One paint stroke at a time

The Neville Public Museum’s Youth Discovery Room will undergo a renovation this year starting with the installation of a custom mural by local artist

Andrew Linskens, who has been hard at work for the last several weeks filling the space with a picturesque landscape including many of Wisconsin’s native birds.

“I want [people] to walk in and be like, ‘Wow,’” Linskens said. “I want there to be some wow factor there because that’s what art can do. Art can make you feel something, right? And that’s what I want. I want them to feel something, and hopefully that is something that’s empowering.”

With several weeks of work already completed and still more to go as he adds more birds to the scene, including a bald eagle at the center of the mural, many museum patrons have had the opportunity to observe Linskens’ process.

“It’s a slow process,” he said. “You have to let paint dry and kind of come back and analyze where you’re at, but so far so good. And I’m used to painting with an audience. I do a lot of performance stuff, like with the Packers on gameday… And with the Art Hop Collective, where we would throw shows in Green Bay and bring music and art together. So I’m all about that.”

Members of the community being able to see Linksens at work is an opportunity he not only accepts, but welcomes in hopes that it inspires future artists.

“I’m just proud to be a Green Bay artist working in Green Bay again, trying to make where we live a little bit better of a place one little paint stroke at a time, as cheesy as that sounds,” he said. “That’s where I’m coming from. And I have no secrets. People will be able to see how I work and how I do my thing. That wasn’t necessarily how I was brought into art. A lot of people keep their secrets close to them and I do the opposite. Whatever age, I want there to be more good stuff here. I don’t look at it as competition, I look at it as planting a seed and then hopefully that turns into something greater later on.”

It’s an opportunity that is especially important in our community, where people, especially children, may not have had other opportunities to witness and experience this type of art first-hand.

“We live in a state that’s towards the bottom, if not at the very bottom, as far as funding for the arts,” Linskens said. “This is the way that kids get to see that type of thing and experience that. I taught at UW-Green Bay as well and I’ve noticed that our kids are a little bit behind with some of the art knowledge. They have the skills, they have the desire and they have the work ethic there, but you have to kind of see art and experience art sometimes. We can do that in one little fashion here and have them go, ‘Wow, that’s cool, Maybe I could do that kind of thing.’ It’s a great experience, whether they’re small kids or whether they’re adults.”