Art, Arks and Vitality

By Hope Wallace

You can tell when a town has been blessed with sponsors who find that a community’s culture and arts breath alive and imperative. I want to take some time and personally thank Citizens National Bank and Purmort Brothers Insurance in association with Central Mutual Insurance Company for their recent sponsorship of our 34^th Annual Photography Exhibit. Without the support of our shared vision we could not be a vital link to community health and growth. Not only does their generosity help fund our existing programming, it also helps keep the spark and momentum of new ideas and expansion alive. Again, thank you!

I recently spent some time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and had the pleasure of touring the Ann Arbor Art Center. A double storefront with 3 floors of bustling activity and color! It is always rewarding and inspiring to see others at work keeping art alive in their community. Ann Arbor is a hub of this kind of energy with outdoor cafés and music on the street. “The Ark”, a not for profit theater has hosted notable stars for many years. Their tagline “where music lives” resonates a commitment to keeping music alive for the Ann Arbor area.

We are fortunate to have a history as long and varied as “The Ark” and continue to bring you eye candy art exhibits just as we have done for many years. On October 1 we will launch our 34^th Annual Photography Exhibit with a public reception from 7–9 p.m. Awards will be given out at
8 p.m. This exhibit will run through October 28 and we look forward to seeing you there! As always exhibit admission is free.

Art class registration continues with “Drawing in Your Right Mind,” already in progress on Tuesday evenings. Please check out our schedule or give us a call to find out to find out what class interests you! The line-up as it stands is: “Landscape Oil Painting with Sally Geething,” “Watercolor and Mixed Media,” “Dynamic Acrylic Painting,” “Anime/Manga”, “Beginning Drawing,” “Claymation,” “Medieval Multimedia and Initial Line Art. Instructor Matt Temple has been working with the print making equipment and bringing it back to life, so stay tuned for more offerings soon!

Contact the art center at 419.238.6837 or wassenberg@embarqmail.com for further information or to register.  Class size is limited, and preregistration is required.  The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington Street in Van Wert, Ohio.

Annie Oakley became an international celebrity

By Kay Sluterbeck

(After Annie Moses married marksman Frank Butler, they presented sharpshooting exhibitions around the country.  After one such show, the Sioux chief Sitting Bull asked to meet Annie.  Because she reminded him of his late daughter, he unofficially adopted her, giving her an Indian name meaning “Little Sure Shot.”)

Sitting Bull’s “adoption” of Annie set “Butler and Oakley” apart from the many other shooting acts around the country, and Frank began looking for new places to demonstrate their skills.  In 1884 he and Annie saw a new show, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” run by “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who had put together a lavish traveling show to give audiences a taste of the Wild West, which was becoming a vanishing part of history.

The couple were turned down the first time they applied for a job with Cody because he already had a marksman, Colonel Adam Bogardus.  When Bogardus quit in 1885, Frank decided to work in the background as Annie’s manager, and they again approached Cody about a job.  To prove that Annie could hold her own, Frank offered to have her perform a three-day trial run.  Cody was skeptical.  Annie weighed only about 110 pounds, and he didn’t think she’d be able to handle the 10-pound shotguns Bogardus had left behind.  But he agreed to the tryout.

Frank and Annie arrived for the show well ahead of time, so they decided to polish their act while they waited.  Frank launched clay pigeons into the air, and Annie knocked them down in quick succession.  She hit them with the shotgun held right side up, upside down, in her left hand and in her right.  When she stopped shooting, a man who had been watching came running up.  “Wonderful!” he yelled. “Do you have photographs of yourself with your gun?”  The man was Buffalo Bill’s business partner, and he hired her on the spot.

Annie and Frank traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West for the next 17 years.  The show was as authentic as possible, with real cowboys riding bucking broncos and real Indians “attached” settlers.  Real Pony Express riders galloped across the field.  And then the “adopted” daughter of Chief Sitting Bull, “Little Sure Shot,” took the stage.  Her act included shooting clay pigeons, pulling the trap herself; shooting double from two traps sprung at the same time; throwing glass balls in the air and shot them before they hit the ground; shooting over her shoulder while looking in a mirror; and much more, including breaking five glass balls in five seconds not just once, but three times with different guns.   Eventually Annie also added some exciting riding tricks to the act.

Although she was skilled with all kinds of guns, including pistols and rifles, Annie mostly used shotguns in her Wild West performances.  This was because the tiny pellets of the shotgun cartridges traveled only about 60 yards, making them much safer than rifle bullets, which could go as far as 1,000 yards.  When she used a rifle, shops as far as eight blocks away complained of broken windows.

In 1887 the Wild West show traveled to England for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.  The whole troupe appeared as part of the American Exhibition in London.  Royalty from all over Europe came to see the show, and Annie was one of the biggest attractions.  When the show packed up to move to Manchester, England, for the winter, Frank and Annie decided not to go.  Annie was earning extra money giving shooting lessons and exhibitions at London gun clubs, and Frank thought it was time for her to break away.  After traveling to Berlin to give a private show for Crown Prince Wilhelm, the couple returned to New York where Annie spent the winter challenging local marksmen to shooting matches – and winning.

In 1889 they rejoined Buffalo Bill just in time to sail to Paris for a new European tour.  By now, Annie’s reputation had made her a celebrity, and she was on her way to becoming a legend.  A penny-dreadful novel titled “The Rifle Queen” – although pure fiction – made her a larger-than-life superhero.  Her name was constantly before the public, and even people who had never seen her admired and cared about her.  Once, while she took a vacation break in England,  a rumor that she had died of “congestion of the lungs” in Argentina began in a French newspaper and spread quickly through the international press.  Annie and Frank had to send telegrams to media all over the world assuring everyone that she was alive and well.

(To be continued)