Two Art Crawls, One Weekend

Inside Turtle Ridge Gallery. Submitted.

It’s time to slow down and let sink in the abundance of art that exists on the peninsula. 

This weekend is the perfect time to do that. Two Fall Art Crawls – one in Sturgeon Bay, the other in Ellison Bay – design the perfect way to see as much ceramics, painting, glass, photography, sculpture and multimedia as possible, with more than 50 Door County artists on display.

Sturgeon Bay Fall Art Crawl

Sturgeon Bay has become something of an arts powerhouse in the last couple of years. It has 26 officially participating artists in its Art Crawl, but that undercounts the total – clocking it at around 38 – because ARTicipation Studio on Madison Avenue on the Westside represents several artists as does The Pearl of Door County, on 3rd Avenue near Oregon Street. Add in the recently opened branch of Plum Bottom Gallery on Third, or Brian Pier’s gallery and boutique on Madison Avenue, and the number of artists on view rises even more. 

The city’s Art Crawl used to be the week before Thanksgiving but this year artist organizers made two changes. They held a one-day event July 15, and they moved the autumn Art Crawl to the third week in October, not realizing that was also the date of the Ellison Bay arts celebration. The idea was to get away from the busy holiday season, reduce pressure on artists who were traveling for Thanksgiving or preparing large dinners for family and friends, and to get somewhat warmer weather. Last year it snowed during the Art Crawl and visitors tracked snow into the studios and galleries, creating a mess.

Karen Hertz-Sumnicht, who is an abstract painter, a partner in the Sömi Gallery, and owner of Avenue Art on 3rd next door to Sömi, said at least eight of this year’s artists are first-time participants. The most intense concentration of artists is between Michigan and Oregon streets on 3rd and 2nd, within the Steel Bridge Creative District.

More and more of the Sturgeon Bay festival is moving to galleries, and visitors don’t get to see the artists’ studios, she added. In some ways that is inevitable – several participating artists work in their kitchens and living rooms or live in apartments, and with more than 100 people planning to visit, many artists simply don’t have the space for so many visitors. 

Not all the artists are so cramped. Liz Butler has an updated barn for her ceramics studio and gallery, while Linda Sheard, at Lily Bay Potter, has a handsome, purpose-built studio and gallery with landscaping by her husband, Bart, a master gardener. The city’s crawl extends up to Jacksonport, where David Nielsen is showing at the Town Hall Bakery, and south to Bonnie Hartmann’s studio on Mt. Olive Road (although the official Art Crawl map shows it on Kentucky Street). 

Ellison Bay Art Crawl

In Gills Rock, Rob Williams, an honorary member of the Ellison Bay arts group, will welcome visitors to a studio gallery that he had constructed during the pandemic behind his home on Isle View Road.

“It was 2021, we weren’t traveling, and we had a little extra money in the gallery account and wondered what to do,” he said. 

His wife, Shirley, suggested they build the studio they had talked about.

He paints large oils and the new studio gives him space to have four canvases underway at one time.

“And because it is bigger and away from the house, I don’t have to clean it up every day – which is one reason I stopped enjoying the little studio next to the gallery,” he said.

A retired art teacher, he said his work and approach to it have changed. 

“I am focused more on my own creativity,” he said. “When you are teaching you always have one foot in the establishment.”

It was difficult to paint freely when he was teaching because he was always going back to basics, talking about fundamentals.

“Now, I am really interested in something new and something fresh,” he said. “I wake up in the morning and want to go out to my studio.”

Shirley has recovered from a serious medical condition that weakened her immune system and required her to stay largely isolated during the pandemic. Now she is back in the woods with her camera creating black and white photographs, and working as a docent at the Hardy Gallery in Ephraim.

Unusually for a landscape photographer, she creates narrow vertical images, totally black and white, of patterns, contrasts and tones.

“It’s just how I see the world – I never look panoramically at anything, I always look from the ground up to the sky,” she said. “I didn’t realize that was my habit until two or three years ago. There is so much to encompass from the ground and looking up, up, up to the sky and the clouds. I am aiming to show people how I see beauty in the world.”

Ellison Bay is strong on pottery and sculpture. Clay Bay Pottery, on state Highway 42 a mile and a half south of the center of Ellison Bay, features works that are whimsical, abstract, practical or just fun. 

Gills Rock Pottery, despite its name, is in what is sometimes called downtown Ellison Bay, on Lakeview Road and Hwy. 42. Its owners, Thor and Judy Thoreson, were influenced by Marguerite Wildenhain, a Bauhaus-trained potter who created a school at Pond Farm in California where Thor studied. 

Ellison Bay Pottery at 12156 Garrett Bay Rd., a short distance off Hwy. 42, has been operated by the husband-and-wife team of John Dietrich and Diane McNeil since 1974. John, who was an assistant to noted Door County potter Abe Cohn before starting his own pottery, will do studio talks on both Saturday and Sunday.

Turtle Ridge Gallery and boutique at 11736 Mink River Rd. has new paintings by Mary Ellen Sisulak and custom-made leather handbags with bright leather designs. Sisulak recently won the Gerhard CF Miller Award of Excellence at the Miller Art Museum for her work titled Artifact, a painting of trees incorporating leather and stones. The boutique will also feature handmade felt hats by Kathleen Gaffey.  

Other participants in the Art Crawl are Kick Ash Coffee on Hwy. 42 and Mink River Road, which has coffee, teas, hot chocolate and great baked goods, plus comfortable chairs, dining tables and Wi-Fi; Island Orchard Cider on Garrett Bay Road offers Warm Spiced Cider cocktails; and The Clearing, an adult folk school with public hiking trails, invites visitors to stop in and see a wood carving workshop in progress and visit its gift and bookshop.