Header image: Watercolor by Gene Usimaki

News & Notes, Honors & Accolades

Last updated: April 1, 2008

Sault Area Arts Council
Annual Membership Drive and Fundraiser

Our annual fundraising letter will go out this month. The high utility and fuel prices have hit us hard and the need for a new roof on Alberta House is becoming urgent, so we need a good fundraiser. You’ll note that local merchants and professionals are beginning to support the newsletter by advertising, and this helps, but still doesn’t begin to address our actual costs. All our services are provided by volunteers, but materials, printing and postage must be purchased and such services as snowplowing, shoveling and repairs must be paid for.

We know how annoying it is to be constantly badgered for donations and we want our focus to be on the arts, not on fundraising, so we come to you only once a year in a low-key campaign and trust you to understand the need. If our letter misses you, feel free to donate anyway. Checks should be made out to the Sault Area Arts Council and donations are tax deductible. Keep the volunteers working!!

Theatre News

Honk, Jr.

The Sault Middle School Performing Arts classes will present Honk, Jr. on Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26, at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m.

Modeled on Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tale of the Ugly Duckling, gawky and odd Ugly must find his way in life, dealing with scorn and prejudice from his family and neighbors. He becomes lost from the farm and pursued by a hungry cat, while his loving mother searches for him. With humor and charm, lessons of love and acceptance lead us to remember the beauty in all of us. Admission fees for these performances are $5 for adults, $3 for students, and free for children four and under.

The Pencil Box

The Shingwauk Players Theater Group of Algoma University in Sault, Ontario will be staging an original play April 24, 25 and 26 in the Shingwauk Theater. The Shingwauk Players’ goal is to provide Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students the opportunity to practice their talents on and off stage.

The Pencil Box, their third production, is written by Tammy Sanderson, John-Paul Chalykoff and Thomas Gower, based on a true story. Set in the Residential School time period and written from an Aboriginal perspective, it illustrates the consequences of Aboriginal children being taken away into a foreign world and their resultant struggle to identify themselves with their new surroundings. T

The performers are John-Paul Chalykoff, Thomas Gower, Mona Jones, Gail Pitawankwat and Cheryl Suggashie with a special cameo appearance by Nathan Muto as a Mariachi singer. Tickets, $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and students, will be available at the door. The curtain is at 7:30 p.m.

Pippin

Sault, Ontario’s Musical Comedy Guild will present Pippin May 7, 8, 9 & 10 at the Kiwanis Community Theater Center. The production is directed by Timothy Murphy with musical direction by Susan Barber and features Angela Duncan, Nicholas Sarlo, Jaime Miller, David Walsh and Lorilee Matheson with Ben Morphet as “The Lead Player” and Cameron Johnson as “Pippin”. Tickets are on sale now at the Station Mall Box Office (705-945-7299).

LSSU Performing Arts Academy

LSSU’S Performing Arts Academy, under the direction of Luanna Luxton-Armstrong will present Send in the Clowns, an original production, written by Luanna Luxton-Armstrong, on Saturday, May 3, at 6 p.m. and Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m., at the Dream Makers Theater. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for children 12 and under, at the Kewadin box office 1-800-KEWADIN or 906-635-4917, or at the door.

Paul Freedman

Paul Freedman died in March. A founding member of the Sault Area Arts Council in 1969, Paul served in more capacities than we can possibly count.

Always a generous and consistent donor, and generous with his time and talents as well, he was a great problem solver and a tireless worker. For the past several years he spent many, many hours at the Sault Summer Arts Festival, taking hundreds of photographs and providing visual images of all the great people who make up the festival year after year. He photographed Alberta House receptions, items in the shop, volunteers, and work donated for the auction, allowing us to do a much better job of promoting area arts and artists. He found workers for jobs we couldn’t fill and often paid them himself.

Prickly, quick to take offense, enormously generous, a strong support of the arts and of individual artists, intelligent, mercurial—a study in contrasts with a heart as big as all outdoors. We’ll miss him.

Soo Theatre Project Legacy Fund

With the STARS (Soo Theatre Arts Resource Studios) program well established and boasting over 400 students during the past school year; the dividing wall in the theater down; new seats installed; outstanding theatrical performances a regular thing and a new, full-time executive director in place, the time has come for the Soo Theatre Project to take another leap forward.

What has been accomplished so far has been done with sheer people power—sweat equity in the purest sense—an enormous gush of volunteer labor. There is no way you could pay people to work as hard as these people are working in a labor of love.

But volunteer labor can accomplish only so much. While tourist dollars are very welcome and summer entertainment a part of our celebration of a short season, the theater’s primary function is to serve the people of the Sault area—to bring them the joy of the theatrical experience and to educate them and their children in the theater arts. We cannot escape the fact that our primary season is winter and an unheated auditorium is unusable for much of the year. Money is needed to install heat in the auditorium, to develop the building’s second floor to better serve students and provide office space; to install an elevator; to install the equipment donated by the Mackinaw Crossings Theater, and more.

Soo Theatre volunteers and directors have proved that they are here for the long run. Their efforts and what they have accomplished have been truly phenomenal. They now need some solid encouragement from the community in the form of cash donations. Tax deductible donations can be sent to the Soo Theatre Project, Inc., 534 Ashmun, Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783-1908.

Questions? Call 906-632-1930, e-mail sootheatre@lighthouse.net, or go online to www.sootheatre.org.

HELP!!

Being the editor of Alberta House News is at times like channeling a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and the old Maytag repairman. You have to be there to know how frustrating it is to find out about an event that people will want to go to after the newsletter is at the printer. We know how it happens. People are busy getting the event itself ready and probably feel they don’t need the publicity we can give—but our readers want to know anyway, and we’re useful to them only to the extent that we can give them the information they need.

Alberta House News is free of charge if it’s picked up at the Bayliss Library or at Alberta House, and the subscription cost barely covers the mailing. It’s an arts council service that, we hope, promotes the arts, but it’s a hand-to-mouth operation. Once printed, it is literally put together by hand by Wally and Johann Ingold and hauled to the post office. Obviously there has to be time allowed for printing, drying, assembling, labeling, and mailing. This means we need the information by the 15th of the previous month. If it comes in later than that, we’ll try to get it in, but whether we make it or not depends on everyone’s schedules. We want the information as well as any graphics you have and will print all we have room for. If you want to guarantee the graphics or extra information, you can book an ad.

Our subscription list stands at 612 at the moment, and this doesn’t include copies distributed through Alberta House and the Library. Everybody who gets a copy is interested in the arts. So, please help us out. If you have any questions, contact Jean Jones at 437-5463 or e-mail saac@saultarts.og. The arts information can be sent that way also, or dropped off at Alberta House. Alberta House News is published monthly. The subscription cost is $15 a year, and includes arts council membership.

We now accept paid advertisements. This helps us cover some of our printing costs. Ad rates are shown on our newsletter page. Contact Jean Jones at saac@saultarts.org or 906-437-5463 if you want to book an ad.

Roof Fund

Thanks very much to those of you who have been dropping money into to Bob Berger’s “Roof Fund” House. It’s beginning to add up, and it’s all going into a special earmarked account.

Free 2-Hour Painting Workshop for Kids

Jeanne Tubman is offering a free two hour workshop for kids from 7 to 12 years old who want to find out if they would be interested in further instruction. See Workshops & Classes for details.

Sault International Arts Festival Adopts Logo

If all goes as planned, you’ll be seeing this logo a lot this summer, as arts events in both Saults are organized, coordinated, and publicized as one, ongoing Sault International Arts Festival.

Not only is the Sault area an ideal place to be in the summer, there will be a lot to do—exhibitions to see, concerts and plays to attend, festivals to enjoy. We should have a program for you with all events listed so you may plan, pick and choose, and maximize your pleasure.

If your organization has an event planned in June, July, or August, let the festival committee know, because they want to list your event. You may contact Jean Jones at 437-5463 (saac@saultarts.org)—Sault Area Arts Council, Linda Hoath at 632-3366 (linda@saultstemarie.com)—Sault Convention and Visitors Bureau, or Sandra Houston at 705-945-9756 (arts@ssmarts.org)—Arts Council of Sault and District.

Questions? Call Jean Jones at 437-5463.

Volunteers

The only reason Alberta House is open is because volunteers go in there and staff. Without them, we wouldn’t have an art center and you wouldn’t be enjoying monthly exhibits or frequenting the Alberta House shop.

Volunteers who staffed during February were Donna Jarvis, Anny Hubbard, Joan Gerrie, Joan Muckelbauer, Judy Colein, Moe Mousley, Rita Dale, Tyler Theel, Sandy Spiewak, and Mary Barry. Both Donna Jarvis and Anny Hubbard demonstrated while they staffed.

Joan Gerrie, in addition to staffing herself, is responsible for seeing that the facility is staffed.

Joan Muckelbauer is the Assistant Director of the gallery. With Kyung Hatfield in the sunny south, Joan is responsible for seeing that the exhibits are in place.

Maureen Mousley is in charge of the display in the shop. And if you’re wondering how we staffed twenty days with only ten people, it’s because many of them were there more than once.

We don’t want to forget Wally Ingold. The reason you get the newsletter every month is because she puts it together, puts the labels on (all 610 of them) and gets it to the post office.

All the arts council services are provided by volunteers. We’re very grateful to every one of them!

Help Needed for Up North with the Hemingways

The Up North with the Hemingways traveling show will be on display at the Chippewa County Historical Society Building, 115 Ashmun Street in the Sault, from noon to 5 p.m. daily from April 4 to 22.

The historical society needs volunteers to assist with the installation, guarding, and dismantling of the exhibit, which is part of the Great Michigan Read. Local events celebrating Ernest Hemingway and The Nick Adams Stories are jointly sponsored by the Bayliss Public Library and the Chippewa County Historical Society. See Exhibits - Bayliss for related events.

To sign up as a volunteer, call 906-635-7082 or e-mail cchs@sault.com.

Quonta Drama Festival

The Quonta Drama Festival is March 11 to 16, in North Bay, Ontario. Call Harry or Sandra Houston at 705-946-4081 for details and contact numbers.

Alberta House Shop

This is the time of year that sunshine floods the shop, and the colors are wonderful. Check out the latest shop news!

Featured Artists

If you want to re-read information about artists that have been in previous “Featured Artists” columns or see photos of their work in color and up close, you can now see them on the web. Webmaster Liz Brugman has archived them in a special section. It’s the third heading on the left side menu bar on the home page.

Special Online Exhibit: “Endangered Species” by Jean Burke

You all heard our howl of anguish when Jean Burke’s outstanding textile art was banned by customs officials and we lost our October Mini Gallery Exhibit. Jean was good enough to send us photos, and we’ve mounted a mini-exhibit on our website (Webmaster's note: we featured Jean Burke's work in the December 2007 News and Notes section).

It’s not as good as the real thing, but the web photos will allow you to better appreciate the colors, textures, and stitchery that makes the images stand out. They all combine to illustrate Jean’s whimsical, fanciful musings in three dimensions.

We’re going to leave them up for at least another month, so if you don’t have a computer and internet access, you can get to the library or use a friend’s computer to enjoy the show.

Advertise in Alberta House News

Printing 700 copies of this newsletter is expensive and beyond what it costs us to mail to subscribers, we don’t charge for it, regarding it as a public service. We do gladly accept advertising to help pay the printer.

Yes, we can scan your logo in. Contact Jean Jones at 437-5463 afternoons or evenings or e-mail: saac@saultarts.org. We need the information by the 15th of the month preceding the ad.

Give us a hand and advertise to people who care!

AHN Ad Rates
Full page	8-1/2" x 11"	$100
1/2 page	7-1/2" x 5"	$50
1/4 page	5-1/2" x 4-1/2"	$25
1/8 page	4-1/2" x 2-3/4"	$15
Front page banner	1-1/2" banner across the front page	$50

Honors and Accolades

Lotte Steube

Sault, Ontario artist Lotte Steube was profiled in the March issue of Articulations, the newsletter of the Arts Council of Sault and District. She received the Best of Printmaking Award at both the 2006 and 2007 Fall Festival of the Arts; had a painting Superior Day accepted in the 2005 Northern Ontario Arts Association juried traveling exhibition; had another painting, Reminiscence accepted in the association’s 2007 traveling exhibition; and was a 9th Finalist in the Canadian Brushstroke Magazine Waterscapes Competition (see painting Nature's Way at right, click for a larger version).

You can see her work in the Station Mall at the Algoma Art Society’s Spring Show April 25 and 26 (see Exhibits - Sault, Ontario).

"Nature's Way," mixed media painting by Lotte Steube

Youth Creates 2008 Winners

Rachel Goudreau Wins Again!

A different judge this year, but once again, the top award was taken by Rachel Goudreau. Judge Ron Corey gave awards based on the body of the work, not on one specific piece. Rachel displayed colored pencil drawings.

Second Place went to Catherine M. Burgos Borton; Third Place to Cristina Ley. Seven Honorable Mention Awards went to Angela St. Andrew, Raven Commanda, Emily Gadzinski. Tyler Theel, Laura Gamble, Karen Donarski and Brittany Mosier. The First Place Award was for $300 worth of art supplies at the Personal Touch; Second Place brought $200, Third Place $100, and the first five Honorable Mention $50 each in art supplies.

Judge Ron Corey took the time to present each entry, winning or not, with a written critique of his work. That’s dedication! See below to see more of the show!

Youth Creates 2008

Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version.