The late Shirley Jean (Pierce) Ritzler’s “Kaleidoscopes” collection of intricate cut paper designs is on display at Besser Museum for the first time since 1982.

The exhibit features new framed prints of her original black and white cut paper designs. Each print is coupled with the house or building in Alpena that inspired the design below it, complete with a description of the inspirational architectural elements.

From Alpena City Hall to what locals refer to as “The Castle House” on State Avenue, many familiar structures are included in the collection.

The negatives were provided by Ritzler’s family, from which prints were made by Allegra, museum director Christine Witulski explained.

A sample from the collection of Charles Clewell bronze-coated pottery, first exhibited in 1981.

“Isn’t it just beautiful?” she asked rhetorically. “She was ranked one of the top three paper cutters in the United States at one time.”

Two other collections are also on exhibit that were first exhibited in the 1980s: Dale Chihuly’s “Seaforms” and Charles Walter Clewell’s metal-coated pottery from the early 20th century. The museum’s collection of Chihuly’s glass work was purchased and exhibited for the first time in 1984. The Clewell pottery was first exhibited in 1981.

Witulski said the acquisition and preservation of these collections has been a collaboration of many groups of people, including the Founders Society and donors. She credited the Founders Society, along with the Besser Foundation, in helping purchase the Chihuly glass in 1983. She said the Founders Society worked to acquire the original work of Shirley Ritzler. She noted that Bob Haltiner was instrumental, as well as the Founders Society, in helping to purchase pottery in the Clewell collection, which was acquired over several years.

“Being able to preserve these timeless treasures to share with future generations, that’s really at the heart of our mission,” Witulski noted.

She said these collections being on display simultaneously with the “Winter Blues” non-juried art exhibit and Noel Skiba’s “Eclectic Retrospective,” fully emcompass the museum’s goals.

One of the prints from Shirley Ritzler's “Kaleidoscopes” collection, on display at Besser Museum for the first time since 1982. The prints are framed with photos of the houses and buildings that inspired the unique designs.

“At this time, the Besser Museum is also really showing the strength of its three disciplines — art, history and science,” Witulski said. “We have five art exhibits going on.”

From historic collections to novice artists to the work of seasoned professionals, the museum is fully stocked with eye-catching beauty.

Shirly Ritzler

Ritzler was born on May 4, 1934, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England, on the English Channel.

An only child, she never had any formal training in art and was completely self-taught. While working as a chamber maid at the Cumberland Hotel in London, she met her husband, Richard Ritzler, who was stationed in England with the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. She and her husband came to Alpena in 1954.

Also on display is the museum’s collection of Dale Chihuly’s glass work, which was purchased and exhibited for the first time in 1984.

Trying to develop her craft in the U.S., she experimented with a variety of media, including water colors, pastels, and pencil, and worked on small crafts, such as silhouettes and cut-paper designs, tatted note cards, and Christmas ornaments.

She eventually found her niche in cut-paper designs and, in 1978, began work on the “Kaleidoscopes” series. She converted the enclosed front porch of her home on Mirre Street to a studio and gift shop where she worked on her delicate designs, mostly undisturbed by her five children. Her kids used to joke that she had no patience with them, but had the patience to spend hours cutting intricate pieces of paper into beautiful pieces of art.

In 2006, and in celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday, Ritzler’s family gifted to her Majesty, the Queen of England, a copy of Shirley’s cut-paper designs book, “Kaleidoscopes.” The gift was accepted and graciously acknowledged by the queen and is now a part of the royal collection.

At one point in her art career, Ritzler held the distinction of being rated as one of the top three paper-cutters in the U.S. Today, the craft has expanded in the U.S., with some very noteworthy cut-paper artists including Maude White of New York, and Emily Wilson of Ohio.

Ritzler died Aug. 4, 2003, in Alpena, from complications of diabetes.

Her art legacy lives on. Most recently, the Ritzler family donated Shirley’s cut-paper design tools to Wilson. And, Ritzler’s son, Renni Ritzler, who has inherited his late mother’s artistic gifts, now uses her magnifying glasses to assist with the details of his fine art.

Dale Chihuly

“A lot of people recognize Chihuly as being very colorful,” Witulski explained of his famous glassworks. “He’s got, out in the Bellagio in Las Vegas, big colorful glass, just great big pieces.”

Kucharek described Chihuly’s more recent work as “extremely colorful, form-defying … he does a lot of floating pieces.”

The “Seaforms” collection at the museum is more muted, with sea-inspired tones and flowing shapes reminiscent of the ocean waves. His earlier work was more transparent, with some specks of color, and he progressed into brighter and bigger pieces over the years, Kucharek said.

“In 1977, Chihuly broke with glassblowing tradition to dedicate himself to pursuing organic and asymmetrical forms, beginning with his ‘Baskets’ series,” a bio provided by the museum explains. “Using gravity and centrifugal force, their slumping and rippling walls portray graceful imperfection. He often groups them in sets, with several small pieces nested within larger, wide-mouthed forms.

“Building on the success of the ‘Baskets’ series, Chihuly began creating thin and transparent ‘Seaforms’ in 1980. This collection of 12 pieces was completed in 1983. Subtle uses of color and spiraling lines showcase a natural rhythm and fluidity created as tribute to the sea.”

“I love to go to the ocean and walk along the beach,” Chihuly stated in the bio. “If you work with hot glass and its natural properties, it begins to look like something that came from the sea.”

Charles Clewell

The Besser Museum’s collection of Clewell’s pottery is extensive, featuring about 90 pieces. From his earliest work on, he was perfecting his secretive process to create a colorful blue-green patina.

“Some of his earlier works were early 1900s, just to kind of get the forms down,” said Besser Museum Education Coordinator Amanda Kucharek. “So he started on just mostly the bronze pieces, but the colorful ones, those really start in the ’20s. And so you can kind of see a progression through that.”

Clewell was a metalworker turned artisan.

“He started out in machine shops, and he was really fascinated with bronze, and the patina you got off of bronze,” Kucharek said. “He saw a chemical erosion of bronze when you left a cleaning product on it.”

That inspired him to learn to replicate the process to create a signature blue-green coating or patina.

“And it’s a mystery how he was able to get the patina how he did,” Witulski added.

“The color is just amazing,” Kucharek said.

His elusive process remains a mystery today.

“So he did all of this scientific research in order to do this, but then he never taught anybody else how to do it,” Kucharek explained. “He had one daughter, she didn’t continue this work either, and so the secret of how he did this kind of died with him, which is fascinating.”

The truth behind his work continues to stump researchers and historians.

“He wasn’t a potter, but he used pottery blanks, and then was coating them with metal, and so a lot of people believe it was more of an electroplating process, but nobody really knows exactly how he did that either.”

Clewell had spotted a chemical patina on the bottom of a copper heating tank, which inspired his extensive research and experimentation. Upon viewing a small bronze wine jug circa 200 B.C., he stated the following:

“It was blue, a wonderful blue, varying from the very light tones through turquoise to almost black, with flecks of green and rust-like brown and spots of bare, darkened metal. A most beautiful object; I can easily believe it to be the world’s finest example of the blue bronze.”

Current displays at Besser Museum

¯ Shirley Jean Ritzler’s “Kaleidoscopes”

¯ Dale Chihuly’s “Seaforms”

¯ Charles Clewell’s metal-coated pottery

¯ Winter Blues non-juried art exhibit

¯ Noel Skiba’s “Eclectic Retrospective”

Call the museum at 989-356-2202. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. It is located at 491 Johnson St., Alpena. Visit bessermuseum.org.

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