By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

SAUGATUCK, Mich. — Art and peaches normally have little relationship, but at the Peachbelt Studio and Gallery they blend in perfect unity thanks to the efforts of artist Dawn Stafford, who flavors the mix with local history – and reminds art patrons that she eats a peach every day.

Her studio, on the corner of M-89 and 63rd Street, also serves as her gallery and is housed in the oldest and best-preserved one-room schoolhouse in Allegan County. It was named Peachbelt because M-89 connected Michigan’s peach orchards with two principal points of export: the ship docks in Douglas and the train terminus in Fennville.

A century ago, the school was the center of a tiny settlement that included two general stores, a post office, cider mill, blacksmith shop and knitting factory.  Peachbelt peaches were regarded as Michigan’s “gold nuggets” in Chicago food markets.

Although local peaches are still highly rated, the township’s name has changed from Peachbelt to Ganges, the other buildings have been demolished and the area is now referred to as the Fruit Belt. But the Peachbelt School still stands, in better condition than when it was constructed in 1867 or when it gave way to consolidation in 1968.

Stripped of its slate blackboards but with its hardwood floors still showing scars from where desks were bolted down, it has gained a modern look thanks to finished walls and soaring ceilings that highlight Stafford’s paintings and the sculptures of Jill Lareaux.
And it suits Dawn Stafford perfectly.

 “Painting is how I appreciate my world,” she said. “It is the fulfillment of a promise I made when I was seven years old, following the death of my mother. I wrote it on a piece of paper and left it high in a tree where I knew she would find it. I promised her that whatever I decided to do in life, I would not misuse my days here on Earth. I would discover the gifts within myself and honor them with joy.

“She has been gone 32 years. My paintings are the gift of her absence in my life.”

She’s been fulfilling that promise ever since. A native of Schenectady, N.Y., she earned a BFA from the Swain School of Design in Massachusetts before taking more art classes in North Carolina and at the Ox-Bow School of Art, located in Saugatuck.
That was 14 years ago, and she now considers Saugatuck home, and the commute to her studio, which she purchased in 2004, as a dream-come-true.

 “Sometimes I have to laugh at the fact that I drive to the country to go to work,” she said.

By the time she purchased the school (which stopped admitting students in 1968), the little building that never had more than 20 or 30 students had housed a church for migrant workers and an antique shop. In 1977, a couple from nearby Holland turned the building into a getaway retreat, adding a kitchen and bathroom in what formerly had been cloakrooms, topping the new areas with a sturdy sleeping loft.

They found a door in Chicago that looked like the original, restored and repaired the windows and bell tower. (The bell still works – whenever a patron buys a painting, he or she is given permission to tug the rope and let the bell sound loud and clear.)

The man’s wife has since died, but every time he visits her studio, Stafford thanks him for the work the couple did. She recently refurbished the interior and removed the roof, rebuilding it with a hand-nailed cedar shingle roof based on preservation standards. The building is now listed on the Michigan Register of Historic Sites.
“I don’t involve my husband in my projects,” she said. “I hire my own contractors and take care of the yard myself.”

She also carefully preserves as much area history as possible in the school’s vestibule, including stories about its most famous graduate, Clifford E. Paine, who grew up to be the designer and engineer of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Her gallery – open every weekend from April-October, Friday through Sunday, from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. or by chance and circumstance – becomes her studio in the winter. There, surrounded by farms, fields and orchards, she paints on linen, canvas, paper or wood and frames all her own work.

“My art is about connecting with people in a world that is separating more and more all the time. I hope my studio helps to bridge that gap,” she explained.

Does working alone in the country bother her? “Not at all. It doesn’t matter how much it snows or how hard the wind blows, I feel safe and secure in Peachbelt Studio,” Stafford said. “I feel like the little pig who built his house of brick.”

She can be contacted by e-mail at dsartist@wmol.com or at 269-561-5561.