Shawna Gilmore's Peaceable Kingdom

I've again had the good fortunate (on St. Patrick's Day, of course) to call broader attention to the Arrowhead region's unique creative culture; this time covering the charming work of Shawna Gilmore.

"Gilmore's works don't lament innocence as a quality lost, but rather as one allowed to atrophy  — still within our grasp if we can resist a need for certainty and prescribed meaning. Her representations prompt such curious questions as: What would a young girl and a bear have to say to each other (Speaking With Bears)? Or, why might masked pixies be circling a bonfire (Firelfies Around the Flame)? What possibilities might arise if we were to cede to ambiguity and become comfortable with less than absolutely knowing? I appreciate the trust she places in a viewer’s own imaginative capabilities. Full article: here

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.

The 60th Annual Arrowhead Regional Biennial

A very long road took me to Duluth, Minnesota. That is why it's especially gratifying to at last (in print at least) begin giving back to my new home, and to be able to call merited attention to the work of people who've become friends, advisors, and allies in realizing positive change. To say that devastating personal losses are an opportunity to build our resilience is kind of a tired cliché for anyone mired in them. But I can now vouch, having come through another side of grief, that there's some truth in this bromide. Art is a tonic for struggle, a way we leave our metaphorical and literal marks, and it is sustenance. Here's to all of us still striving. 

"Having an ever-changeable body of water like Lake Superior in your midst on a daily basis affects people, perhaps in particular those committed to making art. It  creates an awareness of matters that are tenuous, conditional, and frequently shifting.  The artworks chosen for the 60^th Annual Arrowhead Regional Biennial demonstrate this cognizance in subtle, at times funny, sometimes sobering ways.  It is notable, the number of objects that have been torn into, abraded, and otherwise distressed. Their recurrence calls to mind the precarious balances artists negotiate -- between expression and income, prestige and self-regard, utility and uselessness." Full text here

Kip Praslowicz, "Lake Effect," B&W Magazine Issue 103

Though I'd hoped to be be looking back on this frigid trip from a sunny Spring vantage (nope: still Winter now 3 days from April), it's still fun to re-visit. Thanks again to Kip, Will & Wendy, The New Scenic, Rich Narum, Emily Norton, Gaelynn Lea Tressler, Alan Sparhawk, Chris Monroe, Kevin Kling, Fitger's forgiving staff, Big Bill Meier & Ami Stenseth, Roscoe's Pioneer Bar, and that generous nurse at St. Scholastica. 

"Like his art, Kip's hometown oscillates almost effortlessly between the grounded and the buoyant, the lofty and the low; after all- the distance from the manor to the dive is more proximal there, the divisions less stark. Again, I credit that grand horizonless lake- a thing to make one recurrently mindful of their relative significance, a great leveller of hierarchies, and one hell of a view." Full article here

B&W Magazine Issue 99, October 2013

It must be mid-Autumn in California, because the profile of Alex Veledzimovich in the October 2013 issue of B&W Magazine is on newsstands now. It was a privilege to bring this highly original, photographer from Belarus to the attention of a wider audience. If what Alex considers "world dharma" has any suasion, his path should only become more brightly illuminated. 

 "...the theatrical elements of his work have moved from the margins to become more strongly foregrounded. Props are given 

greater prominence— a paper moon, a cardboard rocking horse, a doll, or wings made of cardstock— while his images’ themes are less escapist counterpoints like coupling, occupations or parenthood. Despite the more burdened postures of figures in these recent works, the grace notes they hold do not look to me like flags of surrender, and seem more like emblems of protest— asserting that no matter how we arrive at our individual entropy, we will carry a vestige of something not as jaded, something more uncritically hopeful, and engaged." Full text here.

Alex Veledzimovich, coming to B&W, October 2013

Covering Alex Veledzimovich for an upcoming issue of B&W Magazine presented one of those rare opportunities to merely bring a deserving artist the attention of a wider public:

"...There is a directorial mind at work here, one of an auteur who creates what could only superficially be taken for incidental while making highly deliberated artistic statements. Through their staged qualities, Alex’s works accomplish something beyond mere documentation. Werner Herzog once flogged Cinema Verité for confounding fact and truth, stating that “fact creates norms, and truth- illumination.” While ostensibly documenting mere facts, Alex’s most successful works reach that something more- illumination."