Arts & Humanities
Pirate invasion expected in Marquette, by Cathy Sullivan Seblonka
Music festival shines as gem in wilderness, by Cheryl Olson
Theatre announces Brave New season, by James A. Panowski
DeVos offers retrospective exhibit, Lillian Marks Heldreth
Annual art fair announces this year’s featured artist, by Linden Dahlstrom

 

Pirate invasion expected in Marquette
Buccaneers, privateers, corsairs—by any name, pirates are attacking Marquette the evening of August 8. Their arrival kicks off the Downtown Marquette Pirate Festival, which runs August 8-18.
The festival offers ten days of pirate-themed activities and entertainment for all ages. Tour the Madeline, Michigan’s official tall ship; enjoy music; eat pirate-themed food in local restaurants; dress like a pirate in a costume contest (there’s even a costume contest for dogs); and take a walking tour to learn about pirate activity on the Great Lakes.

Friday, August 8
The highlight of the festival is a visit by the ninety-two-foot tall ship, Madeline, moored in the Lower Harbor. The two-masted ship with a sail area of 2,270 square feet is a reconstruction of a mid-nineteenth century schooner. Launched in 1990, the Madeline is owned and operated by the Maritime Heritage Alliance. She sails the Great Lakes from her home port near Traverse City and will arrive in Marquette on August 8. Landlubbers are invited to tour the ship from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on August 9 and 10. Children twelve and under are free; those thirteen and older pay $2.
A flotilla of local yachts will attempt to ward off the Madeline “pirates” upon her arrival Friday evening in Lower Harbor. All local pirates, wenches, able-bodied seamen and seawomen, merchants, monkeys and parrots, in costume or not, are invited to support the bravery of the local yachters and protect the decency of Marquette’s citizenry from shore, or join the visiting pirates on land. A cannon will assist in Marquette’s defense. Pirate games organized by the YMCA, and a Raingutter Regatta sponsored by the Boy Scoutsof Hiawathaland Council 261, will take place at Mattson Lower Harbor Park from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. free of charge. Throughout the early evening, CK Unlimited will take your photo with a pirate for a fee.
The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum is hosting the Pirate Jam School of Rock from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Friday in the museum’s courtyard on Baraga Avenue. All ages are invited. Bring your own instrument and jam at this free activity.
Friday activities also include Walk the Plank: a Pirate Inspired Art Exhibition from 9:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m. at the Marquette Arts and Culture Center in Peter White Public Library. The Maritime Museum offers lighthouse tours from 10:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m.
If you are in the mood for a play, Treasure Island: a Pirate’s Tale will be performed at the Lake Superior Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The Marquette County Fair will host the Pirate Island Family Show. Don’t forget to look up, because downtown lampposts and businesses sport pirate flags made by local youth and adults.

Saturday, August 9
Pirates and friends of all ages can stretch their land legs on Saturday. In addition to tours of the Madeline and the Marquette Lighthouse, you may decide to join a free walking tour and learn about the history of pirates on the Great Lakes.
The ninety-minute tours, written and directed by Orion Couling, who also is directing Treasure Island, will begin downtown at the Commons at 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Join a tour group and hear about piratical activities that took place in our own backyard. Chocolay Downs allows pirates who come in costume to play a round of golf for half price on Saturdays and Sundays during the festival.
Pirates are nicknamed Scurvy Dogs because they don’t eat much fresh fruit and vegetables. Local pirates can avoid scurvy by shopping at the Pirate Market at the Commons from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.. In addition to the butcher, the bakers and the gardeners who sell products every Saturday morning, shoppers will find booths by Bella Beads, Love Notes and others. Pirate Festival T-shirts are available for purchase, and CK Unlimited will snap your pirate picture for a fee. Local youth will perform a few short pirate plays.
Privateers or legal pirates, often ship owners, were given permission by their governments to attack enemy ships. They shared the booty they stole with the government. A much safer and entirely moral search for riches is our Family Treasure Hunt from noon to 6:00 p.m. Adults and youth may pick up a treasure hunt map at the Commons and search participating downtown businesses for clues.
Marquette school’s carnival queen, Cathy Calderwood, assisted by her husband Chris, has organized a Youth Pirate Carnival at the Masonic Center’s lower level. Games of skill, chance and bravery last from 4:00-6:30 p.m. for young pirates and their friends. Admission is free.
All ages of pirates, captains, Peter Pans and Wendys, ladies fair and not, sailors, merchants, crocodiles and swashbucklers are welcome to register for the Pirate Costume Contest from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Commons. The contest runs from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. While the judges are deliberating, Marquette’s Belly Dance Troupe, the Beladinas, will perform. Prizes will be awarded in various categories.
The Jimmy Almen Swing Band rounds out the evening at the Commons playing the Pirate Ball, an outdoor dance for all ages. Food will be available for purchase. Treasure Island will be performed at 7:30 p.m. at Lake Superior Theatre, and the Marquette County Fairgrounds will continue the Pirate Island Family Show.

Sunday, August 10
Sunday goes to the dogs! Enter your dog in the Pirate Puppies & Scallywags Costume Contest for Dogs at the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum at 2:00 p.m. It’s free, prizes are awarded and your dog can sample healthy pet food from the Marquette Food Co-op.
If you don’t know a dog, but can drive a vehicle and want to support the Marquette County History Museum (MCHM)’s fundraising activities, there’s Argh! The Amazing Race Goes Historical: a County Wide Adult Scavenger Hunt beginning at 2:00 p.m. Call the MCHM at 226-3571 for details. A Finish Line Bash is included with the entrance fee. Walking tours set off from the Commons, and tours of the Madeline and the Lighthouse continue.

Monday, August 11
It’s back to work on Monday, even for pirates. Pirate Week Day Camp begins at the YMCA. Call 227-9622 to register and for more information. Couling leads Theatrical Swashbuckling at Peter White Public Library. Workshops for youth ages six to eighteen are held Monday and Tuesday with a free performance for everyone on Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. in PWPL’s Community Room. To register for the workshops, call 226-4323.
MooseWood Nature Center offers Treasure Geocaching Monday through Saturday during open hours for youth and adults. You may pick up a map and clues at MooseWood or the Children’s Room of Peter White Public Library. GPS units are available for rent from MooseWood. For details, call 228-6280. Lighthouse tours continue all week, as do the Walk the Plank art exhibition at the Marquette Arts and Culture Center/Peter White Public Library and the play, Treasure Island.
The Galley Grub Food Event runs from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum. It’s free with admission or membership. Dress appropriately or plan on ducking flying food. For more potent pirate drink, fun and prizes, head down to Flanigan’s Bar for Pirate Open Mike from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Tuesday, August 12
Don Maitz, who created the Captain Morgan spiced rum character, and late nineteenth to early twentieth century illustrators Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth, have provided a popular vision of pirates and pirate life. During Pirate Art Day on August 12, you can express your inner pirate at two venues. Arrrt for Buccaneers is taught by a real pirate at HOTplate in Downtown Marquette from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Call 228-9577 to register and take home a ceramic keepsake. The DeVos Art Museum at Northern Michigan University is leading two Pirate Fabric Art Workshops at 2:00 p.m., one for adults and one for children. Call 227-1481 to register for these free workshops.
If trivia is your cup-of-rum, join the Pirate Trivia Contest at JTs Shaft on Tuesday evening. Call 228-9210 for times.

Wednesday, August 13
At dusk on August 13, bring your blankets and lawn chairs downtown to the Commons for a free outdoor showing of the film Hook, starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Food is available for purchase. In case of rain, the movie will be shown at PWPL.

Thursday, August 14
Continue exercising your creative muscles on August 14, as the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum’s Second Thursday Creative Series focuses on Pirates from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The activity is free with admission or membership to the museum.
At 7:30 p.m., Peter White Public Library brings Song of the Lakes to NMU’s Forest Roberts Theatre. Tickets are $10 in advance at PWPL or $15 at the door. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. For details, visit www.songofthelakes.com or call 228-9510.

Friday, August 15
Who were the pirates and what was their life like around the turn of the eighteenth century? The Marquette County History Museum leads Life During the Golden Age of Pirates, a hands-on learning experience for youth ages seven to twelve from 10:00 a.m. until noon on August 15. Costumes are encouraged. Registration is limited to thirty, so call 226-3571 to ensure your space for this free event.
Song of the Lakes presents a free children’s concert, Paddle-to-the-Sea, at 1:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon at Peter White Public Library. Instead of rousing pirate songs, concert goers will learn about a carved wooden toy canoe and its paddler who journeyed from Nipigon country, through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. All are welcome.

Saturday, August 16 to Monday, August 18
On August 16, Treasure Geocaching is offered at MooseWood. Walking tours are repeated at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. beginning at the Commons. It’s the last weekend to play Pirate Golf. Treasure Island concludes on Sunday. Local pirates may take another tour of the lighthouse, or view the art exhibition at PWPL during open hours through the end of the month.
Aubree’s Pizza offers a Pirate Caribbean Pizza special throughout August, while the Portside offers drink specials on particular days.
For a complete schedule of pirate activities, visit www.marquettecountry.org
Printed schedules may be picked up at the Marquette Arts and Culture Center, PWPL and other places around town.
A small committee of early-rising buccaneers, cochaired by Nikke Nason of the Marquette Arts and Culture Center, and Cathy Sullivan Seblonka, youth services librarian at Peter White Public Library, began meeting last November to plan the pirate festival.
Lift your mugs to cheer and thank event sponsors, who include Allyn Roberts, Marquette Community Foundation, the Mary Ann Paulin Memorial Fund, the Friends of the Peter White Public Library, the Carroll Paul Memorial Trust Fund of the Peter White Public Library, the Michigan Humanities Council, the Marquette Arts and Culture Center, Peter White Public Library, the Maritime Museum, Marquette Country Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum, Snowbound Books and Chapter Two, the Downtown Development Authority, the Downtown Merchants Association, the Marquette County History Museum, YMCA, MooseWood Nature Center, the Marquette Food Co-op, Second Skin, Aubree’s Pizza, Portside, the Frazier Foundation, Lake Superior Theatre, Marquette County Fair, the DeVos Art Museum, HOTplate, JT’s Shaft, CK Unlimited, WJPD, Masonic Center, The Summer Edge, Lake Superior Press, Wells Fargo, Babycakes, Debacker’s Ice Cream Truck, White Gown Black Dress, Thunder and Lighting, Mary’s Closet, Jeffrey’s Café, Ultimate Game Zone, CBS, Uncle Ducky, Downtown Eye Care, the Landmark Inn, the Safety Store, Leslie’s House, Redfella Records, Art UP Style, Moonstone Gallery, Getz Department Store, Farmer Q’s, Sports Rack, Gentz Golf Course and other local organizations, merchants and businesses.
—Cathy Sullivan Seblonka

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Mary Schneeberger and Ellen Moore for assistance with this article.

 

 

Music festival shines as gem in wilderness
This August marks the fourth year of the Porcupine Mountains Music Festival, and what an interesting four years it has been. One need only to look at the festival’s Web site archives and this year’s lineup to see exactly how interesting.
The festival is held each year, the weekend before Labor Day, at the Porcupine Mountain Winter Recreation Area (ski hill) near Silver City in Ontonagon County.
It was 2002 when Don and Linda Kermeen moved to Ontonagon as the new owners of an area lodging business. The Kermeens were drawn to the area by its scenic beauty and one day found themselves checking out the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park ski hill. At that time, the Kermeens had just moved from Texas where they attended the Kerrville Folk Festival before moving to Michigan—and they had music on their minds.
“This is a perfect place for a music festival—it is beautiful,” said Linda, and Don agreed.
Over the next few years, they focused on developing their new business and getting settled in. The idea of a music festival in the Porcupine Mountains kept coming to mind and they discussed it with many people. In 2004, they met Zach Miller, the son of regular customers at their resort, and the three decided to take the idea of a music festival in the Porkies to the next step.
The trio arranged to meet with the Friends of the Porkies (FOP) and park management along with interested local people. FOP is a nonprofit organization that represents the interests of all users of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. It was explained to the FOP board, and the park management that a music festival would not only bring new people to the area for the music, but also to enjoy all the park has to offer, including hiking, camping and swimming. What type of festival would this be? It was stressed that it would not be a folk festival or blues festival, but a music festival offering many different styles of quality music. It was decided that ticket sales would be limited to approximately 1,250 per day, so as not to impact the park environment negatively, and to offer an intimate experience for both audience and performer. Goals were set to become self-sufficient and eventually to be in a position to put money into the park for improvements. With the support of the FOP secured, the FOP, state park personnel and DNR worked together with the Kermeens and Miller to ready the park for the event.
Many were skeptical that the festival would get off the ground, but with determination, hard work and community support—both financially and physically—the first event was held in August 2005. Much praise came from those who attended and performed. Each year, audience surveys are solicited and organizers have been able to make adjustments and improvements.
When entering onto the festival grounds during the event, the first thing that is noticeable is the number of smiling, helpful people wearing bright orange shirts—the festival’s volunteer base, approximately 100 strong. Volunteers run everything from the grounds to security and they even assist audience members in moving around the festival grounds if needed.
“Our volunteers are one of our greatest assets,” Linda said.
A smaller core group spends countless hours planning the event year-round, taking only a brief break after the event...gearing back up in late fall with their sights on the next festival.
The festival offers two outdoor stages for performers, the “Peace Hill Stage,” named after a group of local musicians who at one time gathered weekly for concerts in the summer months; and the “Singing Hills Stage,” named after a concert held on July 15, 1959 at the Lake of the Clouds, across the lake.
People gathered along the bluffs at the overlook to listen. The “Singing Hills Stage” is an actual chairlift platform. Most musicians have played on a wide variety of stages in their careers; however, many have commented it was a first for them to perform on a chairlift platform.
There is a cut-across footpath through the woods that separates the two stages and it gives audience members a chance to get up and stretch their legs. Those not opting to take a walk, for whatever reason, are transported by those trusty people in orange. There also is a third acoustic “busking” stage where amateurs and professionals play for tips. Workshops are held in the chalet building during the weekend as well.
There are children’s activities on Saturday and Sunday. Last year many people couldn’t help but smile when walking by the activities tent and seeing the sign that read, “Unattended children will be given espresso and a free puppy.” The children’s activities culminated in a performance by the children on Sunday afternoon.
“The children are the future of music,” Linda said. “Having them as a part of the festival and exposing them to such quality music at a young age is very rewarding for all of us.”
This year’s lineup features headliners Enter the Haggis, Mountain Heart, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams and is the most ambitious to date. Special guests John Gorka, Tony Furtado and the Dixie-Beeliners also are scheduled.
“The festival is fortunate to have such a diverse and dynamic group of independent artists at this year’s festival,” Don said. “The audience is in for a treat of musical varieties.”
The festival will be held August 22 through 24 and will feature twenty-four different acts, several playing more than one set, and some involved in collaborations and workshops. This year’s festival is made possible by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest and support from local businesses and individuals.
For details, visit www.porkiesfestival.org or call (800)344-5355.
—Cheryl Olson

 

 

Theatre announces Brave New season
The Forest Roberts Theatre at Northern Michigan University has announced its 2008-09 “Brave New World” theatre season.
“We’ve got something for everybody and, quite possibly, our most exciting season ever,” said James A. Panowski, Forest Roberts Theatre director.
The season opens from October 1 through 4 with a comedy, The Foreigner by Larry Shue. The Foreigner was first produced at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in January of 1983, and the boisterous laughter it created there made the play an enormous local success. It featured the professional debuts of NMU theatre students Leah Hocking, Andrew Mellen and Bryan Johnson.
Named by the American Theatre Critics Association as one of the best regional theatre plays for the 1983-84 season, The Foreigner subsequently was produced Off-Broadway in November of 1984 at the Astor Place Theatre in New York City.
The play won two Obie Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards as Best New American Play and Best Off-Broadway Production. 
An inspired comic romp, equal to the author’s classic comedy, The Nerd, the play enjoyed a sold-out premier in Milwaukee before moving on to a long run Off-Broadway. Based on what the NY Post described as a devilishly clever idea, the play demonstrates what can happen when a group of devious characters must deal with a stranger who (they think) knows no English.
The play begins in a fishing lodge in rural Georgia often visited by “Froggy” LeSeuer, a British demolition expert who occasionally runs training sessions at a nearby army base. This time “Froggy” has brought along a friend, a pathologically shy young man named Charlie who is overcome with fear at the thought of making conversation with strangers.
“Froggy” introduces Charlie to his friends at the lodge as “a foreigner who neither speaks nor understands English.” Once “Froggy” leaves for a training session, Charlie is left alone and the merriment begins. Charlie overhears the evil plans of a sinister, two-faced minister and his redneck associate, and learns that the minister’s pretty fiancée is pregnant. That’s just for starters.
The nonstop hilarity sets up a wildly funny deus ex machina climax in the tradition of Tartuffe and The Importance of Being Earnest. You’ll cheer for the underdog and delight in the downfall of the bad guys.
Tracks in the Snow by Neil McGowan of Hermosa Beach (California), is the winner of the 2008 Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award. This second offering of the season is at once a gripping drama and a coming-of-age love story. 
When a stranger crashes his car in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard, he is taken in by the insular Gould family until the storm abates. Chase, a man with a mysterious past, appears to be on an equally mystifying quest. He disrupts the solitude of the family and becomes attached to their youngest daughter. Part Bill Starbuck (The Rainmaker) and part Harold Hill (The Music Man), Chase opens her eyes to a “brave new world.”
Tracks in the Snow enjoyed a one-week workshop in July conducted by director and graduate student Kelly Passinault. Former playwriting award winner George Sapio (Ghosts) served as dramaturg. A “town and gown” cast worked with the playwright, director and dramaturg on the script. A staged reading was presented at the end of the workshop.
Tracks in the Snow runs from November 12 through 15. As is traditional with the playwriting award winner, McGowan will serve as artist-in-residence during the run of the show. The audience will have the opportunity to participate in a “talkback session” with the playwright, director and cast following each performance.
The second half of the season opens with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella from February 17 through 21, 2009. Among the classics of musical theatre one of the most cherished productions by this famous duo originally was created for television. Starring Julie Andrews and a cast including Kaye Ballard, Alice Ghostley and Edie Adams, this enchanting musical adaptation of the classic fairy tale was watched by an astounding 107 million viewers during its 1957 network premiere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein stayed faithful to the original Charles Perrault tale and worked on their adaptation for eight months. The final CBS production, which premiered on March 31, 1957, cost a princely $375,000 and a cast album, recorded only two weeks earlier, was released to coincide with the broadcast.
Someone told Julie Andrews that the musical she was starring in at the time, My Fair Lady, would have to run 100 years to reach the number of people likely to see her on television that night.
The figure was too modest. In reality, Andrews would have had to pack the large Majestic Theatre on Broadway for more than 200 years to equal the numbers that Cinderella attracted.
Hammerstein’s script is a marvelous piece of romanticism. He downplays the fantasy elements of the old story (this godmother seems more like a caring relative than a fairy) and goes for the honesty of the characters, never talking down to his audience even in the context of a children’s story. He also avoids stock villains, turning the stepmother and stepsisters into funny, self-absorbed brats rather than vicious antagonists.
As for the songs, has ever a television show introduced so many delectable numbers? “Ten Minutes Ago I Saw You” and “A Lovely Night” are rhapsodic without being mushy, “Impossible” creates its own kind of magic, and the “Stepsisters’ Lament” and “My Own Little Corner” are each as fine a character song as Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote.
Come and watch the Forest Roberts Theatre transformed into a magical kingdom and see Cinderella discover a “brave new world” in her transformation from a scullery maid into a princess.
The season wraps from April 21 through 25, 2009 with William Shakespeare’s, The Tempest. This last of Shakespeare’s great plays tells the story of Prospero, a sorcerer and the rightful Duke of Milan, who dwells on an enchanted isle with his daughter, Miranda. Twelve years earlier, the duke’s brother, Antonio, and Alonso, the King of Naples, conspired to usurp his throne. They set Prospero and Miranda adrift in a boat, and eventually found themselves marooned on the island.
Prospero is served on his island by Ariel, a spirit whom he freed from a tree with magic, and Caliban, son of the witch Sycorax. When magic reveals that a ship bearing his old enemies is sailing near the island, Prospero summons a storm to wreck their ship.
What follows is a play that weaves romance, fantasy, treachery, comedy and magic into an evening decorated with some of Shakespeare’s most quotable and magnificent poetry. What begins with Prospero seeking revenge ends with his forgiveness.
As Miranda observes at the end of the play: “O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t!”
Season tickets are available to the general public and will remain on sale through September 5, depending on availability. To request a brochure, stop by the Forest Roberts Theatre weekdays between 1:00 and 4:30 p.m., or call 227-2082. Season tickets (reserved seats for all four shows) are $36 for the general public and $25 for NMU students. Season tickets also are available from “EZ Tickets” in the Superior Dome.
Season ticket holders save up to thirty percent on the cost of single admission tickets and enjoy easy ticket exchange as well as snow check privileges. They save more than twenty percent on tickets to Ebenezer Scrooge and can order them before sale to the general public.
First Nighters Club (FNC) memberships also are available. The FNC is the theatre booster organization providing support for the student-artists who create magic onstage and offstage at the Forest Roberts Theatre.
—James A. Panowski

 

 

DeVos offers retrospective exhibit
On August 8, a new show opens at the DeVos Art Gallery on Northern Michigan University’s campus. Entitled “Looking Back through the Western Door: A Peter Maqua Retrospective,” it resonates with themes depicted in the artist’s “Creation Cycle” installation, which was seen by large numbers of art lovers and students at Lee Hall Gallery in September 1989.
Peter Hornung Maqua died on August 9, 2006, eighteen years after his three well-received showings of “Creation Cycle.” This retrospective exhibition in honor of his life contains about 200 pieces. It includes items that predate “Creation Cycle” plus the majority of the pieces he created afterward, as well as several paintings from that installation.
Local residents who were privileged to see “Creation Cycle” will not want to miss this much-expanded opportunity to view Maqua’s work. Those who missed it will be surprised by the vibrant colors and moving images that seem to flow from abstract form into symbolic representation.
The theme that unites this large body of work is the theme that united Maqua’s life: the beautiful, symbolic but realistic lifeway he was taught by teachers among the Anishinabe (mostly Ojibwa) First Nations peoples of his native Canada and the United States. He believed he was sent back from death to express that lifeway in his own art and life.
Viewers will see the theme of the Orphan Boy, for Maqua was twice orphaned, first when he was given up for adoption as an infant, and again when his adoptive parents died during his sixteenth year. Distraught, he wandered for some years. The “wandering years” are part of the “road of life” according to many Anishinabe teachers, but Maqua did not know that yet.
Dramatically portrayed are themes of lightning, thunder and bears. These may refer both to great stories from Anishinabe tradition, and to Maqua’s own life. He left the references ambiguous, as they should be.
But he lived for some time at the Lac la Croix Band Reserve, serving there as both a hunting guide and, at their request, a policeman. An elder woman there spoke to him seriously one day: “You are Maqua!” she said. “You are Bear!” and that was both his name and his clan when the band formally adopted him as a member.
He later studied with Sun Bear, who saw in him someone truly dedicated to the traditional ways. Sun Bear gave him a pipe, and Maqua carried it with him West to Vancouver.
Then came Maqua’s dream of a bear struck by lightning, and only days later the head-on collision during which his body literally was ripped open by the stick shift and he was crushed into the only part of the car that was not compacted—under the dashboard.
Maqua remembered traveling beyond this world and through the sun, and then being pulled back into an operating room where he looked down on his body lying on the table. A year and many surgeries later, he was able to walk again, but his shattered spine would never let him forget, nor would his memory of the other world. An early painting in this exhibit shows an image of shattered glass—perhaps, he thought, what he saw as his girlfriend, the driver, went through the windshield.
And so Maqua’s wandering life ended. He had met a fascinating visitor in the hospital: Gabriella Doleske married him, and their first daughter was born in Vancouver. They moved to Sault Ste. Marie, her hometown, where their second daughter was born, and there Maqua, though technically disabled, eventually took up the life of an art student at Sault College, where Doleske became a teacher.
The individuality and creativity of his work earned recognition from the Canada Council in the form of substantial grants that made possible his ambitious projects.
He completed two major installations that were shown in Sault Ste. Marie before his masterwork in that genre, “Creation Cycle.” Its centerpiece was a massive set of paintings entitled “An Orphan Boy Dreams Thunder,” which included the themes of the orphan and the thunders in colors that fairly shout from the canvas. The central painting from that set is in the current show.
Although his health, weakened by hepatitis and other complications, declined over the intervening years, he continued to paint, producing everything from miniatures to large paintings on copper sheets, sometimes etched as well as painted. He further developed his “stick man” paintings that illustrate every man’s stages on the road of life. He also created an individual and charming series of landscapes, many of which reflect scenes from the beautiful “boundary waters” around Lac la Croix.
And he realized his other ambition, to share the teachings he had been given by many First Nations teachers. He discovered an all-people’s ceremonial community in the Marquette area and became a regular attendee and adviser, helping it to grow into “Kabe Migiiziug, All-eagles Society.”
Pain from the accident was with him always, and from flashbacks to a military episode during his wandering years, and that pain sometimes reflects in his later work, but it never defeats the triumph of his mastery of composition and color, nor his love of experimentation.
This exhibit gives us his teachings directly, in planes of color that move and dazzle and will, if we let them, open us to a sense of the infinite. It is located in the Permanent Collection Gallery (back gallery) at the DeVos Art Museum. Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from Monday through Friday and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. No admission is charged, and parking is available nearby.
—Lillian Marks Heldreth

 

 

Annual art fair announces this year’s featured artist
“Attention to detail is critical to my work as a photographer,” explains Roger Little, featured artist at this year’s Fine Art Fair and Exhibit on August 9 and 10 in Eagle Harbor.
While still in high school, attention to detail came early “minding his Ps and Qs” as a printer’s devil for a weekly newspaper owned by his father.
Detailing followed closely during his Army service as a printer, doing topographic maps and photography for the Far Eastern theater of operations. Following military service, photography remained a serious avocation as he continued his career in printing.
Moving to the U.P. in the mid-’60s as a printer, Little found some extra work photographing a few weddings led to a full-time career in commercial photography.