Gibraltar Historical Association
PREVIOUS EVENTS
"Pioneering Door County Women and their Clothing"
GARMENTS OF OUR FOUNDATION
In 2010, Fish Creek artist, Karin Kopischke, used the rendering techniques from her more than 20 years designing costumes for the finest theaters and opera companies around the country, including Peninsula Players, to render historic women from Gibraltar's pioneer days. The women were researched and rendered using rich historical detail and sensitive artistry to create vivid representations of each subject's character.
This project, a collaboration between Kopischke and the Gibraltar Historical Association, received grants from both the Wisconsin Arts Board and the Peninsula Arts Association. The project is on permanent display at the History Center behind the Noble House Museum.
"GARMENTS OF OUR FOUNDATION" TEA & FASHION SHOW
As an extension of the Pioneer Door County Women exhibit, Kopischke again collaborated to present vintage clothing at a 2010 summer tea with GHA at the White Gull Inn. Kopischke used models, dressed in period foundation garments, to illustrate and describe how undergarments were part of the dress of the day. Models would return in vintage dress-ware to complete the look, allowing viewers to see how the foundation elements truly affected the fashion.
"LOVE OF THE LAND: HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY FERDINAND HOTZ"
As a centerpiece of Heritage Days in 2011, GHA organized an exhibit of Door County historical photographs from their collection of Ferdinand Hotz photographs. These exceptional images of Door County towns and landscapes from the early 1900's had never before been exhibited.
Throughout most of his life, Hotz was an avid photographer, and while he took hundreds of photographs on his business travels around the country and Europe, Hotz focused on the natural beauty of Door County and its small towns.
The exhibit, Love of the Land: Historical Photographs by Ferdinand Hotz, features fine examples of Pictorialism, an aesthetic movement in the history of photography that established photography as a fine art. Each of Hotz's prints is a carefully crafted work of art, characterized by soft focus images, watercolor washes and his aesthetic sensibilities.
"FABRIC & TEA" AND "WEDDING TEA" HISTORIC STYLE SHOWS
Due to the success of the "Garments of Our Foundation" Tea and Fashion Show, GHA continued the tea fundraisers with two more shows.
In 2011, the "Fabric and Tea" show highlighted garments worn in everyday life from bathing suits to afternoon tea dresses.
The 2012 show "Wedding Tea" illustrated examples of 100 years of wedding dresses from 1850 through 1950.
FISH CREEK HERITAGE DAYS
Fish Creek has had it's share of historical festivals, from Old Peninsula Days to the Antique and Unique Wooden Boat Shows. As an outgrowth of the 2008 Sesquicentennial Year, Heritage Days was founded by GHA and supported by The Fish Creek Civic Association. The event opened the tourist season for a number of years and offered historically educational opportunities to the public.
Activities lasted a week and included exhibits and demonstrations by local artisans, a resident artist event, the Home Town Antique Road Show, a Historic Church Tour and Supper by trolley, Historic Cemetery Walks, quilt shows, boat, orchard and lighthouse tours, naturalist hikes, and some of the Gibraltar Talks series.