Woodwalk Gallery News

Each Monday we’ll post a picture of what Margaret is working on that week. You can watch works on her painting wall begin to emerge from the canvas, grow, speak, narrow the options, emerge, complete themselves and then leave the wall.   New painting starting to emerge…..

4-9-11

3-20-11

3-7-11

3-1 and Walter too

2-21-11

Professional Dimensions, an organization of over 400 Milwaukee area women business leaders, has chosen Door County artist and Woodwalk Gallery owner, Margaret Lockwood to create the presentation gifts to be given to their 2011 Sacagawea Award winners. The gifts will be presented to the award winners March 16 at a dinner event at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

A third piece has been commissioned for the organization’s permanent collection housed at Alverno College.

Each year Professional Dimensions: Women Who Inspire holds a statewide competition to choose the artist to produce the gifts to be given to their prestigious Sacagawea Award winners. Selection is on the basis of the artist’s skill and originality and expression of the themes of the Sacagawea Award itself. The award honors Wisconsin women who have made significant career accomplishments, are trailblazers, have evidenced a commitment to their community and who have supported the advancement of women. Two award winners are chosen each year for this prestigious award.

For the presentation gifts Lockwood is producing paintings that continue her expressing of the emotions and memories evoked by trees and woods at different times of the day and seasons. In her paintings light dances and beckons and evokes places and times long remembered. There is a sense of the known and the unknown, the familiar and the yet to be discovered that calls out to the trailblazer and invites them (and the viewer) to come a see what lies ahead and within. It is not uncommon for a viewer of Lockwood’s work to stand close enough to her larger paintings to let them immerse themself in the painting’s and their own remembered time and place.

Past presentation gifts have been produced by Door County artist Stephanie Trenchard and Woodwalk Gallery Artist and Peninsula School of Art facultymember Colette Odya-Smith.

Sacagawea herself was the only woman on the 1803- 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to find the Northwest Passage across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. She led the expedition through hostile country and is credited with keeping the men of the expedition alive, moving forward and on course. She came to be appreciated for her foresight, leadership, intelligence, common sense and adaptability- all qualities embodied in the Sacagawea Award winners to be honored March 16th with gifts of the paintings by Door County’s own Margaret Lockwood.

Margaret Lockwood is one of Door County’s master artists recognized in NE Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest for her impressionist, ethereal landscapes of woods, fields, waters, clouds and brilliant skies. Her work is represented in major corporate and private collections, and is available exclusively at her Woodwalk Gallery in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin.

Painting mostly from memory, Margaret’s painting are often large enough to invite the viewer to walk into them. They can dominate a setting transporting the viewer back to remembered places, times and emotions. It is not unusual for a viewer to approach quite close to a painting to allow it to immerse them in their own memories.

For all the reasons people come to Door County, Margaret paints those essences. The landscapes are special; the light is special; the way of life is special; the memories are special. Some of the people who have recently purchased her paintings have said:

JE- “We wake up every morning and the first thing we see is Margaret’s painting of what we feel is mist on the lake… times 10. The colors, the rhythms, the size, the invitation to peacefulness- all begin our day well.”

MC- “We are privileged to own 4 of Margaret’s large paintings. They form an ever-changing compliment to the views of our lake and woods. Yes, they remind us of Door County, but there is so much more to them; even our young grandkids say they wish they could go there, without knowing where “there” is.”

BP- “We own a sunset painting that is over our mantle in our city house where most days we don’t see much of the sunset. Our neighbors in the apartment next door have several times come over just to “see the sun set”.

NH- “I might own the largest painting Margaret has ever painted. In two houses I have built dedicated space in a room to hang it. It is one of the most precious things I own. Whenever I come home, it welcomes me and reminds me what it is to be alive.”

TW- “We saved up for 5 years to buy our Lockwood. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into our home, right in front of you in our entry hall. It tells people what we want our home to be about and how we want to get to know them.”

CD- “Margaret’s work and Woodwalk Gallery are just plain my most favorite in all the world.”

Margaret will claim some artistic genes and early talent but it was not until midlife and kids in school that she got her Masters in Fine Arts and rented shared studio space in St. Louis. First came weaving with landscapes emerging almost by accident, trees found in the warp and woof, light and shadow playing in the textures, colors flowing into one another but an already recognizable quality of being a Lockwood was present. Owners of those early weavings point to how much still they welcome you into remembered places and emotions.

Gallery shows and awards soon followed but Margaret began to paint and before long, the loom was in storage. She had found her medium and her voice. Her commitment to her art led to purchasing Woodwalk Gallery and moving to Door County. Some of the first walks and drives and encounters there still inform Margaret’s painting and are still being worked out on canvas.

Serving as the Artistic Director and teaching at Peninsula Art School, shows at the Wisconsin Triennial, Fairfield Museum and UWGB Lawton Gallery, and awards from the Art League and Professional Dimensions have added to her reputation, but it is at Woodwalk Gallery that she is at home. Her studio stands above the gallery floor, built of straw bales and timbers and stucco, soaring into the barn roof beams. Like a cocoon the studio embraces her and her work, feminine with its lack of hard edges and straight lines.

No matter what the setting or how unexpected, when you see a painting by Margaret Lockwood, you know it is hers. Like her early weavings, light and shadow play in the textures, colors flow into one another and memories and emotions are evoked.

door

It means having an appreciation for the history of things well used, for the simplicity of the natural including its imperfections, for the marks of time and use, for the inherently good and appropriate.

Wabi- Sabi is one of the ways we think about what makes Woodwalk and Door County special.

This year with appreciation/ homage for works by large-scale, environmental sculptors Andy Goldsworthy and Patrick Dougherty, there will be new paths to walk, new places to discover, some hands-on experiences to be a part of.

Bring a picnic to Woodwalk to enjoy on the patio or on the grass (blankets available) any day…. before a Friday night concert….  not usually on a Saturday because of weddings…. Sundays are great but call in case there’s a reception.

ceremony at silo

(4/15/11 updated) Due cancellations, Woodwalk is available to host a wedding on Saturday, July 23 and Saturday, August 13.  E-mail for more information.  Reservations now being taken for 2012.

all is ready for a great 2011

April 24-30 new art work arrives at Woodwalk

Friday, May 6 Gallery opens for the 2011 season

Sunday, May 29 Opening Reception “New Work: Margaret Lockwood and Kirsten Christianson”, picnic dinner reception and CD release party for “Beginnings” by Lynn Gudmundson and David Hatch

Friday, Saturday, Sunday June 3,4,5 “Sing Along Don Quixote OR Ain’t Got Plenty of Nothin’”

Friday, June 10 Jeanne Kuhns at Woodwalk Concert Series begins

Sunday, July 3 Opening Reception “Rebecca Crowell and Anita Winkler”

Sunday, August 14 Opening Reception “Paula Swayden Grebel and Sandra Pape”

September 2,3,4 and 9 Bob Dylan Review… come help us celebrate Dylan’s 70th borthday!

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday September 15- 18, Sept. 23- 25 Theatre M presents