art

K Alumna’s Art to Honor K9 Salute Team

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Kaiser Howls for K9 Salute Team
Until late June 2020, K9 Kaiser was one of 22 dogs on the Michigan War Dog Memorial K9 Salute Team. Suanne Martin ’84 will sculpt a statue in Kaiser’s likeness, representing all the Salute Team dogs that have passed including Kaiser. Kaiser is pictured with Julie Fentner, the dog’s handler.

The Michigan War Dog Memorial (MWDM) in South Lyon gives the canines that once served our country, troops, police and firefighters, along with therapy and service dogs, a proper sendoff. The memorial cemetery, first established in 1932 as a pet cemetery, was rediscovered and renamed in 2010 as the MWDM, and it has hosted services to honor the dogs since 2014.

The MWDM K9 Salute Team was at the memorial cemetery nearly every weekend from mid-May through October in 2019, honoring 17 fallen heroes with services that included missing-dog formations, a color guard, bagpipes, bugler, funeral flag, headstone and a personalized hand drawing of the deceased dog at no charge to the dog’s handler.

Until late June 2020, K9 Kaiser—an exceptionally large German shepherd, weighing 160 pounds—was one of 22 dogs on the MWDM K9 Salute Team. In ceremonies honoring dogs at the MWDM, Kaiser performed a howling salute, much like a 21-gun salute, that would resound and recognize the honoree being interred during a service.

Unfortunately, the MWDM K9 Salute Team has lost a few of its dogs, including Kaiser; to memorialize them, the team has hired Suanne Martin ’84 to sculpt a statue of Kaiser’s likeness, representing all the Salute Team dogs that have passed. The statue will accompany a granite wall which will bear the names of the MWDM K9 Salute Team dogs memorialized.

“I am beyond honored to be chosen as the sculptor for this important memorial project,” Martin said.

When Martin first attended K, she aspired to be a painter, until an art professor, the late Marcia Wood ’55, encouraged her to take a sculpting class.

“I was intimidated, to be honest, but she pushed me out of my comfort zone,” Martin said. “Once I got my hands in clay, I never looked back.”

After graduating, Martin desired more training in anatomy to enhance her skills in sculpting life forms. She studied for three years at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit before she earned her master’s degree at the Pratt Institute in New York.

That training led to sculpting characters and figures that were later cast and used for magazine illustrations or put into production in the toy industry. She was also contracted by a studio to be one of the people sculpting portraits of the U.S. Constitution signers for the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Black Dog Studios
Suanne Martin ’84 sculpted her French mastiff, also called a Dogue de Bordeaux. Martin will now sculpt a German shepherd to honor the K9 War Dog Memorial dogs that have passed away.

Later, as she owned dogs, they were natural subjects for new sculptures. First was a lean and muscular boxer; years later there was a French mastiff, which Martin described as a dream breed.

“Being in New York City, this huge, red, wrinkly puppy became a celebrity in his own right,” Martin said. “I made a lot of good friends through him.”

When her mastiff died unexpectedly after five and a half years, sculpting him was part of Martin’s grieving process. When she posted the end result on Facebook, friends and their acquaintances took notice. That garnered Martin attention on social media that allowed her to earn more commissions before connecting with Julie Fentner, who was Kaiser’s handler, and earning the job of sculpting Kaiser.

“It’s exciting,” Martin said. “This is the first outdoor monument sculpture that I’ve taken on all by myself. I’m not only creating the original artwork, but doing the molding and casting. This is not just me doing a piece to please one person. I want to honor all the canine officers, military dogs and service dogs under that whole umbrella. I want this to inspire a lot of people.”

The nonprofit Michigan War Dog Memorial so far has raised about $5,000 toward a $20,000 goal to fund Martin’s project. Those interested in making donations toward the sculpture are invited to do so through Facebook or GoFundMe. If all goes well, Martin hopes to start the project in October and finish it around mid-2021.

“For the last six and a half years, Kaiser has brought joy and happiness doing therapy with veterans, seniors, mentally challenged adults, fire departments, police departments, rehabilitation centers, a few human funerals and many other places, as do many of the other MWDM K9 Salute Team member dogs,” Fentner said. “His ability to bring happiness to others knew no bounds. I am so honored that my boy Kaiser is going to represent the MWDM K9 Salute Team dogs and be memorialized himself.”

Technology Empowers Art in Distance Learning

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Padlet for Mold Made in Distance Learning
Padlet is a colorful online system of boards, documents and web pages, which has been convenient for art classes in distance learning.

In examining how Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff have adjusted to distance learning this spring, it’s easy to see the community’s ingenuity in shifting from in-person instruction.

For example, if it’s true that art imitates life, what is an art professor to do when distance learning forces a college’s classes online? If you’re Sarah Lindley, the Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art, you paint plans that provide students with the personal interaction they expect, sculpt activities they can do at home with common household materials, and craft an environment that stimulates creativity in technology.

World Pottery in Distance Learning
Padlet has been a convenient tool in distance learning for World Pottery, a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives.

Lindley this term is teaching World Pottery, a sophomore seminar ceramics class, and Mold Processes, an intermediate sculpture class for juniors. The first requires student research and reflection in a class that introduces a variety of clay-forming techniques and historical perspectives. The intermediate class uses mixed media casting processes to develop the more advanced body of work expected of art majors.

The sophomore seminar’s technology is Padlet, a colorful and easy-to-populate online system of boards, documents and web pages that looks a lot like many social media platforms, especially Pinterest. The format allows an asynchronous course model where students view instructions through mediums such as video and submit their projects before meeting individually with Lindley.

Art in Distance Learning_fb
Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership Professor of Art Sarah Lindley provided video through Padlet of how to create a pinch pot at home when a special guest made a cameo appearance.

Their first project involved creating pinch pots with paper and egg whites in an activity like papier-mâché. A second assignment asked students to stack objects from around the house, look at their curves and see how they might emulate pottery.

The juniors also utilize virtual classroom technology, including the use of Microsoft Teams, a collaborative platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage and more to allow for regular face-to-face exchanges. Lindley wants her advanced students to build confidence for creating art under any circumstances and learn they can start a project from nothing. Lindley added creating something from nothing can feel like one of the hardest things to do and developing that skill will help her students for the rest of their lives.

“A lot of what we are doing this term is creative problem solving,” Lindley said. “Course planning is creative problem solving. This is just a more extreme version than we are used to. I’m also hearing from a lot of students that they really appreciate a curriculum that acknowledges different learning styles.”

So, given the term in distance learning, how does Lindley measure the success of her teaching methods this term?

“I look for indications of depth of learning in lots of little ways—an unanswered question someone raises in a reflection paper, a connection to contemporary pop culture in a presentation on historical objects from a distant past, or an “aha” exclamation in a one on one virtual chat,” Lindley said.

“My goal would be for everyone to participate in each activity this term,” she added. “The students still have rubrics, but students would have to persistently not respond to assignment prompts and feedback not to pass. So far the quality of work has been pretty good to great.”