michigan, in the deep heart’s core
On Sunday, July 18th we opened a photography exhibit based on William Butler Yeats’ beloved poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Written in 1890 and calling for a rejection of the stresses of the industrialized urban lifestyle, Yeats expressed his yearnings for a simpler, more nature-based life, much in the spirit of Thoreau’s effort at Walden’s Pond. The visual images in the poem, which embrace dream-like references to the small cottage, the planting of food, the open glade in the forest, and the ever-beckoning call of water, were the inspiration for four artist-photographers who readily found Yeats’ visuals in northern Michigan.
With a concentration on cottage, farm, glade and water, this exhibit artfully celebrated what draws so many to northern Michigan, most seeking the same sense of peace as the speaker in The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
Photographs of Michigan by Kathy Silbernagel, Marilyn Hoogstraten, Kathie Carpenter, Babs Young