Hello From Butternut!! (Hour 1)

Good, good morning.

Welcome, welcome to Matinair on Air.

Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, and Calvin Butonoff coming to you live from the Fanatical Fish Gallery here.

in Butternut, Wisconsin.

Calvin is back at the ranch in Racine at Radio Park and we are on the road.

It is day two of On the Road with Matt Nair on air and the Todd Alba show.

If you are in Butternut or Hayward or somewhere nearby, come on out and see us.

Again, we're at the

fanatical fish gallery here in Butternut where to be talking to the owner Kelly Meredith is going to be joining us after 9.35.

If you look behind us, you can see some of Kelly's incredible work that she does for cities and towns all across the country.

Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful.

It's really cool and she's got some beautiful, beautiful artwork here.

There's stained glass and painting and jewelry and all kinds of things.

I may have to do a little shopping after we get off the air.

We're really, really excited to be here.

It's been a great time so far.

We got into Park Falls last night a little bit late.

You guys had a restaurant adventure.

We

did.

We did.

Yeah, it's been wonderful.

And we just want to thank everyone for being so lovely.

And Darla Aisham, who has been a key part of this.

portion of the

journey.

And Big G. And

Big G.

Yes, and Big G as well.

And of

course, Big G will be, Darlo will be joining us a little bit later in the show to talk about everything that's great park falls and butternut.

Yep.

And Jane, this is important.

This is an important day.

It is an important day.

Because you've now reached location two

of your

favorite places on earth that you have yet to visit.

I know.

So,

butternut is off the list.

Butternut is off and we and that means we're going to be taking applications for location three and I would like to put forth Wanderu's if only for the name itself.

I

am on board with that.

Okay,

great.

If you have other suggestions, if you want to tell us places that we should visit that have, you know, lovely magical quality about it, even just a fun name like You Bet Wisconsin, UBET.

That's

another one that's on the list.

Yep, you can absolutely get in touch with us by you can text us or call the numbers the same 855-755-CIVIC 855-752-4842 or get that Civic Media app on your phone and you can text and or call as well.

or leave us a voice note.

Yep, we love that too.

We can also leave a voice note.

Our number two, Brittany Merleau will be here with weather and wine.

So we'll get a little update, find out what's going to be happening across the weekend here, across the state.

And we're also going to be talking to Lena, who is with Lena's Northern Pines Resort.

We're staying there tonight and tomorrow night.

From what I've seen on the web, it is, it's on Lake Butternut.

There's a lake.

Butternut has a lake.

Of course they do.

Yes.

Yes.

And so we're going to be staying at Lena's Northern Pines Resort tonight and tomorrow.

We're going to be talking more about that in hour number two.

And then Darla will be here for our audio sorbet portion.

Another thing we're going to do after the 1030 News because Greg, Todd and I found out shockingly.

What?

Does not know any Oli and Lena jokes.

People, how is this possible?

It's just it's just wrong.

Hey guys, welcome

to a segment called Greg gets made fun of That and he just found out about this segment Four seconds ago.

He doesn't know he's never heard an Oli and Oli and Lena joke So after 10 30 start thinking about your favorite Oli and Lena jokes now We would love to have you call in with those for our audio sorbet segment after the 10 30 news.

Are they FCC compliant?

Todd, most Oli and Lena jokes are pretty clean.

Yeah, we would ask you to keep the Oli and Lena jokes clean.

I think they usually are.

But that's coming up a little bit later on in the show.

And then we will wrap it up as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the Oh Nuts edition.

It's a good one.

I hope you can stick around for that.

Did want to start off just with a little bit of politics before we turn to our attention.

To Butternut, now my second favorite place I have now been.

With a little clip, I saw this this morning as we were just setting up here.

Mark Pokan and Derek Van Orden had a little exchange yesterday and it has made national news.

It's in The Daily Beast.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Calvin, I believe we have that clip.

Let's play that clip from

Wisconsin's Mark Pocan, and Wisconsin's Derek Van Orden.

That's the real problem.

Anything else?

There he is.

Derek Van Orden, you can put that on the dude.

What's that on me?

It's the nicest

thing

he did to me always.

Hey, Derek, classy as always, man.

We love it.

Thank you.

Have you lost your mind?

People read this.

I

saw your drunken tweet at 1 30 in the morning last night.

No, I got down to the end.

Yeah, I

got this market.

But I encourage you to see the mental health council.

It's absolutely disgusting.

Yeah, why don't you debate me?

Why are you so afraid to debate anyone here?

We could do this to media.

Why don't you want to debate

so

big?

Beautiful

bill.

So Mark Cobain has never had a job in his entire life other than politics, and he doesn't understand.

I've

owned a small business for 37 years.

Tony, you

own a small business.

That's a little work, isn't it?

And he fundals over $500,000 a year of his campaign money to buy signs from his company.

OK, look that up.

Oh my god.

Are you drinking right now, Derek?

That's the real question.

All right.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, nice move pulling up in your bike.

I mean, it is suit.

But anyway, you pull I

mean, yeah, I don't really care what you wear on your motorcycle, but it was the whole like vroom vroom louder while they're talking.

And by the way, who another person in that shot is Tony Weed, a first time Congressman as well from

Green

Bay from Green Bay.

And and he's like vroom vrooming over them.

And he knows what he's doing is just that bully behavior he's doing.

And I guess I just don't see how this

works in Derek Van Orden's favor.

Because again, if you want to come out and defend this measure that you just voted for, this is your opportunity instead of just coming again with more insults.

Granted, they've been insulting each other back and forth on social media.

This has been going on for a while.

Yeah, and to be absolutely fair, Mark Pokan is incredibly good at

I

mean, his lesson is

poke can he's good at poking.

Yeah, he is.

He likes to do that on Twitter.

He likes and he gets a fun reaction.

But he also has serious questions.

Why won't you debate this?

Why won't you debate?

Why won't you do town halls?

Because the first question I think anyone of any real value is going to say you've told a snap and I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself.

But I think this is this bears repeating it needs to be

shared with your friends, especially those who might be on benefits.

He said in a meeting, snap benefits would not go down a single nickel.

Then he voted for the budget blueprint.

Then he voted for the budget on the whole.

Then after the Senate passed it back to the house two weeks ago.

He voted for it again.

And those measures to cut those benefits are inside that big bill for billionaires.

And so he needs to stand up and defend that.

And him vroom vrooming his vroom vroom while people are trying to have a conversation and then just walking up and just spouting nonsense, it does a distinguished gentleman.

It does not make him.

Yeah, again, I don't think Fort.

I guess for people who like that kind of attitude, it's going to be great for DVO.

He really took it to him and he stuck it to Pokan and there are folks who will find that impressive, no doubt.

But again, I don't know, I think I would love to see our political discourse be a little bit more elevated.

Right now I'm just thinking about the people and...

Congressman Van Orton's district, the farmers, the teachers, everybody who needs a little bit of help, needs a little bit of support and wants to feel like that their representative are working on their behalf, this does not do them any good.

And really, the attitude of just pushing and pushing and shoving, it's all bully behavior.

And he is really, I mean, if you look at his Twitter,

If you look at his Facebook, I mean, he, he's called out Pat Crilo quite a few times and Pat is just told the truth.

He's told Pat to kick rocks.

He's

told Pat to kick rocks.

He's told Dan to kick rocks.

He's, he doesn't come with substance.

So what he does was he just flicks back and that doesn't solve anything.

If you have policy.

you know, and if you have policy, you want to defend go for it.

Last week, he was talking about the billion dollars for for Medicaid in Wisconsin, which had never been brought up before, after the state budget and the federal budget had been passed.

Right.

He talked about and and and he's and there was a story that came out about a week and a half ago of him getting on the phone with Tony Evers, saying that he needs to save the rural hospitals.

Well, guess what?

We can't we're gonna have a harder time saving those rural hospitals.

When you vote for a bill that's absolutely

cutting access to medical care, especially in the in the rural areas,

which is

needed most when they when they close a hospital.

That means people folks have to drive maybe 30, 40, 50, an hour

longer, if not longer to

get proper and and and I'm sorry, I'm getting very ranty right now, but I've had like a lot of coffee.

But I also want to put in this conversation, too, is when we talk about closing hospitals, we have to talk about the clinics that close to those other smaller resources that really help people get the care they need.

Those are gone as well.

Yes.

And those are gone because of the big bill for billionaires that Derek Van Norton voted yes for.

And yeah, your motorcycle is beautiful.

Vroom vroom's all the vroom vroom day.

But really, when it comes down to it, can't you defend your positions?

That would have been it.

Again, this is your opportunity to at least try and get some shots in there about what this will do for people and how good this is.

That was your chance.

And instead, again, he just took the opportunity to come in and lob some cheap insults and kind of cast aspersions over

Pokan's business and how he runs his business.

Yeah.

I mean, and I will say Pokan took a dig at him for drunkenly tweeting at 1 30 in the morning.

And I don't know if that's true.

And I'm not going to say it is or isn't because I don't know.

But when while Pokan can definitely have some fun, he is also going to talk about the topics, the subjects that that really

affect us as Wisconsinites.

And I know that because he comes on our show.

He comes on.

He's on civic media.

Yes, talking about the important aspects of his work.

And Derek Van Orton does not do that.

He doesn't show up to town halls.

He does.

He

likes very, he likes very curated audiences.

Twitter is his town hall.

And it's

and his Facebook page.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, again.

You had a chance, I don't know, to at least say something with some substance.

And you just came back with, I guess, what we've pretty much come to count on, Derek Van Orden Forrest, acting like a bully.

I mean, at least I'll give him this.

He's staying on brand.

That's true.

He is consistent.

He is very consistent.

He is absolutely consistent.

That's one thing we can count on him for.

Hey, when we come back, we pay taxes.

I do.

I

pay.

I know.

I pay taxes.

I'm

probably going to, hey, Jane, guess what?

I'm probably going to have to pay more now.

Yeah.

Well, there's something.

There's an article that hit in the journal Sentinel this morning that I think is going to make a lot of us go, what?

How are we spending our lawmakers, rather, spending our tax dollars?

We've got some details.

that are coming up.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matt and Air on Air.

We are on the road with the Todd Alba Show coming to you live from the Fanatical Fish Gallery here in Butternut, Wisconsin.

Come on by and say hello.

We have coffee.

We have Kringle.

We would love to meet you.

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt and Air on Air.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

She can't hate, she don't mean...

Let

me tell

you how it will be.

Good, good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and Air on Air, Jane Matt and Air.

And Greg Mock coming to you live from the Fanatical Fish Gallery here in Butternut, Wisconsin.

We got Sweet Calbee back in Racine, mining the board at Radio.

Park and we are, like I said, on the road with the Todd Alba Show.

We were at the EAA Museum yesterday.

We had a little weather we had to deal with and then made our way up to Butternut last night.

By the way, I wanted to give a shout out to John from Oshkosh who said we had, we should check out players in Oshkosh.

We had lunch there yesterday.

Oh my God, I had wonderful wings.

Yeah, they were great.

So thank you for that heads up, John.

And we just got another text come in.

Hi, it's Isaac from Baraboo, Avoka.

is a beautiful city in Iowa County with a tributary running just north of it that you can float down the Wisconsin River.

Hey Todd, can we do a live show floating down the Wisconsin River?

We'll work on that wouldn't that be good?

That would be

the most okay.

We could

actually do it while we're floating.

That might be challenging.

that we could give it a shot.

Thank you so much for that, Isaac.

We will put that on the list.

Avoka.

Avoka.

Avoka.

I thought that was a restaurant.

It sounds like a very fancy restaurant that I would never be allowed to resist.

Welcome to Avoka.

Avoka.

Thank you very much.

Aren't you wearing a suit?

If you have any other suggestions for us, please text them in at 855-752-4842, coming up in just a little bit.

Kelly Meredith, who owns the Fanatical Fish Gallery, is going to be joining us.

If you are watching on the live stream, you can see

this incredible work behind us.

She does these portraits.

She does murals.

She does murals of important people from various communities, and she does this work for communities all over the country.

And from what she has, well, she'll talk more about it, actually.

I'll let her tell the story.

But yeah, it's, and there, when we drove in, it was like...

They're just everywhere.

They're

beautiful.

They're just beautiful.

So Kelly's going to be joining us coming up in just a little bit.

Wanted to at least share this with you and we'll include this in the show notes so you can read the article because I do think it's worth taking a peruse from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Francesca Pica, Mary Spacuzza and Anne Kleber with the byline Wisconsin legislature spent twenty six point two million dollars

in taxpayer money on private attorneys since 2017.

$26.2 million of taxpayer money.

We have shelled that out to private law firms since 2017.

This is pretty astonishing.

Jane,

is it?

The vast majority of the spending, just over $25 million,

happened after Governor Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Call were elected in 2018, defeating, of course, former Governor Scott Walker and Attorney General Brad Schimmel.

The hike in spending followed a law that was passed by Republican lawmakers in December of 2018, giving the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader the authorization

to hire private lawyers with taxpayer money.

Well, it's good to know they at least know how to spend some money.

Oh, they do.

Yeah.

Yes, they do.

Todd Alba's former boss, Dale Schultz, who retired in 2013 slammed the skyrocketing legal fees as a, quote, spectacular waste of taxpayer dollars.

26 million could have bought a lot of childcare, could have bought a lot of health care,

could have bought a lot of education, unquote.

Yes.

Yes.

God bless Dale Schultz.

Seriously.

Seriously.

Like, I mean, it's, I can't even imagine, and we can have this conversation another time when we're not in butternut and, but like the.

the ability to be a Republican in that in, I think, in a more traditional format is just impossible.

And the only way you can speak truth to your own power is by doing it.

He's not elected and he doesn't worry about primaries, but this man speaks the truth.

I mean, he's right.

He's absolutely right.

This is not a right or left statement.

This is a statement that cares about people and the people of Wisconsin.

That's a lot of money, my friends.

$26 million on lawyers.

Since Evers took office, Evers has spent about

1.7 million on legal fees to outside groups.

He often, however, relies on the State Department of Justice to represent him in his office.

The hourly rates, the hourly rates, though, that Evers pays are significantly lower than the rates that get billed to the legislature.

Evers' office says it tries to minimize cost to taxpayers by negotiating down a lower rate

Not so much so with the Republicans.

And I think part of that has to be the fact that if we were in a place where this was Tony Evers' office, has spent $26 million on lawyers, it would be a statewide scandal.

It would be treated as such.

Yes.

I think one of the reasons why Tony Evers in his office and his staff choose to do what they are doing as far as expenditures on lawyers is because they know if it gets too high, that will become the story.

Not about what it's for.

What it's for, yes.

But that's the story of spending the money.

Whereas, I guess, Robin Voss, I mean, like I said before, we have water that we have lead that needs to be cleaned up.

Water needs to be cleaned up.

Hospitals, child care, child care, we all this stuff.

But it's good to know they know at least how to open the purse for something.

Again, according to this article, the Governor Evers tries to negotiate lower fees so taxpayers don't have to pay so much.

The Republicans, however, and again, in this article there are more specifics about the firms that the GOP chooses to use.

They pay 500 bucks an hour.

And

there

are a couple ties

as

well.

Seems like some little friendly work.

I was going to say.

Little friendly jobs that

are going

to certain law firms and things like that.

But again, I highly encourage you to read this entire article.

It's very, very interesting.

I would be just as outraged at the Democrats were doing it.

I would be disappointed.

There it is.

Political edition.

be a thing.

Stick around for this shouldn't be a thing at 10.50 this morning.

Oh, nuts

edition.

Oh, nuts edition.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air when we return.

We're talking about the Fanatical Fish Gallery here in Butternut, Wisconsin.

Don't go away.

You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

you

Good morning and welcome welcome to matinee on air Jane matinee and Greg Bach coming to you live from butternut, Wisconsin We are at the fanatical fish gallery here in downtown butternut if you are in the area We are here until 11 o'clock this morning.

Stop on by we brought kringle We have coffee and much much more and so much to see here at the fanatical fish gallery Are the owner of this place when?

Good heavens

sitting right next

to me Kelly Meredith.

Good morning.

How are you?

Thank you so much for hosting us.

We really

appreciate it.

Oh, thanks.

You guys have been fabulous like

Nice to meet all of you.

You're all very interesting.

Oh,

thank you.

We

fake it

well.

You make it

well.

OK.

Well, good job.

Way to do it.

How long have you had this place here in Butternut?

I've had this since 2014.

I moved in here in October of 2014.

It used to be a heating and plumbing store.

OK.

So it was just really cool.

Is it

one of the older buildings here in Butternut?

Not exactly.

My house is actually one of the older.

My house is an old saloon.

So yeah, woo.

Fantastic.

Probably from the early 1900s.

But this is one of the older ones.

And I only lived

three doors down.

So when this came open, I was like, Hey, let's go.

It's it's meant to

be.

Are you

a native of this area?

I am not.

I wish I was.

I'm sort.

I have family connections.

I had an aunt uncle who lived here in butternut.

The people still remember Otto and Gladys Shackel.

People who are old will remember them.

But I was not lucky enough to grow up here.

My I grew up in Milwaukee.

Oh, you did.

Yeah.

So I when you said Milwaukee, I was like, Yeah.

And then later on, my dad

moved us up to Sturgeon Bay.

That's where I graduated high school.

And then I went to Madison and lived in Madison.

I'm a badger.

Yay, UW Madison.

Go, go back.

You're in good companies.

Oh, badgers.

And then my husband there.

And we always talked about, gosh, we'd really like to move north.

And we're both teachers.

And so we made a deal.

Whoever gets a job first wins.

And so my husband got hired in 1991 to be the English teacher here.

And so we moved up and then I taught art in film.

That's

great.

So that's our quick little story, how we got here, but we love it here.

We just love it here.

I can't say enough lovely things about

that.

And if you're trying to explain it to people, how would you explain it to them, Kelly?

What makes this so unique and fabulous?

OK, I have said this in other interviews.

Butternut is a kind of place where if you get sick, the entire community will get together.

They will throw a fundraiser.

They'll take care of your pets.

You better show up with a water cache and a dish to pass.

And you don't ask any stupid questions like, how did you get here?

Why are you ill?

No, we just jump in.

We're a family.

We just jump in and we help each other.

We just help each other.

We're there for each other.

And it's incredibly safe.

You could keep your doors unlocked and everything, you'd be fine.

Although everyone locks their doors in butternut, just so you know, if you're thinking about doing something nefarious, don't even try it.

Don't even do that.

All right, Jane, my goodness.

Just saying.

Just saying.

So it's a very, I find it to be a very welcoming, accepting community.

And that runs against the stereotype.

It does.

Because people think of small towns, everybody's narrow-minded, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They wear white hoods.

No, it's not the case.

Small towns are much more progressive than I think people give them credit for and I always like the fact that in a small town you get more Hard to explain but like more authenticity Across the street is the butternut feed store, which is like the coolest place in the whole wide world If you're in butternut, please go now right now.

I'm just lovely.

I always send people over there When you have only one

like say one grocery store or one gas station or one, one, one, one.

It allows you to be free and be yourself as opposed to like say urban, I use Madison because I love Madison, but say the summer, there's always an olive garden.

There's always, you know, you know, cracker barrel and whatever.

You've got that homogenized sort of culture.

When you think about cultures in other, like say Europe.

When you think about, well, what does that culture really like?

What you're actually thinking about is the rural culture.

Urban cultures become pretty monolithic.

But very much the same.

So I love the fact that it's very cozy.

It's very unique.

And that people are just really loving and very accepting.

Well, you said what you said about.

People have this assumption that everyone is closed-minded

in small

towns, and that's kind of the whole motivation behind us traveling around

the state.

Because we have so much more in common.

And I was listening to Todd talking, or I was catching bits of pieces of your radio show earlier about how, you know, you had said they don't care if you wear a blue hat or a red hat.

you know, there are limits.

There are divisions, right?

We don't really like, I mean, if you're super far left, be careful.

If you're super far right, maybe.

But everything in between, like, hey, you know, we're just here to, like, be with each other and accept each other and listen and learn and grow.

We

all want the

same things.

Well, our interests are all identical.

We want...

A nice

place

to live, a decent

job, good schools for our kids, to be able to have some place to go if you get sick.

Right, exactly.

You know, I just think, again, with politics in particular, it is so easy to say, well, this is

a division,

and this is a division, and this is a division.

And Todd has said this repeatedly, too.

We have so many more things that

bring us together that we that we need to highlight and focus.

I think it's also a product of the 24 hour news cycle where they in order to manufacture outrage and anger, they have to they have to enforce these divides where when you talk to the people on the ground, the voters, the ones who are affected by the big decisions, they affect everyone.

And like you said, there are people who are super far left, there are people who are super far right and

you know, live your life, do your thing.

But in the middle, people are saying like, I just need my school to be better

for my kids.

I

need, I need there to be access to a hospital further and closer than an hour and a half away.

So

I need clean water.

Yes.

Just basics.

You're just so demanding, Kelly.

Oh my

goodness.

They're all things that people could get on board together with.

And I think when we start to deliberately create divides, we just whip each other into a frenzy and nobody's listening.

But you make a great point in that, unfortunately, with the media landscape, the way that it is, outrage cells and division cells.

And that's what gets clicks and justifies that

Yeah,

approach.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's it makes money, but that's not what we're here to talk about.

Honestly.

No, no, no, no, no, no,

that's no that.

No, that's that's that is what we're here to talk about the the I don't want to talk about the the

rage

factor.

This is what we're here to talk about.

We're here to talk to the people.

And that's why, as you said, we get on the road.

We go out and meet people and have conversations because that's the only way.

I mean, I'm

my whole life as a city boy, whether it's suburban or urban, I'm a city boy.

And when I get to places like this, it's about understanding the needs of other people as far as small business owners, people who have farmland, people who are just doing their lives differently than I know.

So I understand from my own perspective, because I can say what I believe, but I also want to factor in

other people's wishes and desires and that so I can be more open-minded.

So that's the point of coming here is understanding those things.

And

isn't that the whole point of travel?

Well, yes.

Yes.

And once you meet people, it's a lot harder to stereotype them.

Yes.

It's a lot harder to put them in a box.

Absolutely.

Everything becomes much more nuanced and real.

And like I said, authentic.

So yeah.

We are so delighted to be here.

We are

just delighted to be here.

If you are just joining us, we are broadcasting live.

It's day two from Matt Nair on air and the Todd Alba show out on the road.

We love Wisconsin.

We're at the Fanatical Fish Gallery along with the owner Kelly Meredith right here in downtown Butternut.

If you are in the area, please stop by.

We would love to meet you and

say hello.

I would love you to stop by.

Absolutely.

You have some beautiful things here that we'll get to in a minute.

But if you

were watching in the stream you can see this incredible piece behind us.

I want you to talk a little bit about what you're doing with with these kinds of pieces.

Okay so this piece I'm almost done and waiting for the client to approve it so I'll take a couple days.

This is for Port Washington but this is typical of the kind of work I do.

The initial thing was to

Um, apparently they had one of the first talky movies

in Port Washington.

Yeah, exactly.

Oddly enough, in 1928, and at the poster there, the alias Jimmy Valentine.

a movie person, I don't know what that is.

I don't need to know what that is.

They want, and then this is going on the east and south wall of this actual theater.

It's not a theater anymore.

It's called Java Doc Coffee.

It's a funky coffee shop.

But anyway, so they want to honor their history, this little anecdotal history.

A lot of the way these projects get funded, though, is as you see all the people, the people are actually sponsored.

So each person's a loved one paid for them to

be part of this.

Now, this is a little trickier.

because obviously they need to.

feature the 1920s.

So I have to morph these people to fit.

So like your glasses, which would be the classic, right?

You know, there's a style of glasses, you know, so that can change.

Hairstyles are a biggie, especially women's hair.

I bet.

In fact, I'm getting a little blowback on one of them because she has beautiful in real life.

She has beautiful 1950s gorgeous long locks.

And of course, that wasn't the typical hairstyle in 1920s.

And so we're kind of working on that.

So sometimes like having people stand

in for another person.

It's a little trickier.

A lot of my other work, like here in Butternut, and I do a lot of veteran's murals, lots of veteran's murals.

In fact, that's my next project I'm waiting.

Then it's actually your specific identity.

Right.

Then it really is you.

So, but anyway, so yeah, how many

I'm sorry.

Well, and you also said when we came in earlier that not only are you doing these murals and we've seen these all over town, but also there are

There are handwritten notes about all of these individuals that the families, because they have to be nominated,

correct?

Then they write a handwritten note describing the person and who they were in the community.

Actually, I asked for a handwritten narrative.

Tell me their life story.

in your own handwriting, because actually what I do is I literally take the handwriting and project it.

That's amazing.

Trace it.

So it's like that person's handwriting.

Because we all have a story to tell.

I mean, in our lives, tell such an interesting story.

And it's interesting.

Okay, let's say a person, normal life cycle of a human, they get married, they have children, they have grandchildren, maybe they have grandchildren, all those people who are

interacting with that life, have a different story to tell.

So the story you tell is as much about you as the person's individual life.

So here in Butternut, we do this.

We honor people and hopefully collecting, because I am the president of our Butternut Historical Society, by the way, we have a lovely museum.

Oh, wow.

Actually, Maxine will be on in the afternoon, our historian and curator.

This is

When you think about local history, what is local history?

Your local history is basically a collection of all the anecdotal histories of all the people who came and

went.

Sure.

And in those stories are also embedded the context, like the industries that were prominent at the time, the politics that was prominent at the time, cultural constraints and liberties at the time.

And so we start telling all those stories and putting them together.

You get kind of this beautiful mosaic sort of

collection of your town's history.

And so I'm honored to get to do that.

How

many of these have you done for towns around the country?

I've done a total of 161 murals.

This is mural 161.

I keep track.

I don't keep quite track of how many people I've painted, but I think it's about 1800.

That's fantastic.

And

how do people find you?

By accident, because I actually have to make it deliberate.

made a deliberate choice a long time ago not to advertise and to have people have to go find me.

One of the things I find with being with artists is that everybody's clamoring for attention.

Oh, look at me.

I'm special.

I'm special.

I'm special.

And that felt like soul rotting to me.

Like, please.

So Wisconsin.

How wonderful I am.

And I'm like, no, I don't want to play that game.

So I'm out there.

People find me by other work.

And it's word of mouth.

Word of mouth.

That's piece by piece by piece by piece.

And from from from conception to putting this up here to the very

where you say, I'm done.

How long do one of these take you on average?

Okay, this one yesterday was day 22 on this.

So 22 days from start to finish to get this.

That's

amazing.

We're going to continue talking with Kelly Meredith.

She's the owner of the Fanatical Fish Gallery here in downtown Butternut.

We are broadcasting live matinee on air and the Todd Alba show on the road.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good

morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach coming to you live.

From Butternut, Wisconsin, we are at the Fanatical Fish and Art Gallery here in downtown Butternut.

If you are in the area, we would love to have you stop by.

Not only is there that she has such beautiful things here and we're going to talk about that more in a little bit, but that we have crinkle.

We have coffee.

We would love to meet you if you are in the neighborhood.

So we are here until 11 o'clock.

Todd Alba will be broadcasting his show here from two to four today.

So come on out and join us.

It is a beautifully perfect day here in Butternut, Wisconsin.

Again, at the Fanatical Fish Art Gallery and Studio.

Kelly Meredith, the owner is here with us and.

We're talking about these murals that you do behind us.

I talked a little bit about the artist community.

Because we're really far north.

Yeah, we are.

Yeah, we are.

But you have brochures from there's art gallery tours and all kinds of things going on up here.

There's more stuff than you realize.

To the east of me is a art tour that runs basically from Lack to Flamble all the way down to Tomahawk.

It's huge.

I think it's like maybe 27 people.

And I wish I could.

recite the website you can go to but um I'll try to do that later um so point by point being it's where every but all the artist studios are open on this one particular day and it's uh there's exactly two art tours the one in the summer is I think the 26th and then the other one is sometime in October anyway

So you can go to these various

galleries

and just go meet them and a lot of them will have demonstrations and explain the work and blah blah blah blah blah So that's to the east of us Just south of here is Phillips in the concrete park and again if you're looking for an amazing place to go Please go to the concrete park.

It's the closed place in the world.

What is

that?

Oh my god, you don't know the concrete part of the Fred Smith concrete park.

Okay, you are gonna have to do this someday Just south of here in Phillips place.

It's a Wisconsin concrete park

It's literally all these concrete sculptures made by a man by the name Fred Smith who was an untrained artist.

He did it.

He was a farmer.

He just did it because he liked to do it.

And they're cobblestone.

They've got like broken glass in them.

They're

kind of

mosaic-y.

There's probably hundreds of sculptures

and they're

very folky.

but really super cool.

I mean, it's a place I want my ashes scattered when I die, because it's that cool.

I mean,

it's the

coolest place.

But anyway, point being, they have a gallery.

There's a house, the Fred Smith House, and there's a gallery there.

I was going to mention, so I believe it's called the Northwoods Art Tour.

Yes, yes, yes.

And I have the website here.

Oh, please.

It's NorthwoodsArtTour.com.

All of this information will be in our show notes today.

So when you go to the website, civicmedia.us,

Click on shows, find our show, and if you're interested in about it, I'll put that.

Thank you.

Your place will be in there unless you don't want me to.

No, no, please.

OK, there you go.

All right, all right,

all right.

I'm not hiding that much.

OK.

I'm hiding that.

But I'll put the Northwoods Art Tour.

And I'm looking at the Fred Smith Concrete Garden.

It's amazing.

That's fantastic.

It

is amazing.

And they have that.

It's called Countryside Artists.

And it's in that gallery is inside the house that's right on the park.

So an arts tour.

There's two artists in that tour.

Lisa Krieger and Francis Wickfield, who are on that tour, who teach classes here at my place.

And so a little shout out to both of them, because they're lovely people.

And then you go north of here is Bayfield.

And Bayfield's really a very, very strong artist community.

Lots of art.

In fact, I have one of my artists here took a lot of work out and put it in Bayfield because it's doing better.

But unfortunately, it's not a high tourist community.

And

I understood that going into this.

So in my gallery, I have very local people and people that I've been showing for like 10 years and I'm getting to watch them grow.

Like I'll put a shout out to Mary Zimmerman.

She's a watercolor artist in Park Falls.

She was one of the first people I started showing in 2015 when I opened.

I've gotten to watch Mary grow and develop her style and she takes classes and she keeps experimenting.

And so that's really exciting to see that.

Well, as a teacher, that must be, that's everything for you, right?

I've always said,

I feel just as happy when I sell someone else's work as I do with my own.

It's like, yay, you had an opportunity.

And having sold my own work.

It never gets old, selling your own work.

It's like, oh,

somebody likes that.

Somebody likes me.

I think too, just in talking to you when we were talking a little bit earlier, just about stereotypes that people have.

And I think us urban dwellers can be a bit snobbish and think we are the center of the world and we are the only place where art happens.

And there's, you know, every vast wasteland.

That's not true.

There's art.

and artists everywhere.

I can't believe how many times people from the city have come in here and gone, wow, this is actually good.

It is this major or shattering revelation.

And that's something that's actually I would say about all of Wisconsin, because even in a place like Milwaukee, you know, the biggest city in the state, people from Chicago, people, I work with people from all over the world, but specifically like LA, New York, Chicago, they come to Wisconsin for the first time and

I would say if they're open minded and willing to go out in the world and explore it, they're going to come back and say, I had no idea that you guys had it.

I understand we very much project and don't push back on the whole local

yokel,

farmer, blah, blah, blah.

They don't understand that this state has great art, great beauty.

Wonderful business like and and and what's great about Wisconsin is incredibly affordable compared to a lot of other cities out there So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that people come in and are astounded by the art because they don't expect that from

small towns, but also from a state like Wisconsin, which I say come to Wisconsin and be amazed because that's what we do here.

Right.

Right.

Exactly.

I totally agree.

Totally agree.

Come to Wisconsin and be amazed.

There you go.

Who can we sell that to?

Yeah, they're gonna get that on our shirt.

Yeah.

Governor Evers, you're gonna have it.

Exactly.

No, you can't.

For as long as it lasts.

Ah yes, Kelly Meredith is our guest.

We are broadcasting live from the Fanatical Fish Gallery and a studio here in downtown butternut coming up next hour in hour number two.

Brittney Merlot will be here.

Civic media meteorologists with little weather and wine.

Audio Sorbet after 10.30.

We want your Ollie and Lena jokes.

Greg has never heard any Ollie and Lena jokes.

Really?

Whoa.

We're going to continue our conversation with Kelly Meredith on the other side.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the vast statewide, countrywide pick us up globally on the app, the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome, welcome to Mattnare on Air.

Jane Mattnare, Greg Bach, coming to you live from Butternut, Wisconsin.

We got Calvin.

Back at Radio Park in Racine, running the board.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same.

855-752-4842.

You can leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream, on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Day two of our Come to Wisconsin BMAs tour.

We've just renamed it.

Come to Wisconsin.

BMAs.

BMAs.

Greg came out with that right before we went to the news.

I think it's fantastic.

Yes.

And we are at the Fanatical Fish Art Gallery and Studio here in downtown Butternut.

And the owner, Kelly Meredith, is our guest.

Thank you so much for having us here.

We really appreciate it.

Oh,

thank you for being

here.

It's been fabulous.

If you are in the area, please stop by and say hello.

Todd is going to be broadcasting also his show from two to four later on this afternoon.

So we're going to be exploring Butternut.

for a couple of hours in between, but we wanted to talk about some of the art that you feature here at your gallery.

Kelly, who'd you like to start with?

I'll start with me.

Start with

you.

Yeah.

It's all

about me.

Greg is gonna, Greg's gonna be our art display.

Okay.

He's gonna be Mr. Auctioneer guy.

Here

we go.

All right.

Hold the piece up.

All

right.

There we go.

Thank

you very much.

And take a fabulous look at this.

Oh, that's gorgeous.

And actually, this has just been sold.

It's been sold to Marshall.

Oh, well, never mind.

Goodbye.

I hold it until they come pick it up.

That's going to Marshfield Clinic, yay.

Oh,

nice.

And actually, like all my work, it's actually.

places around here.

So this is the Brunswiler River.

It's about 45 minutes from here.

I worked from a photograph my dad, my dad liked to photograph.

And so it's a photograph my dad took.

And, you know, I just I love this area.

It's not super like glamorous, like the Rockies,

you know,

that's stunning.

It's got a more subtle beauty.

Yes,

I really appreciate I do a lot of creeks and marshes and swamps.

I find them very beautiful.

I love dead trees.

There's nothing more beautiful than a dead tree.

So I, you know, so anyway, all my work based

features local.

My most common one is a place called Rapid Creek, which is about 10 minutes from here.

And it's kind of like Monet's Lilies à Givernais.

Wonderful.

Like how

he did the same like 3,000 times, but different lighting.

So for me, it's Rapid Creek.

I have tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of paintings of Rapid

Creek.

I mean, I am curious, always with artists in their own work.

When you started out early on,

You must have had some things and you looked at it and like, this is just terrible.

Yes.

Oh yeah.

Like yesterday.

I think that's reassuring though for people who are like, God, I'd really like to paint and I did this once in fifth grade and it was awful and I've never done it again.

Right.

Right.

I have always insisted because I was an art teacher, I've insisted that art is a learnable, teachable skill.

It is.

Because I wasn't really that good at art, but I really loved it.

I developed a love of art because my mom would not make me go outside and play with the neighbor kids if I was quietly doing something.

So back when I grew up, I think you and I are.

That's amazing.

I should have done

that.

Exactly.

That's how you get out of playing with the neighbor kids.

Don't

make me go

outside.

Don't make

me go outside.

I don't know

if any of you, you're about to see me just, um, pack of fun books.

Do you remember pack of fun?

Okay.

Pack of fun books were like these cheap, cheesy, like art books, like how to make a macaroni mosaic.

Macaroni

mosaic.

that or string art.

So that's how I, you know, got started as a kid.

And yes, I, I wasn't very good at art, but I,

you stuck with it, though,

with it.

I loved it.

So yeah,

I think one of the things to encourage the people and this is something that I struggle with.