The Letter that didn't get published in the Gazette

Bell Street Gallery’s first season

By: Steve McHugh

 

We’re back to the time of the year where we review what we’ve done over the past season and make plans for 2010 season.  It’s been an exciting year for Mary and I.  We’ve enjoyed getting to know our year round neighbor’s seasonal guests.  We are open for Fall Fest the weekend of October 16^th & 17^th with artists working at the gallery.  The gallery is also open for the Holiday Boutique on Saturday November 28^th, from 11am – 5pm for your holiday shopping.  So after visiting the Museum, please stop by and check out our specials on kids books, jewelry, and photos from this past season.

 

Working with our local artists, we’ve enjoyed success in selling paintings of Holly Marie Tourdot, Susan Dexter, Diane Marie and pottery and jewelry by Kristin Lein.  Many participants enjoyed our summer kid’s classes.  Madeline Island’s galleries co-sponsored The Gallery Crawl during July and August.  We had a great time with live music, yummy food, and wine -- meeting all, enjoying local and regional music, and visiting with artists.

 

Now for next year, we’ve received a grant from the La Pointe Center for kid’s classes next summer.  We will be working with the Rec Center offering kid’s art camp one morning per week in July and August.  We are looking for visitors and local help in teaching these classes.  Some of the artists that we are looking for are: basket weaver, tie-dye, water colorist and/or pastel artist, and ?  We will be holding these classes in our backyard in our new larger tent.  We will also be holding one additional kids class each week, so we are doubling our Arts out reach for kids next year.  We are also looking for teacher(s) to help with these classes and anyone interested should email an résumé to steve@bellstgallery.com.  Kids classes are being added to our calendar for next summer already and be found on our website and at www.madelineislandart.org.

 

We are adding more local artists to our mix with the paintings of Katherine Parfet and Terrie Myers.  Additional news of artists will be posted throughout the winter on our website: www.bellstgallery.com that is being rebuilt at this time.  Check out the blog for photos and stories from this past season to relive the summer.  

Bell Street Gallery on Madeline Island continues to be demo

Progress this week was a bit slow with issues of getting stuff to the Island.  But we've found hard wood floors on half of the gallery floor and pine planks on the other half.  The walls are covered with 70 year old pine barn boards most in great shape.  We've ordered new beams to run from the top of the walls across the room from a local saw mill.  Next week is raising the floor so it's level, the new metal roof and the sky light replacing the old furnace chimney.

More of the demo

More wall board, carpet, etc.

More Demo of the new gallery

Jim and Beth find newspapers and hard wood floors, great surprise for us, we don't need to carpet the floors.

Jim, Beth, Mary and Steve in the mess we've created and will become the interior of the new gallery.

Madeline Island's newest Art Gallery

Mary and Steve McHugh have started working on their new Art Gallery on Madeline Island, Wisconsin.  We closed on the deal to buy our new building on September 25th with the expert assistance of Eric Kodner at Madeline Island Realty.  Here's some of the shots of the building from the outside and the demo process on the inside.