Look to the second floor windows of the art center and you will see mittens in the form of mushrooms, monsters, dinosaurs, robots, roses, tic-tac-toe and turtles, cats and dogs, yin and yang, sun and waves, chocolate chip cookies, the Mitten State, and yes, even Bernie Sanders.
With the help of students from St. Basil, St. Paul, and South Haven schools, the court of Little Miss & Mr. Blueberry, the South Haven Youth Development Corporation, and the community at large, art mittens of all shapes and sizes fill the windows with color to chase away gray winter skies.
There was an overwhelming response to the project and the art center received hundreds of mittens, solo and in pairs. Mitten artists used materials from crayons, markers, paper and paints, to foam, felt, fabric, yarn, ribbon, photographs, cotton balls, buttons, and book covers to create their unique art mittens..
The art center extends thanks to Joan Bonnette for her plethora of mittens, Doni Smith for her Love Books and Michigan Map mittens, Kristin Shultz for her Sun and Waves mittens, Ann Habicht for her Zentangle mittens, Cecilia Wondergem for her Snowflake mittens, Jen Sistrunk for her Bernie Sanders mittens, art teacher Tanya Ebert for facilitating many, many mittens, and to ALL who participated in this fun project. We hope that everyone who walks by enjoys the creativity that adorns the windows of our lovely building.
Mittens, mittens, mittens!
The Little Miss & Mr. Blueberry Court took time out of their busy schedule to make art mittens and stopped by in their blueberry masks to drop off their creations for display at the art center.
Staying busy and warm in her South Haven studio, member artist Joan Bonnette was inspired to create several pairs of art mittens, which evolved into the idea of hanging the mittens in the windows of the art center for the enjoyment of the community, and to inspire creativity on cold days. Joan has organized similar projects in the past for the art center and other organizations, including a butterfly display, and the Pisces Spiral, which consisted of more than 400 art fish that were exhibited at the art center in 2018.
Many thanks for Joan for her sharing her creativity and ideas to help make this winter fun!
The Art Mitten project is funded by the Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs.