Artists stepped out of their studios over the weekend and showed local residents and visitors alike how they turn blank canvases, sheets of steel, blocks of marble and more into amazing displays.
More than 40 artists set up shop at seven sites throughout Shawano County for the fifth annual Miles of Art festival and visited with close to 1,000 people over the course of two days. While the artists came from all over northern Wisconsin, the lion’s share call Shawano County home.
Larry Marcks is one such artist. Residing in Gresham, he carves ducks and geese from wood, and showed off more than 60 carvings at the Old Feed Mill nestled in Gresham.
Marcks couldn’t remember how many carvings he has made, but knows it is in the thousands. He enjoys carving the birds because he always comes out with something different and unique.
“You never run out. There’s always another breed to do,” Marcks said.
Marcks learned the craft from his grandfather, whom Marcks described as an old German who didn’t believe in going out and buying something if you had the skill to make it yourself.
“When he passed away, he left a couple of half-finished decoys on his workbench, and they had no heads,” Marcks said. “One day, I sat down and carved the heads and put them together. Next thing I knew, I was making the body and the head. Someone came along and said, ‘Make me one of those.’”
For Heather Peterman, Miles of Art was a homecoming of sorts for the first-time participant. Peterman is a self-taught artist who lives in Green Bay but was raised in Shawano.
“I grew up just a mile down the road,” Peterman said at her table at Orchid Creek Pottery west of Shawano. “It’s great to come back to Shawano and do the art thing.”
Peterman always doodled on the sides of her notebook growing up, but she has been painting those doodles on a professional level for about 20 years.
“I’d do whole pages with these doodles, and then I’d leave the negative space. Then I started painting in that negative space,” Peterman said. “I call my art ‘good energy art’ because, luckily, I was born with a lot of serotonin, and I have a lot of happiness that I like to share. There’s enough darkness in the world.”
While Miles of Art gave most artists a chance to talk about their work, Shanti Bennett, the owner of an art gallery and yoga studio in Gresham, took the opportunity to begin some work. Bennett took a blank white canvas Saturday morning, and she had the framework for a bright red tree and surrounding foliage by midafternoon, even with stopping to chat with visitors.
“It’ll have to dry, which takes weeks because it’s oil paint, and then I can get to it with other layers,” Bennett said.
Some of Bennett’s pieces require years of work. One such piece is an angel that she finished recently; she painted 20 different faces before she was satisfied.
“Sometimes, it’ll take a while to finish a piece, but others I finish quickly,” Bennett said.
Curt Knoke, one of the organizers of Miles of Art, said the artists he spoke with over the weekend were very pleased with their sales. He noted that the traffic seemed to be down this year compared with last year but did not have firm numbers.
“We’re still kind of feeling our way now that we’re on our own” and not relying on state tourism grants, Knoke said, “but we’re doing well.”
Categories
