Let Art Begin at Home: The Amery Story

Amery, Wisconsin, is a little town a couple of hours east of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Fewer than 3,000 people live there. Why on earth is theirs a story worth telling?

Amery could be Anytown, USA. Drive down the main street and you’ll see the small businesses you’d expect anywhere. You’ll see a small motel, churches, bars. The farm-implement dealer on the edge of town. “Just an ordinary Midwestern town,” you’ll think.

And in one way, you’re exactly right. This town is like Anytown. But then you notice things. You notice the small gray building, a former church, off the main street, and you see the sign that says that it’s an arts center. You go in. You notice an arena-style performance area, with only two rows of seats. You might notice an exhibit of hubcaps on the gallery wall. You might go into the Gard Gallery and see photos and memorabilia of Robert Gard and you wonder who this is, and why there is also a photo of Governor “Fighting Bob” LaFollette on the wall – wasn’t he governor a century ago? You notice the stunning paintings in the same gallery, painted in the 1940s by “ordinary” farm people. You might pick up a program that tells you that Harvey Stower, the Mayor, played the Mayor in Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” when the town was addressing the question of water pollution and Amery’s relationship to the river. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll have come on the date when the lights literally stayed on all night as the people of Amery read "The Iliad," in its entirety, to one another. Maybe you’ll meet Don Hansen, the former deputy sheriff, who used to read poetry to the prisoners in his jail. Maybe ….

But how foolish of me to try and tell their story. You need to hear their story from the people of Amery. First, you’ll hear from LaMoine MacLaughlin who, with his wife Mary Ellen, realized that a comprehensive art-as-action idea can happen Anywhere, “according to the will of the people,” as Robert Gard said. You’ll hear his personal story, and how it meshes with the story of Anywhere so that the all-night reading of "The Iliad" or the artistic investigation of water pollution is a perfectly “ordinary” event. You’ll hear, firsthand, from Laura Johnson, now a college student, who found out who she is because of her involvement in the center. You’ll hear, firsthand, from Don Hansen, retired from the Sheriff’s Department, who found a new chapter in his life because of his involvement in the center. You’ll see the sheet music for a poem of Robert Gard’s that LaMoine MacLaughlin set to music– a hymn about community arts, and place, and “altering the face and the heart of America” – and you can listen to the music.

And as you read, perhaps you’ll decide it’s time to write the biography of your own arts place, including your people like Laura and Don. Perhaps your local chorale will want to sing the “community arts hymn.” Read this now, and may you look at your own place and your neighbors a little differently, afterwards. —Maryo Ewell

The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts: Our Story

Nestled among the rolling hills and lakes of northern west-central Wisconsin, Amery, is a small, rural community. The countryside is mostly beautiful farmland with relatively clean water recreation areas. The seasonal landscapes are spectacular. Amery is considered to be in the fifth ring of urban expansion from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, which means it is just beyond the edge of urban sprawl. The economic base centers around farming and related agribusiness, with tourism in an ever–expanding second place. Socioeconomically the city is mostly middle-class, with neither extreme poverty nor extreme wealth. As with many rural areas, despite the great pride we take in our young people, the major local problems involve an ongoing out-migration of youth and an ever-encroaching urban shadow. Still, although everyone may not like one another, it is a place where you don’t have to lock your doors. In nearly every sense of the word, Amery, Wisconsin is still a real community where everyone knows and respects one another. Amery is very traditionally, small town, rural America.

The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts in Amery was seeded, developed and blossomed from the life experience of several individuals concerned about the arts and rural Wisconsin. The Center opened its doors in July 1989, following more than a year of dreaming, designing and organizing. Before that lay several years of performing by the Northern Lakes Chamber Orchestra. And before that stretched several more years of teaching private music lessons. And further back, well before all that…

I came to my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a strong music background in piano and vocal performance and took all the music courses I could at the university, from history to composition to applied piano and strings. In my ensuing professional lives I taught English, moved into school administration and curriculum development, then became director of a rural Wisconsin a Community Action Agency (part of the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and Lyndon Johnson’s “War On Poverty”) and went on to work for an economic development corporation. All this taught me about business planning, fund-raising and human resources management, how to relate to state and federal bureaucracies, how to develop strategic plans, how to write proposals and how to develop grassroots programs in rural communities. I learned how much I truly loved rural Wisconsin and I knew I would spend my life living and working in rural areas. I mention all of this personal history only to show how our lives gather bits and pieces of education and experience here and there and we continue to apply those bits and pieces, perhaps leading to some surprising careers.

All during this time my wife Mary Ellen and I were also raising a family: three daughters. The first two were very close in age, with the third trailing a bit later. Living in rural areas, we learned firsthand the limitations of human resources and services. Once when my wife invited a friend for coffee, the friend noticed our piano. “You have a piano!” she said, “Could you teach my daughter to play?” My wife said that if the friend would watch our youngest daughter during lessons, she would be happy to teach her daughter to play piano. And so began my wife’s piano teaching career. She had played piano her whole life, but had been trained at the university level as a research biologist. And she could play cello a bit. When word spread, totally by word-of-mouth, that she was giving piano lessons, the number of her students grew very quickly. Wherever we moved, it seemed that we both put our musical skills to use, especially in local churches. She frequently played organ or piano and I directed church choirs. And so in 1981, as we both neared 40 years of age, I was employed in an excellent executive position earning nearly $45,000 annually with a full range of benefits and my wife had developed her piano lessons to total nearly 60 students.

But I was growing to hate my job. For nearly ten years I was employed in various positions, all responsible to state and federal bureaucracies. I felt myself becoming a bureaucrat and hated every moment of employment that did not depend upon skills and real results, but instead upon public relations, politics and “spin." I began looking at my wife’s music business and saw that the creativity and imagination that she was bringing forth in young people was truly inspiring. In contrast, the concept of a creative, imaginative bureaucracy paled as an oxymoron. I had to crawl out of the bureaucratic abyss into which I had fallen.

And my wife was beginning to have her own problems. She had nearly 60 students who ranged from the very beginners (with whom she dearly loved to work) to the very advanced (who were graying her hair). Two local public school districts had offered her their facilities to teach piano, as had a local music store. I reasoned that I could take over her advanced students, add a few guitar and vocal students, and we would live happily every after.

So I developed a business plan, which I considered to be very ambitious, to get us to where we needed to be, financially, within six months. One evening we had a family gathering to discuss my third career change, and how all three children would have to tighten their belts (which they never did) until we reached our financial goals. The two oldest children were getting close to graduating from high school and to attending the university and I was concerned about the cost of their education. So in 1982 I did an absolutely preposterously absurd thing: I left a good paying job with strong benefits to teach piano with my wife in rural Wisconsin. Our friends thought I should see a psychiatrist! But we had a plan to get us to where we needed to be in six months! And we got there in three!

Mary Ellen is very socially and politically savvy. Everyone loves her – especially me. She had developed a strong positive rapport with local public school districts; two of the local school boards had approved her coming into the schools to teach privately. She had a strong reputation for being very conscientious and for being an excellent piano teacher. When I came on the scene we incorporated as a private music school and slid into the niche that she had already created.

Our private music school operated very successfully for the next several years, growing at one point to 150 students (75 for each of us). Our students performed exceptionally well in state competition and our student recitals were always major community events. But we came to realize that something was missing for our students. Aside from now and then performing piano duets with the very occasional chance to perform along with a band instrument, our piano students were limited to performing as soloists. There was no one to teach strings in the area and so our students were missing the opportunity to perform the great string sonata and piano trio literature. Around 1984 we contacted my former community action supervisor, Neil Rasmussen, who was also a wonderful violinist, about the possibility of his teaching violin. After some very brief initial hesitation, he began a program of strings instruction.

All of these educational activities proceeded so well that the next year we were able to consider even further expansion. The year 1985 marked the tricentennial of the births of Bach, Handel and Scarlatti. To help celebrate the lives of these three great composers, we thought it appropriate to create a series of public concerts performing their music. What eventually developed were three concerts to occur during November 1985: an organ recital, an ecumenical choral performance featuring local church choirs, and a chamber music concert featuring a local chamber orchestra which was yet to be formed. So during the spring of 1985 we scoured the countryside to identify string players and found about 15 performers who came together and formed the Northern Lakes Chamber Orchestra.

The orchestra and the concerts were such a success that we decided to stay together and perform in our own Northern Lakes Concert Series, which featured local musicians in monthly performances of classical music. During the next four years there were challenges and successes. Neil Rasmussen, who had been principal violinist in the orchestra and had started the strings instruction program, was killed in an automobile accident; his position and the instruction of his students were resumed by another member of the orchestra. We continued to rehearse weekly and to perform monthly, using local churches as our performance venues. We were able to use their facilities after all of the Sunday School activities, Bible study or other church programs were scheduled. But by 1989 the chamber orchestra needed more rehearsal and performance time and space than any of the local churches were able to provide, so we began to look at other available space within the community of Amery, Wisconsin, total population 2,750.

One of the available facilities had been a church until 1960, at which time the church sold the building to the Ford dealership across the street and built a new church. The Ford dealership used the facility for changing automobile tires and oil changes and the building was sold to several owners over the next 25 years. It was used to sell electrical supplies, plumbing supplies, antiques (refurbishing them in the basement), and finally was to be remodeled into two apartments. However, too much money would have to be invested in the building to meet building codes, so the current owner remodeled it with a new roof, siding and energy-efficient windows and left it as a spec building for new business possibilities. So we were investigating a remodeled, nearly 100-year-old church to be used as a rehearsal and performance facility by our chamber orchestra. What we saw thoroughly disappointed us. Although the acoustics were excellent, the sanctuary that we envisioned as our proscenium stage had been raised almost six feet by the Ford dealership so that automobiles could be driven into the building for repairs; it was too high for our performance needs. We wanted to seat 100 people for our concerts, but that seemed impossible and remodeling to that extent would be cost-prohibitive to us. So that building was removed from our screen. Then we attended a performance of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the Colonial Church in Edina, Minnesota.

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has a beautiful home in the Ordway Theater in downtown St. Paul, but periodically performs within other facilities in the metro area. One of these is the Colonial Church in Edina, one of the wealthier suburbs. The venue is very intimate; you can almost reach out and touch the performers and the audience is seated on three sides of the orchestra. That performance sparked a question in our minds: what if we looked at the church in Amery in a new light? What if we arranged the audience around three sides of what would be an arena stage with the fourth side as a balcony in the raised sanctuary? We measured and found we could seat 75 people around the three sides, with 25 in the balcony. We had our 100 seats! Voila! And it would be a much more interesting performance facility than the common proscenium venues found everywhere. I had directed theater in the round as an English teacher and knew the space would work for theater as well. And other opportunities began to unfold as possibilities within the space.

We formed a non-profit corporation to be the legal structure of the organization with a small board of directors consisting of interested local residents. We were somewhat queasy about the thought that a little chamber orchestra would have to bear the expense of such a facility. We knew, however, that there was a local community theater that needed a place to store sets and costumes during their off-season. They also needed a place to perform. We knew there were local writers who wanted to form and come together to discuss work in progress. We had friends who were visual artists always looking for a new place to exhibit their artwork. And there were various kinds of loosely structured educational activities and lessons in the arts happening throughout the community, from music lessons to dance lessons and from writing to drawing and painting classes. During the spring, discussions occurred with all of these groups, our board of directors was expanded to include representatives, and purchase of the building was finalized; during the summer remodeling was completed, and the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts opened in July 1989 as an umbrella organization for the Northern Lakes Chamber Orchestra, the Northern Lakes Theater Guild, The Northern Lakes Writers’ Guild and a series of galleries to display local visual artists’ work.

Wisconsin has a long history of arts development at the local level. At the very beginning of the 20th century, Progressive Party Governor Robert LaFollette and University of Wisconsin President Charles Van Hise developed “The Wisconsin Idea,” which carried forward the concept that all of the elements of state government, including the University of Wisconsin, belong to all of the residents of the state. The implication was that, rather than requiring all residents to avail themselves of services centered in the state capitol in Madison, it was the responsibility of state government and the University to go out into the state to where the people lived. And this concept was practiced in reality.

Thomas Dickinson started community theaters in Madison and Milwaukee. Franz Rickaby and Helene Stratmann-Thomas traveled to rural corners of the state gathering Wisconsin folk music. John Steuart Curry, the first artist-in-residence of any major university, helped rural residents develop their drawing and painting talents as part of the Wisconsin Rural Artists Program. From the 1940s to the 1970s it was impossible to turn on Wisconsin Public Radio (“oldest station in the nation”) without hearing: “…this has been a production of the Wisconsin Idea Theater, Robert Gard, Director.” Robert Gard and his staff traveled to every corner of Wisconsin teaching writing and theater as part of various programs, including the Wisconsin Rural Writers Program.

To be quite honest, when we developed the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts, we did not do so to intentionally follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before us, but we had grown up with Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Idea Theater and all of that was part of an inbred culture that was directed at developing the creative talents and the artistic imagination of local residents. When we started working, the commitment to growing the abilities of local people seemed only appropriate and logical. Says Harvey Stower, the Mayor of Amery, a former Wisconsin State Assemblyman, and a scholar of the Wisconsin Idea: “I can think of very few things in the state which reflect the Wisconsin Idea, and the vision and spirit of Robert Gard, any more than does the Northern Lakes Center. They have stayed true to that ideal.”

From the outset, the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts was governed by an active, committed Board of Directors. We incorporated as a nonprofit corporation and received 501(c)(3) federal income tax-exempt status. The eleven members of the board, drawn from the various participating guilds, and two staff developed a working mission statement, which still remains the functioning purpose statement of the Center’s activities: “The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts was established in 1989 as a comprehensive cultural center organized and designed to provide local residents with the opportunity to develop and share their creative talents and abilities with one another and with the general public.” This mission statement was later supported by a values and vision statement hammered out among those involved.

Our vision: “At some point in their lives, everyone in the community of Amery will become actively involved in some creative arts activity.” These values, this vision and this mission express the basic concepts upon which the programs of the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts focus to this day.

The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts began its operations independent of any public funding and although it now receives funding from various public sources, it is still independent and would survive and thrive without them. Very early in our history I contacted the Wisconsin Arts Board about participating in their funding programs and was informed that the Arts Board was conducting an informational program up in our area – in Superior. Well, Superior, Wisconsin is more that two hours to our north and it was evident that our Arts Board staff did not know the geography of our state, so we continued on our way without their assistance. During the 1990s staff changes have resulted in an Arts Board that now knows the geography of the state and is responsive to local concerns statewide.

Very quickly. the Center developed a patterned, annual schedule of concerts, performances and exhibits: a regular season extending from October through April and a summer season from June through August. May was reserved for student recitals and September for participation in the huge annual community celebration, the Amery Fall Festival. More specifically, the activities have included:

Visual Arts Exhibits – displaying artwork created by local artists. Someone has said that there is an artist behind every tree in northern Wisconsin, and that may be true. Over the years we have exhibited literally hundreds of artists from groups of students in public school arts programs to nationally recognized professionals, but all of them living and working in our part of Wisconsin. Early in our history a group of women quilters approached us, asking if they could use Northern Lakes as a meeting place. Of course we were eager to have them in our facility and they became the Apple River Quilt Guild. After about two years their number had grown beyond 100 members and they moved to larger meeting spaces within local churches, but members of the Quilt Guild still exhibit and sell their work at Northern Lakes during the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday season. Their work is always a spectacular display of design, texture and color. About ten years ago a group of local photographers began meeting at Northern Lakes and developed into the Northern Lakes Photo Club. The members, ranging from beginning students to seasoned professionals, frequently display their work in one of the Northern Lakes galleries. Several of our exhibits have earned national attention, including displays of hubcaps and neckties.

Music Concerts – involving performances of the Northern Lakes Chamber Orchestra and visiting, guest musicians. While it has performed music from the Romantic and Contemporary periods, the forte of the Northern Lakes Chamber Orchestra primarily centers around works written by the great Baroque and Classical composers, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Our orchestra is very intergenerational, with members ranging from ten years of age to approaching infinity. Members also frequently perform in smaller chamber recitals. Other popular concerts include the opening season gala featuring selections from upcoming concerts, the Christmas concert of favorite readings and carols, a community hymn-sing including Psalms read by local clergy, a St. Patrick’s concert of Irish readings and dance music, and a Fourth of July concert featuring patriotic readings and music. Visiting artists have ranged from Layton James (harpsichordist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra), and classical guitarist Jeffrey Van, to jazz violinist/fiddler Randy Sabien and folksinger Gordon Bok. For two years Northern Lakes also participated in a too-short-lived statewide program, Wisconsin Dance On Tour, which brought nationally known dance companies into Wisconsin to dance in rural areas. We were very honored to host the David Parsons Dance Company and Ballet Hispanico. This was the first time Parsons had ever danced on an arena stage and the connection between audience and dancers was an unforgettable experience. Ballet Hispanico performed for our largest audience ever. We sat children on the steps up to our balcony and squeezed 163 people into our 100-seat hall. Mayor Stower, who attends regularly, says: “Next Saturday I will be at a flamenco guitar concert, by one of the best guitarists in the country. Last Saturday, I was at the hymn-sing/her-sing.” That is what the Center is about: it brings things to people, yes; but it also brings things out of people, out of us. That’s why it is so important here.”

More recently a group of people has taken up learning to play and perform Medieval and Renaissance music on the viola da gamba as part of the Northern Lakes Early Music Consort.

Theater Performances – involving performances of the Northern Lakes Theater Guild. Major productions have included "The Miser" (Molière), "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (Shakespeare), "She Stoops To Conquer" (Goldsmith), "The Bear and The Marriage Proposal" (Chekhov). The Theater Guild and the Chamber Orchestra have come together to perform "Amahl and the Night Visitors" (Menotti). Performances of such works as Scrooge also become very intergenerational. Members of the Theater Guild frequently perform during other occasional holiday concerts from Halloween and Christmas to Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July, plus other performances celebrating the life and work of great authors. Says Shannon Schact, President of the Center board, “The Theater Guild is my vehicle back to a child’s world of make-believe.”

Writing and Literary Activities – publishing stories, poems and essays written by members of the Northern Lakes Writers’ Guild twice annually in the local publication, Northern Lakes Soundings. Writers read their work for the local public in corresponding Writers’ Forums. When the Guild was formed and members read and critiqued their work, the response was always “great!” “fantastic!” or “wonderful!” After about a year of these maudlin responses, it was decided to review and revise the format. Now work to be critiqued is read and copied at one meeting, but critiquing and responses are given at the following meeting to allow for rereading and more thoughtful input. At least once annually a visiting professional writer is invited to conduct a writers’ workshop to critique local writers’ work.

Besides those referred to above, over the years there have been many highlights among activities at Northern Lakes:

During 1992 Northern Lakes also became heavily involved in the development of arts infrastructure within the State of Wisconsin. Northern Lakes was invited to a training session held in Madison conducted by Bob Lynch and Barbara Schaffer-Bacon with the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (which later morphed into Americans for the Arts). A thin, quiet, unassuming man joined us for lunch, someone I recognized from his photos – Robert Gard. What came out of the training was a steering committee to form a statewide assembly of local arts organizations and I was invited to be a member. That steering committee, consisting of local arts agency representatives from throughout Wisconsin, eventually evolved into the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (which later morphed into the Wisconsin Assembly for Local Arts), Wisconsin’s leading arts advocacy organization. I would eventually serve several terms as President of the Statewide Assembly. In December 1992, not long after that training session, Robert Gard died.

The following year I attended the national conference of The National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies and began a long association with that organization, especially its rural and small communities interest area for which I served two years as national chair. At that time I also met great friends and colleagues who were later to visit Northern Lakes many times as performers and presenters, including Patrick Overton (with the Front Porch Institute in Astoria, Oregon) and Maryo Gard Ewell (Robert Gard’s daughter, formerly with the Colorado Council on the Arts). We eventually were to be the most rural organization involved in the Americans for the Arts Animating Democracy Initiative, which we used the arts as a tool to focus attention upon an issue important to the lives of residents in our area: water, its use and abuse. Our local writers wrote about water concerns, the Theater Guild performed Ibsen’s "An Enemy of the People," relating it to our area, the Chamber Orchestra performed Smetana’s "Die Moldau" and a piece especially commissioned for the occasion, and the Photo Club displayed photos tracing the Apple River from its source to where it empties into the St. Croix River.

Also in 1992, the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts hosted the first Midwest Rural Arts Conference with representatives attending from Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. We were to host it again several years later. A smaller regional conference for northwestern Wisconsin organizations has been continuing annually since that time. About a dozen organizational representatives from Pepin, Prescott, River Falls, Hammond, Spring Valley, Menomonie, Madeline Island and points between meet to discuss issues and concerns important to all of our organizations.

In 1993, a letter came across my desk from an organization called the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, at that time headquartered in New Jersey. They indicated that they had funding to help start two new community schools of the arts nationally. One of the schools had to be in Pennsylvania, since it was being partially funded by the Heinz Foundation, and the other had to be in the Midwest, since the National Guild had targeted expansion in that part of the United States. I thought their concerns fit Northern Lakes. We had several loosely structured educational programs happening in our facility, but we were certainly not a school of the arts by any stretch of the imagination. I felt the National Guild could be of assistance to us and that we would not be funded if we didn’t apply. So we submitted an application and were selected for funding. Our participation in their NASCENT program involved attending their national training institute, AMICI (Arts Management In Community Institutions). I dreaded the thought of spending two weeks in New York City away from what needed to be done in Wisconsin, but AMICI turned out to be a phenomenal experience. It opened the doors into a truly amazing organization and within three years the Northern Lakes School of the Arts had been developed into a fully certified member of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. We are the only nationally certified school of the arts in rural Wisconsin, providing high quality instruction in the arts over the years in music, dance, theater, writing, and the visual arts to more than 175 students (adults as well as children) annually. I eventually served on the Board of Directors of the National Guild, including Chair of the Advocacy Committee and in 2001 was asked to be Director of the AMICI Institute.

Besides all of the arts performances, concerts and exhibits, Northern Lakes has been heavily involved in humanities activities and presentations. During our early developmental years, problems relating to racial issues arose between local Native Americans and white outdoorsmen and the tourism industry. The Native Americans decided that they were going to enforce certain treaty rights that were legally theirs involving spear fishing on local lakes. Spear fishing could totally deplete a fish population from a lake, and local fishermen and resort owners were brought to the brink of violence over the issue. We decided to try to play our part in calming tempers within the community by asking local Native Americans to lead a series explaining and informing local residents of their culture and traditions. The series, Bridges To Understanding, involved a visual arts exhibit by an Ojibwe artist, an evening of myths and legends told by an Ojibwe storyteller, an evening of drumming, music and dance, and a concluding evening discussion led by an amazing tribal spokesperson, Gloria Merrill. We do not take credit for easing the violence in our area (Governor Thompson resolved those issues), but we did contribute our small part to helping educate local residents.

In 1996, as the citation reads “for bringing the arts to the people and the people to the arts,” Northern Lakes received the Wisconsin Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts, Wisconsin’s highest public award for achievement in the arts. Other recognition for Northern Lakes over the years includes being included in the book, "The 100 Best Small Arts Towns In America" and receiving the Rural Genius Award from the Front Porch Institute.

Wisconsin marked its sesquicentennial in 1998. By that time we had become aware of an historical exhibit owned by the University of Wisconsin, developed as part of the Rural Artists Program begun by the great regional artist, John Steuart Curry. The program and much of the artwork had been described in a book, "Rural Artists of Wisconsin," by sociologist John Rector Barton and published during Wisconsin’s centennial in 1948. The pictures portrayed a very poignant view of the history of rural Wisconsin, captured in honest detail. But the exhibit seemed to have disappeared. After about two years of searching, we discovered part of it in a dark hallway of the University Student Union being dismantled for remodeling into a computer center. We offered to house the older part of the exhibit at Northern Lakes and our offer was accepted. In one of the Northern Lakes galleries, on rotating display, are 30 pieces of Wisconsin rural art dating back to the early 1940s. Monthly, Northern Lakes’ staff takes a piece of the exhibit into the Amery Public Schools to demonstrate that you don’t have to go to Minneapolis or St. Paul (or to Madison, Chicago, New York, London or Paris) to view great art. It has also sprung from very rural areas like those places where we live. The artwork is accompanied by an appropriate reading from the work of a Wisconsin author. Periodically Northern Lakes displays the entire exhibit for the general public. We are proud to be stewards of this historical expression of artists living in rural Wisconsin.

This exhibit also demonstrates how Northern Lakes has developed a close working relationship with local public schools. Besides the visual arts and literature, Northern Lakes brings local musicians who share their music with students and theater performers who impersonate great authors. Northern Lakes has been very careful to make sure that successful art center educational activities do not replace public school responsibilities. The Amery Public School District consists of four buildings and each has its own art teacher with two at the high school. Each building also has its own music teacher, with two at the middle school and two at the high school. The involvement of local people within the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts has played a part in demonstrating that the arts are important to the lives of local residents and to the community.

Then in 2004, The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts began publication of a local area newspaper, The Hometown Gazette, serving the village of Clayton and the surrounding area. The Gazette is not a fancy newsletter; it is a full-blown newspaper begun by the Clayton Economic Development Corporation. Clayton is a small village on the east side of the Northern Lakes service area. The people involved saw a newspaper as something necessary for the economic development of the community. After four issues, the group saw that it was doing nothing else except publishing a newspaper, so it made a public plea for assistance. It was evident that they actually needed someone to take over the entire publication. Northern Lakes had the capability along with the potential input of an active writers’ group, so Northern Lakes responded to their request and received approval to assume its publication. In the year following, circulation has grown from 900 to 2,800 and the number of ads supporting publication expenses has doubled. In the annual graduation issue, photos of all 24 high school graduates from Clayton High School were published in full color. The newspaper has brought a nearby lake’s water quality concerns to the attention of local readers by publishing a county study of the lake in its entirety. A popular section featuring local history is included in each issue. The community of Clayton is very proud of its newspaper and has given the Center for the Arts the support necessary for its growth and success.

And I could go on and on so easily: I was appointed Poet Laureate for the City of Amery and wrote several poems celebrating various civic events, the Governor presented us with a congratulatory citation during our 15th anniversary, and so many others – but I might as well stop here as anywhere, for I am sure there will be more yet to come. The talents and creative abilities of our students studying their various arts disciplines in the School of the Arts continue to be a source of delight, of pride and of amazement to all of us. The Center has regularly drawn financial support from over 100 local businesses, nearly every business in town. The refreshments that follow every concert and performance are donated by a steady stream of volunteers. Audiences stay afterwards to talk with the performers and with one another; as Mayor Stower says, “The feeling of the center, of the performance space, makes it an extension of your living room.”

Over the years patrons and participants have moved from the community – some have died; others have moved in and have become involved. Sometimes there seems to be a cycle of involvement, withdrawal and reinvolvement, but there has always been a core of active dreamers and workers who have made Northern Lakes a successful community arts organization. Looking back on what we have achieved at Northern Lakes, I think Robert Gard would smile on our accomplishments in Amery. Robert Gard’s words apply so well to what we have hoed and planted and cultivated and weeded to bring to fruition:

Shannon Schact, our President, wrote that “It takes a truly remarkable organization to offer so much to a community, let alone, to offer such a special gift to me as an individual – the gift of using my imagination again.” The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts is truly a community organization and so long as it continues to reflect the nature of Amery, Wisconsin (though it will continue to change), it will continue to prosper and be a place where the creativity and imagination of local residents, young and old, can be nurtured to grow and to flower.

Many people’s stories capture what the Northern Lakes Center is all about. Mayor Stower said, “We have people in the city council, in all walks of life, who have become involved writing, theater, drama, orchestra, taking lessons – it all swirls around.” So let me introduce you to college student Laura Johnson and retired law enforcement office Don Hansen. They can tell you, in their own words, how the Center has affected them – and how they have affected the Center.

My Artistic Cradle

I moved to college by stepping out of a cab at 100 Beacon Street and wheeling my three suitcases in a laundry cart up to the eighth floor of a dormitory. My new home was Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, and I have been here ever since. With any luck, I’ll graduate in a year from May, with a Teacher of Theatre license from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Much of why I am here and what I am doing has been inspired by the people, performances, and ideas at the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts in Amery, Wisconsin.

I was raised in Amery with the understanding that farming was many people’s way of life, the woods made a better playground, and the algae in the lake was caused by things that we could indeed control. I was raised on the voice of Garrison Keillor and the songs of James Taylor. My mother is a grassroots politician and has a passion for plants. My dad takes care of sick people.

Artistically, I always say, I was raised at Northern Lakes. My earliest memory of the Center occurred when my best friend Snuffy and I got inspired suddenly to take guitar lessons and become rock stars. Or at least look really cool sitting around a campfire playing “Blowin’ in the Wind.” My mom responded to an ad in the paper for music lessons at Northern Lakes and I enrolled as a guitar student. “Blowin’ in the Wind” was the only song I ever really disciplined myself to commit to memory. Guitar turned out not to be my life’s passion, but I became a regular in the Northern Lakes Theatre Guild when I was 13. At the first meeting I attended, held in the Robert Gard Gallery, I thought these theater people were crazy. They welcomed me with open arms, however, and I was hooked from the first performance of our reader’s theater version of "Spoon River Anthology."

I had discovered, as a shy kid, a love for theatre. Northern Lakes was a magical place; I don’t know how else to describe it. Growing up, it seemed very simple, but magical. Passionate people get together throughout the year to produce pieces of theater in what used to be a church. The audience seats are on the same level as the players on three sides. The fourth side is a balcony. One could not get a performance experience of that unique caliber anywhere else in community theater in the area. By the time I graduated from high school, I was more comfortable performing in the round than on a proscenium stage. The intimacy of that space is not matched in any other performance space I have seen during my time in Boston.

During one production of "The Neighbors" by Zona Gale, I knocked a mug of water off the armrest of a sofa with one swoop of my hand. I practically splashed the people sitting there. I only mention this because it demonstrates to me a core value at the Center, and of the Guild: that performances are the sharing of hard work by individuals for whom theater is their chosen mode of expression. I’m sure when the water spilled, the audience roared, I wiped it up with a nervous chuckle underscoring my lines. In that moment we were all more tightly knit, and better community members for the experience. This intimacy between audience and actors made this sharing more meaningful and performances more vulnerable. It develops more than better artists; it develops our community.

I had many other amazing performing and working experiences at the Center throughout the five years I was directly involved. It was at the Center that I saw Steve Duchrow perform Vachel Lindsey’s “Gospel of Beauty” with moving grace. “I will do that,” I thought to myself at 15. “I will leave Amery, and then I will come back.” It was at the Center that I was able to proclaim that I was an artist and an actor. I think more empowering though was realizing that this conclusion definitely wasn’t just for me to make.

Through the Animating Democracy Initiative, various groups presented a series of artistic events regarding Amery’s water quality. These events were followed by civic dialogue. I was fortunate enough be a part of this project, which brought us to New York and Chicago to share our project and connect ourselves with other initiatives. The encouragement and growth this gave me has yet to be matched!

If Northern Lakes was my artistic cradle, then LaMoine and Mary Ellen MacLaughlin were my artistic parents. From them I learned many of the values and knowledge I draw from regarding community, art, poetry, grassroots theater, literature, democracy, performance and how to treat people. That is as clear and succinct as I can make it without detailing every experience or presenting a lengthy thesis.

One more important thing, however, is the effect working with the Center has had on my professional aspirations. When Emerson College accepted me for enrollment in Spring 2002 but did not accept me into their performing-arts department, I immediately drove to the Center for consultation, very confused. LaMoine encouraged me to visit — to examine my options. Boston dazzled me; I wanted to live here from the moment I saw the Public Garden. Being dumped here by that cab was the beginning of a journey that led me to want to teach drama in the special-education setting. The journey usually feels more like hitch-hiking than a smooth train ride, but I’m learning. I’m constantly going back to Northern Lakes to recharge my community-arts batteries. When I taught a series of theater classes two summers ago at the Center, the path I was on made a great deal of sense, and where I was going became even clearer.

More than anything I want to continue the traditions that Northern Lakes has brought to Amery and never stop learning what makes communities work. To the Center and the MacLaughlins (along with my family and God), I attribute my confidence in myself, my desire for authentic community-based art, my passion for service, and of course, my campfire rendition of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

A Work of Art

Several years ago, before I retired as a law enforcement officer in Amery, Wisconsin, I had the occasion to view an old, refurbished, church building. My visit may have been the result of an open door or busted window, I don’t remember which, but I do recall how it didn’t look like a church from the inside. Instead of pews and altar, it had stadium-style seating around the perimeter of an auditorium and a raised gallery with additional seating, and beautiful paintings and hangings throughout. The sign outside proclaimed it, “The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts.”

At that time, I had the good duty of teaching child-safety classes at local schools as well as safety and security instruction to various adult groups. I found I liked public speaking and had the desire to become better at it. Although I was a police officer by training, I was a poet at heart.

I would take every opportunity to practice prose and rhyme, whether at home in the shower, in front of my mirror, or in empty halls or churches. I would record my readings from a distance at various locations to determine acoustic levels and clarity of diction. Many of the rooms were too large to be heard in without the aid of electronics, or there were too many echoes to be heard clearly.

So, one day I decided to revisit that Art Center, but nobody was home. The doors were open, the lights were on, but the building was vacant. Undaunted, I set the recorder at one end of the auditorium while I stood at the other and read “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. What I found was that no matter where I set the recorder, I could be heard distinctly from any other part of the auditorium or gallery. The acoustics were perfect. I found my place to practice. Now, if I could only find an audience, that is, other than the captive audience of the local county jail.

Yes, I would read poetry to the prisoners. Usually after lockup, I would sneak into a cell block, and in the solemn darkness I would give them “Paul Revere’s Ride, The Raven, Face on the Bar Room Floor,” etc. At first, they didn’t know what to make of it. Some liked it, and some just found another reason to complain. One day the sheriff asked me about it. I confirmed that I would sometimes read poetry to the prisoners. He had a quizzical look on his face and then asked, “Why?” “Because I can’t find any rule against it,” I said. He thought for a minute, then smiled. “No, I don’t suppose there is,” he said. “Carry on.”

It didn’t take long for the prisoners to really enjoy this diversion. They started asking for readings and even requested particular poems. I found it enjoyable when the cell block bully would say, “Sir, may we please have a bedtime story?” But I knew I needed a more volunteer audience.

Periodically I would stop by the Center only to find music lessons in session or dance instruction going on. On the way home from work one evening, there were people practicing for a play. I wondered about this place. Who are they? What are they about? Other times, as before, there was nobody home. On those visits I practiced my readings.

Then one day while on patrol, I stopped for a cup of coffee and was approached by a lady who introduced herself as Mary Ellen MacLaughlin, associate director of The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts. She explained that a police officer had been seen periodically at the Center and wondered if it was me. I apologized for the interruptions and explained my actions. She assured me I was welcome and invited me to meet her husband, LaMoine MacLaughlin, the executive director. I made it a point to do that the next day.

LaMoine explained the function of the Center and suggested times that might be best for me to practice. He invited me to make myself at home, which I did as often as I could. On those occasions when the Center was in use or I had to wait for another to finish, I would busy myself by sweeping a floor, washing dishes in the kitchen or tidying up the green room. It didn’t take long to find the janitor closet, and soon I was painting trim and repairing windows between practices.

Gradually I got to know the staff and patrons of the Center, and I enjoyed the activities going on around me. I was attracted to the serenity of listening to people (young and old) learning piano, violin, flute, or guitar. Sometimes I would make it a point to be there when I knew that Juliana was giving voice lessons in the downstairs studio. I would rearrange the clutter in the storage room while listening to the beautiful voice of Gabrielle rehearsing “Voi Che Sapete.”

One evening as LaMoine was closing up; he thanked me for fixing the hinge on the back door then asked if I was free the following evening. He said there was a meeting of the theater guild. They were going to discuss upcoming activities and he wondered if I might be interested. I said I was, and a whole new aspect of the Center opened up for me. I started out with bit parts, but as my confidence grew, so did my roles.

I took a class in writing at the Center and then joined the writers’ guild. As much as I enjoyed oration, it was difficult for me to find my own words, but with the patience of the director and other members, I now write much of my own material.

Over time, I was asked to join the Board of Directors. My tenure on that Board was short lived, however, as the Center needed someone to work on special projects. Today, I am proud to be the Special Projects Coordinator for The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts. My duties consist of programs of outreach into the community. I make weekly visits to nursing homes where I read stories and poetry. I dress as, and portray, various authors in high-school literature classes where we discuss the authors’ writings. I am also available to any interested organization, club or gathering of people who would like to remember and hear some of the great old classics of literature.

The real perk of the job, however, is that I get to regularly visit and read to Miss Mugerauer’s first grade class where I am affectionately known as the Word Wizard.

My wife tells me that the Northern Lakes Center is the second best thing that ever happened to me, and I believe she’s right. I call her my inspiration. She calls me her work of art.

It’s fitting that this story should close with a work of art. LaMoine MacLaughlin quoted from the start of Robert Gard’s “The Arts in the Small Community.” But he has set the end of that book to music in a choral hymn. It captures what community arts is all about. It’s for you to use and sing freely, as you remember the Amery story and create your own. —Maryo Ewell

Maryo Ewell is a writer, consultant and contributing editor to the Community Arts Network. She lives in Gunnison, Colorado.

LaMoine MacLaughlin is executive director of Northern Lakes Center for the Arts in Amery, Wisconsin.

Laura E. Johnson is an undergraduate student in theater education and communications science at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.

Don Hansen is special projects coordinator at Northern Lakes Center for the Arts

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Let Art Begin at Home: The Amery Story

The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts: Our Story

My Artistic Cradle

A Work of Art

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