Category: Art Scene
The latest news on the Door County art and literary scenes, including features, gallery openings, exhibits, and literature events.
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The Linden family has returned from another winter spent in China, bringing with them the type of unusual treasures that has made Linden Gallery of Ellison Bay nationally known as a purveyor of Asian art and antiques. Brian Linden estimates that he (and his wife, Jeanee, and their two young sons, Shane and Bryce) spent […]
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Sharing Life’s Colors: Bob & Judi Ekholm
You might think two artists living under one roof would get to be a bit crowded sometimes, especially when both are using the same medium to express themselves. However, for Bob and Judi Ekholm their painting is just as enmeshed as their 25-year marriage. They work side-by-side focusing on the canvases in front of them, […]
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50 Years With Abe and Ginka Cohn
If you mention the words pottery, clay, or wheel demonstrations anywhere in Door County, undoubtedly the first person that springs to mind if Abe Cohn. The renowned potter and his wife, Ginka, are celebrating over 50 years together, in business and in marriage. Ginka calls the meeting of her husband Abe in 1953 serendipitous. Both […]
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Where Talent, Patience & Instruction Meet: The Art of Craig Blietz
“I’ve been blessed with the instruction I’ve had,” says Craig Blietz, an accomplished still-life and portrait painter who lives and works in Liberty Grove. Glancing around his open, two-story studio at a handful of rich and alluring paintings, though, I can’t help but muse to myself: Instruction is always a plus, but can this really […]
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Thankful For the Artist’s Life: Three Anniversaries
Nobody said that living the artist’s life would be easy – but for the owners of three local galleries, remembering the struggles of” creating” their own incomes in a tourist-driven economy has almost faded into the realm of the insignificant. All seem to agree that chasing after their passion comes with rewards that far outweigh […]
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Mike McCartney: A Dog’s Best Friend
Just like most talented people who enjoy what they do for a living, Mike McCartney will tell you that his job is easy. He is able to sit in a studio overlooking a beautiful, pristine setting in the middle of the county while he draws and creates caricature after caricature. His unmistakable style has become […]
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Donna Brown: The Artist as Philosopher
Plato considered “art” to be nonsense, a form of play not to be taken seriously. Aristotle, writing a generation after Plato, saw things differently. He saw “art” as a means of understanding and comprehension. He saw it as a way of widening the mind’s access to the world. It may be play, but it is […]
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As Time Goes By: Three Area Artists Celebrate Milestones
It’s not easy being an artist in Door County. As a result, reaching a significant anniversary for an arts-related business is much more than the average milestone. It’s been a long strange trip for Ellison Bay Pottery. 30 years ago, potter John Dietrich purchased 10 acres of the old Driftwood Farms and began converting the […]
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Door County and Jingdezhen, China: Sister Cities
*2004 is the millennium celebration of the founding of the city of Jingdezhen, China as the world inventor and originator f modern porcelain production techniques. The artifact above is at least 300-400 years old. When the firing of pottery in a kiln produced less-than-perfect results, the ruined pots were cast aside into mounds. Over the […]
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Weaving a Tradition: The Life and Times of the Maple Grove Gallery
Sometimes, when you search long enough, you will find exactly what you are looking for. This is how Gloria, and her husband George Hardiman, came upon their little shop called Maple Grove Gallery on the corner of County Road F and Maple Grove Road in the middle of the Door peninsula. One summer, more than […]
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Ephraim Jeweler Amanda Dewitt: The Work, The Struggle, The Journey
Many Door County entrepreneurs have seen their ideas and enthusiasm quashed by the doubt of a long, slow winter or the unpredictable nature of a tourist economy. It is often less the idea that will make or break a business here, and more the fortitude of the person. One has to work hard, run into […]
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If you want to capture someone’s attention, whisper. So it is currently with the arts in Door County. Everyone is whispering about Common Ground. Have you heard? Have you heard? And heard we have. Finding Common Ground” is the biggest, all encompassing art exhibit ever put together by the Francis Hardy Center for the Arts […]
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The Pleasure of Breaking the Rules
Necessity is the mother of invention. No doubt about that. Ask Michael Beaster. After eight years of running his own business of underground power line installation in the Midwest, the economy started pinching and a new source of income had to be found; and this he did. When business started slowing down too much, Beaster […]
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Destination Learning: Diverse offerings in the Arts, Crafts, and Humanities
Door County is known throughout the Midwest, nationally and even internationally as a premier vacation destination. The natural beauty, outdoor activities, boating, shopping and thriving arts and crafts bring millions of visitors to the peninsula each summer. For many visitors to Door County, the peninsula represents the ultimate in idleness. Time spent in Door County […]
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Door County’s Artistic Identity: The Galleries and Artists of the Peninsula
Drive down any highway, street, or back road on the peninsula and you’re likely to notice an uncontested truth about Door County: galleries are everywhere. A quick phonebook count brings up 107 all together, though that number is probably low. Each day, it seems, a new gallery opens its doors, an existing one introduces a […]
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Blue Harmony at the Blue Dolphin House
Having a successful business, retail or otherwise, is never an overnight process. In order to succeed, you have to be patient, determined, hardworking, in the right place at the right time, and, if you are lucky, you have a strong partner with whom you can share the whole process. Peg and John Lowry, of the […]
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When an artist starts a jewelry business during an economic slump with the gold price at a daunting $800 per ounce, is this inexperienced naiveté or people who are serious about their art? Jeri and Jeff Taylor, owners of the jewelry and fine art gallery J. Jeffrey Taylor, in downtown Fish Creek, fall into the […]
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If you’ve ever walked into Fred & Co. and O’Meara’s Irish House in Fish Creek, you may have noticed some similarities in their owners. True, Terry Goettelman and Megan O’Meara could not be mistaken for sisters, yet they seem to be cut from the same cloth. Both women purchased their businesses while in their late […]
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Composing a Dream: Wence and Sandra Martinez
The universe pulls us from all directions. From our past, from our future, and from the moment. For Wence Martinez, a full-blooded Zapotec Indian, the pull began two thousand years ago when villagers from Teotitlan began to weave, and continues today at his gallery near Jacksonport, where he and his artist wife, Sandra, run Martinez […]
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A Potter’s Haven: The Tradition and Art of Pottery in Door County
Ask anyone who’s been to a pottery studio in Door County and they will probably tell you two things about their experience. First, they’ll tell you that making pottery is more complicated than one might think. It requires dexterity, skill, and an intimate knowledge of clay and glaze combinations, firing techniques, science and art. The […]