Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
– Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees
Park your car and follow the sounds of the flowing river. Hike a quarter mile over hills and across uneven terrain.
You reach a rustic, handmade, timber frame cabin. The one-room structure is surrounded by hundred-year-old hardwoods; there’s no running water or electricity.
It is time to creatively rest.
‘Absorb the Atmosphere’
Both Laura Annis and Jessica Bohus spent portions of last summer in this cabin as artists-in-residence at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. Located in the northern wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the park covers 60,000 miles with 90-plus miles of remote trails.
“My days were dictated by the light that I had,” says Annis, who lives in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity to be able to shut off.”
Annis is a painter who works with woodcuts and cyanotype. While she did spend time sketching and even running a workshop, her residency was more about just being there.
Taking nature in, staying awhile.
“I roughly hiked about 10 miles a day, if not more. I just wanted to absorb the atmosphere in the land and use the experience to just take in the inspiration and all the visual inputs and stimulation from the land itself,” Annis says.
Typically, she’s affixed to her studio — and the power tools (read: electricity) that come with it. For two weeks, Annis pared down her practice to simply pencil and paper thanks to the Friends of the Porkies residency.
Art Grows in the Wild
Michigander and artist Bohus didn’t leave the cabin save a few times.
She describes her experience at the Porkies simply: “There’s no people. There’s only trees and animals” — and her practice even simpler: “I make things out of wire.”
Her grand piece from her residency is “Armor of Flowers,” made by bending steel into the shape of flowers and a woman.
“I feel like nature needs some guards,” Bohus says of the model. “[My art piece] was there in the woods in the dark with me … It was like the best place she could grow, and it was a good place for me to grow with her.”
Bohus says the residency changed how she perceived the world around her; it changed how she noticed things and appreciated others.
“Everything is connected. And I saw so many good mushrooms and so many big trees, and you really felt that the planet is one organism and we’re just part of that organism,” Bohus says.
Annis says no matter your background, almost everyone is proud of the natural beauty in our country. She hopes it translates to protection of public lands like the Porkies, which faces a mining proposal.
“I’ve been exploring a lot of ideas revolving around symbiotic relationships and just learning lessons from nature about how ecologies evolve through cooperation,” Annis says.
“Because they want to continue to grow and thrive and it’s easier done by finding ways to connect and build connections as opposed to destruction.”
