Author: Regan Andersen
What does it take to build something joyful, sustainable, and community-led in Milwaukee Parks? A lot of people working together for all of the right reasons.
Picture this: you are standing under a 8×12 foot, hand-built, wooden picture frame, nestled in the middle of a Milwaukee County park. Around you, people are laughing, taking photos, pausing to enjoy the skyline or the lakefront.
The frame itself? Crafted from reclaimed local trees.
The design? Chosen by community vote.
The impact? A reminder that our public spaces can be places of creativity, connection, and care.
That’s the spirit behind Framing Wisco, Milwaukee’s newest placemaking initiative. Created through deep collaboration between local artists, businesses, nonprofit partners, and community leaders, Framing Wisco is more than just a photo–op. It’s a symbol of what’s possible when we center people, sustainability, and joy in our parks and communities.
Behind the beauty of these frames is a powerful story—one of reclaimed resources, grassroots creativity, and the kind of collaboration that transforms our parks from idle green space into active community place.
Framing Wisco: The History
Framing Wisco made its public debut in 2024 as a way to invite people into Milwaukee’s parks—both literally and figuratively. The idea was simple: build a large-scale picture frame in Milwaukee’s most beloved green spaces and invite the public to step inside. But like most good ideas, it quickly grew into something much more.
Led by the Hoan Group in partnership with the Milwaukee Parks Foundation, Visit Milwaukee, Forward 48, and other local collaborators, the inaugural frame debuted at Bradford Beach in June 2024. The project, which was managed by students from the MSOE CREATE Institute, blended public art and community connection in a way Milwaukee hadn’t quite seen before.
In July 2024, a second installation appeared at South Shore Park during Joy Engine’s second ArtBlaze on the Beach event—a clear sign the community was ready for more: more engagement, more beauty, and more moments of joy in our shared spaces.
The Milwaukee Parks Foundation played a key role in supporting both installations, ultimately helping to bring the vision to life. What began as a pilot project in 2024 has blossomed into a variety of new partnerships in 2025, creating a movement grounded in sustainability, public participation, and that powerful feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself, right in your own neighborhood.
From County Trees to Public Memories
Do you ever wake up to the harsh beep of construction trucks and feel immediately inspired? Me neither. But my next-door neighbor (and brother), who’s much more of a morning person, always seems to. One morning, he was chatting with the construction crew at the park near our house, asking what would happen to the trees they had just cut down (he was hoping to snag some scraps for a future project of his own).
While the workers didn’t have a great answer, my brother’s question stuck with me: What does happen to all of those trees? And more importantly—was there a chance they could be repurposed for Framing Wisco’s upcoming installations?
Enter some of the first key players in Framing Wisco’s renewed vision: my very patient and persistent colleague (hi, Drew!), CutNGo Trees, and The Urban Craftsman.
While I went back and forth with a few employees at DPW, it was Drew who discovered that while some of these trees are repurposed, a portion of them often end up in a landfill. After a few more phone calls, Drew was able to connect with CutNGo Trees, the local service that handles much of the tree removal across Milwaukee County. Once they heard about our project, CutNGo was eager to get involved.
The materials for Framing Wisco’s upcoming installations started out as something else entirely: trees that were due to be downed and removed from Milwaukee’s public land and left to rot at the local dump. Thanks to CutNGo, these trees were donated instead and given a second life.
That’s when Nick, a Riverwest-based woodworker and owner of The Urban Craftsman, stepped in. With expert hands and a commitment to sustainability, Nick transformed these salvaged tree trunks into the beautiful, hand-built frames you’ll see in our parks later this year.
What would have otherwise ended up in a landfill is now the foundation for something joyful—a public space that holds memory, invites reflection, and sparks connection with our community.
It’s a full-circle moment: a natural resource grown on public land, now reimagined as public art in Milwaukee’s public parks.