On the Road (for real this time): Fabric Collage at MISA—Madeline Island School of the Arts, WI: June 2021

A trip to MISA on Madeline Island, off the shores of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin, always involves a ferry ride. And for this first teaching venture of mine outside of Zoom in over 18 months, the lake was very kind to me—upon arrival, on a mid-week sunset cruise to the famous Sea Caves of the Apostle Islands, and upon departure. The stretch of days I was on the island were lovely. All in all, it was a good week to dip my toes back into in-person teaching.

I previously taught for MISA at this, their home location, in September 2018. The campus is a mixture of renovated and replicated farm buildings. In the photo below, student accommodations are in the houses to the left. “The Milkhouse” in the center is where my class was held, and to the right is “The Barn” where meals are served—this year with the addition of a dining tent out the back. There’s always been picnic tables to eat on, but the covered area was an appreciated option to be out of the sun. And to the far right of the photo, is “The Stable” with administrative offices.

The MISA windmill is one of the first things you see driving onto the site and I find it quite photogenic. I don’t have the photographic equipment to do it justice, but there’s a crescent moon in the sunset photo above. You can click on any and all these photos to see them larger.

In addition to myself and my students, there were two other instructors and classes during this week: Mike Moats with Macro Photography, and Jacqui Banaszynski with Creative Nonfiction. A few of my student came with spouses, sisters, or other friends and family, some of which were attending these other classes. So it was a varied and creative community to mingle with.

During this transition when the pandemic (we hope) is ending, yet not over, you may be wondering about how all this went. As it turned out, everyone in my class—and I understand everyone on the campus including staff—were fully vaccinated. That knowledge allowed us to relax and let go of the concerns we’ve all had for over a year. I did tend to choose the outdoor dining (it was so beautiful, that’s where I would have been anyway), but I knew I’d be okay either way. I hadn’t quite realized what a relief that would be for myself, and to see it (mask-less) in others.

I shared “The Farmhouse” (below) with fellow instructor Jacqui, and I enjoyed getting to know her, if just a little, through our chats (and wine) around the kitchen table. At the end of the week, we agreed that for these few days at least the pandemic had ceased to exist.

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The Classroom

In the stretched out panoramic photo above, you get the idea of the very open and light-filled Milkhouse classroom space. In the foreground left of center, you can see the table I used for morning lectures, where students would gather in front. The mirror above the table, reflecting the daily demo, enabled folks to stand back a little and still see what I was doing. It was the first time I worked with that sort of setup and I really liked it.

I spaced out work tables and pinning boards as much as possible, aiming for that six foot allowance to let people feel comfortable getting back out into the world. Leaning boards against the walls and sometimes windows, with tables perpendicular next to them, I got close enough to that goal.

And for the first time ever, I assigned seating. One thing I discovered in my recent live online classes, was the helpfulness of dividing students into Zoom breakout rooms based on subject matter. Then, when I talked to one person in the room, others could benefit from overhearing what I said.

There may not be breakout rooms in an in-person class, but I still used the idea of organizing these ladies into areas of grouped subject matter. I was wondering how it would work with those attending with friends or family, wanting to sit near each other, but it all just fell into place. One example is Cindy Hansen and her granddaughter Kaidah Coleman (20), upper right above. They traveled from different parts of the country to attend this workshop together—the first time they had done this sort of thing and I was honored it was for my class. As I set up the classroom, it worked perfectly that as Kaidah’s sea turtle finished the Sea Creatures group, Cindy’s bison began the Mammals with Fur and Nice Noses group.

Of course there’s more distractions in this sort of classroom than there are in a Zoom classroom, but the potential for listening in was there. I know the ladies working on faces would stop what they were doing to listen in on all the facial tips they could. So I’d say that assigned seating was a successful idea—something to take to future in-person classes as well.

Now that you’ve met my lovely students, check out the end-of-week results from each of them in the photos below—organized by subject matter groups. Scroll curser over each photo to see the name of who created that particular work.

Butterflies

Faces

Watery Creatures

Mammals with Fur and Nice Noses

Birds

Pretty impressive, eh? But now check out the slide show below that takes their work through each day—starting with those almost blank canvases and working through the collages step-by-step, piece-by-piece. I’m so very proud of my students. They hit walls and pushed through, they were all there diligently working when I walked into the classroom each morning, and the lights were still on in the classroom when I turned out my bedroom lights at night. And what they accomplished is quite impressive. Thank you for sharing your time, your efforts, and your work, ladies.

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I know that part of the successes of the class were from “homework” done before class. Many have the Online Master Class and had worked through the opening Spiral Exercise, as well reading through this online resource. Many had attended any number of last year’s Thursday Night from My Studio Live! Zoom presentations. I’d not had any of these students in a class before, but many names were familiar. I also sent out a letter with relevant blog post links for them to familiarize themselves with.

A couple weeks prior to the class, Tom and I tried out something new as far as in-person classes go—we held a couple optional Zoom meetings to answer questions and ensure that everyone arrived to class with drawings and fabric ready to go. This all helped them come prepared.

Mary Foster began a portrait of her daughter as the fanciful face in a sun collage. The eyes and mouth above, show how she worked separate from the overall image to create these features. Mary reviewed both my eye demo blog post video and then the Thursday Night recording dealing with teeth. She did a fantastic job with both on her portrait. It’s great to now have such cross-over resources available for learning fabric collage—it’s no longer only in-person or only online.

The homework spirals pictured here are from Julia Montoya (above) and Becky Prina (below). Becky also made the very fun sun face, perfect for this first week of Summer. And that’s Becky herself, dwarfed by her mongo flamingo. I do tell my students to “go big,” and I think Becky gets the prize this time.

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Extra Curricular Activities

I don’t necessarily consider lunch as extracurricular, but having good food ready and waiting for you is certainly extra special. The rural location, the abundant sunshine, the good conversations, made it all extra enjoyable. Just beyond the picnic tables are mown paths for short strolls around the property. And picturesquely hanging out in the field is the resident cow, who’s just a bit on the skinny side.

Those who have read my summer posts in the past, know that I raise monarch butterflies to then release. So I enjoyed seeing monarchs flitting across these fields as well. On a couple morning walks, I came across milkweed plants with monarch caterpillars munching away. If you click on the photos below, you should be able to see them too.

Devil’s Island

The Apostle Islands (of which Madeline Island is the largest) are famous for their Sea Caves. It’s a little bit of a boat ride to get out to the most spectacular Devil’s Island, pictured above, and Lake Superior doesn’t always cooperate. But the weather was so favorable this week that Charlie Meech, the founder of MISA, arranged for the option of a midweek sunset cruise. That’s Charlie below, with me and Meghan Dennison, my contact for all teaching arrangements—and the provider of motion-sickness pills, just in case. Meghan and Kate (pictured below and works with Meghan), both said how you never see the lake this calm. So I totally lucked out on this visit.

The opportunity to see this sight was a huge treat for us—myself, a few of my students (below), and those from other classes as well.The light of the evening sun shone beautifully on the rock formations.

I took way too many photos, but there’s a short video above and a slideshow below, if you’d like to spend a little time exploring these Sea Caves with me.

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Mornings

Being outside my normal routine and home responsibilities, I usually get inspired to check out new surroundings with early morning walks—power walks before the class days begin. There’s really only one road going around the island, so a couple days I walked “down the road” toward town and the ferry, and the next couple days I walked “up the road” toward the bay. I’d set a timer to know when to turn around and see how far I could go (usually 3-4 miles), taking yet more photos along the way. Want to come along with me?

This deer, both above and below, is a highlight from my second down the road walk. She posed so nicely and for so long—until she started to stamp her feet. I started to get the idea that maybe she wasn’t moving because she had a faun nearby. And then came the loud snorting noises—I didn’t know deer did that. So as not to end up as a deer attack headline in the local paper, I resumed my power walk.

A “down the road” forest walk slideshow below.

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This time of the season the island is crazy with lupine. The flowers are everywhere, especially prevalent “up the road” it seemed. The road soon enough curved along a bay. On these two walks, part of my time was spent sitting on rocks and dangling my feet in the great big lake. Slide show below.

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And then really early Thursday morning, I woke up and the sky had clouds that were just beginning to catch sunrise colors. Knowing that clouds make for better sunrise or sunset viewing, I hopped into the car that my housemate Jacqui, had offered to me, and drove to Big Bay Town Park to see the sun rise over the lagoon and Lake Superior.

And I made it just in time.

On my way to the beach, I paused to let a Canada goose family pass on their way from lagoon to lake themselves. I caught them crossing the boardwalk in a 30 second video below.

And then as I was sitting on the beach watching the sun and clouds, I noticed movement coming toward me—the goose family was making it’s way down the beach, nibbling some breakfast. In the slideshow below, see their sunrise stroll as well as photos from my walk, including another good deer sighting, changing clouds, and lagoon reflections.

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Going Home

The week went by fast, as they tend to do. The MISA registrar Erin and I, caught the 5:30 ferry off the island on Friday. Then came a shuttle ride to Duluth—where I stayed overnight to catch an early flight home. A nice thing with the travel itself was that I only had two flights each direction with one connection. Portland, Maine to Duluth, Minnesota, and back, via Chicago.

Rainbows and raindrops in Duluth (above), and Sue, the Chicago Field Museum dino (below), donning a face mask at O’Hare Airport.

I tend to go out like a light as soon as my plane starts moving down the runway, and nothing had changed during the 18 month break in travel. I do however, enjoy window seats so when I wake up at times, I can check out the scenery and may snap some photos from on high. I told myself, “no more cloud photos!” this time. Alas, old habits are hard to break, and that did not happen. But I did come up with something that was interesting to do with a fraction of the cloud photos I took—my photo mosaic below—which I’ve titled “Descent into Maine.” It comes together better if you squint your eyes a bit.

And then I was back on the ground. Tom was there to meet me at the airport and he gallantly swooped in to relieve me of not only my carry-ons, but my check-in baggage as well. He and my luggage made such a colorful departing image, I couldn’t resist one final shot to end my venture back to traveling through the world.