Ann Mikolowski

Ann Margaret (Stroman) Mikolowski (May 16, 1940 – August 6, 1999) was a twentieth-century American contemporary artist. She was a painter of portrait miniatures and waterscapes, as well as a printmaker and illustrator of printed matter (small press, commercial). Mikolowski was part of Detroit's Cass Corridor artist movement and co-founder of The Alternative Press.

Ann Mikolowski
Mikolowski with her painting, Stella
Born	Ann Stroman (1940-05-16)May 16, 1940 Detroit, Michigan
Died	August 6, 1999(1999-08-06) (aged 59) Ann Arbor, Michigan
Resting place	Forest Hill Cemetery
Education	Wayne State University College of Creative Studies
Known for	Painting, printmaking, portraits, marine art, book illustration, illustration
Notable work	Stella, Robert Creeley, Aris Koutroulis, Bei Dao, Horizon, Ghost Rider
Movement	Cass Corridor Contemporary realism
Spouse(s)	Ken Mikolowski
Patron(s)	Gilbert and Lila Silverman, James Duffy

Early life and education

Ann Mikolowski was born in Detroit, Michigan. The child of Addison and Frances Stroman, Ann lived on Detroit's East Side, near Gratiot Avenue, with brother Mark. Ann's father was a draftsman who became the head of Chrysler Missile's drafting department. After high school (Cass Technical High School, Marine City High School), Ann worked for a short time at Chrysler as a layout artist, taking night classes in art at Wayne State University and the College of Creative Studies.[1] Her teachers included painter Robert Wilbert as well as Detroit Lithography Workshop printmakers Theo Wujick and Aris Koutroulis.

Ann and Ken Mikolowski had met as high-school students in Marine City (class of 1958); they married in 1961. The couple became residents of the Jeffries Housing Projects while both attended Wayne State, Ann studying art and Ken literature. In 1966, the Mikolowskis relocated to the Woodbridge neighborhood, renting on Commonwealth St. before purchasing a home in 1967, just after the 1967 Detroit Uprising.[2]

"I didn't have a big background in art history," Ann Mikolowski said in 1998, "in fact, a great deal of my inspiration came from poets."[1] Formative influences include Georgia O'Keeffe and Jan van Eyck's St. Jerome in his Study (Mikolowski's favorite painting at the Detroit Institute of Arts).[3] In a diary, Mikolowski wrote: “Everything I feel about Detroit goes into my big water paintings.”[4]

Detroit’s Cass Corridor artists found a first, informal salon around Ken and Ann's kitchen table in their Avery St. home.[5] In 1969, the Mikolowski basement became a pressroom, which afterwards moved with the family (children Michael and Molly, dog Inky) from Detroit to Grindstone City in 1974, then from Grindstone City to Ann Arbor in 1993–94.

The Alternative Press, 1969–99

Both Ann and Ken Mikolowski were influenced by mixed-media and multimedia art practices, like their contemporaries (many close friends and contributors[6] to The Alternative Press) in the Cass Corridor, Beats, New York School, Black Mountain College, and Bolinas creative communities."[7][8][9] Ann's art developed with, and contributed to, the creative philosophy of The Alternative Press. Publication criteria for poetry and art was, according to Ken, about instant engagement: “We’re not interested in obscure poetry. We want a sense of immediacy, a transference of energy from writer to reader. Painting and music and poetry, they all produce a spark. And people are surprised when it does hit them.”[10] About printing poems on a jobbing press, Ken said, "I like the idea of poetry being functional, as postcards or billboards."[11]

Ann and Ken began printing in 1969, with a Chandler & Price platen press (8" x 12") purchased from the Detroit Artist's Workshop.[12][13][14] They built up and maintained the studio together — at its largest in Grindstone City, the studio included two Chandler & Price presses and a lithographic press. Both Ken and Ann composed and imposed type; both printed proofs. Both chose literary content, paper, and ink.[15] Ann, as artist, created woodcut, linoleum, wood-engraved, and etched ornaments to accompany poems selected for publication.[16] Ken printed issue runs and editions, because of the C&P's high-speed motor.

Most of Ann's tools and dies for her printmaking are archived as part of The Alternative Press letterpress studio (now the University of Michigan Library book-arts studio).[17] Type is also preserved at Naropa University's Harry Smith Print Shop.[18] Ann's illustration work for The Alternative Press make her its most-often published contributor. At present, 115 items listed in WorldCat document Ann's contributions to Alternative Press material, along with illustrations and cover art for other publications.[19] Illustrations also appeared in the Detroit Free Press[20] and The Detroit News.[21]

Subjects, technique, style, media

A 1974 Willis Gallery group show included "Ann Mikolowski's life-size, photoreal rendering of a cow [Stella] flanked by, of all things, miniature paintings."[22][23] John Yau notes: "Scale plays a crucial role in Mikolowski’s landscapes and portraits. The land- and waterscapes can be as large as six by seven and a half feet, while the portraits are seldom taller or wider than three inches, and fit easily in the palm of one’s hand. They are literal mementoes that one can carry anywhere."[24]

Mikolowski's work explores postwar art,[25] superrealism,[26] and contemporary realism. In Mikolowski's work, paint and ink challenge photography's claims on representing experience. Yau on the portraits: "Despite working from color snapshots, she has avoided the quality of detachment that we usually associate with Photo-Realism. Her paintings quietly assert what they are — oil on canvas, on homemade stretchers, framed with thin wood slats."[27] Observations are hers: "'I always work from my own photos, 'cause there it's like a sketchbook. If I try to work from photos that people give me, I don't have any connection with a live person.'"[1] Her process included "combining the background from one photo with a figure from another."[28]

Mikolowski draws attention to scale not only as a play of small against large, but as studies of how objects impact consciousness in ordinary life: the outdoors, animals, Adirondack chairs, electrical poles, food, technology.[29] Mikolowski's repurposing of representational technique aligns with Marsha Miro's observation about Cass Corridor artists generally: "The Detroit artists did it in a totally new way because they came out of abstraction...they didn't come out of it like Picasso, through Impressionism."[30]

Mikolowski worked in oils on linen, watercolor, pen and ink, pastel, pencil sketches, and printmaking (silkscreen, lithography, linocut, wood engraving, drypoint, intaglio and relief printing). For text illustration and printmaking, Mikolowski's techniques included intensive repetitive use of stipple and line, with attention to the impact of layers of impression and paper texture.[31] Art critic Natalie Haddad, on the portraits: "Mikolowski’s process was rigorous. To achieve an almost photorealist accuracy on the tiny canvases, she worked with modified brushes, pared down sometimes to a few bristles."[32]

Later life

In 1974, the Mikolowskis relocated to Grindstone City Michigan, which was in walking distance to Lake Huron. Ken: "We came specifically because of the building."[33] They made an 1884 grindstone-wall structure (built by town founder Captain Aaron Peer) into a home with a 28' x 50' studio for painting and printing. Ann painted, illustrated, printed, tended an extensive garden which fed the family, and taught as a high-school artist in residence.[34] The waterscapes developed from "small watercolors and drawings" of Lake Huron: "we moved there in '74 and it took me until about '85 before I started painting big paintings of the lake."[35] The miniature portraits were also begun around 1974: "just before we left Detroit...I started doing portraits of people I really cared about. I wanted them to be intimate because I could carry them with me in my pocket, supposedly, that was the idea. I did them for my own pleasure, really."[35]

Ann began showing work at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1980. In 1983, Mikolowski's miniature portraits were exhibited at solo shows, a collaboration with Detroit's Feigenson Gallery and New York City's Gotham Book Mart. Her waterscapes were exhibited as part of a solo show by the Feigenson Gallery in 1986, the same year her work was included in an Allan Stone Gallery group show in New York. In 1988, "Portraits of Poets" was shown at San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts experimental gallery space. Also, Ann and Ken moved to Ann Arbor. Ken had accepted a full-time poetry lecturer position at the University of Michigan's Residential College.[36] Ann needed nine-months' treatment for just-diagnosed breast cancer (surgery and chemotherapy), which was by all indications successful.[37] The Ann Arbor home and studio were on Henry Street (Lower Burns Park). Through the 1990s, Ann's work was being shown almost yearly (solo and group exhibitions).

In 1997, complications from breast cancer reemerged. Ann Mikolowski continued painting and illustrating until her death,[38][39] choosing anthroposophic treatment over other medical options to maintain quality of life: "Love and compassion...those issues are what begin to be really clear and to stick...that that's the most important thing about life — a lot of other things can fall away — and art is important too."[1]

Selected institutional collections

• Detroit Institute of Arts
• State of Michigan
• University of Michigan Library
• University of Michigan Museum of Art
• Wayne State University
• Wayne State University Library

Selected exhibitions

• "Free Poems and Functional Art: 50 Years of the Alternative Press." University of Michigan Library (Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.), February 25–June 2, 2019.
• "Cass Corridor, Connecting Times: Brenda Goodman, Kathryn Brackett Luchs, Ann Mikolowski, Nancy Mitchnick, Ellen Phelan, and Nancy Pletos." Simone DeSousa Gallery (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 2018.
• "Another Look at Detroit (Part I and II)]" Boesky Galleries and the Marlborough (New York, New York U.S.), 2014.
• "The Alternative Press Multiple Originals Project." The Poetry Foundation (Chicago Illinois, U.S.), Wednesday, September 21—Friday, November 4, 2011.
• "Two Ways of Looking in a Mirror." Center Galleries, College for Creative Studies (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 2007.
• "A Sustaining Passion." The Tsagaris/Hilberry Collection, University of Arizona Museum of Art (Tucson Arizona, U.S.), 2000.
• "Your Artwork Here: 30 Years of The Alternative Press." University of Michigan Library (Ann Arbor Michigan, U.S.), 1999.
• "Original Scale." Curated by John Yau. Apex Art, CP (New York New York, U.S.), January 8–February 7, 1998.
• "Interventions." The Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit Michigan, U.S.) 1996.
• "Art Poetry Melodrama: 20 Years of The Alternative Press." The Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), March 4–May 6, 1990.
• "Portraits of Poets." Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco California, U.S.), 1988.
• "New Talent." Allan Stone Gallery (New York, New York, U.S.), 1986.
• "Land, Sky, and Lakescapes." Feigenson Gallery (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 1986.
• "Immortalization." Detroit Historical Museum (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 1986.
• "Art and the Automobile." Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 1984.
• "Portraits." Gotham Book Mart Gallery (New York, New York, U.S.) and Feigenson Gallery (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 1983.
• "Michigan 80/81. "The Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit Michigan, U.S.) and Saginaw Museum (Saginaw Michigan, U.S.), 1980, 1982.
• The Alternative Press 10-Year Retrospective. College for Creative Studies (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), 1979.
• "The Image Realized." The Willis Gallery (Detroit Michigan, U.S.), c. 1973–74.

Selected accomplishments

• Michigan Absolut Vodka artist, "Absolut Statehood" series, painting commission, 1992.
• Michigan Council for the Arts Individual Artist Grant, 1990, 1983.
• Michigan Arts Award, Arts Foundation of Michigan, 1982.
• Alumni Arts Achievement Award/Wayne State University Michigan Arts Award, Arts Foundation of Michigan, 1982.
• Silver Medal, Scarab Club, 1977.
• National Endowment for the Arts Small Press Grant, 1975.
• Artist-in-residence: Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (Naropa Institute, 1995), Big Sky Project (Port Austin MI, 1987).
• Michigan artist-in-the-schools programs: Whitmore Lake Schools 1993–94, Michigan Council for the Arts (Howe School 1992–93, Phoenix High School 1992, Pinckney Schools 1990, North Huron School 1985–88).

External links

• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. "Announcement, Artists Choose Artists: Daniela Richter, Ruth Green, Lynne Avadenka, Ann Mikolowski Exhibition, Detroit Focus Gallery, Detroit, Michigan, 1988". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
• University of Michigan Museum of Art. "Ann Mikolowski, Super '76". Retrieved February 17, 2020.
• Stephen Goodfellow. "Interventions". Retrieved 22 February 2020.

References

1. Tysh, George. "Seeing clear to forever". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
2. "Uprising of 1967". Detroit Historical Society. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
3. Miro, Marsha (June 4, 1995). "45 artists connect with DIA treasures via 'Interventions'". 'The van Eyck has always been a favorite of mine,' says Mikolowski. 'I loved it when I was a kid because he worked in that small detail.'
4. Mikolowski, Ann. "Diary" (1980s). The Alternative Press Records, Fonds: personal papers, Ann Mikolowski. Ann Arbor, MI: Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan.
5. Warn, Emily (20 April 2011). "D.I.Y. Detroit: How The Alternative Press Shaped the art of a city left for dead". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved January 28, 2020. During the 1970s, Ken and Ann’s home became a community center both for Detroit poets and for poets visiting to give readings at Wayne State or the Detroit Institute of Arts.
6. "The Alternative Press Collection". Wayne State University Library Systems. 2020. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
7. Jackman, Michael (November 15–21, 2006). "Lasting Impressions: After 27 years and a long hiatus, the Alternative Press' last issue comes out". Detroit Metro Times. Part of the burgeoning art scene of the '60s and '70s, the Mikolowskis exchanged mailpieces with influential mail art figure Ray Johnson, and they used the Alternative Press to publish unusual works from notable writers, from Charles Bukowski to Allen Ginsberg to Jim Gustafson, using hand-set type to create handprinted broadsides, bookmarks, stickers and postcards.
8. Murray, Timothy (1995). Stevens, Norman (ed.). "Metered Mail: A Survey of Contemporary Poetry Postcard Publishing". Postcards in the Library: Invaluable Visual Resources. The Haworth Press: 159–171. Retrieved 17 November 2019. The two poetry postcard series produced by The Alternative Press are probably the most successful and innovative of those produced by any press.
9. Warn, Emily (September 14, 1990). "Who Did This? The Alternative Press Multiple Originals Project screws up the bibliographers". Poetry Foundation. Chicago, IL. Retrieved February 3, 2020. Soon several dozen poets affiliated with many different schools—the Beats, Black Mountain, the New York School, and Cass Corridor poets—began sending packets of postcards back and forth across the country, sometimes in collaboration with visual artists.
10. Collins Lee, Cathleen (November 19, 1990). "Hand-set letterpress: key to creativity". Detroit Observer & Eccentric.
11. Miro, Marsha (March 2, 1990). "Couple pursues quirky celebration of art". The Detroit Free Press.
12. Miro, Marsha (October 4, 1979). "They're putting the obsolete to work". Detroit Free Press. Ann was majoring in printing and dreaming of their own press. In 1969, they found one, dumped by a local printer who had acquired the modern, offset push-button type.
13. Mikolowski, Ken (2009). Gonzalez, Lisa Baylis; Schemske, Sandra (eds.). "Time and Place: of Detroit's Cass Corridor from the Wayne State University Collection. Exhibition Catalogue, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, April 24–June 26, 2009" (PDF). Detroit, MI: College of Fine, Performing, and Communication Arts. Wayne State University. Retrieved January 28, 2020. In 1969, Ann and I moved a big old letterpress from the Artist Workshop into the basement of our home. We'd never printed before in our lives...
14. Warn, Emily (20 April 2011). "D.I.Y. Detroit: How The Alternative Press Shaped the art of a city left for dead". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved January 28, 2020. In 1969, Ken and Ann dragged a discarded letterpress from the Artists’ Workshop into the basement of their home and began The Alternative Press (TAP).
15. Rzepka, Marianne (November 13, 2006). "Alternative Press signs off". The Ann Arbor News. 'A great deal of care went into the texture of the paper, the color and the typography.'
16. Kornblum, Allan (February 9, 1979). "line art for little mysteries book". The Alternative Press Records. Letter to Ann Mikolowski. The University of Michigan Library. Ann, your little package for the little mysteries [sic] was one of the most exciting envelopes I’ve ever opened. We’re both totally thrilled with the results. Absolute dynamite, and a dream to print. How great to work with an artist who totally knows the problems of letterpress printing.
17. "Book Arts Studio". The University of Michigan Library. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
18. "The Harry Smith Print Shop". Naropa University. Naropa University. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
19. "Search results for Ann Mikolowski". Worldcat. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
20. "A Willis Foursome". The Detroit Free Press. Detroit, MI. 17 February 1974. Miniature paintings by Ann Mikolowski (of Detroit's Alternative Press) will be exhibited at the Willis Gallery, 422 Willis off Cass, Thursday through March 10. Ann's work, primarily her drawings of animals and forest, have appeared in Detroit Magazine often in the past three years.
21. "For Art's Sake". The Detroit News. Detroit, MI. March 1985. The artists who created works for the March 24 special issue of MICHIGAN, The News' Sunday magazine...are Ann Mikolowski...
22. Hakanson Colby, Joyce (March 3, 1974). ""Willis Show is a change of pace"". The Detroit News.
23. "A Willis Foursome". Detroit Free Press. February 17, 1974. She's also been working on a 7 x 8 foot canvas of a cow to be included in the show.
24. Yau, John. "To Have and to Hold: Ann Mikolowski's pocket portraits show two ways of looking in a mirror". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
25. "Ann Mikolowski". Mutual Art. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
26. Cotter, Holland (July 24, 2014). "Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 and 2". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
27. Yau, John (May 1983). "Ann Mikolowski at the Gotham Book Mart". Art in America.
28. "Artists reach below surface for fresh views of Detroit". Detroit Free Press. March 20, 1986.
29. Cotter, Holland (24 June 2014). "Art in Review: 'Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 and 2'". The New York Times. New York, NY. Retrieved January 30, 2020. The show’s concentration of Cass artists is one of its great strengths. Jim Chatelain, Brenda Goodman, Michael C. Luchs, Gordon Newton and Robert Sestok are some of the associated names. But just as you’re ready to slot them stylistically — Expressionist painting, industrial assemblage — along comes a group member like John Egner, with cool linear abstraction, or Ann Mikolowski, with a crisp, super-realist drawing of a handgun.
30. Miro, Marsha. "Oral history interview, April 21, 2010". Wayne State University Library. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
31. Byrne, Chris (2002). The Original Print: Understanding Technique in Contemporary Fine Printmaking. Madison, WI: Guild Publishing. pp. 110, 112.
32. Haddad, Natalie. "Two Ways of Looking in a Mirror". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
33. Gilchrist, Tom (June 12, 1988). "Artistic couple closes up shop in Thumb town". The Bay City News.
34. Miro, Marsha (March 10, 1991). "School programs provide students extra edge in arts". Detroit Free Press.
35. Fiorentino, Lynn (1992). "Profiles: Ann Mikolowski, Painter". Art Light. p. 7.
36. "Ken Mikolowski". LSA Residential College. University of Michigan. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
37. Lee, Cathleen Collins (October 1991). "Ken and Ann Mikolowski: From passing out poems on street corners to starting the Alternative Press, they've followed their muses for thirty years". Ann Arbor Observer.
38. Chong, Pyen W. (9 August 1999). "Noted artist Ann Mikolowski dies at age 59". The Ann Arbor News. Ann Arbor, MI. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
39. Colby, Joyce Hakanson (9 August 1999). "Ann Mikolowski, dominated art scene with vision, humor". The Detroit News. Detroit, MI.