Algoma artist designs fairy treehouse, loves painting china A FAIRY TREEHOUSE enhances the front yard of Algoma's Gail Elsholz, providing a suitable domain for Frieda, an elderly tree fairy (staff photo by Lee Lawrenz). By Lee Lawrenz For The News-Chronicle Frieda is an elderly tree fairy who "has been around the block." A summer gardener, she carries little gardening tools and has a frog in her pocket. Frieda and her fairy treehouse world are the creation of Gail Elsholz, Algoma. At the foot of a tree in her front yard, Elsholz made a miniature front door out of a mink board - once used to stretch out mink pelts - and a roof, using dollhouse roof shingles. In front is a lush garden, designed out of little plants and mosses enclosed with a little picket fence. Besides making annual changes in the fairy treehouse and keeping Frieda happy - providing her with a table and tea set among other things - Elsholz enjoys doing a variety of other artistic projects. Elsholz enjoys painting on china plates, building grapevine chairs, and making little pots, which she also paints. Other recent projects include drawing a wall mural in a classroom at St. Mary School - using a rain forest motiff - and making decorations for local events, such as the Mardi Gras at the Farm Market Kitchen. Despite her talent, Elsholz claims she is not an artist, but is "just handy and likes to do things. When people say artist, I don't know what that is. I'm just up for stuff. "There are so many wonderful artists in the area," adds the self-effacing Elsholz, who said she loves learning from them. She's employed at The Flying Pig Gallery and Greenspace, where she paints signage and does other things. "I'm surrounded by people who are really talented and wonderful." Elsholz also makes the disclaimer of not being an artist because she doesn't sell her work, but gives much of it away. "The idea of selling (art) doesn't drive me and you can't keep everything. I feel when you put your heart into something, you can't put a price on it." So, Gail gives items she's made to her friends, relatives, her doctor - and sometimes just to people who love her work. "It's like a labor of love for me, so I just pawn it off on people, I guess. A lot of times, people will say they like something, and pretty soon they're hauling it off," Gail laughs. While she gives things away, Elsholz keeps photos of her work, which she stores on her computer. "I take pictures. It also shows people what I'm up to." Elsholz said painting a mural at the school was a repayment to her cousin, Dave Meyer, who installed air conditioning in her house. "He said he'd do it for me if I'd paint at the school." Elsholz checked with the principal, who told her the theme. She collected rain forest pictures and painted such things as a three-toed sloth, monkey, orangutan, tree frog, ocelet and chameleon. "The sloth really made me happy," Elsholz said. "I just went sloshing with a paintbrush and all of a sudden I had fur."