April 14, 1999

All species of costumes made at workshop

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       Take cardboard, feathers, glue, paint, a lot of imagination and you have unlimited possibility for a costume.
      For participants in a costume workshop Saturday afternoon at the Pathfinder School, these simple items were transformed into turtles, herons, owls, a farmhouse and tools. Sponsored by the Shielding Tree Nature Center, the workshop this year drew a small but loyal crowd of costume makers preparing for Sunday's All-Species Parade downtown, an annual fixture of Earth Day celebrations.
      "My sons are both going to be owls this year," said Robin Bahle of Suttons Bay, who came to the workshop with her sons Peter, 8, and Paul, 6. "Last year they were white pines."
      Bahle was busy at the workshop tracing wings out of cardboard, which she planned to paint and glue feathers onto for her two sons. She cannibalized a feather duster for feathers and was debating how to attach the wings so they would stay on her active boys. One costume idea, however, might have to wait for another year, despite previous tree experience.
      "Mom and Dad can be a tree for us to stand on," said Paul.
      This was the third year the Shielding Tree Nature Center sponsored a costume building workshop, which in the past has drawn large crowds. The center encourages its members who march to dress as local wildlife to imagine how animals live and how they share living space with people.
      "The costumes help people get into the spirit of the event," said Mary Jamison Rupert, executive director of the Shielding Tree Nature Center. "When they are in a costume people tend to be more festive, wild. Older kids and even adults who wear a mask lose their inhibitions."
      The center just acquired a home at the Lawr Farm in the Historic Port Oneida District on March 19 when the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore agreed to let them restore and use the farm. To celebrate this milestone, Rupert and the volunteers were also making cardboard models of the farmhouse, outbuildings on the property and hand tools. Some of the 20 or so families who march with the center will come dressed in overalls to carry the farmhouse and pretend to work on it with the hand tools.
      "Kids can portray the restoration of our new-old home," said Rupert.
      Jill Ostrowski, an 8th grader at Suttons Bay Middle School, took an hour out of her busy Saturday afternoon to help sketch animals for others to carry in the parade. A member with her family of the Shielding Tree Nature Center for seven years, Ostrowski has attended programs and camps year-round. She volunteered her time at the workshop hoping to help others gain a respect for nature and wilderness.
      "I want to show people that we still need to work on bettering our planet and cleaning things up," Ostrowski said. "That's the first priority."
      The Earth Day 1999 All Species Parade is scheduled to start at 1:30 at the F & M Park, corner of State Street and Railroad Avenue. All are welcome to march or watch along the parade route. Marchers should gather at 1 p.m. and they will wind up at a rally on Front Street, where there will be entertainment and information tables from area environmental groups.