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Mark Gregg / Mark P. Gregg Photography
Calumet Art Center
The Calumet Art Center, based in an old church, makes creating fun with eclectic class offerings for all ages, from weaving to clay pot making to tie dying.
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Courtesy Calumet Art Center
Calumet Art Center
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Mark Gregg / Courtesy Mark P. Gregg Photography
Calumet Art Center
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Courtesy Mark P. Gregg Photography
Calumet Art Center
The Calumet Art Center.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
Calumet Taps the Artist in Everyone
Businesses like Omphale Restaurant and Gallery feature rotating art displays, artists’ receptions and live local music. Omphale’s gallery celebrates 25 years this summer.
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Courtesy Paige Wiard Gallery
Calumet Taps the Artist in Everyone
J.D Slack’s painting is at Paige Wiard Gallery.
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Courtesy Calumet Art Center
Calumet Art Center
Weekly classes are popular at the Calumet Art Center.
Next time you wonder whether your community can tackle a large project, consider Calumet, Michigan, a village of 710 people in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Based on the population alone, you might expect to find a gas station and a diner there. You probably would not expect to find a thriving arts community. Yet this small town boasts the oldest artists’ cooperative in the Copper Country, an art center with weekly classes, several fine art galleries, retailers and restaurants with rotating local artwork displays, plus the town’s own Calumet Arts District business association.
So how does a small town – tiny almost – become a magnet for creative endeavors?
At the heart of this flourishing support of the arts is the Calumet Art Center.
In 2009, a group of local artists and business people decided to create a central art space for the town. They wanted a place where people could explore and develop their own methods of expression, and to strengthen appreciation of the area’s historic, cultural and artistic heritage. Such a center, they decided, needed to be for everyone – adults and youths – and to truly be part of the community.
It was a tall order for a small town. First the Calumet Art Center group acquired an old church, not a surprising venue since some blocks in Calumet have multiple old church buildings from a time when each ethnic group of mining immigrants imported their own congregational needs. Next the group obtained nonprofit status and hired an executive director. The center began offering classes to draw in local people.
Ed Gray was operating his own studio-gallery when he took on the director’s job part time, but by 2011, he became the full-time director.
“I’d had a gallery since 1960,” says Ed, “but the Calumet Art Center turned into a huge job and I couldn’t do both.”
Ed also is one of roughly 15 instructors there. Nearly 100 people (that’s a seventh of the town’s population, remember) come through the art center each week to attend classes or just to use the space for their own creations. “We work with local schools,” Ed says, “and have about 40 students … take classes every week.”
The offerings are eclectic. Recent classes featured twining a wool rug, using the Korean coiling method to build a clay pot, making copper jewelry, blowing glass beads and knitting felted appliqued mittens.
The art center also hosts musical events and concerts in the upstairs sanctuary of the former church.
Both amateur and professional artists appreciate the art center. Howard Rutishauser, an amateur potter who lives in Lake Linden, regularly travels to Calumet to use the clay facilities during his free time.
“I’ve also taken up weaving,” says Howard, “and have gotten hooked on that, too. The thing I like most about the art center is the community amongst the artists and the budding artists. We really find a bond, I think.”
Karena Schmidt, a professional fiber artist, also uses the art center on a regular basis. She not only teaches fiber classes there, but takes classes offered by other artists and teachers.
“The art center is a beautiful thing within our community,” she says. “I really treasure the vision Ed had to reach out to the community and tap into the artist within everyone. The center reaches out to all ages, and classes have every mix of our community in them. Even people who have identified themselves as ‘not artistic’ are still able to tap into art, history and culture and express themselves uniquely.”
Calumet actually has a long history of supporting artists. The Copper Country Associated Artists based in the town has been in existence more than 50 years. It is the oldest artist organization in Copper Country. The association’s members work in all media – paint, pencil, wood, needle-and-thread, photography, clay, glass, you name it. The organization occupies a large space on Calumet’s main street, including its own retail gallery. The organization provides open studio space in the building where members can work on projects. Each August, it sponsors the Eagle Harbor Art Fair in Eagle Harbor.
“We currently have 53 members,” says spokeswomen Pam Hecht, “and all of them are local. About 30 of them are on display in the gallery. And we really make an effort to reach out to the entire community.
“Our July exhibit, ‘American Pride,’ is always open to the public; anyone can exhibit,” she adds. “Last year the students (at Calumet High School) took it on as a project and we displayed all their artwork. It was really fun.”
The organization also offers free workshops on topics such as drywall carving, watercolor painting and a photography workshop covering such topics as camera basics, live action and photographing the northern lights.
The Calumet Art Center and the Copper Country Associated Artists are certainly creative hubs in Calumet, but they’re not the only driving force in a community embracing the arts.
Early in December, the local high school hosts the Poor Artists Sale, an all-inclusive one-day event where dozens of local artists can sell their creations in the school gym.
Performing arts have a grand stage in Calumet Theatre, which opened in 1900 and has hosted luminaries such as John Phillip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Jason Robards and others. Today it hosts national and local performances and has its own local amateur acting company, The Calumet Players.
Local businesses also find their own way to support the arts. Many have joined the newly formed Calumet Arts District organization.
Fine art galleries, such as the Paige Wiard Gallery and Gallerie Boheme, establishments such as Cross Country Sports, Artis Books, Omphale Restaurant and Gallery and Café Rosetta actively promote the arts in downtown Calumet.
The Paige Wiard Gallery features more than 80 artists. Most are local or from the Upper Peninsula, and all are from the Lake Superior region. Owner Paige Wiard believes in staying local, and the Lake flows as an integral part of the art she carries. “I have one artist who takes stones and rocks from Lake Superior and turns them into fine art jewelry. And several local wood turners use only local wood in their creations.”
Many Calumet businesses feature arts and artists the first Friday of every month in a local movement called, appropriately, First Friday. They sponsor artist receptions and exhibit openings and some businesses stay open all evening; several restaurants offer live music.
“We always participate in First Friday,” says Gallerie Boheme co-owner Tom Rudd. “That’s when a new exhibit will open, and when we’ll have the artist’s reception.”
The Associated Artists focus on education for First Friday. “We used to do an exhibit and artist’s reception,” says Pam, the group’s events coordinator, “but now, for First Friday, we do educational workshops. They’re free, they’re hands-on and people can learn new mediums or techniques.”
At Omphale Restaurant and Gallery, menu changes revolve around First Friday. “We serve dinner every Friday,” says co-owner Mike Porter, “but on First Friday the menu changes for the month and the artist’s reception takes place. We feature local and U.P. artists in the gallery, but we also feature local musicians every First Friday. We like to support local musicians, too.”
Indeed, in support of the arts, small Calumet has proved its can-do community embrace of creativity.
Eagle River resident and author Lesley DuTemple definitely supports local arts.