Kress Pavilion Welcomes “A Sense of Place – Two Artists’ Visions of The Door County Land Trust”

The Egg Harbor Public Arts Initiative and The Kress Pavilion are pleased to be featuring scenes of the Door County Land Trust as envisioned by artists Terri Warpinkski and Jim Perry starting February 3, free to the public.

Terri Warpinski is Professor Emerita of Art at the University of Oregon. Her B.A. degree is from the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay, and she holds both an M.A. and M.F.A from the University of Iowa. Her photographically based creative practice, reflecting an expertise that bridges the span from handcrafted historical practices to digital media, explores the relationship between personal, cultural and natural histories. Helen A. Harrison of The New York Times has written of Warpinski’s landscape work: “She is especially attuned to the often subtle evidence of human impact on nature. . . . (Her work) invite(s) speculation about the secrets that may be revealed by close scrutiny and creative speculation.” Terri’s work is represented in Door County at Idea Gallery, West Jacksonport.

Her work has been and continues to be seen in a range of galleries, institutions, and international festivals including such venues as the Pingyao International Festival of Photography in China; the US Embassy in Jerusalem; Houston International FotoFest; the Oregon Biennial at Portland Art Museum; Center for Photography at Woodstock; and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Warpinski served two terms as Chair of the national board of directors (2000-2008) for the Society for Photographic Education; was awarded artist residencies at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, Playa in Oregon, Annex Art in Berlin, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice.  Terri’s professional career is distinguished with awards as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Israel 2000-2001, a research/creative fellowship through Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) to Berlin in 2017, and finally as the Honored Educator in 2018 at the National Conference for the Society of Photographic Education in Philadelphia.

Jim Perry is a noted Door County photographer who captures the essence of the Door County Land Trust. You can find his daily posts on social media of the individual Door County Land Trust breathtaking! Jim captures the beauty and sense of place, literally, taking the viewer to places they may have never been before. He’s a real ambassador for the Door County Land Trust, listing the location of his photo posts so others can explore the natural beauty of the Door County landscape. Jim often writes poetry to accompany his photos.

our ever-running-never-stop mind,

using things to keep us distracted,

walk in the park, watch tv, go some place,

when we realize,

silence fills the spaces between the cracks,

and we learn to act so…

The exhibit will run starting February 3 through May 29 and the public is invited to the opening reception with the artists at the Kress Pavilion on February 5 from 4-7 p.m. with the artists speaking 5:30 p.m.

About the Public Arts Initiative: The mission of the Public Arts Initiative (PAI) of Egg Harbor is to develop, promote and expand the public art experience in the Village of Egg Harbor. The Village understands the positive impact the arts have on cultural tourism and economic development for our community. It is their goal to create and maintain the highest quality public art program and to be recognized locally, regionally and nationally, further enhancing the extraordinary reputation of the Village of Egg Harbor, Wisconsin. The PAI also sponsors workshops and special events throughout the year, to promote education, participation and the enjoyment of the arts in our community.

Winners of the Three Dancers photography contest announced!

On Thursday evening, November 11th, the winners of the Three Dancers photography contest were announced inside the Donald and Carol Kress Pavilion during the opening of the newest exhibit, An Artist’s Alphabet.

Watch the recorded presentation: https://www.facebook.com/PAI.of.EH.WI/videos/576271876766791/

2021 Three Dancers Photography Contest Results

(photos to be added soon)

Category: Amateur, 13 & Older

Gary Sedan
Sturgeon Bay, WI
$150.00

Title – “Three Dancers Sing The Body Electric!” Inspired by the title of the Ray Bradbury short story, I wanted the sculpture to appear to be bursting with energy, vital and alive. And, because they are dancers, I wanted to impart a sense of motion in keeping with the energy theme. The dark color background was chosen to help focus on the dancers and make everything pop.

Aruna Bolisetty
San Francisco, CA
$100.00

The first aspect of the sculpture that drew me into it was the silhouette. They looked like a group of friends holding hands at a joyous occasion. I’m hoping in removing all the color, what we can focus on is the pure form of the shape and the juxtaposition of the three friends in a celebratory moment.

Phil Biebl
Madison, WI
$75.00

I was at the Peg Egan summer concert on Sunday night and the entire evening was a perfect example of what Life at its finest is all about. The gorgeous weather, the happy crowd, the beautiful surroundings, the joy in my heart. It truly was an enchanted evening. — And the Three Dancers added to that magic! My photo captures the color, energy and dreamlike quality of a most memorable night.

Category: Youth, to age 12

Ferris McFarlane
Sturgeon Bay, WI
$150.00, first place tie

“I started with taking my time a little bit. I wanted my mom to put her hands together and make her legs bend a tinesy bit. Looked like my mom was circling and swinging around the sculpture. I wanted to get a really good angle. I liked the sun. The sculptures are pretty cool. Looks like three colors dancing. My mom looks like she’s dancing too.”

ShaeLynn Laughlin
Sturgeon Bay, WI
$150.00, first place tie

I call my artwork the life of the three dancers.

Category: Professional

Leah McFarlane
Sturgeon Bay, WI
$150.00

“The THREE DANCERS has a very prominent silhouette, and I wanted to create this same effect having my son become part of this majestic performance. Even though the sculpture is station- ary, there is so much movement that entices the audience to start dancing too. Your eyes can’t help but to look up following the curves, shapes, and lines; the bubbles not only look like the spherical rings around the dancers, but they help my son “float” into the frame, although he is grounded. The sun is like a spotlight illuminating this captivating show.”

Bill Shewchunk
Sturgeon Bay, WI
$100.00

Searching for a unique perspective, I explored every possible angle and settled on a view of the “Three Dancers” from above. I then enhanced this heavenly view with some post processing.

Lisa Larsen
Watertown, WI
$75.00

To me, the most important aspect of this sculpture is it’s relationship to the space above it, the vastness of the moving sky against the implied movement of the piece itself, therefore my shot was taken from the ground looking up.

Judged by Jim Redding. Thank you to all who submitted!

Kress Pavilion Welcomes “Alphabet”

The Egg Harbor Public Arts Initiative and The Kress Pavilion are pleased to announce the return of “An Artist’s Alphabet” an excerpt from Brian Pirman’s Animal Collage Series. Interrupted by COVID, the series is returning to the Kress in October. It incorporates vintage engravings and letterforms representing the complete alphabet with an ampersand and question mark.

Award-winning, regional artist and collegiate educator, Pirman’s work is informed by his background in Fine Art and Graphic Design. His process involves typography, design, photography and illustration. He has a tendency to focus on formal elements which include form, pattern, texture, color and composition. His longtime interest in photography has been empowered with the addition of electronic tools to shape and manipulate imagery. A recent goal has been to generate art that looks like it could have been done by hand using electronic tools. A main goal for Brian is to create work that warrants another look and hopefully another and another. He draws his inspiration from music, fine art, film, nature and popular culture.

The exhibit will run October through January 2022 and the public is invited to the opening reception with the artist at the Kress Pavilion on November 11 from 5-7 p.m. with the artist speaking at 6:00 p.m.

Three Dancers Contest Extended

Egg Harbor’s Public arts Initiative is hosting a PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST!!

Anyone can participate!

ENTRY DEADLINE: October 1, 2021.

The focus of your photo MUST be of the THREE DANCERS sculpture located next to the Peg Egan performance stage, just across the road from The Donald and Carol Kress Pavilion. The Three Dancers sculpture was donated to Egg Harbor’s Public Art by internationally renown sculptor, Richard Edelman.

CASH AWARDS: $150, $100, $50 will be given in three categories: Youth (age 12), Amateur (13 and older), Professional.

Email submissions to: idea@netnet.com and include:

  • Your name
  • Submission category: youth, amateur or professional
  • Age
  • Address
  • Email
  • Phone
  • A brief statement regarding your entry
  • Size of JPG file: minimum 3 mb
  • Please denote in email subject line: Egg Harbor Photography Contest

Phone photos, digitally manipulated or enhanced will be accepted.

ONLY ONE PHOTO ENTRY PER PERSON!

Good luck everyone!

Friday, June 25 ART SPEAKS

Join us from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. outdoors at the Kress Pavilion (7845 Church St, Egg Harbor).

Write On, Door County is pleased to a special edition of Art/Speaks with the Egg Harbor Public Art Initiative.

Art/Speaks is a free writing lab encouraging people to write in response to visual art. Led by poet Francha Barnard, this 60-minute writing activities is perfect for both beginning and advanced writers of all ages.

This session will focus on the metal sculptures of Richard Edelman, on display at the Kress Pavilion and in various locations in downtown Egg Harbor. Weather permitting, the session will be held outdoors.

THIS PROGRAM IS PRESENTED IN PERSON (OUTDOORS)

About Art/Speaks:

The practice of using words to comment on a piece of visual art—ekphrasis—is an ancient one. One of the earliest and most commonly cited forms of ekphrasis occurs in The Iliad, when Homer provides a long and discursive account of the elaborate scenes embossed on the shield of Achilles. Contemporary literature provides many fine examples of ekphrastic writing. Though most common in poetry, ekphrastic writing can also include fiction and nonfiction.

Some background and examples of ekphrasis will be provided. Participants will be asked to write in response to one of the pieces from the current exhibit or to another piece that captures your imagination. Following the writing, writers will share their work aloud with other participants if they wish.

Thursday, June 17: Expression in Metal Opening Reception

Richard Edelman Art Exhibit Reception (Artist Talk at 5:30pm)

The public is invited to the opening reception of “Expressions in Metal: Sculptures by Richard Edelman” on June 17th from 4-7 pm with Artist Richard Edelman speaking about his work, philosophy and process at 5:30 p.m. (Free)

For those who wish to attend virtually, tune into Facebook.com/PAI.of.EH.WI

Richard Edelman is a Milwaukee artist who has sculptures permanently displayed throughout the world. He is also a recipient of the Frank. L. Weil Award for contributions to Jewish Culture. His permanently displayed work in Egg Harbor are “Blue Sail” (Marina) “Three Dancers” (Peg Egan) and “Little Dancer Aged 14” Highway G at the walking trail entrance.

Between the Cracks Online Gallery

Between the Cracks features 14 pieces and came out of a 2021 winter challenge about facing the unknown and undefined within two virtual workshops lead by local artist Dawn Patel. Artists were asked to create from the in-between spaces of life where everything familiar disappears and one steps into the unknown. View the image below in person at the Kress Pavilion from March 15 through Memorial Day 2021.

Mary Carson, Textile Artist — The Caregiver’s Job Has Ended

I tell stories with hand stitch and applique that point to the beauty and hope found within life’s simple moments.

The Caregiver’s Job Has Ended

I know we planned and discussed. Does that all start now?

Wait. Where did you go? Are you in the air? If I leave, will you find me?

Look. We raised the bed, so you’d be more comfortable. Were you? Are you proud of me? Did I do a good job?

Look at the time. You’ve been gone for 24 minutes.

I have such a long way to go without you.

This piece honors all loving caregivers. I lost both my brother and mother in 2015.
Their empty beds remain warm in my heart forever.

Hand stitch and applique, tinted with watercolor and pastel

Lisa Schulman Larsen — Rightful Passage

Exhausted, recovering art fair exhibitor discovers new life as fervent stitching zealot

This workshop about exploring and honoring liminal space has reminded me how much I love to explore the creative process. I was encouraged to enter a zone that was both uncomfortable and surprisingly productive.

Lisa Schulman Larsen — Rightful Passage (interior)

This piece potentially had many more examples of liminal space – more doors, doors with windows, portholes both withholding and excreting more doors, etc. While wrestling with this mental collage, and searching through my ample stores for inspiration, I discovered this long forgotten black display box. It quickly became a welcome boundary to my project’s unruly girth and the ideal exhibit tool. The spiral embroidery was both thematically perfect for this current project as well as a lovely example of the most recent way I am making colorful marks on my world. It nestled inside the box beautifully, needing only minor adjustments.

The ‘front door’ is purposefully left ajar so the viewer can see it as well as what it reveals within. If you are very gentle, I invite you to open the piece by the black frame. (not the painting of the door, please) Inside is the spiral embroidery surrounded by the night sky, further framed by pieces of an original drawing I created during the workshop.

Anne Kelly — Carving into the Light
Medium: Art Making as Art or Process vs. Product

Linoleum Print Block/#1 Reduction

I am working my way through a four-color reduction print depicting a winter landscape in the woods. I see snow, thinning ice with cracks, and a dark, pooling path of water alongside bare trees.

My first step was to carve into the block you see here. The negative space, the beige areas, will not print when I ink up the plate and will read as the white color of the paper I am using. The color of the paper “counts” as one of the print colors. For the first impression using block #1 I will roll gray ink over the blue areas of the plate and print this plate ten times, re inking each time. I will then cut much of the blue away, leaving small areas within the white lines you see on this block for the second inking. I plan to use a darker, more transparent grey for the second impression with block #2 and again print ten times, re inking and registering the paper as I go. Then I will cut the block again, removing the last of the blue, without touching the areas you see penciled in black. The last steps will be to roll black ink over the remaining areas of the block #3 and pull that final, third impression ten times. The finished print will read as a mirror image of the carved block.

Bio
I am a printmaker balancing my time between Fish Creek and the Chicago Loop. My printmaking often experiments with color and overlapping, repetitive layers. Additionally I enjoy creating collagraph prints from found objects, inking one plate with both intaglio and relief techniques.

Rosie Dittmann — “Liminal Space”

Retired in Southern Door, now have time to learn, explore and create.

I have been working at Abstract Painting for several years. Many of my pieces contain a path or after learning a bit on liminality, maybe a liminal space?

Charolette Baierl — Nice White People, Door County Circa 2016
If art is for everybody, where is everyone?

I am a white woman: I am speaking to other white people. This poem is based on real events. I choose to say “events” because the statements and racist ideas within this piece have been personally executed, witnessed and re-produced in other all-white spaces; they are being produced today.

Utilizing the prompt of “between the cracks” and liminality, the only thing I could see was my own silence and complicity in maintaining white supremacy. The United States was built on racist ideas and is fortified by racist systems.

Racism is a white person’s cultural inheritance.

If I can’t admit that I produce and uphold racist ideas, there will be no end to my production of racist ideas.

My hope is that other white people see themselves in this poem.

Dawn Patel — We Always Find A Way In

She is infinite, making brief appearances in this place,
this plane of reality limited by narrow constructs of belief.
She pulls back the veil.
What was once in the shadows is meant to be revealed.
Millions exterminated by colonizing violence and greed.
Millions erased from “his” story.
Every being relegated to the margins
writes a new story to include all beings.

Dawn Patel — Above the Grid

The grid-like structures enclose our sentience,
blind us to our radiance and the truth of our being.
Promising safety, belonging and livelihood,
they create limitations and separation.
The liminality of infinite space at first feels unstable and uncertain.
Leaving the cage can be scary.

Kathleen Beck — Quaking

This liminal space project has truly been a wonderful experience for me to stretch my creative wings!

The thoughts of liminal space quickly took an unwanted opportunity to change my focus.
In fact, I couldn’t see anything clearly. A bout of vertigo hit like a blinding whirlwind of total
chaos. My artwork in progress needed to double in size to emphasize the quaking blurrrrrr,
becoming head aching art!

Now I totally understand, literally, living a liminal life between the cracks of sanity and grace!

Erika Mock, Boundary Seeker, Color Alchemist, Bothist — Knee Weave

These Knee Weaves were created in 2019 after a fluky accident left me unable to work and needing to learn to walk again.

Though, as an immigrant to the US, I’ve lived in liminal space— the in-between—my whole life; that singular experience catapulted me into an intense separation from even the usual rhythm of my own life.

This led to deep surrender and choosing to creatively explore my own healing thru art, Biofield Tuning, depatterning trauma, and embodiment.

My body has daily messages for me now. Here are a few!
1) There is a lot in us that was never given permission to express
2) The still small voice and I are working together.
3) We are electric. We are whole.
4) A wound is a message… not a place to live.

Knee Weave 1

Carrying the threads
Shaken awake to the bone
where everything is tangled, tender.

Knee Weave 2

From scared to sacred
Stories in the ancestral river

Brenna Busse — Rememberings

As a maker, introvert, and creative being — I have been familiar with liminal space all of my life.
It is only recently that I have learned the name for it. Dawn’s class has deepened my understanding
and appreciation, as well as enriching my artistic process.

“Rememberings:
marking place
to hold her here
let
go
again…”

“Rememberings:
begin the bitter
sweet
sacred journey
awake in dreamtime
awash in tears”

Janelle Magdalen Ulysses — Aura Bubbles

I live on the unceded land of the Anishinaabe. Making food, making art, making love.

Erika Lukas — The Khabs is in the Khu

Erika embraces her creative endeavors from her humble abode in “The Hermit” Tarot card, embracing the cottage-core dream with her two familiars in-toe

Mari-Jo Young — Between the Cracks

I am a traditional quilter trying to work toward art quilts and textile arts. The concept of liminality is intriguing, as it not only describes quarantined life during the pandemic, but the struggles moving from precise quarter inch seams and quilt piecing to the abstract. This is my first attempt using variations of a photo I took in an iPhone photography class.

The gallery up close

‘Three Dancers’ Photography Contest Now On

The Egg Harbor Public Arts Initiative and Kress Pavilion are seeking entries for the “Three Dancers” Photography Contest.

Egg Harbor’s Eames Cherry View Park, next to the Peg Egan Performing Arts Center, is the new home of artist Richard Edelman’s sculpture “Three Dancers.” Members of the public of all ages and experience levels are invited to take a photograph that captures the exuberance and spirit of the sculpture. Entries will be divided into three groups: youth through age 12, age 13 and older, and professional photographers.

The juror will be Florida photographer Jim Redding (jimreddingphotos.com). Winners in each group will receive $150 for first prize, $100 for second, and $50 for third; and all winning photos will be displayed with the Edelman sculpture exhibit, scheduled for June – September at the Kress Pavilion.

Entries are limited to one photograph as a jpg file, between 3MB and 10MB. Email entries to idea@netnet.net by May 10. Contest extended, see new post.

Spring Show — Between the Cracks

The Village of Egg Harbor’s Public Arts Initiative is excited to announce a liminal art exhibition featuring local and regional artists, and more than a few first-time artists, on display at the Kress Pavilion starting March 15 through Memorial Day 2021.

“Between the Cracks,” features 14 pieces, and came out of a 2021 winter challenge about facing the unknown and undefined within two virtual workshops held through the Donald and Carol Kress Pavilion and lead by local artist Dawn Patel (Brilliant Stranger). Artists were asked to create from the in-between spaces of life where everything familiar disappears and one steps into the unknown.

“Coronavirus has created a global liminal experience. You could say we are ‘in the gap’,” explained Dawn. “We may feel lost but feeling lost implies the loss of a reference point, the reference point of old structures of thought and constructs of belief. Sometimes we are lost in order to find ourselves.”

The word liminal comes from a rite of passage, traditionally. Like going on a vision quest, facing death and coming back changed. Each artist went on a journey to show their in between space that may come from a transition, boundary, or threshold. All mixed media pieces, each with a story to accompany the piece.

This exhibition will remain on display until May 31, 2021 and includes textiles, mixed media, printmaking, cold wax, poetry and photography.