Art

Duluth You & Me: Great Lakes Shipwreck

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Great Lakes Shipwreck

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Selective Focus: Carolyn Olson

Carolyn Olson (featured previously in Selective Focus) has been redirecting her work a bit. Still focused on everyday scenes, she has been making drawings in a series she’s calling Essential Workers. These scenes are in grocery stores, public transit, street scenes and in medical facilities. This week, Carolyn talks about honoring these people who keep things going in unprecedented circumstances.

CO: Having recently retired from teaching school this year began differently anyway. I began last summer creating projects – challenges I called them – for myself, such as creating a series of images that tell a story, in hopes of illustrating books. When the “Stay at Home” order came I was accustomed to staying home and working in the studio regularly. Talking with our adult kids in the Cities brought home the realities facing the essential workers.
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Duluth You & Me: Vista Fleet

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Vista Fleet

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

A Few Northern Minnesota Books for Your Pandemic Pleasure

Spring in Duluth is a perfect time for reading. It’s that awkward period between ice fishing and regular fishing when outdoor options are limited because trails are too muddy. Add into the mix the lack of events during the COVID-19 pandemic and it seems like books should have a real moment right now. (more…)

Duluth You & Me: Aerial Lift Bridge

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Aerial Lift Bridge

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth You & Me: Lake Superior Maze

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your maze-solving and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Lake Superior Maze

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth You & Me: Park Point Beach

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Park Point Beach

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth You & Me: Wild Flowers

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Wild Flowers

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth You & Me: Canal Park

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Canal Park

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth You & Me: North Shore Streams

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: North Shore Streams

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Selective Focus: Lend a Paw Virtual Exhibit

UMD’s Senior Design Studio II class has created a virtual gallery to show their work, and is using the opportunity to raise money for the Douglas County Humane Society. The exhibit, online store and Go Fund Me page will be active until May 5. Each piece in the exhibition is inspired by the story of a rescue pet. Visitors can move around the inside and outside of the gallery space to look at the art, read the stories and interact with the objects in the display. The class is led by UMD Department of Art & Design Assistant Professor David Short, and one of the organizers, Jack Schneewind, fills us in on how the exhibit came together, and what the class hoped to achieve with the project. (more…)

Duluth You & Me: A Souvenir Activity/Coloring Book

Right in the middle of a shelter-in-place order, when a Duluth coloring and activity book is most needed, Perfect Duluth Day pulls this 1993 relic out of the basement library. (more…)

This Week in Social Distancing: April 14

Episode four in Perfect Duluth Day’s series featuring people reaching out while keeping their distance.

Selective Focus: St. Louis River Alliance Virtual Art Show

The St. Louis River Alliance is posting photos, poems, illustrations or other art inspired by the St. Louis River and Lake Superior to its Facebook page. The organization will have a virtual art show on its website on April 21.

Artists and writers can submit creations until Wednesday, April 15. Send submissions to stlouisriveralliance@gmail.com. Include the image, along with your name, title of the piece, location of the piece and any further details you want shared.

Links:
Facebook page with more info
St. Louis River Alliance website

Carolyn Olson on Essential Workers

Carolyn Olson on Essential Workers

Duluth artist Carolyn Olson has completed two works in a series on “Essential Workers.” Visit her site at carolynolson.net. (more…)

Richardson Bros. Ghost Story “The Haunted Groom”

“The Haunted Groom” is a supernatural adventure story set largely in the Duluth bar scene. It explores PTSD, addiction, abusive relationships, and the coronavirus lockdown. Full story below.

Part 1: I Married a Ghost. Part 2: Trapdoor to Hell. Part 3: The Demonizer.

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Selective Focus: Kari Halker-Saathoff

Scheduled to open at the Duluth Art Institute, but postponed to a date to be determined later, is the work of Kari Halker-Saathoff. She combines methods such as ceramics and graphite drawings to reinterpret stories from the point of view of lesser-known characters. In the DAI show, she explores Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, her situation in The Odyssey, and connections to modern-day events.

KHS: I am a multidisciplinary artist and educator. My teaching role requires me to be well versed in all of the core artistic mediums so I will often combine drawing with ceramics, drawing with sculpture, metalwork with ceramics and so forth.

I’m very inspired by stories, although reading was always a struggle for me. I have dyslexia that went undiagnosed until I was in college. After being diagnosed, the literary world opened up to me. Stories became my drug and — as an artist — my mind went wild illustrating the stories in my head. I soon discovered that the heroes of narratives were not always the most interesting characters and that I was more interested in “minor” characters — often female ones. Those were the characters who spoke to me and to my struggles.
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This Week in Social Distancing: April 7

It was another fascinating week of online performances, instructional videos, virtual tours and more.

Selective Focus: Virtual Cinema from the Zinema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnTRcRtlML8

Tired of the choices on Netflix and Amazon? Zeitgeist and Zinema and doing some innovative programming; you can buy a pass and they will email you a link to see a streaming movie. View it with or without the chat comments of other viewers. They streamed one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen on Wednesday, Love on a Leash. I won’t go into it, but it was bad. But the experience was fun, and organizer Matt Dressel was modeling it after a Midnight Movies event where the expectation is that the movie sucks, the entertainment is crowd reactions. As terrible as the movie was, the virtual event was a hit. The programming also includes movies that aren’t terrible.

Zinema’s April 3 feature is a film by a local director, Gravedigger Dave’s Halfway House. Filmmaker Keith Hopkins will also be doing a Q&A. (more…)

The 2005 Duluth Art Institute Riot

Academic and Critical Excerpts, collated and footnoted by the Richardson brothers (Jim and Allen Richardson) (more…)

Selective Focus: The Big Coloring Book of First Avenue

You or your kids who are stuck at home can color your own versions of Minnesota musicians including Lizzo, Babes in Toyland, the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Har Mar Superstar, Trampled by Turtles, and of course, Prince.
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This Week in Social Distancing: March 24

Highlights of the ways people were reaching out to each other while keeping their distance.

Selective Focus: Sue Rauschenfels

Painter Sue Rauschenfels uses bold shapes and rich, colorful textures to define the people and objects in her watercolor and acrylic work. She has a show scheduled for April – July at the Duluth Art Institute Corridor Gallery. This week in Selective Focus, she gives a preview of the show and talks about the ideas that go into her work.

SR: I began painting fulltime in my home studio after retiring from the University of Minnesota Duluth Continuing Education department in 2009. My studies in Sociology, Criminology and Psychology influence my subject matter as does my love of nature and the outdoors.
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Selective Focus: Virtual Duluth

Started on Facebook by Matt Dressel, Virtual Duluth is people posting live, streaming arts and music happenings.

Link:
Virtual Duluth on Facebook

The Slice: The Embassy

For those who missed the Church Bazaar last weekend, here’s a quick look inside the former Holy Trinity Lutheran Church where a Duluth artist collective called the Embassy is envisioning a new space for collaboration and artistic expression.

In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.