The Millennium Sculpture

Artist: Marina Lee, mother of 8th grade Roosevelt student
Justice Meyer, assisted Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts in acquiring the Milwaukee Millennium Sculpture.
This is her reflection on the Milwaukee Millennium Sculpture. “Journey” & “Time”

During the first exhibition of ”Journey”, Milwaukee’s Millennium sculpture, the format was a vessel, a ship taking us into the future. elementary students made stepping stones which were placed in a spiraling path to represent the mapped path of this journey. Middle school students created the portrait banners to represent the vessel’s sails, the future energy. High school students created the friendship pins that held people’s wishes from Milwaukee and around the country.

The bow and stern of the vessel have now been transformed in space or stood up into their arch position to represent the Millennium in “Time”. The spiral arch (symbolizing continuing life) represents our past and path onwards as we walk beneath it to the circle arch (symbolizing the circle of life) where we must box in humbleness and respect as we walk on through “Time”. The stepping stones created for the first exhibition are now represented by the concentric circles of boulders, anchoring us in our time and place, yet the concentric circles symbolize withing the sculpture, the concept of energy radiating outwards as people join forces - family to neighborhood to community to country to world - our rings of life.

This sculpture represents crossing the Millennial divide with a spirit of collaboration, community and connection. In spring, we will create a path to the sculpture with elements for your connection, collaboration and celebration for the community.

Special notes

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• the negative space inside the arch is in the shape of a heart. This heart defines what I consider humankind’s special commodity. It is not visible but felt.
• the original arches for the heart of the boat were created by Marian Vieux, Daniel Frankel’s mom.
• most of the sewing for the banners wasbeautifully done by Barbara Tracey, Moira’s mom.
• Roosevelt was a participating school in 1998 and created the banners with the turquoise corners. Some of you that attended Elm might have helped create a stepping stone.
• Metro students created friendship pins to hold the wished of people from around Milwaukee and the country.
• A total of 6 MPS elementary schools, 4 MPS middle schools and 4 MPS high schools helped to created the sculpture.
• The sculpture was exhibited twice. The first exhibition, in 1998, was the sculpture as “Journey” for the grand opening of the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee. The second exhibition was in 1999. the sculpture was transformed and exhibited to represent the city of Milwaukee at the San Diego Convention Center in California.