Folk Art Studio to Open On Mill Street in Menomonee Falls

Folk art lovers will be able to indulge in the world of painted canvas sculpturing when the Mill Street Folk Art studio opens its doors on May 28.  The studio is located at W164N8859 Mill St., right across the street from Lime Kiln Park in the former location of .

Operated by Menomonee Falls natives Joanne and Jeanne Kreuser, Mill Street Folk Art will offer unique, hand-crafted canvas sculptural figures.

“They’re sculptural figures, a combination of traditional doll making and traditional painting,” said Joanne Kreuser.  “We make rabbits, pumpkin men, Santas and things like that. We can also make figures such as a little pig riding a pig to market and a Santa riding a reindeer.”

Their interesting art form is simply not something one sees every day.

“It was a technique at the turn of the century called ‘Poor Man’s Porcelain’ and it was a way for poor people, who couldn’t afford porcelain dolls, to make dolls,” Kreuser said.  “They would create dolls out of fabric and then apply techniques to the fabric to make it like canvas and then paint the dolls.”

The sisters started their business out of their home on Milwaukee’s East Side as Painted Canvas Design in 1987.  They moved back to a home in Menomonee Falls about 15 years ago. Joanne, Jeanne and one of their brothers, all single, pooled their money and bought the house in which they still live. The Kreuser family has very deep roots in the Falls and Germantown areas.

“My dad has a long history of his family having farmland in Germantown and Falls,” Kreuser added. “Where the current Germantown High School stands was all Kreuser farmland. My grandfather was a milk hauler and my father worked right along with him.”

Another interesting aspect of their chosen art is that they’ve developed their own process for making the painted canvas figures.

“There is no written technique,” Kreuser said. “In 1987, we came up with our own technique for this and did it in our home. You create all of the pieces for the doll, the arms, legs, the body – they’re all separate.  Then you apply the gesso which sizes the material and makes the canvas itself. Next, you apply all of the traditional painting techniques that you would to a normal painting. Once you have all of the pieces for the doll or sculpture, you go back to traditional doll making. It takes about three months to make one.”

The sculptured figures range in price from $25 up to about $200 each.

“In addition to our painted canvas work we’re going to have wool appliqué and punch needle which is a very old Russian art form that my mother, Dianne, does,” Kreuser said. “She does all of the hand stitching.”

Mill Street Folk Art will have a formal grand opening event sometime in June.  For more information, call (262) 255-2011.