Karen Savage Blue, The Past is Prologue

Part of what I'd consider my "job" in Duluth is to call attention to the uniquely talented individuals of the region. Karen Savage Blue is a soft-spoken, articulate artist deserving even greater prominence. I've linked below to the full article on MNartists.org below; here's a small excerpt:

"Savage Blue's images are often small — not diminutively so, but they don't require scale to overwhelm a viewer their virtuosity. She depicts the things right at our feet, just out the window, and farther afield. Surfaces are at times glassy and serene, rough-hewn and hatched-into at others. Her palettes range from dusky tones punctuated with high-key flecks to the luminous, and nearly fauve. Her subjects vary from the minutely observed, as in Dakota Fruit, to expansive views of Lake Superior.  Even her name underscores this range, conveying the heavily-freighted admiration/derogation in tropes of noble savagery tempered by “Blue,” together suggestive of balancing alternations between the wild and the somber." Full text here

Duluth, So Far.

Image credit: Aaron Reichow Photography

This blog has lain fallow for far too long, but I've been anything but dormant. This past August I was awarded a grant to produce my first book of photographs, captioned by 21 highly-gifted poets, songwriters, and authors from the Northland. We're near to going to print, and I hope to have sample pages to share soon. I've also just finished a year's worth of a weekly photo feature called "Selective Focus" for the website Perfect Duluth Day. I'm proud how we've shifted the visual discourse from pretty pictures of the region's abundant natural assets, to foregrounding the people that live, work, and play here. It's often stressful, but I'm used to "herding cats" from my collective's past exhibitions. I've also been sowing the seeds for alternative shows that return agency to viewers, and employ art to build community, and was honored that the Duluth Art Institute allowed me to blather on about these beliefs in their current news magazine (DAI FAll News Magazine). I'm also happy to announce that two of my works were recently acquired by the Tweed Museum of Art. While validating on a professional level, it is even more gratifying personally to have found a place for my work here in my new home. Bracing now for an interesting Winter.