Skew

Collaborators Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg have been exploring the different forms of American architecture built by immigrants such as the artist’s own families. McCaw and Budsberg have been noting the various shapes these buildings take after being abandoned and have been inspired by the improbably organic shapes that barns take when they slump and shift under the weight of time and weather. Skew brings this unique geometry into the 21st century.

The artists have taken sheets of white pine from a tree that fell on Budsberg’s family’s property in northern Wisconsin to create their modern-day “barn”. Budsberg, a master craftsperson, is hand carving Skew, relying on modern computer tools to calculate the geometries for the shape while using the hand tools of his pioneer ancestors. Skew brings the history and scale of 19th-century architecture to the state’s busiest place of growth—Wisconsin Avenue. As our landscape transforms with layers of cultural and economic ambition, Skew will remind us of our immigrant roots.

McCaw and Budsberg trained as artists in Wisconsin, and live and work in Milwaukee.