Carved Totems

Collaboratively created by MIAD & UWM students

The designs for the carved totems were created by a team of students from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), Heidi Goodale, Wyethe Smallish and Maria Wichman. 

While the totems have a common style, each has a unique theme incorporating an important element of the garden: plants, animals, pollination and community.

Listen to the artists describe their creative process to design the carved totems.

Professor Alex Timmer from UWM School of Architecture helped the artists understand how the machine carving the totems would work and their design constraints.

Once the artistic design was completed by the MIAD artists, Professor Timmer’s Mass Timber class went to work in the woodshop.  Using CNC equipment, they translated the digital designs to carvings in the cedar posts.

Out in the garden, the totems serve both form and function. As the posts for the Shade Oasis, gardeners enjoy sitting in the shade while viewing the intricate and imaginative designs.


Our sincerest thanks to David J. Frank Landscape Contracting, Inc. for setting the totems for our Shade Oasis. (Trust us, that’s a bigger task than it sounds like!)