fish town

      He rose to meet the day. A dense fog hugged the lakefront. It tried to spoil everyone's business. The fishing shanties seemed like gray ghosts in the thick air. Crowded shoulder to shoulder in the chill they emerged and retreated into the mist. He wasn't going to give up that easily. He brushed off the claustrophobia and paid close attention to the ground beneath his feet. Experience told him to find a scene and sketch it nonetheless. 

He sized up the doorway ahead. The way it looked through to a boat and a shanty on the other side of it. Yes. That would work. He held his sketchpad with his left arm and steadily made light pencil marks with his right hand. He placed the threshold near the bottom of his page. Flicks on either side of the doorway suggested the exterior wall. His eyes and head tilted up. Quick lines framed the roof and the second story at the top of his page. Just enough marks to describe the building. Parallel strokes created the horizontal roof boards. His persistence paid off. He knew what he needed.
It was the way he gathered information. To make himself comfortable with the subject. So that it could be colored with washes from his kit. The fact that it had almost rained was not lost on him.

As the sun rose above his head more of the clouds were burned away. He could hear the knocking of footsteps over the boardwalk. Others were out drawing and painting in Fish Town. The last of the moisture cooled his neck as he found another spot from which to work.


That afternoon he focused on figures. Men were gathering their nets and laying them out to dry on the wooden reels.

    

Drawing with black ink and trying to capture form while it was moving was always a trick. 

His page was full of THIS moment, 

THAT sea gull, 

an arm reaching over,
and a head tilted forward. Linear snapshots. 

 Edges 
started 
quickly,
carefully, were then interrupted by the
absence

of the figure he had been drawing.   


 

It was the classic adage of "trial and error." 

He could draw a hand, 
maybe the back of a head 
and add a hat to it.
But people  

simply 
moved 
too fast.

If they would ONLY  POSE, or FREEZE in space, he would be able to draw that.










He thought of examples from his bound journal. Guys leaning against the counter at the campus library.

 

Friends chatting at a table.

 












A classmate, one row over from him, during religion class.


Goofy caricatures of his Valparaiso instructors, Waldschmidt and Wismar.

 The man asleep on the "L" train 

that he did in charcoal.

His ink studies from standstill drawings by Eugene Delacroix at the Art Institute.

The Life Class models, both male and female, who held their long poses for the drawing students at Ray Vogue Art School.

Gee. Even the dead insect specimens he drew for zoology class were easier to manage than these men, as they spread their nets.

The sights and sounds told him why the locals called the village "fish town." The squacking gulls, the smell of fish and maggots running all over the place. I could get used to this, he thought to himself with a grin.

The day ended with him sitting on the sands of Lake Michigan watching the sun set in a blaze of color. The water became orange blue or was it green, he thought, as he watched the blue edge of water nestle along the shoreline. Across from him the island was a deep purple. The traces of sun shone a deep rich red. He went back to his apartment and listened to the Lewis-Walcott fight. 

The night was full of talking. He stepped out into the night air and chatted with the women. All of that bunch were art students from East Lansing. The one called Lydia talked about her paintings. What a day it had been for all of them. He had finished four watercolors and a bunch of sketches. And from the looks of it Lydia made some nice watercolors too.

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[Pencil, black ink, charcoal and watercolor drawings by Reinhold Marxhausen, journal sketch, June 1948. Courtesy of Marxhausen Estate LTD, Seward, NE. Story by Karl Marxhausen, copyright 2015. The narrative was based on journal entries by Reinhold Marxhausen, from June of 1948]

out on the rocks

   In June, the summer of 1948, a handful of art students from East Lansing were spread out over the village.

Sally Chadwick was working on a watercolor of the Leland city post office. It was all sparkly. But it wasn't going the way she wanted. Just her luck, the roaming paint instructor showed up. What to do? Ralf Henriksen stood quietly beside her, taking in every detail. Finally he pointed and said, "That's a nice sign there." The placard on the building in her watercolor drew his compliment.

The summer program had been just like that. There was lots of work to be sure. But when they all met at the end of the day, the instructor from East Lansing was there to make comments, maybe a suggestion or two. He appreciated all their effort, their willingness to go after it, their fortitude to push themselves. Growth had its own reward.

   Michigan State had an art school in Leland.
The six week program was held in the summertime.  
When Sally heard about it she talked with her mother, who said she could go. The next school year she would graduate, and she wanted to take part before she did. She told her sorority sister and fellow classmate, Helen Galoff, about the painting class, and asked if she was going. Helen told her parents about it, and found out she could go as well. 

Sally had known her friend from the big high school both went to in Detroit, and kept bumping into each other when they had art classes at Michigan State. Since she had no car of her own, Sally's parents drove the two of them up and got the lodging settled. Meals were provided through the college like usual. Fees were paid with the tuition, and students received lunch and dinner meals at the Blue Bird in Leland. On the map, Leland was on the upper northwest peninsula in Leelanau County. A five hour drive from the city of Detroit.

     It was one day, when they were out doing their assignments, that they noticed
someone out on the breaker rocks that lined the Leland cove. Out, beyond the end of the long wooden pier. Out on the big white rocks, somebody was sitting. All quiet. Focused on painting. He wore a light rimmed hat. He had his shirt off. He had a deep tan. He looked good. He kept on working. He wasn't with their class. Who was this mysterious person?

       The second day they noticed him, he was painting closer to the shore, at a location closer to the group.  They saw him walk by. Little by little they got to know him. He made them laugh. He was older than the guys in the class. He was right out of the service. He was an itinerant painter. They called him Reiny.  
 

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(Drawings of students by Sally Chadwick Mc Kenzie, photos of Fish Town and students beside MSU art exhibit sign, photo of Reiny seated, courtesy of the artist, Harbor Springs, Michigan.)

(Photo of Ralf Henrikson with student, courtesy of Michigan State University, Department of Art and Art History, and Leelaneau Community Cultural Center, www.oldartbuilding.com, accessed March 4, 2015)

(Story by Karl Marxhausen, copyright 2015. Narrative was based on conversations with Ms. Mckenzie in February and March 2015)