Art week returns to Marquette

New slate of events will focus on ‘home’

By Pam Christensen

Marquette will celebrate Art Week from June 19 to 24 in locations around the city. Organized by the City of Marquette Office of Arts and Culture, Art Week is a collaborative effort that brings a variety of organizations together to celebrate this year’s theme: Home.

Art Week strives to bring arts activities to public spaces. In a focus on Home, activities will take place in neighborhoods and city locations, that create a sense of place for residents of the area. The focus is on local talent, collaboration, and partnerships. The events invite the audience to participate without barriers. There are no ticket fees, and most of the events will be staged in public places or businesses that invite participants to join.

“We select a new theme each year,” said Amelia Pruiett, marketing and promotions assistant for the Office of Arts and Culture, or OAC. “It helps to create a consistent focus and helps unify the work of artists and arts organizations. We have found that having a theme helps steer community conversations, helps people connect, and provides a framework for inspiration. Past themes include Water, Reconnection and Bigfoot. Lately, we have started to use a theme that fits closely with city initiatives and current community experiences.”

The Art Week publication cover is selected during an online competition. This year, the cover art was created by Gene Bertram and focuses on the Ore Dock. This publication serves both as a program for events and as a “stateof-the-arts” review featuring local artists, arts organizations, and articles related to the theme.

The OAC and affiliated groups plan the theme in advance — the 2024 theme will be Grow — to secure grant funding and get organizations thinking about what they will do to address the theme in future Art Week programming. The OAC staff is proud of the almost $20,000 in grant funding that has been secured for the 2023 celebration from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. This funding is redistributed to participating artists and organizations through an OAC regranting process each January. Successful funding helps validate the importance of Art Week and demonstrates the value of the program.

Many institutions can point to ways that the Covid-19 pandemic affected their organization, but Tiina Morin, Arts and Culture manager for the City of Marquette, feels that the struggles faced during this challenging time had a direct benefit on the arts. “Covid gave Art Week more purpose and inspired an Arts and Culture master plan,” she said. “We assessed how Art Week fit with the MACC (Marquette Arts and Culture Center) mission and how it could address community challenges. It deepened Art Week’s purpose and provided a platform to connect members of our community.”

Home will be celebrated in the Rosewood Walkway in an installation created by Audrey Seilheimer. Sponsored by the Marquette Downtown Development Authority, this installa- tion will honor local neighborhoods, and iconic buildings that make up “Home,” and tell the history of Marquette. The idea for the installation came from the television show “Tiny House Nation” and the Judy Garland version of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The installation will be on display from June 15 to 30.

According to Seilheimer, “Small, two-dimensional houses will be hand-painted by me in a color story. These houses will be placed on stakes along the walkway. The corridor gets a nice breeze off the lake, and there will be a fluid element attached to many of the tiny homes in the Art Week Rosewood Walkway ‘tiny home neighborhood’ to create a visual movement to be experienced as the viewer walks through it. This movement will also represent the changing topography of homes in our land and the surrounding water.”

Seilheimer is a curator, artist, and experiential event consultant based in southwest Michigan, who focuses on partnerships with community organizations, municipalities, and nonprofits toward placemaking and engagement. Her son will attend NMU in the fall, so she already feels a connection with Marquette and hopes to connect Marquette residents’ love of natural resources and environment to their historic roots and tell those stories through collaborative art and events. Select buildings in the exhibit will contain a QR code that connects the viewer to details about the building. All of these details will weave into the environment of Home here in Marquette.

The schedule of events for the week demonstrates the depth and breadth of arts-affiliated organizations and businesses in Marquette. Art Week opens on Monday, June 19, with a sunrise poetry reading at Lighthouse Park featuring an opening poem by B.G. Bradley, the city’s writer of the year for 2022. Monday events will also include family activities and a community conversation centered around diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Many of the events are small, informal and intimate,” Morin said. “I am always moved by the annual sunrise opening poem. There is no recreating the emotion that results from combining poetry, community, nature and the sunrise. Rain or shine, it is always magical. Art Week is intentionally informal and relaxed. I think the atmosphere takes the pressure off performers and artists, but also the audience. It’s a nice opportunity for people who may not normally purchase a ticket to a concert or visit a gallery to explore the arts. We encourage this by removing the barriers. Events are free, outdoors, and don’t require a time commitment. You can come and go as you please, and everyone is welcome.”

Each year, the OAC tries to locate events in neighborhoods or spaces that are meaningful to residents. Marquette’s south end will be a focus on Tuesday. The Hurley Park softball field and the recently upgraded playground facilities and basketball court mural will serve as a backdrop for a family square dance, followed by a concert by musicians from Marquette’s south side, headlined by local country musician Ethan Bott. OAC staff encourage families to stage a picnic in the park and enjoy dancing and music. The events will be informal and can be enjoyed by those who want to dance or just listen.

Wednesday’s Art Week events celebrate Marquette’s downtown. The OAC has partnered with the Downtown Development Authority to revive Art Stroll for 2023. Most of the Wednesday events have been coordinated by the DDA, and Michael Bradford, the DDA’s business outreach and promotions director, has been instrumental in developing that schedule.

“We have an exciting lineup of events for the Wednesday of Art Week,” Bradford said. “The Wednesday market will be moving to the 100 block of West Washington for the summer. The block will be closed off from 3 to 9 p.m., and Wednesday, June 21, will be the first market in that location. It will take advantage of the newly designated social district and feature musicians, artisans, farmers, and special events. I am very excited about the return of the Art Stroll in downtown businesses. This event has not been held for several years and we thought it was time to bring it back. The Rosewood Walkway will feature the Home art installation. All the downtown events are free, and we hope people will come out and join in the fun.”

Thursday events will focus on Marquette’s shoreline from Clark Lambros Park to Presque Isle. The day will highlight the shoreline restoration project and honor the women who have shaped Marquette through an ephemeral interactive memorial to women, led by the Marquette Women’s Center. The Marquette City Band will conclude the day with a concert at Presque Isle Park.

The Founder’s Landing area will be activated on Friday with an art extravaganza at the Marquette Yacht Club, poetry on the new piers and a concert sponsored by the Hiawatha Music Cooperative at Father Marquette Park. Provisions will host the Fresh Coast Plein Air Painting Festival, and the OAC will explore plans for an urban trailhead for the Culture Trail Project, and a future indigenous public art installation.

Art Week concludes with a full day of activities at Presque Isle Park on Saturday, June 24. The OAC invites the community to experience local art set within the park’s stunning shoreline and quietly beautiful interior. The Presque Isle Art Fair will feature artists native to the Upper Peninsula. The Superior String Alliance will perform, and the Marquette Symphony Orchestra Summer Strings will present a concert featuring original works written by composers with connections to Marquette. Art installations, workshops, concerts and other activities, will be a spectacular finale to Art Week 2023.

Tristan Luoma, arts and senior services coordinator for the City of Marquette sums it up perfectly: “My favorite part of Art Week is watching the execution as it all comes together. We start with this broad theme that has a different meaning to everyone, and yet as planning progresses and events are finalized, I can see it all coming together. From a performer’s standpoint, it amazes me how the events are intertwined and creates one overall celebration of the arts. Saturday really is the culmination of all the planning, networking, organizing and collaborating. That evening really is the celebration of the individuals, organizations and artists that created a community-wide experience: a time that artists, organizers and audience alike can bask in the rewarding feeling of connecting and contributing to our home.”

For a full program of Marquette Art Week events, see the schedule at mqtcompass.com/artweek or contact the OAC at 906-228-4072.

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Pam Christensen moved to Marquette 30 years ago when she accepted the position of library director at Peter White Public Library. She served in that post for more than 24 years. Most recently, she was foundation manager for the West End Health Foundation, finally hanging up her formal work shoes in May 2021. She and her husband, Ralph, are in the process of making an off-grid cabin in Nisula their second home.