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After World War I,
dozens of returning veterans received federal funding
to study art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Two of their professors,
Frederick DeForest Schook and Frederick Victor Poole,
decided to start a summer school
for the veterans,
in Bailey's Harbor.
- There were a number of World War I veterans that came.
First they stayed in tents.
Then later, some of the doughboys
stayed at a hotel that was right nearby.
They would go around an paint.
They would paint scenes looking out from the bluff tops,
looking out over the lake.
They would paint the old buildings,
and some of the interesting elderly people
that lived in Door County.
But they would go out in the field a lot
because of the area's scenic beauty.
It was great for artists, still is.
They were quite a group.
They would come in to town and go to the dances
at Washebek's Hall,
where there usually was a polka band.
And they were active in the parades,
which were traditional during the 4th of July
at Bailey's Harbor.
They would have dances with some of the local gals,
and they would dress up in various costumes.
- Both professors, Schook and Poole,
built cottages in Bailey's Harbor,
and became among the first of many artists
to make the move to Door County.
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As improved transportation
brought more visitors to Door County,
it also brought about a need for more things to do.
- There wasn't very much to do.
In fact, we used to laugh about,
"What in the world would people do in the summer
"if they didn't like sitting on a rocking chair
"on the front porch and looking at the water?"
- In 1935, the sister and brother team
of Caroline and Richard Fisher
started the Peninsula Players,
producing plays in the garden behind a Fish Creek cottage.
- They felt people were interested,
they had an audience and it was coming,
so that when the Wildwood Camp for Boys came for sale,
they purchased it.
- The camp would provide housing for the actors and crew,
and space to build a stage, designed by C.R. Fisher,
Caroline and Richard's father.
- And the first acting company got out wheelbarrows, axes,
and helped the tradesmen build and set up
the first stage house that we had here.
"Mama Fisher"... Lydia Fisher
was a graduate of the Pratt School of Design,
and actually designed most of the costumes that
the Peninsula Players produced for most of the first decades.
When Caroline and Richard started,
they worked as a team in selecting the casts
and the company members.
They were producing ten shows a summer,
one a week.
Caroline could convince people to donate things.
She'd knock on the doors and say,
"Can I borrow that sofa or that painting?"
And people would do that.
Caroline was really the heart and the energy of the players,
and what kept Peninsula Players thriving for so many years.
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- In Sturgeon Bay, the late Gerhard Miller
developed his skills as a painter,
while at the same time,
running his family's clothing store.
I'd call myself 'one of the local yokels,'
'cause I think I've sold clean underwear and socks
to almost every man in Door County.
I was expected to go into the clothing store
and continue on with it.
I went in in 1927
and I was in it until 1959.
And I was painting all the time.
It was a dual career at that time.
And it was a lot of work,
because I had to get up early in the morning and paint,
and then I'd come home at noon and grab a sandwich,
paint until I had to go back to work,
and then I'd paint in the evening.
My type of painting is in the field of imaginative realism.
For instance, one of the subjects
in one of the reproductions we have
is of a buggy in front of an old weathered barn.
Actually, the buggy was from up near Sister Bay,
the barn was from down in the southern part of the county,
but you put the two of them together,
you're creating the picture.
You're not taking a photograph.
- After decades of disciplined effort,
Miller began to sell enough of his paintings
to make a living.
He opened a gallery, and inspired other artists
to make the move to Door County.
- There was a time when I had the only gallery in Door County.
I think he became themajor artist
of his time in this area.
- I was drawn to this place in part by Gerhard Miller,
because he was working in a vocabulary
that I understood and appreciated,
and which I enjoyed painting in.
So I figured there was a career potential for me here,
and that proved to be the case.
So it was beginning to evolve into an art community,
though it was the place I think that drew us.
The closeness to nature,
living really in nature,
is very important to me, almost indispensable.
And I'm also very interested in history,
Fortunately, I had at the bottom of the hill
Anderson's dock.
Schooners coming in and out was an endless subject for me.
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- In the 1960s,
artists exploring new approaches to modern art,
found a home at the Peninsula School of Arts,
started and built by Chicago artist
Madeline Tourtelot.
- Madeline took it upon herself to found this school
and bring a group of artists in residence here
starting in 1965.
- Adopted by a wealthy aunt, who nurtured her artistic talents,
Tourtelot was free to dedicate her life to art.
- She had a lifetime connection to the Art Institute in Chicago.
She was able to travel to Paris.
But her family had a home in Ephraim,
so she had this ongoing connection
throughout her life to Door County.
- Brimming with ability,
Tourtelot achieved success in many art forms,
including music and painting,
designing screen prints on fabric,
as well as photography and experimental filmmaking.
- Some of the younger artists that she brought in
in the late 60s and early 70s were abstract artists,
they were experimental artists,
they were large-scale sculptors. (welding rod arcing)
And she encouraged experimentation and exploration.
That was very much part of the philosophy of the time.
And so, it brought the outside world
into Door County.
- And she was an outsider, but people accepted her
even though
she had platinum blonde hair,
shapely figure,
drove a Jaguar with the top down,
and her platinum hair flowing in the wind...
...and maybe a scarf.
- Madeline's mission was to
foster an appreciation for the arts,
as well as to provide access to education in the arts.
So, right from the beginning,
it didn't matter whether you were three years old
or 60 years old,
there was a place hare at the school for you,
and so we began by teaching children's classes,
weekly kids' classes.
- She found more creative energy
from collecting these creative souls around her,
and that fed her creativity,
and in turn, it fed their creativity.
- She loved to have dinner parties.
Her delight was
in bringing disparate groups of people
who she...
...she sensed a thread among them.
So there would be scientists, and musicians
and writers and painters.
She would put us all together in a room,
and then make these beautiful dinners.
And the conversations
were so enlivening,
and the things that it would lead to, and...
She was fabulous, and I credit her,
in my lifetime, with being the spark
helping to make Door County
an authentically creative place.