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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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 […]
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The pictorial effects and unanswered questions emanating from Pamela Murphy’s paintings suggest she should be in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Instead art collectors from these cities purchase her work while visiting Door County, knowing they have discovered an artist whose work extends past the county’s landscapes to suggest something more familiar. It is […]
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Putting Me to Sleep in Frog Pajamas
A redneck and an aspiring artist driving cross-country in a 65-foot roast turkey. A beautiful princess living in the attic of a house surrounded by blackberry brambles, with nothing but a cot, a chamber pot, and a pack of camel cigarettes, philosophizing about love.
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John “Kotar” Kotarski riddles without reason.
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It is the first day of summer. All of your friends are calling to come out and play.
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Alabama Mike among the Rainbow People
Mr. Norris tells the story of Mike and his Love Cakes.
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The Song that Lives in a Chambered Shell
However hard you may search for it
you will never be able to grasp it
you can only become it. -IkkyuMaslow called it ecstasy.