085
Water Grants Program Participants
