Peter Jodocy

Peter Jodocy (1884–1971), a German-born Belgian, traveled the world looking for the ideal place to call home and eventually chose the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Jodocy and his wife homesteaded a farm in an area that today remains largely wilderness. He expressed his often-humorous reflections on American culture in his small but expertly crafted yard environment.

Jodocy made his sculptures by sheathing a wood frame in a plaster mixture, then painting and adorning them with local artifacts. Here, a traditionally clad hunter—wearing a 1957 Michigan license plate on his back in lieu of a hunting tag—takes aim at a deer crowned with a real antler rack. The Arts Center staff continues the search for the scene’s third character, a game warden. After Jodocy’s death, his sculptures remained in place on the property for a time. Eventually, they were auctioned off and acquired by the Dean Jensen Gallery in Milwaukee.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website