What difference does a difference make? At a recent memorial for a friend and teacher, the speaker posed that question for all of us to consider as we thought about the person whose death we were mourning and whose life we were celebrating. The question came to mind again last weekend when we attended "Leaving a Legacy of Art: The Jansma Collection" at the Dogwood Center for the Performing Arts in Fremont, Michigan. The art show and sale commemorated the lives of longtime Fremont residents Ray and Phyllis Jansma, whose lasting influence on Newaygo County's cultural scene is incalculable. Phyllis was a cellist and music teacher, Ray an architectural designer and artist who painted, sculpted and carved wood. As a tribute to this remarkable couple, their family offered some of Ray's artwork for sale, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit Newaygo County Council for the Arts-Artsplace. Before the sale, I spent some time with Lindsay Isenhart, program coordinator and curator of the Ray and Phyllis Jansma Gallery at Artsplace. A good friend of the Jansmas, Lindsay worked closely with Ray Jansma to produce a book, Ray Jansma: Designer (Blurb, 2011), that chronicles his career and archives many of his artistic works. "The Jansmas were a pivotal influence on my life," Lindsay told me. "I started going out to their house for Tuesdays At Ray's—a Tuesday night drawing group—when I was fourteen years old. At that point in my life, I was a latchkey kid. I could have gone a very different way, but once I started drawing, my whole direction in life changed." The weekly gathering wasn't a class; there were no lectures or formal critiques, just a bunch of local artists and art enthusiasts getting together to practice life drawing and share their creative energy. "I had never seen a cluster of artists working together. Just getting together to do art," recalled Lindsay, who went on to be one of the first recipients of the Ray Jansma Scholarship for Visual Fine Arts, through the Fremont Area Community Foundation, and to study fine arts and graphic design at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids and Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia, Italy. "Through the Tuesday nights, I got to know Phyllis, and on a regular basis went out to what they called Tea Time at the Jansmas," Lindsay said. "People could show up from anywhere at their house during tea time. Phyllis would regale us with stories and talk about politics, and Ray would take me out to his studio afterward." The Jansmas' talents and personalities drew people to them, but their home was an added attraction. Located on a winding road north of Fremont, the house—which Ray designed in the early 1950s—started out as a modest 975-square-foot split level. But as Ray's career grew, so did the house, with additions reflecting the varied styles of his architectural design projects. On one end is a master bedroom suite where the centerpiece was the magnificent carved angel bed offered for sale at the recent event. A tower rises from the middle of the house, looking like something from a storybook. Indeed, guests sometimes felt they were "visiting another world," said Lindsay. "It was like Alice in Wonderland. I got to go to this fairytale place where we were surrounded by art, music, and everything you could imagine to play with." Like the house, Ray's studio was out-of-the-ordinary, decorated with architectural elements from some of his design projects. One side of the studio was originally used for building a sailboat—a 32-foot Tahiti ketch christened the Maid of Ramshorn, which Ray and Phyllis sailed around Lake Michigan and Lake Huron (and Ray sometimes used as a floating office for design jobs in port towns). Once the boat was finished and launched in 1975, the former boat shed became a working space for various art projects, both Ray's and other artists'. "He'd share whatever he had going on, share his studio space, encourage others to come and work there," said Lindsay. The list of working artists who have been influenced by Ray is long and varied and includes Ann Arbor potter Autumn Aslakson; Stratford, Ontario-based illustrator and graphic designer Scott McKowen; ; New Mexico painter Jack Smith; multimedia artist James Magee of El Paso, Texas (who also paints as Annabel Livermore) and many others. "He inspired so many artists because he was always working," said Lindsay. "His work ethic was amazing. He didn't watch TV, didn't golf. He'd be in his studio, working on a project or out sketching barns or downtown businesses or putting in time for our organization. He would come here to Artsplace at least once a week and participate, whether it was just helping paint a sign or helping teach a class, he was hands-on involved." Meanwhile, Phyllis inspired a long line of musicians, not only as a piano and cello teacher, but also through the Chamber Music for Fun program she initiated at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan. The Jansma children, too, benefited from the creative environment their parents provided. Tim became a violin, viola and cello maker, Jon a chemical engineer for GE, and Jennifer a piano technician who decorated her Ray-designed home with ornamental trim she carved herself and paving stones she hand-cast. "I've never met a family that has made such an impact," said Lindsay. "And to be found in such a tiny little community is a rare thing." The Jansmas made a difference. And what a difference that difference made! Who has made a difference in your life? In your community? What can you do to keep their legacy alive? As you consider these questions, take a look at more of Ray Jansma's artistry.
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If I invited you to come with me to the "most attended public art event on the planet," where do you suppose we'd go? Paris, perhaps? New York? Some quaint California town? What if I told you that the event takes place here in West Michigan? It's called ArtPrize, and it draws some 400,000 visitors to Grand Rapids over a nineteen-day period in early autumn. Unless you've experienced ArtPrize first-hand, grasping its scope, scale and concept can be mind-warping. When I try explaining it to out-of-towners who've never attended, they grope for comparisons. "So it's a big art fair, like Ann Arbor's," they venture. No, it's not like that. "So it's some kind of festival of the arts, with performances, exhibits and activities?" No, Grand Rapids has one of those in the spring, but that's not ArtPrize. Maybe this will help. In a recent conversation, some of my hiking friends were comparing notes on their visits to this year's ArtPrize. Peg, still euphoric over her day-long excursion, said, "There are no carnival rides, there's nothing to buy, yet it feels like a festival." Anita added in an almost reverent tone: "And all these people come, just to look at art!" Still not getting it? Let's try some facts and figures. ArtPrize is an international art exhibit and competition that takes place in 170 locations—from museums and galleries to bars, bridges, laundromats and auto body shops—over a three square mile downtown area. The event is free to the public, who can vote for their favorites using mobile devices and the ArtPrize web page. Cash prizes, half of which are decided by public vote and half by a jury of art experts, total $500,000. Any artist can enter, and any space in the district can be a venue. "It’s unorthodox, highly disruptive, and undeniably intriguing to the art world and the public alike," the ArtPrize web site asserts. What intrigues me most are the stated objectives of celebrating artists who take risks and promoting "examination of opinions, values and beliefs, encouraging all participants to step outside of their comfort zones." As Ray and I toured this year's ArtPrize--the eighth annual--with our friend Emily, we encountered works that made us stop and stare and others that made us stop and think. Some brought us close to tears; some were just plain fun. One moving display featured life-sized masks made by people with brain injuries, along with each artist's personal story. Just down that hall from that collection was "The Butterfly Effect," an installation of 1,234 handmade bronze Monarch butterflies. Artists Bryce Pettit and Allison Leigh Smith created the work to call attention to the plight of Monarchs, whose numbers have dropped dramatically over the past 20 years. After wandering outside and crossing a bridge to the other side of the Grand River (encountering a hula-hooping guitar player on the way), we came upon an assortment of sculptures that looked whimsical at first glance. But the creatures artist Justin La Doux crafted from recycled materials peered at us from cages, making a statement about the cruelties of the illegal pet trade. In another area, we found a crowd gathered around Loren Naji's "Emoh" sculpture/time capsule and temporary home. Constructed from debris salvaged from abandoned Michigan and Ohio homes, Emoh (Home, spelled backwards) represents wastefulness and the irony of homelessness in cities riddled with vacant houses. During ArtPrize, Naji lived in the eight-foot-diameter orb. Afterward, he planned to embark on a multi-city tour, collecting letters and discarded items from visitors at each stop. At the end of the tour, Emoh will become a time capsule, with those collected objects and writings stored inside for ten years until the capsule is opened on Earth Day 2026. Another ambitious—but more light-hearted—undertaking was showcased down the street from Emoh. Grand Haven illustrator Aaron Zenz and his six children collected 1000 rocks in different shapes and sizes and painted faces (or facial features) on each one. The rocks were painted in matching pairs, with one member of each pair displayed outside the Grand Rapids Children's Museum, where we saw them, and the other 500 hidden around town for people to find, photograph and post on social media. (Read more about the Zenz family's project, "Rock Around" in this MLive article.) We didn't look for rocks, but we did go on our own treasure hunt, searching for work by Newaygo-area artists we know. Eric LeMire's "Hexagonaria Percarinata" was easy to spot in the vestibule of a downtown pub. Eric used multiple layers of acrylic and poly resin to simulate the patterns of Michigan's state rock, the Petoskey stone, on a seated figure, a piece he hopes will stimulate interest in Michigan's "unique and rather exotic geological history and our human relationship with it" And we found Kim Froese's "Bee the Queen" holding court in First Congregational Church. Kim uses bald-faced hornets' nests in her art, and this piece celebrates the role of females (insect and human) in home and family. Kim's not the only artist who makes use of unconventional materials. This year we saw works of art created with aluminum foil, sand, duct tape and other surprising media. ArtPrize is over now, but we still have plenty of reminders of the place of art in our lives One upcoming event, in particular, highlights the impact artists can have on the community. "Leaving a Legacy of Art: The Jansma Collection," celebrates the lives of longtime Fremont residents Ray and Phyllis Jansma, who had a profound influence on Newaygo County's cultural scene. Phyllis was a musician and music teacher, Ray an architectural designer and artist who painted, sculpted and carved wood. As a tribute to Ray and Phyllis, their family is offering some of Ray's artwork for sale, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit Newaygo County Council for the Arts-Artsplace. The sale takes place Saturday, October 29 from 10 am to 1 p.m. at the Dogwood Center Black Box, 4734 S. Campus Court, Fremont. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be served. Entertainment will be provided by members of the Newaygo County Piano Teachers Association, of which Phyllis was a member for years. I'm looking forward to the event, and I'll tell you all about it in a future post. But for now, tell me something. Where do you go to see art that inspires, elevates and even challenges you to step outside your comfort zone?
On our recent road trip, we had the good fortune wander into Joel Rayburn's establishment, GlassBoy Studios and Tourist Trap Tees, in Arcadia, Oklahoma. I was so captivated by Joel's stories and enthusiasm, I wanted to share more about his projects with you. Joel fell in love with the stories and signs of Route 66 after moving from Tennessee to Oklahoma in 2007. To share his passion, he created a collection of T-shirts and hand-out cards memorializing some of the Mother Road's most enduring legends and legendary tourist traps. After serving an apprenticeship with neon artist David Rivers, Rayburn now practices the craft in his own studio, recreating vintage signs from the highway's heyday. Come along with me for a visit with Joel. How did your interest in Route 66 begin, and what keeps it going? I really kinda stumbled upon Route 66. I had heard about Route 66 all my life, but was never just drawn to it. After moving to Oklahoma City from Philadelphia, I spent the weekends just investigating the surrounding area and taking weekend road trips. Route 66 happened to be five blocks from my home, and I thought I would see how far I could get on it going west. Needless to say, I was hooked from that first day on the Route. I believe it reminds me of the road trips that I used to take with my parents as a kid. My parents were always seeing new things and taking really long road trips in the 60s and 70s. The Route just transported me in time to a place that held a lot of comfort for me. The last road trip that I was to take with my parents was on Route 66. Pretty fitting, seeing that my future is now with the Route. When did you begin collecting stories about Route 66, and why? Where do you see this project going? I seem to have been privileged to be surrounded by some of the Route’s great artists, historians and road archaeologists. They all seem to have their little areas that fascinate them, and my area seems to center around the weird and unusual. I love collecting stories that lie deep under the pavement of the Route. It’s fun to hang out with Jim Ross, Shellee Graham and Jerry and Kathy Anderson and introduce them to a weird story about the Route that they have never heard of. It’s like “Stump The Route Royalty!” Right now we just use the stories as inspiration for our Tourist Trap Tees business. We have knocked around compiling all the stories one day into print, but we are just having fun sharing these new unearthed stories with our guests. How do you hope these stories will appeal to younger generations? Why is this important? I am a child at heart and grew up watching "In Search Of . . . " with Leonard Nimoy. There is something in a kid that is fascinated about the unknown or the unusual. Most people think that my maturity level is equal to that of the younger generations. The stories seem to ignite that sense of wonder and adventure within me, and I believe that thread runs through all generations. GlassBoy Studios is really geared toward the young and younger generations. If you visit the studio, you will understand. I want to catch the imaginations of the young so that we can have the assurance that the Route will survive through their interest. Do you have a favorite Route 66 story? I think the Apache Death Cave story out of Two Guns, Arizona. "Two Guns, Arizona began and ended as a tourist stop where Route 66 crosses Canyon Diablo west of Winslow. It is also the site of an Indian battle that was later fully exploited by the site’s operators and ultimately became part of the highway’s lore. "As the story goes, in 1878, Navajo settlements in north central Arizona became prey to Apache raiders from the south, who would attack and then inexplicably disappear. After one such raid, their hideout in Canyon Diablo, a cave, was discovered by a Navajo scout. After surrounding the cave, the Navajos built a raging fire at the narrow entrance, which was kept blazing throughout the night. In desperation, the doomed Apaches killed and stacked their horses next to the opening in hopes of blocking the smoke, but by morning all forty-two of the raiders were dead from asphyxiation." "Following the massacre, the Apache raids ceased. Thereafter, Navajos warned pioneers that the land there was cursed, and it is said that those who camped along Canyon Diablo often reported hearing eerie groans and the death chants of dying Apaches carried on the breeze drifting through the canyon." On Facebook recently, you mentioned that with visitors from Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and Scotland, "the world came through the door today." What draws international visitors to Route 66? What are they most interested in and enthusiastic about? Our visitors from other nations are actually more drawn to the Route than Americans. I guess it could be the “Backyard Syndrome!” Route 66 is what true Americana is to the rest of the world. I believe through movies, the draw of the west, and music--our visitors have this wild adventurous road that they just have to experience for themselves. I think they are interested to see true Americana. They want to experience that "Andy Griffith Show” feel of America. Do you see yourself as an ambassador for Route 66? I just love people. I guess if you see a host as an ambassador, then yes. I want people walking out of my shop with dreams and yearning for that spark that Saturday mornings used to bring to us as kids. I’m really more about the people than the business. I know that may sound weird, but money can’t buy how people on the Route make me feel, and I hope it is reciprocated. Tell me more about your work with neon – how you got started with that and how the work ties in with Route 66. It all really started the first couple of times I drove the Route out west. When I saw the Skyliner Motel sign in Stroud, Oklahoma, I knew I wanted to learn how to make signs the way they used to make them after WWII when the Route was jumping. It was quite a change from my previous work as a church youth director! How long have you had the shop in Arcadia, and what's ahead for it? We celebrated our one-year anniversary at GlassBoy Studios on September 1st. Well, the first six months were spent remodeling! We will be constantly changing and morphing to make our stop a true must on the Route trip. I really just want to encourage people to have one heck of an adventure on America’s most famous road! As a kid, I never heard anyone talk about road trips. The trips my family took were just "trips." It was a given that we'd be traveling by automobile, except for the rare occasions when we used the rail passes my physician dad earned by caring for the families of Santa Fe Railroad employees. But now when I hear "road trip," the term conjures up all the wonder and mystery of those childhood excursions. I'm sure my parents planned routes, destinations and sight-seeing stops along the way, but I just hopped into the backseat—aware only in the vaguest sense of where we were going—and waited to see what would unfold. Now I'm the one doing the planning, but I still like to leave plenty of room—and plenty of time--for mystery and discovery. That's why you won't be hearing from me for a few weeks. Ray and I will be heading off on a road trip, not quite sure yet when we're leaving, when we're returning or exactly what we'll do, other than visit some relatives and attend a family wedding. When we decided to allow a little extra time for this expedition, my mind began roaming to past trips and some of the unusual sights we've seen, some by design, some by accident. On our first trip as a couple—a swing through Northern California in the early '90s—we spent a good bit of time searching San Francisco for a wave-activated acoustic sculpture called the Wave Organ, a quest that turned out to be far more interesting than the organ itself. I'd read about the environmental instrument—the creation of two Exploratorium artists in residence—and imagined spooky, whale-like sounds echoing over the shore. A can't-miss destination for sure. But this was in the days before easy internet look-ups, and though my Bay Area friends had all heard of the Wave Organ, no one knew quite where it was. One finally ventured that it might be somewhere in the Marina District, so we headed in that direction, stopped strangers on the street (none of whom knew where it was either, even when we were getting warm) and listened for those eerie sounds. After much searching, we found a tiny sign: WAVE ORGAN, with an arrow pointing toward a jetty that extended into San Francisco Bay. (The words on the sign had been graffitied into a suggestive remark involving "Simon Says," and the arrow into a crude illustration, in case readers didn't get the joke.) We had a laugh, snapped a picture of the sign and hurried on, still wondering why we weren't hearing anything. It was because there was nothing to hear. Not unless you crouched or lay on the ground and put your ear right next to one of the sound-transmitting tubes. Then you heard a surfy sound something like you'd hear if you put a seashell up to your ear. Whoop-dee-do. But you know what? We created such hilarity taking pictures of each other squatting or sprawled out on our sides, cupping our ears, it didn't matter that what we heard was less than marvelous.
And my excitement compounded that evening when we checked into our motel and there, in the parking lot, was the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. What's more, we passed a French's mustard factory in Springfield, Missouri the very next day. Sadly, there was no enormous mustard bottle out front. However, we took a different route on our way back to Michigan and passed a farm silo decorated like an oversized Coca Cola can in Kansas, so my happy meal was complete. Then there was the time we were driving through Nevada on our way to meet friends in Lake Tahoe. In one otherwise forgettable stretch of I-80, we caught a glimpse of an assemblage of concrete and junk that begged to be explored. At least it begged me to explore it, and Ray knew me well enough by then to find the nearest turnaround and head back. The conglomeration turned out to be Thunder Mountain, the work of one Frank Van Zant. Car windshields, old TV screens, typewriters, colorful bottles and a wild assortment of other items were set into the concrete walls of a rambling, three-story structure, and foreboding concrete sculptures guarded the grounds. Now, that was spooky (especially since we were the only visitors at the deserted site). It always seems to be mid-day and at least 90 degrees when we come across one of these wonders. Ray, bless him, never complains as I dawdle, photographing every detail from every angle. That's why, along with pictures of more typical attractions like Mt. Rushmore, Old Faithful and the Golden Gate Bridge, our photo albums bulge with images of places like Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park in Foyil, Oklahoma, and S.P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas, which has such a hold on me, I'm giving it a major role the novel I recently started writing. Stay tuned for more about the novel, but since I'm working reaaaaaaaallly slowly on it, stay tuned in the shorter term to find out what we'll discover on our ROAD TRIP! In the meantime, you're invited to share some of your travel memories. How do you like to travel, and what kinds of sights do you keep an eye out for?
Note: You can enlarge photographs below (except for the first) by clicking on them. To return to this page from an enlarged photo, click on the X in the upper right corner of the image. I've known for some time that my neighbor Kevin Feenstra is an avid angler and in-demand fishing guide on the nearby Muskegon River, but I only recently learned he's also an accomplished nature photographer. This I learned not from Kevin, who's a modest fellow, but from the bi-monthly events listing we receive from the Newaygo County Council for the Arts. There on the cover of the latest issue was one of Kevin's fish photos, and just inside, a full-page listing for "The Art of Fishing" exhibit underway at Artsplace in Fremont through August 15. In addition to Kevin's photographs, the exhibit features fine art and fine fishing craft by a number of other artists, plus collections of unique lures and fishing tackle. At the exhibit reception, from 10 a.m. to noon on August 13, Kevin will make a presentation, "Photographing a Big River." He'll also teach a two-hour class, "Photography: Nature of a Trout Stream," on Sept. 6. When I found out all of this, I wanted to hear more about Kevin's work and art and to share it with HeartWood readers. As it happened, Kevin was taking a rare break from guiding last week. When I trekked down the road to talk with him, I thought I might find him lounging on the deck for a change. But no, he'd just returned from a few hours on the river. Seems he can't stay away, even when he's not on the clock. In addition to guiding about 200 days a year, he spends another 50 to 75 days on the river fishing and photographing, he told me. Here's more of our conversation: Which came first, the fishing or the photography? Definitely the fishing first. The photography became part of it because my business is all catch and release. When you release a fish, a lot of times the people want at least a picture of it. Then, because I enjoy nature so much, I started doing more and more nature photography, which, since I'm out on the river every day, is probably the only other hobby I have time for. Another reason I got into the photography, besides the enjoyment, was that I do a lot of public speaking in the winter. When I go out and do programs, it's good to have quality photography. How did you learn each? Did someone teach you to fish? Did you take photography classes? Or are you self-taught? I started fishing when I was ten or eleven years old. At first I fished with my brother, but when he went off into the military I just picked it up more or less on my own. I read a lot as a kid, so I would go to the library and read every fishing book they had. In the beginning I was doing mostly spin fishing, but I picked up fly fishing pretty early on. My dad's great uncle died and left him some fly fishing gear, and since I was the only person that fished a lot in the family, I inherited the gear. Then I read the books and figured out how to do a little bit of fly fishing, and it took off from there. With photography, I also read a lot of books, and the internet definitely helped. I posted photos on some nature photography websites and had them critiqued. Do you see parallels between fishing and photography? Catch and release fishing and photography are both great ways to experience resources—like the rich wildlife in and around the Muskegon River—without having to harvest the animals. Another parallel is, to do either one right takes a lot of patience. You might have to wait quite a while for that creature you want to photograph to come along. For some of the photos I took of ospreys catching fish, I waited two days before one actually came down close enough. I do some snorkeling and underwater photography, and that has actually helped me with the fishing. I tie flies to imitate the various types of food the fish eat, and going underwater has helped a lot with that. Do you have favorite times of day or times of year on the river? I love being on the river in the evening most times of year, just because the light's so beautiful. But with a two-and-a-half-year-old son, it's harder and harder to do. I treasure those days when I can sneak out. The beauty of doing underwater photography is that even when the light's pretty harsh, it's fine for underwater work, because that requires a lot of light. What goes into a good nature photograph? Good lighting, obviously. When it comes to wildlife, understanding their behavior and what they're going to do. Most animals are pretty predictable—that's one thing you learn from fishing. Certain birds will be in the same area every day, and they like to feed at certain times of the day. If you can get the right lighting combined with the feeding activity, you can get a really nice image. And then seasonal things that happen on the river can make for interesting photos. The fall colors and all the salmon in the river in the fall, the winter ice, the renewal in the spring. There's always something that's beautiful. When you're out on the river, what kinds of things get you so excited you just have to grab your camera? Since our eagle and osprey populations are up, I sometimes see eagles and ospreys fighting. Ospreys taking fish is always a cool thing to see. At least a few times a year I see otter on the river. I also like colorful things like wood ducks. And this river has some turtles that are getting to be more and more rare: wood turtles and Blanding's turtles. Those are things you might see on the Muskegon that you might not see everywhere. I keep a camera with me even when I'm guiding, and sometimes I'll say, "Let me have a break." I don't take too many liberties with that, and people are very understanding. Some people may think being a river guide is a cushy, dream job, but I see you going out in all kinds of weather and I think it must have some real challenges. Right. A lot of people entering the guiding business think it's going to be a great, easy job. They quickly learn that there's a lot of hours you put into it each day—not just the guiding, but then you get home and you have to prep for the next day and return all the phone calls and emails. And for me, I tie all my own flies, so that's another hour every night. By the time everything's said and done, sometimes it's a twelve to fourteen-hour day, six days a week. What makes a good fishing guide? There's really two types of fishing guides: those who are really good at fishing and those who are really good at customer service. It's best to be a blend of the two. I always tell people that guide for me to try their best, but to try very hard to be good at the customer service end of things. Then if the fishing's bad, at least people will have an enjoyable time on the river. What about knowing the river? How do you learn the ins and outs of the river? Sheer time. I've been fishing up here since I was in my teens. Probably every possible day when I was a teenager, and when I graduated from college I was up here every day fishing. Then eventually I started guiding a little bit. The first year I was guiding maybe thirty to fifty days, but I was fishing every day I wasn't guiding. And eventually the balance tipped, and now I'm guiding way more than I'm fishing, and it's harder to take time to fish now. But it still helps to go out every day. That's my number one suggestion: If you want to be a fishing guide, you really have to put the time in. And you have to do it before you start to be a fishing guide. Because it's a lot harder to do once you're actually taking people fishing. And it's the same with photography, right? You just have to get out there and do it a lot. Right, put the time in. I tend to obsess about things that I enjoy, so I do put a lot of time in. You were single when you started your business 20 years ago, but now you have a wife, Jane, and son, Zach. Is fishing a family activity? Zach loves being out in the boat. Any fish I catch, he always wants to look at it and touch it. He attempts to help me reel it in, but we're not quite there yet. Jane likes to go out in the boat, too, but she'd rather read a book while I fish. Any parting thoughts or advice? For fishing, my advice to people is always just to keep their eyes down at the river and look into the water. A lot of times you'll see fish and can come back and catch them. One of the best ways to learn the river is the most obvious: just to keep your eyes peeled, and if you have access to a boat you can learn a lot just by driving up and down the river. The same thing holds true with the nature photography. Just keep your eyes open and watch for natural behavior. You can see more of Kevin's photographs at http://www.kevinfeenstra.smugmug.com/
You'll hear no such comments in Brenda's class. Though she doesn't hesitate to offer advice, it's all done in a positive way, aimed at helping class members explore new methods and improve their skills. On the Thursday I visited, Brenda showed 11-year-old MaKenzie (daughter of Heidi and sister of Caden) how to use a variety of watercolor techniques, including resist and sgraffito. The class usually works in watercolors, but Brenda introduces other media when the occasion calls for it. "One day the clouds were beautiful, so we did a cloud study in pastels," she said. As Eileen labored over her lily painting, Maureen reminded her, "Every once in a while, look at it from far away to get a better sense of the values." Maureen, who also sells art supplies, uses the class to try out new materials like the embossed rice paper she was working with. When she had finished painting on it, she added torn paper "halos," symbolizing "all the angels in my life." Then she started a new piece, painting around bright smears she had made by smashing petunia flowers and leaves. Though Brenda doesn't play favorites, she couldn't help bragging on the work of one class member, Deb, whose flower painting was particularly vivid and free-flowing. Deb had painted years ago, before a stroke disabled her right arm—and her painting hand. Recently, she taught herself to draw and paint left-handed in a completely different style.
What new territory have you explored recently? What would you like to try? The drawing you see here was done by a boy in his early teens, in the mid-1950s. Not so unusual in itself—countless boys have made similar drawings of rock bands. But what earned this drawing a place in a museum was the particular young artist who created it: James Marshall Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix, known to most of us as Jimi Hendrix. I learned of Jimi's early artistic leanings on a recent trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where the drawing is displayed. According to the accompanying text, Hendrix once dreamed of being a commercial artist. His father recalled that Jimi never had art lessons, but "he had a good hand and his ideas and imagination." No kidding. Jimi's good hand, ideas and imagination, applied to music, were nothing short of mind-blowing. Kinda makes you glad that commercial art thing never panned out. People like Jimi Hendrix, whose creativity crosses boundaries—from visual to verbal to musical to culinary--fascinate me, and like anything, once you start looking, examples are everywhere. I found another at Rock Hall, in an exhibit on Graham Nash and his passion for making music and art—from his early days as a founding member of the Hollies to his years with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, to his later work as solo artist and photographer. Like Hendrix, Nash traces his interest in visual arts to childhood, when photography captured his imagination. Later, he not only made his own photos and experimented with digital imaging, he also collected photographs and other artifacts from the intersecting worlds of art, rock music and politics. I had never thought of collecting as a creative outlet, but a quote from Nash in the exhibit made it clear that he does. Unfortunately I didn't write down the quote (blame sensory overload and the approaching lunch hour), but it was something to the effect that he tries to engage in some creative activity every day; if he's not writing a song, he's making photographs or painting or collecting. Not a bad way to live, whether or not you consider collecting a form of creative expression. (And I admit, after reading Nash's quote, I'm trying to look differently at Ray's habit of coming home from every trip to Harbor Freight with yet another free tape measure. That stash of nearly forty tape measures in his workshop is not a sign of hoarding, it's creative genius at work.) Turns out, it's not just my husband and rock stars who practice crossover creativity. Many poets and authors regularly mix media. For example:
Reading about all these multiply-creative people absolves my guilt (if I ever had any) for leaving my writing desk and walking into the woods with my camera or hauling out my collage-making materials. These excursions into other art forms aren't procrastination or dilettantism, they're simply alternate ways of expressing myself. And while I'm exploring those alternatives, maybe I'll swing by Harbor Freight and pick up a few tape measures to add to Ray's collection. It's a creative thing. What's your creative thing, and how can you step beyond its boundaries?
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Written from the heart,
from the heart of the woods Read the introduction to HeartWood here.
Available now!Author
Nan Sanders Pokerwinski, a former journalist, writes memoir and personal essays, makes collages and likes to play outside. She lives in West Michigan with her husband, Ray. Archives
April 2022
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