June 2009: Self Portrait Diptych-Exploration, oil painting by Sharon Schmeltzer

Header image: Self Portrait Diptych-Exploration, oil painting by Sharon Schmeltzer

Featured Artist: Annegret Goehring

Dogwood, silhouette by Annegret Goehring

Annegret Goehring was born in Friedrichshafen, Germany. From age two to seven she lived in the United States, after which her family returned to Germany. She began working with paper and doing scissor cutting (scherenschnitte) when in school and was introduced to bookbinding when she was twelve. She spent three years in an art/trade school in Kiel, studying bookbinding and design, became a journeyman bookbinder, and worked in a bindery. In 1950 she immigrated to the United States with her family, settling in Ohio where she worked as a draftsman for a boiler factory.

Annegret and Gordon Goehring, a potter and teacher, were married in 1954. They moved to Hessel where Gordon’s family had summered for generations, and founded Northwind Pottery, producing earthernware pottery from local, hand-dug clay. Annegret was responsible for much of the decorating, finding inspiration in the woods, shorelines, water, and plant life that surrounded her.

Both Goehrings were active promoters of local art and crafts, working through the Upper Peninsula Crafts Council, the Eastern Upper Peninsula Craftsmen, and the Sault Area Arts Council. Olive Craig carried their work in the Woodland Workshop on Birch Point Loop.

After Olive’s death there was a strong desire among local artists and craftsmen to establish a non-profit venue to showcase local work and, when SAAC acquired Alberta House, the artists and craftsmen all pitched in to paint, build shelving, and ready an area for a consignment shop and a gallery. We look at today's Alberta House gift shop as a continuation of the Woodland Workshop, and named the gallery after Olive Craig. This writer can still picture Gordon, hammer in hand, building shelving to exhibit the crafts.

A busy lady, Annegret was the curator of the Les Cheneaux Historical Museum for about twenty-five years, and instrumental in founding the Arts Festival segment of the annual Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show and Festival of the Arts. Now retired, she has time to appear in our Sault Summer Arts Festival, where you saw her last year and will see her again in August.

A strong SAAC supporter and a former board member, she contributes her exquisite scissor cuttings to the auction every year, and her note cards, scissor cuttings, and a book of scissor cuts, From Nature to Paper, can be found in the Alberta House Shop. (The book can also be found at the gift shop of the Chippewa County Historical Society or bought directly from Annegret at the festival.)

Annegret’s latest Alberta House exhibit was a dual exhibit with Anny Hubbard in the Mini Gallery, where the two demonstrated two forms and traditions of scissor cuting—Annegret’s on paper and Anny’s on birchbark.

Now a widow, Annegret continues to live and work in Hessel. Most of the floral images accompanying this article are available in Alberta House as note cards and will be for sale in her booth at the Sault Summer Arts Festival in August. All the silhouettes below are hers.

Works by Annegret Goehring
Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version.