Madeline Island Artist Colony

In 2011, Barbara With received a grant from the La Pointe Center to write a book about Madeline Island and the many artists who call the island home. As she started to research, not just the historical but the current crop of modern artists living and working there, the project took on a life of its own. The more she learned about the overwhelming number of islanders who were and are artists, the more she wanted to produce something to illustrate why Madeline has become this artist colony of somewhat epic proportions.

Traditionally, words and music have been the author's main mediums. Having written and published six books and composed over 500 songs, With soon discovered that these were now inadequate to display the miraculous outcropping of island artists and the place that inspires them. Painters, writers, potters, weavers, sculptors, welders, soap and candle makers-on and on the list goes, not just of a vast array of artistic mediums, but of individuals throughout the years who have been inspired by Madeline, a blessed, wild place surrounded on all sides by Lake Superior.

The island's creative vitality is dependent on the organizations and businesses that support the artists and their work. Featured in the book are The Art Guild, Bell Street Gallery, the Madeline Island Library, St. John's Church, Tommy's Burned Down Cafe, the Island Market, Island Carvers, to name a few.

"I hope I've captured their essential presence as the yin to the yang of our creations," says With. "Madeline Island Artist Colony is my first work of photography, meant to express a bird's eye view of my life in this place of constant beauty, rubbing elbows with other artists living attuned to the light, all pursuing their passion."

Madeline Island Artist Colony is the perfect gift for anyone has fallen in love with Madeline, as so many have, or are curious to know what it's like to live among the vast creativity a colony like this provides.