Paul McComas brings the human condition to light and to life through fiction writing and live performance, using dramatic and comedic enactments of scenes from his own work to demonstrate “the lies that tell the truth.”  You will be entertained and inspired by this candid and lively “inside look” at narrative, characters, and the creative process.

McComas has earned international and national awards for his short-form dramatic and comedic movies.  He has taught at Northwestern University, National-Louis University, and Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden Center.

McComas is the author of four and editor of two books of fiction. His 2008 coming-of-age novel Planet of the Dates is in development as a feature film. He is currently co-authoring Logan’s Journey (slated for 2013 publication) with William F. Nolan, author of the science fiction classic Logan’s Run.

Tickets are available at the door for $10. A reception and opportunity to meet McComas will follow the performance. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is located in north Ephraim, adjacent to the Green Gable Shops.

Midsummer's Music Festival at The Clearing - photo by Stephen Kastner

Two different programs of chamber music selections will be presented at various locations throughout Door County from Wednesday, August 31 through Monday, September 5. The first program will feature the music of Ben Weismann, Josef Suk, and Antonín Dvorak in a concert entitled, “Father and Son-in-Law.”

“The title of this program is appropriate,” explains Artistic Director, Jim Berkenstock. “Josef Suk was a student of Antonín Dvořák and later married his daughter.”

“Father and Son-in-Law” will be performed on Wednesday, August 31 at Bjorklunden in Baileys Harbor; on Thursday, September 1 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in north Ephraim; and on Saturday, September 3 at Ephraim Moravian Church. Each concert begins at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $25 per adult, 17 and under are free.

The second program entitled “Rising Sensations” opens with the music of Paul Schoenfield who began to take piano lessons at the age of six, and wrote his first composition a year later.

“This is a fun program, starting with Schoenfield’s ‘Carolina Reveille’,” says Berkenstock. “The very opening piece suggests an awakening of gifted composers who all began at an early age.”

The masters of Arno Harutyuni Babajanian and Ernst von Dohnányi round out this dynamic program.

By age 5, Babajanian’s extraordinary musical talent was clearly apparent, and the composer Aram Khachaturian suggested that the boy be given proper music training. Two years later, in 1928 at the age of 7, Babajanian entered Russia’s Yerevan State Musical Conservatory. Dohnányi first studied music with his father, a professor of mathematics and amateur cellist and became a pupil at the Budapest Academy of Music, studying piano and composition with Carl Forstner, organist of the Bratislava Cathedral.

“Rising Sensations” will be performed on Friday, September 2 at Shepherd of the Bay Lutheran Church in Ellison Bay at 7:30 pm; and Sunday, September 4 at The Clearing in Ellison Bay at 3 pm. The cost is $25 per adult for these two concerts, and youth 17 and under are free. The finale to Midsummer’s 21^st season on Monday, September 5 takes place at the Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor at 3 pm. There will be a pre-concert champagne toast, the Rising Sensations concert and a delectable post-concert reception. Tickets are $35 per adult, and 17 years and younger at $10.

Advance reservations are recommended for all concerts although tickets are available at the door. To learn more, visit www.MidsummersMusic.com or call 920.854.7088.

The Birch Creek Ambassadors, a group of gifted young musicians will bring a variety of music and their amazing talent for an evening of enjoyment. Nationally-acclaimed faculty members Marty Robinson from UW-Oshkosh and Chris Madsen of Northwestern University will perform side-by-side with the students who range in age from 15 – 18 years old.

Their repertoire consists of jazz standards so this promises to be a wholly “American” musical experience but the musicians are from all different backgrounds. Over the course of the summer, 200 students and 90 faculty from across the nation and around the world converge on the rural Birch Creek campus east of Egg Harbor. The Ambassadors group is comprised of a saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass, drums and guitar players.

They formed in 1999 to serve as Birch Creek’s goodwill ambassadors, acquainting residents and visitors with Birch Creek’s mission and programs, as well as bringing jazz to numerous venues throughout Door County. At the same time, these promising young musicians are offered the opportunity to experience the real life of a professional musician, thus fulfilling Birch Creek’s mission.

The UU Fellowship, located at 10341 Hwy. 42, in Ephraim, has hosted the Ambassadors each summer for many years. Tickets are available at the door for $10 and students are free – refreshments are included. For more information, call 920.854.7559 or visit www.uufdc.org.

With great courage, Americans are re-examining what it means to be human and how we choose to live on this planet. The religious-environmental movement is experiencing growth as people from diverse traditions work to build a sustainable future inspired by Americans who are answering a spiritual call to confront the enormous challenges of environmental degradation.

Described as “heart-warming and tingly”, this documentary illustrates how people of many faiths – Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim – are finding ways to become caretakers of the Earth. Examples portrayed include Catholics and Native Americans protecting land and water together as well as Interfaith Power and Light mounting a religious response to ecology.

If you have ever felt like there is no hope, you need to see this film.

As Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature notes, “The movement is potentially the key to dealing with the greatest problem humans have ever faced. I hope this film moves people off the fence and into action.”

Movies That Matter are presented by the Social Responsibility Committee of the UU Fellowship. This series of thought-provoking films is free and open to the public with screenings on the third Tuesday each month. The UU Fellowship is located at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. For information call 854-7559 or visit www.uufdc.org.

Liz Maltman

Liz Maltman, gives the impression that the “open air” is the only studio she needs. She discovered painting “en plein air”  in 2004 and has been enamored with it ever since. Liz works primarily in pastels, favoring their immediacy, vibrancy of color and portability in the field. Her goad in painting a landscape is not so much to paint it exactly as she sees it but to capture the essence of the scene in the feeling that a particular day and moment evokes.

Originally from Chicago, Liz moved to Fish Creek in 1974 after completing undergraduate degrees in Art History and Psychology. Since then, she owned and operated several businesses, notably The Magic Jacket (1982-98), as well as her own ongoing business in interior design and decorative painting.

In 2007, Liz was chosen to participate in the first annual Peninsula Art School, Plein Air Festival. She is very pleased to have been juried in to the 2009 festival at the school.For several years she has been a featured artist at the Francis Hardy Gallery Arts Collectors’ Showcase Exhibit. Liz won awards for both her landscapes and portraits in a number of juried exhibitions and is honored to have her work in both private and corporate collections throughout the country. Her work is represented locally at Margaret Lockwood’s Woodwalk Gallery in Egg Harbor. She is also adding acrylic paintings to her representations, however, the works in the UU Gallery exhibit are only “en plain air” pastels from 2008.

Door County Style Editor’s Exclusive Candid Interview with Liz Maltman…

Liz at work en plein air

Editor: What is it that will first make you start to think about a particular place as a possible subject for a pastel painting?
Liz Maltman: Hmmmmm. I’m not sure what it is that draws me to a scene or subject. Some artists I’ve painted with or known, will look for a scene for example, with a strong diagonal (maybe a road) and a very distinct and tall tree and a horizontal fence and… (in other words they require very specific things to exist in a scene). I am definitely NOT looking for that kind of thing in a subject. I may instead be attracted by contrasts or strong lighting or the clouds floating by… I’m not really sure.

I’m more interested in the feeling or sense of a scene, the sense of magic maybe. If the scene needs a diagonal from a compositional standpoint, i’ll just make that up. I often paint while turning 360 degrees. As I said before, I’m not really trying to render a scene in a representational or “realistic” way particularly. I often paint with a friend who is much more of a realistic artist than I am. We will be painting basically the same landscape. She’ll come over after a couple of hours of work, look at what I’ve done, start laughing and exclaim “What in the world are you looking at?”

Sometimes I’m more interested in a way in painting the spring breeze or the feel of the wind or something. (This probably sounds really dumb. I’ve not really tried too much to articulate or even really understand what I’m doing! As said before, I’m really experimenting all the time.

Editor: Do you love or fear skyscapes? Paintings of the water? What do you think is the most challenging and perhaps most difficult subject to approach?
Liz Maltman: Skyscapes? For some reason I’ve never actually tried doing a “skyscape.” Most of my landscapes include a greater (often much greater) proportion of land (or water) to sky. But it’s not that I don’t like the sky! or that I “fear” doing it. I’m definitely more attracted to whimsical sort of skies though, rather than a very dramatic (although beautiful) sunset. I definitely tend to present more of the whimsical or magical aspects of a scene or person (I love doing portraits, although I don’t always do portraits en plein air!) than the “serious” or dramatic scene. I love doing water although I was quite “fearful” of water at first, probably because I love the water so much. It felt intimidating. And it probably is the most challenging subject matter. Actually I’d say water is the most challenging subject matter, but also the most fun, partly for that reason. I have so far sold any water piece I’ve done fairly quickly. And I do mean to do more and more water pieces, hopefully some from actually on the water (from a sailboat or kayak}. Now that would be challenging, to work from my kayak!…

Editor: Do you like including people, birds or animals in your landscapes?
Liz Maltman: I do like to include people, birds and an occasional dog in my landscapes. I am actually including people more and more, but often there aren’t any hanging around the scene. If there were, I’d probably put more in. Actually, I’m making them up more often than I used to. One of my favorite paintings which is kind of folky, has a dog in it which I’d seen earlier in the day and taken a photo of.

Editor: Who are your favorite artists or from where do you draw your greatest inspiration?
Liz Maltman: My favorite artists are all pretty much from the early modern era (l890-l920) in particular, the Fauves (bright colors) especially Braque (before his cubism period), Derain, and Vlaminck, as well as the Nabis painters of whom there were few. My favorites are Pierre Bonnard and Vuillard. Also, I of course, love Van Gogh and Kandinsky (especially his early work) (actually I think he was part of the Nabis group, now that I think about it. But, my all-time most favorite painter in the world is Odilon Redon, a contemporary of these but definitely his own person. Alot of these painters worked in the decorative arts as well as fine art, which is something I do as well and probably find inspirational in their art. Many of them were colorists as well which I also find inspiring.

One thing I like especially about Redon is that he often worked in pastel, which is my medium of choice at the moment… Long before I ever actually did any paintings, when I used to just think that one day I would really like to do some paintings, I knew I would do them in pastel – I think mostly because of how much Redon’s pastels affected me, even as a kid. So, I guess I would say my greatest inspiration comes from Redon’s art, as well as the other art mentioned. But also it comes from the current subject (landscape or person) I am painting. I paint almost exclusively from life, so that life, is the great inspiration.

Editor: Who have you studied with or are you a self-taught artist?
Liz Maltman: I am pretty much a self-taught artist. Everything I do I mostly look at as an experiment. Some experiments have more successful results than others. I have however, taken some classes at the PAS over the years which include several with Mike Judy (a really close friend), two with Craig Blietz, one with Lynn Gilchrist in plein air
which is where I really got inspired and one with Emmett Johns, although he forgot I was in the class. It was supposed to be plein air but it rained all week. The rest of the class was using photos indoors but i went outside anyway and he forgot I was out there. Actually, by the last day he remembered.

The public is invited to the UU Gallery any Sunday following services, from 11  am -12:30 pm. Additional Gallery hours are on Mondays, from 1-3 pm at 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim. For more information or if you have an interest in being considered for an exhibition, phone 920.839.2606. Visit the Web site to learn more at www.uufdc.org.

“I’ve always had my fingers in art,” she says, at least since the age of 5 when Beth and her two sisters visited the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time.

From that early beginning, Beth always had a paint brush in her hand, eventually graduating from Purdue University with a degree in Fine Arts. After a professional Chicago-based career in interior design at Marshall Fields, she migrated to Fish Creek in 1968 where she opened Fish Creek Clothier, a boutique clothing shop, popular for well over two decades. Everything she touches from her sumptuous gardening projects to her ongoing love of watercolor benefits from her keen eye for color.

In 2001 Beth’s sister Jane suggested that she and her three sisters travel to Colonial Williamsburg to learn to hook rugs. Beth proceeded to explore this traditional folk craft from the perspective of an artist seeking to expand the range of her expressive media. She continued to perfect the fundamental hooking skills working with yarns and dyes, studying with diverse teachers in workshops across the country.

In creating a multitude of original hooked rugs she has evolved a free and expressive manner of painting with fiber. The evolution is visibly apparent in her current exhibition on display throughout the month of December at the UU Gallery in Ephraim. Beth’s earliest apprentice work, bound by strict classical folk art symmetry bursts free in a series of personal artistic narratives – yarn paintings that speak her stories.

“I love depicting people, both in full figure and in portrait. Much like painting with oil or acrylic, communicating the complex color of flesh tones is a challenge,” she explains. “I end up using a mottled plaid of brown, blues, blacks and yellows.”

“I have a wealth of colorful wool yarns to select from and am constantly in search of more,” she says. “New or recycled, as long as it’s derived from 100% woolen garments or blankets. Sometimes I use it as is, and sometimes I enhance and alter the colors with a dye blending technique. I may use a marbling process, or I might boil the wool in onionskins or other natural dye plants.”

Her efforts at redefining hooked rugs as fine art have been noted with inclusion in several juried exhibitions including recent shows at the Hardy Gallery in Ephraim and the Guenzel Gallery in Fish Creek. While she currently declines to sell most of her current exhibit of personal evolutionary works, she does accept commissions.

She also provides occasional classes in her home on the bluff overlooking Fish Creek. During the cold months, students gather around the farmhouse table and enjoy the warmth of the stone fireplace against a view of the winds blowing across the bay.

Embellishing upon her painting and interior designing in 2001, she still connects with her sisters through art, together they have all become “hookers”. Beth likes a “whimsical” look and has designed many of her own rugs, wall hangings, purses, pillows and art frames. Her folksy scenes of Fish Creek and a humorous piece titled “Pioneer Woman” are amongst viewers’ favorites. From time to time, Beth will do commissioned pieces and give classes out of her home.

The public is invited to enjoy the exhibit at the UU Gallery on any Sunday following services from 11 AM-12:30 PM or during additional gallery hours on Mondays from 1 – 3 PM, located at 10341 Hwy. 42 in Ephraim. Learn more about the UU Fellowship at www.uufdc.org.

As a home-schooled student, she had the early-on opportunity to pursue and complete three years of formal, studio training at the Kewaunee Academy of Fine Art beginning in 2005. Over the course of her study she eventually lived and worked in Kewaunee as a full time art student, focusing on representational painting under the direction of her well-known and accomplished mentor, Door County artist, Craig Blietz.

“I’ve always enjoyed drawing people and figures,” she explains, “especially in capturing their emotional energy.” She uses oils exclusively and paints in a style she describes as “impressionistic realism,” confirming that she “has been highly influenced by several Russian and Chinese figurative painters, as well as by the works of J.W. Waterhouse, John Singer-Sargent and my mentor, Craig Blietz.”

Recently, she added the Scandinavian mythological goddess, Idunn, to her canvas iconography and plans to include specific paintings of her in an upcoming October solo exhibition of her works at the Unitarian Universalist Gallery in Ephraim.

Soirsce’s award-winning paintings and drawings have been displayed at the Miller Art Museum’s annual High School Salon of Art where she won top honors all four years she exhibited. Her masterful life drawings led the way for high school student artists to display unclothed figure studies in this annual exhibition. Traditional figurative work has been included from that time forward.

Soirsce has shown and sold her representational art works in the Annual Guenzel Gallery, New Year’s Gala. In June, 2008, she won a Juror’s Award at the Francis Hardy Center for the Arts. Her work has also been featured at Barnsite Gallery in Kewaunee, at the Academy Gallery in Fish Creek and in the recent Kewaunee Academy of Fine Art Show at the Miller Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay.

She lives and paints at her studio in Fish Creek. Her name, Gaelic in origin, means “spiritual freedom” and currently reflects her plans to spend this winter living and painting in her studio in Shanghai, China. She speaks Mandarin and intends to pursue further studies of traditional Russian-influenced Chinese painting methods in China.

The public is invited to see an extensive collection of her work and attend an opening reception on Sunday, October 5 at the UU Gallery following services from 11 AM – 12:30 PM. You can also find out more and see her portfolio on-line at: Soirsce.com. The Gallery is open Mondays from 1 – 3 PM and on Sundays after services, located at 10341 Hwy. 42, in Ephraim. For more information about the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship visit UUFDC.org. To learn more about upcoming shows or exhibiting art work, please call 920.839.2606.