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Courtesy Peg Sandin
Ironwood Draws Art and Theater Downtown
The Downtown Art Place is in a restored mid-1920s building in Ironwood.
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Courtesy Peg Sandin
Ironwood Draws Art and Theater Downtown
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Courtesy Peg Sandin
Ironwood Draws Art and Theater Downtown
To see how much Lake Superior influences local artists, one need only walk into Ironwood’s Downtown Art Place, a community art center that represents 40 regional artists.
Most of the art there – ceramics, paintings, jewelry, photography and more – offers a real sense of place and especially of Lake Superior, from the water-related themes to the very materials used such as beach stones and birch bark.
“The power of the water, and what it does to the local landscape, is really what inspires me,” says Peg Sandin, a watercolor artist who lives on the Big Lake.
Peg and other local artists were recently inspired by another desire – to bring more artistic flair into Ironwood.
Courtesy Peg Sandin
Ironwood Draws Art and Theater Downtown
Peg Sandin’s watercolor “Lake Superior Rocks III” will be in “Lake Superior, Rocks, My Soul,” her exhibit that opens Memorial Day in the Historic Ironwood Theatre adjacent to the Art Place.
About five years ago, they created the Downtown Art Place or DAP, a nonprofit organization to promote local art. The group operates in, and manages, the City Centre building, home to its galleries, gift shop, classes and studio spaces. An added bonus is a direct link, via a connecting concourse, to the Historic Ironwood Theatre, which still offers a stage for music, movie and play performances. The city owns both buildings.
“There’s a lot of character just in the design of the building,” Peg says, pointing to details like the chandelier, the intricately patterned ceiling and crown mouldings.
The Downtown Art Place displays mostly original artworks on the first floor and the mezzanine. The artists take advantage of the concourse to the theater for art exhibits, like Peg’s upcoming a collection of 61 watercolor abstracts of agates.
The volunteer-run DAP has two kilns in the basement and five pottery wheels. “We have clay classes,” notes Peg, “and a children’s art program, which is called Dabble at the DAP.”
Dabble in the arts or dawdle to look, both are welcome now in downtown Ironwood.