Special Programing

Artist Presentations

We also invite Residents to give 20 minute presentations on a topic of interest in the fields of environmental study, outdoor art, folk art and culture, or sustainable practices. Selected artist presentations will be hosted casually during a “Camptail Hour” in our Picnic Pavilion before dinner with refreshing drinks provided (with/without alcohol). Slides encouraged and supported by a solar-battery operated monitor.

ADDITIONAL CAMP PROGRAMING

VCAC Programming includes many optional creative and restorative group outings and activities, which change each year depending on the resident artists’ interests. Group activities include:

annual PUBLIC arts EVENTS

Every year during the Residency session we invite resident artists to engage with the local community during a one-day public event. This event has evolved over the years into “A Day In Clay,” which we will host again in 2024.

Residents will join the VCAC staff in leading the public through the making of a mug or figurine out of local clay, freshly prepared at VCAC by the Clay Workshop residents. All residents will participate in a way that feels comfortable with, whether it’s teaching pottery, strategizing small sculpture ideas with participants, exhibiting and talking with the public about their own work, welcoming people in and sharing info about VCAC, or playing music in the rotating music jam circle.

In previous years, we have hosted public workshops in raku-firing and aluminum-casting, presentations on art and culture, and music performances by fiddlers, guitarists, accordionists, and bagpipers!

PREVIOUS YEARS’ EVENTS

2021… A Day In Clay: Make a Mug!

Our 8th Annual Ewen Arts Event!

Drop in anytime between 10am - 3pm

Saturday July 31st, 2021

FREE and OPEN to ALL - Ewen Trout Creek School

Join us for this free local-clay workshop for all ages, led by VCAC staff and visiting artists. Make your own mug from the local red clay, detail it with your own designs, and paint it with colorful glazes.

A Day In Clay: Make A Mug! is supported by a 2021 Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs Minigrant, administered by the Copper Country Community Arts Council.

FOR 2020, “A DAY IN CLAY” TRANSFORMS INTO “STAY IN CLAY!”

STAY In Clay will run August 1st - August 8th, 2020, in partnership with the Ewen Trout-Creek School in Ewen, MI. We will be distributing FREE do-it-yourself kits to Make-Your-Own-Mug at home, using Ewen’s local clay, harvested and prepared by our artists at the Visitor Center Artist Camp.

The kit will come with a clay slab, paper patterns for cutting out the shapes, written and illustrated instructions for building a mug from the cutout shapes, and all the tools needed. We will also be posting a video tutorial online!

This is our 7th Annual Arts Event in Ewen, and we are thrilled to announce that “STAY In Clay!” is supported by a Mini-grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, through the Copper Country Community Arts Council, and matched by donors: ETC School, Ewen Building Supply, The Colemans, The Allens, Cori Champagne, and Jason Friedes.

2018 Ewen Arts Festival - A Day In Clay

international Visiting Artist 2017

The Visitor Center was excited to host our first visiting artist, Mari Mathlin, from Finland, in2017!

Mari currently lives in Reykjavik, Iceland, and works at the Nordic Cultural House. Mari prepared an exhibition to bring to the United States, featuring fresh investigations into materials and methods she has been working with previous the past year.

After her solo show opened in Minneapolis, Mari travelled to the UP of Michigan and joined us for the 2017 Sustainable Practices Symposium, where she worked alongside US artists-in-residence, making handmade recycled paper, turning a wood bowl, and creating drawings of the camp's unique architecture. Mari also exhibited her artwork in an exhibition at the local High School in Ewen, MI, and presented a special lecture on Finnish and Icelandic art, sharing examples from art history and contemporary art in Finland and Iceland through the concepts of otherness and familiarity.

The public joined us for this presentation and exhibition at the Ewen-Trout Creek High School, which also included a potluck featuring Finnish and Scandinavian foods, and an ASM-sponsored raffle of a Finland-inspired weaving by local UP artist Patsy Daniels, to support the Ewen-Trout Creek School art program!

Mari Mathlin was born in 1980 in Pattijoki Finland and currently lives and works in Reykjavik. She received her BA in Fine Arts from The Swedish Polytechnic, Nykarleby in 2006; her MA in Art Education from the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi 2010; and her BA in Art History and Theory from the University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Mari has participated in numerous residencies around Europe that have had great impact on her work, including at Drake Arts Center in Finland, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Germany, and most recently the Old School Residency in Iceland. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo shows in galleries around Europe, including The Nordic House, Iceland; Valve Gallery, Vaasa City Art Gallery, Gallery Carree, and a traveling exhibition through Oulu City Art Museum, Finland. Mari´s work mixes drawing, painting and printing techniques. She uses varied types of paper both as a surface when creating two-dimensional images and as a construction material for three-dimensional works. She has also worked with place and space specific projects in schools and communities.

2015 Sawmill Ballet

Performance on the Cedar Stage in the woods at Camp

Sawmill Ballet is a collaborative performance orchestrated by Kristen Tordella-Williams featuring artists Mel Seeger, Lindsey French, and Hannah Givler, performed at the Visitor Center Artist Camp during the 2015 Sustainable Arts Symposium.