Local artists donate work to Mark Shafer Memorial Event

FAIRFIELD — A large number of local artists are donating their artwork to the Mark Shafer Memorial Event planned for Nov. 10 at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

During his career as an art teacher and as the curator of the Carnegie Historical Museum, Shafer rubbed shoulders with many people, including those who shared his passion for art. Among those who are donating pieces to the fundraiser are Steve Mitchell, Kathy Tollenaere and John Preston.

Steve Mitchell

Steve Mitchell is a metalsmith who has discovered a unique talent for turning dinosaur fossils into jewelry. He’s donating a pendant he made from a petrified dinosaur bone unearthed in Morocco. The bone is from an Atlasaurus, an enormous 50,000-pound creature that was almost 50 feet long from head to toe that lived during the Jurassic Period some 160 million years ago.

Mitchell said he enjoys collecting dinosaur bones, and that he’s working on converting a dinosaur eggshell into a piece of jewelry at the moment.

Mitchell said he grew up just 2 miles from Shafer north of Fairfield, so he played with Shafer and his brothers often during their youth.

“We dammed up the ruts in the driveway to form lakes, that kind of kid stuff,” Mitchell recalled.

Mitchell said he and Shafer both went to the University of Iowa at the same time, but he didn’t even realize that until later, since Mitchell studied business and Shafer studied art.

When Mitchell’s parents passed away within a few months of each other in 2016, he reconnected with Shafer at one of the funerals. Shafer was impressed with the dinosaur jewelry Mitchell had gotten into.

Kathy Tollenaere

Kathy Tollenaere said she got to know Shafer through the First United Methodist Church in Fairfield, and later through the Fairfield Art Association. Tollenaere also joined the museum board, and just a few years ago painted the backdrop in the exhibit about waterfowl.

“I’m kind of a goofball when it comes to birds,” she said. “I like to watch them, feed them, and learn about them. There are people on Facebook, Iowa bird lovers, who let me use their pictures to draw from.”

Tollenaere is donating a drawing of an American bald eagle that she did in colored pencil.

“It’s hard to have a favorite bird, but I do have a few favorites,” she said. “This one, I just love the pose in the photograph, so that’s why I chose that one.”

Tollenaere said one reason she connected with Shafer is that he was a man of strong faith, and this inspired many of his paintings.

“His faith in God was so strong,” she said. “We had some really nice conversations about our faith in God.”

John Preston

Any Fairfield resident who looks at the painting John Preston is donating will recognize it instantly. It’s a view looking west down Fairfield’s East Broadway Avenue just outside the former Iowa State Bank building.

“I just always liked that building,” Preston said. “When I moved here, I thought it was cool Art Deco-style building. And this also has the building with the turret on it. I picked this one to donate to the auction because Mark did a painting of the Fairfield square where he turned all the turrets into corncobs. I always liked that painting, and this is the closest thing I have to that.”

Preston said he came to know the Shafer family through Mark’s brother Herb, who was the pastor at Birmingham United Methodist Church. Preston also knew Mark through the Fairfield Art Association, and he did a large painted depicting a mesa in Arizona that serves as the backdrop to a museum exhibit on Southwestern pottery.

“When I moved to town, the two famous artists in town were Mark Shafer and Wendell Moore,” Preston said. “I always looked up to them.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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