From 10:30 am – 4:30 pm, the Society invites everyone from budding to professional artists, photographers and poets to bring their easels and painting supplies, cameras or pencil and pad to the park to paint, photograph or write poems about scenes in the park. Please, register at the park office before starting your art, photography or poetry works because artists, photographers and poets will have a return opportunity to display their artwork, photographs and poems created in the park on April 24 at a future event scheduled for Newport State Park.

The Society will have charcoal flaming in the grill from 4:30 pm – 6 pm at the park picnic shelter near parking lot 3 so individuals can grill their hotdogs, hamburgers or brats.

Cynthia Stiehl

Cynthia Stiehl will lead an Earth Day songfest, accompanying the singing with her guitar around a bonfire near the park picnic shelter from 6 pm – 7:30 pm. Those who know Cyndy from her operatic performances might question if this is fitting for her type of singing. But she accepted with exuberance when invited to lead the songfest, indicating that she enjoys playing her guitar and singing with people around a bonfire.

Wisconsin native, mezzo-soprano, Cynthia Stiehl is a graduate of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music.  She has performed to benefit the Peninsula Music Festival, the American Folklore Theatre, Midsummer’s Music, the Hardy Gallery, Birch Creek Music Performance Center and the YMCA in Door County, WI as well as the Wisconsin Historical Society.  A specialist in American Music, Ms. Stiehl performed a full recital of songs by Samuel Barber with Grammy-winning concert pianist, John Browning.

Cynthia has also performed Aaron Copland’s American Songs as well as full recitals of songs by American composers.  Recently, she premiered works by acclaimed composer Richard Cumming that he wrote especially for her.  Ms. Stiehl can be heard on the CD “The Peninsula Music Festival Presents” singing Moravian Songs with the Ad Hoc String Quartet and has produced two of her own CDs with John Browning at the piano.

Joan Allen narrates this film that chronicles 12 years of the Nazis’ pillaging works of art throughout Europe and the international effort to locate, protect and return millions of valuable treasures. The film traces the story of art lovers and everyday heroes who tried to thwart the looting Nazis and reveals how experts from Europe and the United States are working to recover priceless works of art missing or hidden for decades.

Who knew that Hitler actually aspired to be an artist?  The film tells the story of Hitler’s plans to acquire all of the great artworks of Europe while systematically destroying the countries from which he would steal them. He did manage to accumulate quite a massive collection, a collection that included thousands of paintings from Italy, France, and even Russia. Mixed in are millions of dollars worth of plundered art from the private collections of wealthy Jews in Germany and beyond, including the Rothschild’s.

The heroes of this story are the “monuments men,” a group of Army officers and enlisted men who were entrusted with the task of finding and returning as much of the plundered treasures as possible.  One officer interviewed even mentioned that at the time he still was unaware of what Hitler had done to the Jewish population of Europe, but that everyone was aware of how he had looted the continent’s museums… a chilling observation, indeed.

Much of what was taken has been returned and restored, but the darker side of the story is the missing art that has not yet been found or that has not yet been returned to the rightful owners (usually prominent Jewish families). A few countries, particularly Austria, are still fighting to keep what they have in their state museums from the suffering descendents of the art’s rightful owners. The story is still unfolding.

Movies That Matter is a project of the UU Fellowship’s Social Responsibility Committee bringing films with a message to the Door community. The films are shown at 7 pm on the third Tuesday each month at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. There is no charge and the public is welcome. For more information, visit www.uufdc.org.

An Artist's Food for the Soul

The 224-page cookbook is filled with delicious recipes from artists, staff, and family, as well as full-color artwork on every page.

The full purchase price of $24.95 is donated back to the Hardy to support youth arts education through the Edgewood Orchard Cookbook Fund of the Door County Community Foundation. One of the many youth programs provided by the Hardy over the years include Exposure to Creativity (ETC), a program initiated in 2007 as a joint effort between the Hardy and Friends of Gibraltar (FOG). The ETC program pairs the high school students of Gibraltar with experienced local artists for specialized learning in a variety of creative fields.

Since its publishing in July 2009, An Artist’s Food for the Soul has raised over $40,000. The cookbook is available for purchase in the Hardy Gallery on Anderson Dock in Ephraim or by calling the Hardy Gallery office at 920.854.2210. The Gallery is open daily from 10 am – 5 pm.

For more information about the cookbook, visit www.edgewoodorchard.com.

The Hardy Gallery is a non-profit arts organization enriching the vibrancy of the Door County community by promoting and fostering local art. For more information about the Hardy, please call 920.854.2210 or visit www.thehardy.org.

Gallery 42 Moves to Sturgeon Bay

Gallery 42, for three years “a breath of fresh art” on the highway between Egg Harbor and Fish Creek, is moving to Door County’s Historic Downtown Sturgeon Bay.

Gallery owner Tim Nyberg explains why Sturgeon Bay: “Everywhere I travel, I see strip malls and shopping centers being built trying to resemble the nostalgic main streets of small town America. I wish more of Door County’s visitors would realize that we have the real genuine article right here in Sturgeon Bay! Moving here will allow for a year round gallery (something that I couldn’t have in Northern Door). It will also allow me to walk to work and be open by appointment with greater ease.”

“When we moved to Sturgeon Bay from the Twin Cities, my wife, Julie and I were delighted to find The Fairfield Center for Contemporary Art located just blocks from our home. Sadly, this disappeared when the nonprofit organization shut down last March. Now, I’m excited to bring art back to this historically distinctive building.”

The Fairfield Building was originally built in 1906 as “The Pinney Building.” It housed the “Door County Democrat” newspaper, the Sturgeon Bay Post Office, the telephone company’s operators and at one point, the hospital. The top floor was also home to “The Commodore Club”. The building (the first office building in Sturgeon Bay to have indoor plumbing) underwent major renovation near its one hundredth birthday.

Gallery 42 (located in the Fairfield’s B1 gallery space) features exclusively the paintings and photography of Tim Nyberg. Tim’s been a graphic designer and illustrator for over three decades. Visitors will be greeted by bright, whimsical, “fresh” art. The gallery also has original greeting cards, mugs and prints featuring Nyberg’s paintings and photography and some of the over two dozen humor books that Tim has authored (autographed of course). There’s a good chance gallery guests will also catch Tim painting, often to live music at events he calls “art and music jams.”

The new space will open to visitors beginning September 19th during Sturgeon Bay’s Harvest Festival weekend.

On Friday, October 16th from 6 to 9pm, there will be a grand opening reception featuring jazz by Lee Tomboulian and percussionist Jake Nyberg.

More information about the gallery including fall and winter hours may be found online at GalleryFortyTwo.com or by calling 920.785.1123.

Dear Friends of the Fairfield,
Paul Light, a professor at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, commented in a recent Wall Street Journal article that “a drop in charitable contributions could shutter as many as 100,000 nonprofits over the next year.” It is with regret that I must inform you that the Fairfield Art Center has become one of those casualties.

Due primarily to the failing economy, the Fairfield ended 2008 with a significant deficit. It is the art center’s 10th year with negative cash flow, which has left our financial reserves nearly exhausted. In addition, memberships and donations have fallen significantly. My expectation for this year is for even greater deficits, especially since I am no longer able to serve as executive director and curator pro bono.

Given these extreme circumstances, the Fairfield Foundation Board, in consultation with our Community Advisory Board, has decided not to reopen the art center after its scheduled closing in March for gallery maintenance. Thanks to much-appreciated year-end contributions from our members and donors, our current exhibitions – “The Big Read: A Tom Sawyer Experience,” “Stacia Dick-Schuster: Symbiosis” and “The Approachable Henry Moore” – will stay open through the month of February as planned; all other exhibitions for the year, however, have been canceled. The closing of the art center will not affect any of the building’s tenants or its continued successful commercial operation.

I have discussed our situation with David Gordon, the former director and CEO of the Milwaukee Art Museum, and he agreed with my assessment – and with the recommendation to close the art center at the end of February. It is founder Irene Newkirk’s wish that if the Fairfield must close, then its permanent collection should be given to another public museum in Wisconsin where it will be preserved and exhibited in Bill Fairfield’s name.

Since I took on the directorship two years ago, and with the help of so many dedicated people, we have done everything possible to turn around the fortunes of the Fairfield. Together, we hoped to do so many great things here. In the face of this recession, however, there is simply nothing more we can do with the dwindling resources we have available.

I can’t tell you how much it has meant to me to have your support during my brief tenure, and I believe that everyone who has been a part of the Fairfield – staff, volunteers, donors, members, friends and exhibiting artists alike – should feel very proud of what we have achieved since the art center opened its doors on November 27, 1998. Our efforts were not in vain.

It was a good 10-year run, and we gave much to the community. Thanks to massive renovations undertaken by the Fairfield Foundation in the late 1990s, the century-old Fairfield Building itself will remain a Sturgeon Bay landmark and a vibrant commercial business space for years to come. And every moment that we shared our love of modern and contemporary art was well worth our time and our treasure.

Respectfully,

Walt Freckmann
Executive Director & Curator

Liz Maltman

Liz Maltman, gives the impression that the “open air” is the only studio she needs. She discovered painting “en plein air”  in 2004 and has been enamored with it ever since. Liz works primarily in pastels, favoring their immediacy, vibrancy of color and portability in the field. Her goad in painting a landscape is not so much to paint it exactly as she sees it but to capture the essence of the scene in the feeling that a particular day and moment evokes.

Originally from Chicago, Liz moved to Fish Creek in 1974 after completing undergraduate degrees in Art History and Psychology. Since then, she owned and operated several businesses, notably The Magic Jacket (1982-98), as well as her own ongoing business in interior design and decorative painting.

In 2007, Liz was chosen to participate in the first annual Peninsula Art School, Plein Air Festival. She is very pleased to have been juried in to the 2009 festival at the school.For several years she has been a featured artist at the Francis Hardy Gallery Arts Collectors’ Showcase Exhibit. Liz won awards for both her landscapes and portraits in a number of juried exhibitions and is honored to have her work in both private and corporate collections throughout the country. Her work is represented locally at Margaret Lockwood’s Woodwalk Gallery in Egg Harbor. She is also adding acrylic paintings to her representations, however, the works in the UU Gallery exhibit are only “en plain air” pastels from 2008.

Door County Style Editor’s Exclusive Candid Interview with Liz Maltman…

Liz at work en plein air

Editor: What is it that will first make you start to think about a particular place as a possible subject for a pastel painting?
Liz Maltman: Hmmmmm. I’m not sure what it is that draws me to a scene or subject. Some artists I’ve painted with or known, will look for a scene for example, with a strong diagonal (maybe a road) and a very distinct and tall tree and a horizontal fence and… (in other words they require very specific things to exist in a scene). I am definitely NOT looking for that kind of thing in a subject. I may instead be attracted by contrasts or strong lighting or the clouds floating by… I’m not really sure.

I’m more interested in the feeling or sense of a scene, the sense of magic maybe. If the scene needs a diagonal from a compositional standpoint, i’ll just make that up. I often paint while turning 360 degrees. As I said before, I’m not really trying to render a scene in a representational or “realistic” way particularly. I often paint with a friend who is much more of a realistic artist than I am. We will be painting basically the same landscape. She’ll come over after a couple of hours of work, look at what I’ve done, start laughing and exclaim “What in the world are you looking at?”

Sometimes I’m more interested in a way in painting the spring breeze or the feel of the wind or something. (This probably sounds really dumb. I’ve not really tried too much to articulate or even really understand what I’m doing! As said before, I’m really experimenting all the time.

Editor: Do you love or fear skyscapes? Paintings of the water? What do you think is the most challenging and perhaps most difficult subject to approach?
Liz Maltman: Skyscapes? For some reason I’ve never actually tried doing a “skyscape.” Most of my landscapes include a greater (often much greater) proportion of land (or water) to sky. But it’s not that I don’t like the sky! or that I “fear” doing it. I’m definitely more attracted to whimsical sort of skies though, rather than a very dramatic (although beautiful) sunset. I definitely tend to present more of the whimsical or magical aspects of a scene or person (I love doing portraits, although I don’t always do portraits en plein air!) than the “serious” or dramatic scene. I love doing water although I was quite “fearful” of water at first, probably because I love the water so much. It felt intimidating. And it probably is the most challenging subject matter. Actually I’d say water is the most challenging subject matter, but also the most fun, partly for that reason. I have so far sold any water piece I’ve done fairly quickly. And I do mean to do more and more water pieces, hopefully some from actually on the water (from a sailboat or kayak}. Now that would be challenging, to work from my kayak!…

Editor: Do you like including people, birds or animals in your landscapes?
Liz Maltman: I do like to include people, birds and an occasional dog in my landscapes. I am actually including people more and more, but often there aren’t any hanging around the scene. If there were, I’d probably put more in. Actually, I’m making them up more often than I used to. One of my favorite paintings which is kind of folky, has a dog in it which I’d seen earlier in the day and taken a photo of.

Editor: Who are your favorite artists or from where do you draw your greatest inspiration?
Liz Maltman: My favorite artists are all pretty much from the early modern era (l890-l920) in particular, the Fauves (bright colors) especially Braque (before his cubism period), Derain, and Vlaminck, as well as the Nabis painters of whom there were few. My favorites are Pierre Bonnard and Vuillard. Also, I of course, love Van Gogh and Kandinsky (especially his early work) (actually I think he was part of the Nabis group, now that I think about it. But, my all-time most favorite painter in the world is Odilon Redon, a contemporary of these but definitely his own person. Alot of these painters worked in the decorative arts as well as fine art, which is something I do as well and probably find inspirational in their art. Many of them were colorists as well which I also find inspiring.

One thing I like especially about Redon is that he often worked in pastel, which is my medium of choice at the moment… Long before I ever actually did any paintings, when I used to just think that one day I would really like to do some paintings, I knew I would do them in pastel – I think mostly because of how much Redon’s pastels affected me, even as a kid. So, I guess I would say my greatest inspiration comes from Redon’s art, as well as the other art mentioned. But also it comes from the current subject (landscape or person) I am painting. I paint almost exclusively from life, so that life, is the great inspiration.

Editor: Who have you studied with or are you a self-taught artist?
Liz Maltman: I am pretty much a self-taught artist. Everything I do I mostly look at as an experiment. Some experiments have more successful results than others. I have however, taken some classes at the PAS over the years which include several with Mike Judy (a really close friend), two with Craig Blietz, one with Lynn Gilchrist in plein air
which is where I really got inspired and one with Emmett Johns, although he forgot I was in the class. It was supposed to be plein air but it rained all week. The rest of the class was using photos indoors but i went outside anyway and he forgot I was out there. Actually, by the last day he remembered.

The public is invited to the UU Gallery any Sunday following services, from 11  am -12:30 pm. Additional Gallery hours are on Mondays, from 1-3 pm at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. For more information or if you have an interest in being considered for an exhibition, phone 920.839.2606. Visit the Web site to learn more at www.uufdc.org.

Ms. Bell states, “Bonnie, a strong colorist, is equally conversant in oil and pastel painting. We are delighted that she chose to join our staff of professional painters and instructors. Her work and her teaching credentials are nationally recognized.”

Bonnie is a signature member of the Pastel Society of America, the Oil Painters of America, the National Oil and Acrylic Painters, the American Impressionist Society and National Plein Air Painting Association.

Her bold and impressionistic oil and pastel paintings have been exhibited in many national and regional publications including: International Pastel Artist, International Artist, American Artist, Southwest Art, the Artist Magazine, The Pastel Journal, North Light Magazine, Wisconsin Trails Magazine, and the Best of Flower Painting Two.

Bonnie has participated in numerous group and solo gallery shows. Northwestern Publishing of Milwaukee,  the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission of Madison and Edgewood Orchard Galleries of Fish Creek, utilize the artist’s work for book cover, calendar and book illustrations.

Bonnie has taught painting workshops for many organizations including: Utrecht Art Supply, Milwaukee, the Peninsula Art School of Fish Creek, the West Bend Art Museum of West Bend, The Clearing of Ellison Bay and The Wichita Center for the Arts of Wichita, Kansas.