Chetek: The Rest of the Story

A grant of $1200 from Wisconsin Humanities will allow the CPAL to start 2025 with a new project, Chetek: The Rest of the Story.  All members of the Chetek Community are invited to take part. The project goal is to collect as many illustrations of Chetek stories as possible, reproduce them on weatherproof banners, and display them all summer on the east fence of the downtown parking lot behind Main Street Park.

What counts as a Chetek story? Anything that has ever happened in the life of anyone who is or was part of the Chetek Community. The story may be historic in nature, an episode from the logging days, for example. Or it may relate to a topic commonly connected with Chetek, i.e.: fish, fireworks, or flags.  Or it may be a unique story that no one has heard before but was significant for whoever lived it.  Big stories, little stories, happy stories, sad stories, joyful stories, painful stories, any story may be the one you want to tell.

You don’t have to live here to participate. Anyone who has visited or has some kind of experience that left an impression of Chetek counts as a member of the Chetek Community for the purposes of this project.

You don’t have to be an established artist, either. We encourage everyone to take part. If you have always secretly wished you could draw but were afraid you couldn’t, we especially want you to take part.   Fear keeps us from doing a lot of things, but art should not be one of them.  You can draw. You can paint. You can write a one or two sentence caption that gives context to your picture.  Let your illustration do the rest. Your picture will be worth 1,000 words.

How to participate:

.          Pick up a free 6”x6” canvas at City Hall, Chetek Community Center, or the Calhoun Memorial Library. When you take a canvas, you will register your contact information and agree to write a short caption/story and to draw, paint, color, or render in any medium an accompanying illustration on the canvas.

     2.     Return completed canvas by March 1st. Returned canvases are the property of the CPAL.

That’s all you have to do!

         The CPAL will digitize the illustrations from all the stories so they can be resized and arranged in a variety of configurations.  They will be arranged mosaic-like and printed onto 6’x4’ banners.  The banners will be hung on the fence on the east side of the downtown parking lot where they will stay all summer, available for viewing by everyone 24-7.

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