HANCOCK -- The Finnish American Folk School in the Finnish American Heritage Center, Hancock, has had a remarkable year of instruction. 18 instructors shared their craft with workshops filled to capacity. The Folk School at Midsummer exhibition, featuring the work of seven of these Folk School instructors, as well as the work by students produced in their workshops, continues through September 13, 2023.
A reception for the artists will take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, August 31, at the gallery. The reception is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served.
Folk school instructors and the classes they presented are listed here: Anita Jain, nuno felting; Wynne Mattila, rug weaving; Alice Margerum, himmeli; Lindsey Heiden, handbuilding: clay tiles; Kenyon Hansen, ceramics on the wheel; Clare Zuraw, knitting, drop spindle and jouhikko playing; Terri Jo Frew, natural inks; Jennifer Szubielak, spinning; Karen Tembruell, birchbark journal; Ginger Alberti, laudelinna sewing; Anna Dijkstra, sock mending; Sandy Lindblom, broom making; Phyllis Fredendall, beginning weaving, inkle weaving, dyeing, garment design; Jim and Harri Kurtti, cookie baking; Elizabeth Brauer, Finnish language; Charlotta Hagfors, rekilaulu; Emmi Kuittinen, folk songs from Karelia.
Students exhibiting work include Melissa Lewis, Mat Moore, Mary Markham, Carol Johnson Pfefferkorn, Nathan Ryckman, Marci Schneider, Monica Maki, John Gale, Stephanie Carpenter, Sue Ellen Kingsley, Hannah Lowney, Emma Wuepper, Kristiina Vanhala, Amanda Moyer Rogers, Jimalee Jones, Linda Lohmann, Kimberly Cook, Tiff DeGroot, and Clare Zuraw.
This past year the Finnish American Folk School studio was full of new and returning weavers. Wynne Mattila returned in the fall to teach the "Over the Waves" workshop to an enthusiastic group. Over the Waves is a traditional Finnish weave structure that has been passed on to Finnish-American weavers. It is called Over the Waves in the Upper Peninsula and Love’s Path in northern Minnesota.
Folk School Co-Director Phyllis Fredendall taught several inkle band weaving workshops, beginning weaving and an intermediate block weaving workshop. Enthusiasm for the weaving process and results filled the studio. The dish towel round robin idea came as a way to continue weaving through the holidays and to explore color and structure in a group. Each weaver designed and set up a warp, allowing weavers to rotate between looms to weave a towel from each of the five different designs. The results hang together for us all to enjoy.
In the fall Anita Salminen Jain taught two nuno felting workshops and led a group in the creation of the Finnish American Folk School Banner inspired by fiber equipment, plants of the dye garden and pollinators. This process combines two protein-based fibers, silk and wool wet felted together.
Nationally recognized Dollar Bay-based artists Kenyon Hansen and Lindsey Heiden taught workshops in the clay studio. Students made functional wheel spun work and whimsical hand built and mold cast tiles.
Lindsey Heiden is exhibiting clay sculptures of modified animals specifically chosen to represent what she sees and feels daily. Heiden manifests these feelings and moments of nostalgia and recollection into animal characteristics. Her resulting clay hybrid creatures tell a visual story.
Hansen is exhibiting soda fired porcelain clay pieces inspired by the everyday experience, patch work quilts, and the structure and patterns found in nature. His hope is that the pots he makes will contribute to the field of craft and elevate the everyday experience.
Terri Jo Frew, a practicing contemporary artist and professor with the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Michigan Technological University, created two pieces for the exhibit, one using an alcohol-based black walnut ink and the other, a dye made from madder root grown in the Folk School garden. The black walnut ink was made by the students of the Natural Ink Making Workshop that Frew led for the Finnish American Folk School in the fall of 2022.
L’Anse-based basketry artist, Karen Tembruell teaches nationally led students in birchbark journal making this year. Tembruell is exhibiting a Foraging Basket made of Birchbark bias double woven with a leather rim and cross body strap, cotton cord, and brass fittings. She is also exhibiting a willow bark, cedar bark, birchbark and cotton cord basket.
In September the Folk School will host Barks and Willow, a basketry symposium led by Karen Tembreull and Marquette area basket artist, Poppy Hatinger.
Around the Baltic, many cultures create mobiles using straw. In Finland these are called "himmeli." Folk School instructor Alice Margerum presented a himmeli workshop, and then created a sculpture that combined the himmeli structure with an octahedron shaped paper sculpture. The octahedron is covered in a series of drawings representing the four seasons and featuring the colors associated with those seasons.
The Vörå Neckwarmer is a cowl designed and knit by Clare Zuraw as a sample for a FAFS class she taught during Heikinpäivä 2023. The pattern is inspired by traditional sweater patterns from the island of Vörå /Vöyri in western Finland.
The Finlandia Gallery is located in the Finnish American Heritage Center, 435 Quincy Street, Hancock. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. Please call 906-487-7500 or email gallery@finlandia.edu for more information.
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