A permanent art gallery everyone can enjoy has always been on Dogwood FIne Arts Festival’s wish list and acquiring an office in Huntington Bank gave it walls to bloom that vision into reality.

Dogwood’s first piece toward a permanent collection came in 2004 as a gift from featured photographer Algimantas Kezys.

He left behind an image of a spiral staircase as his exhibit was taken down in the gallery at Southwestern Michigan College because he liked the community and admired its passion.

He spread his arms and offered, “Pick a piece.”

“We all looked at him with wide eyes and our jaws dropped,” Dogwood secretary Bobbie Jo Hartline remembers. “Are you serious?”

Two other recent acquisitions came in, one on the heels of the other, and the latter with a mysterious past.
A dogwood watercolor by Jim Mailloux of Lafayette, Ind., was a Christmas gift to Louise McNelly in 2006.

She and her husband, George, of Maple Island, Magician Lake, donated it to Dogwood to exhibit or to raffle.

“They really liked it, but didn’t have room for it in their home any longer,” Hartline said Tuesday.

The next arrival, depicting a forest, a pasture and a water hole bordered by boulders where distant livestock — cattle? — seem to be lumbering toward for a drink, is of murkier origins.

Hartline said the small rectangular scene is a watercolor painted by former Dowagiac resident C.A. Gustine, father of former teacher Bernice Gustine.

It was a gift from Maude Crawford of Dowagiac to Pat O’Connor of Milan around 1981.

Mrs. Crawford was either the sister or aunt of Burl Lanphere, who lived at 915 S. Park, Kalamazoo, in the 1970s until his death.

After circulating memos internally to its volunteer network, consulting Daily News columnist “Cardinal Charlie” Gill and putting it out for Michael Collins’ book signing, Dogwood will exhibit the watercolor during the upcoming festival in hope of learning more.

Huntington’s Trish Brazo searched www.archives.com and further learned there was a Clare Gustine born April 23, 1891, who died at 84 in January 1976 whose last known address was Hartford.

Bernice was born Nov. 7, 1914, and died Feb. 28, 1997.