These pen and ink and colored pencil drawings are all inspired by photos from the Copper Country. They are home grown scenarios. At home together, cousins, aunts and uncles, down on the farm, inside, outside, floating. Many of us can relate in some way. There is a familiarity. Between the years 2013 and 2020 I became enamored with vintage black and white snapshots of people caught in life mostly posed. I would find trunks of these photos in antique and second hand stores and sometimes left
on my door step. One time at a gallery talk at Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba a young art student asked me how I knew what colors to use. This question caught me off guard. I had never considered the “right” colors, other than following some kind of design sense or knowing what I know about clothing of the era.  Sometimes I would use written language to fill the sky creating texture with text, sometimes written backwards or in another language. I enjoy the quirkiness of the scenes, the moments captured and translated by me - adding to the general mystery of found photos.

I decided to pursue the life of an artist when I was fifteen years old. I saw a sculptor on television talking about what it meant to be an artist. He said a craftsman is a person who is skilled with his hands and his head, but an artist is one who also works with his heart. This affected me deeply and I knew right then that being an artist was what I wanted to do with my life.

I wasn't able to attend art school until I was older. I began my schooling at Oakland Community College, studying with Leo Dworkin and Ray Katz. Ray encouraged me to further my education. I enrolled in Wayne State University's art program, where I received a full merit scholarship, graduating with honors in 1991 at the age of thirty-nine.

I've followed my passion all of these years, balancing my art life with teaching and serving others. I've exhibited extensively

Susan Budig fills her life with words written for
Mshale newspaper, for poetry magazines and
journals, and with other creative endeavors. She has
run Mindful Poetry, a group of poets learning new
traditional poetic forms, intensely and sporadically
while teaching those same forms in many venues.

Colleen M. Chesebro hails from
the heartland of the Midwestern
United States. After graduating,
she enlisted in the U.S. Air Force,
launching a lifelong journey of selfexploration. Following a successful
career in accounting, Colleen
returned to her creative roots,
reigniting her love for poetry.
Today, she enjoys crafting poetry,
flash fiction, and both creative and nonfiction work.
In addition to her poetry books, Colleen has contributed to
numerous anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry.
She actively supports her writing community on tankatuesday.
com, by hosting a community syllabic poetry challenge called Tanka
Tuesday, and by co-editing the Sunflower Tanka Anthology with
Robbie Cheadle. This annual syllabic poetry anthology celebrates
tanka, tanka prose, and other experimental tanka forms.

Michael B. Fishman lives and
writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
When not busy at home, he likes
to spend time walking (in the rain
is always a plus!) through local
parks and nature centers (groomed
paths; bugs, you know?) taking
in the sights, the sounds and the
activities happening around and above him. Enjoying it all with those— real and imagined—walking
alongside him. He was honored to have been asked to contribute to the
2025 Keweenaw Interactive Art Walk.

Liz Husebye Hartmann, also sometimes
known as Tessa Kjeldsdottir, is a Midwest
dabbler in fiction, folk/fairy tales, and poetry.
Her work can be found scattered along
forest trails, in tiny galleries, chapbooks and
anthologies, and online lit magazines like Eternal Haunted
Summer. For more, please visit her flash blog
and sketchbook: ValleyoftheTrolls.blog.

Retired from a long-time gig as
a schoolmarm in Massachusetts,
D. Slayton Avery has returned
to her roots in her home state of
Vermont where she sometimes
writes poetry and fiction,
some of which sometimes gets
published.

Sue Spitulnik has been writing 99-word stories
along with other Carrot Ranch members since
2015. She finds the essay driven prompts to be a
fun challenge and now collaborating on paintings
to be more interesting. She has traveled the states
and a bit of Europe, which gives her many life
experiences to base her tales on. She is published
in three separate books by the Rochester (NY)
Veterans Writing Group, is current president
of the Lilac City Rochester Writers, and also a
member of Women Writing the West.