Art
Selective Focus: Tom Moriarty
This week in Selective Focus, artist Tom Moriarty shows some of the wide spectrum of work he’s done, and discusses how drawing, DIY, and demolition derby have formed his way of working.
T.M.: I always love experimenting with different mediums and workflows, and I try and keep the creative juices flowing in a lot of different directions. Right now I’m focusing a lot on muraling. Sometimes I’m existential ramblings in smears and splats of acrylic paint and sometimes I’m drawing portraits tight and trim on a tablet with a stylus. I love making collages and then illustrating over them (I call em collagistrations). I do this a lot for gig posters and event flyers. Black and white illustrations for letterpress. I do graphic design, typography and branding a bit too. For a few years now I’ve been messing around with interactive art in my spare time. Connecting paintings and sculptures to microcontrollers with conductive inks and alligator clips. They output sound when you physically interact with the art… like a musical instrument. I haven’t found that sweet spot with tangible application so for now that’s just for fun. (more…)
Got Pulled Over Today
I can’t drive 55
Selective Focus: Free Range Film Festival
This weekend, you have the chance to celebrate two Sweet 16 parties. There is of course Perfect Duluth Day’s 16th Anniversary on Saturday at Ursa Minor. But the Free Range Film Festival is also celebrating 16 years, and this year, has a theme: Competition.
Film festival programmer Annie Dugan explains, “I realized as I was screening films for this year’s festival that we had a lot of movies about interesting people participating in very particular pursuits. I don’t know what it is in the cultural zeitgeist right now, but people want to compete!”
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This week on the Richardson Brothers podcast
The Richardson Brothers
In addition to other content, these are mostly short stories set in a fantasy Duluth where scientists have destabilized probability; Duluth becomes a city of wonders. Originally published under various titles in Duluth's "Transistor," these are stand-alone vignettes from a comic dystopia of corruption, ultraviolence, and delusion. The Richardson Brothers are Jim and Allen Richardson.
richardsonbrothers.libsyn.com
New Duluth-based fiction vignettes on the podcast: “I Destroyed the Universe,” “Intimations of Time’s Imaginings,” and “Menno Zwonk, Amish Outlaw: Monkey Porn.”
Gallery of Defunct Duluth Music ’Zines
As a companion to Perfect Duluth Day’s “Gallery of Defunct Duluth Literary and Arts ’Zines” we now present the local underground music news publications that once spread the gospel of local rawk and/or roll. (more…)
Selective Focus: Sadkin, “Carrera” video and single
Just released today, the first video, “Carrera”, from Sadkin, an art/pop music pursuit in Duluth.
Directed by Daniel Benoit, choreography by Andrea Miller and Erin Tope, featuring the members of the music group Sadkin – Max Mileski, Cory Coffman, Nicholas Hanson, Anton Jimenez-Kloeckl & Daniel Vopal. Lights by Jason Nordberg. Filmed at Spark Works in Duluth.
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Ken Bloom’s Retirement Party
Last night, I visited the Tweed Museum for the Ken Bloom retirement party. Normally, the retirement of a colleague at the university would not be something to draw attention to — but Ken Bloom is different, and I’d guess two hundred people were at the Tweed to share in the event. (more…)
The Richardson Brothers Podcast
The Richardson Brothers
In addition to other content, these are mostly short stories set in a fantasy Duluth where scientists have destabilized probability; Duluth becomes a city of wonders. Originally published under various titles in Duluth's "Transistor," these are stand-alone vignettes from a comic dystopia of corruption, ultraviolence, and delusion. The Richardson Brothers are Jim and Allen Richardson.
richardsonbrothers.libsyn.com
Announcing the launch of our podcast. (more…)
Duluth Book Releases in 2019
Grasshopper Girl
Written by Teresa Peterson
llustrated by Jordan Rodgers
Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing
Rez Dog
Story by Heather Brink
Illustrations by Jordan Rodgers
Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing
(March)
Movin’ On: Using Moments of Challenge as a Springboard to Becoming More
Rod Raymond
Ramjet Events
(March 6)
Available at rodraymond.com
Gallery of Defunct Duluth Literary and Arts ’Zines
In addition to the various (“legitimate,” if you will) literary and arts magazines and journals in the Duluth area, past and present, there is a long tradition of renegade ’zines circulated for short periods of time. What’s technically the difference between the two? Well, a magazine or journal tends to have a glossy cover and be governed by an institution or a nonprofit board of directors. A ’zine tends to be printed on a photocopier for limited circulation and produced by an individual or disorganized group. (more…)
Selective Focus: Shawn Stigsell
This week we feature work that you’ve probably seen around town recently, but may not know who was behind it. Designer Shawn Stigsell has been busy with some fun projects, and he tells us a little about his story, and the stories behind these designs.
SS: I have been working with digital print since 2002 when I attended UMD. A few years ago I lost my job as an editorial designer due to budget cuts. Needless to say it was the best thing that has ever happened to my career. I have grown as a designer since then. Being a freelance designer is challenging because you have to be able to take on the valleys of the grind and time between each project. The biggest reward is seeing that the handwork is paying off by the satisfaction of clients. (more…)
Nine final designs chosen for new Duluth flag
Options for the new Duluth city flag have been narrowed down to nine. Finalists were selected by the city’s volunteer flag committee with consideration of input received from an online survey, flag design principles, artist descriptions of the meaning, and overall sense that the flag represents Duluth. (more…)
Feodor von Luerzer painting of Lester River
This painting of the Lester River circa 1900 was recently sold on eBay, mislabeled as a painting of “Luster River.” (more…)
Selective Focus: Jeffrey T. Larson
Jeffrey T. Larson is a painter and founder of the Great Lakes Academy of Art, located in the former St. Peter’s Church, 810 W. Third St. Larson has been working and teaching a classical style of painting in that location since 2015. There will be a student-instructor exhibit at the school May 24-26. Larson talks about his classical training and how working and teaching fit together for him.
JTL: I was fortunate to have found and be accepted into one of the last ateliers (studios) left in the world taking on apprentices and training them in the manner of the old masters. It was a sort of visual Julliard. I work pretty exclusively in oil paints. The tradition that I studied in is really more about retraining your eye to see nature honestly and truthfully as it is about learning how to paint. My style is really my reaction to what I see as beautiful filtered through my personal aesthetics. More simply put, I would call myself a classical impressionist. (more…)
You could move to Duluth and walk right into Chuck Klosterman’s office
Manhatten-based humorist Micah Osler drops the D-word six times in a May 11 piece in The New Yorker titled “Hi, It’s Your Mom, and I Have Some Advice for Your Job Search.”
The article is entirely from the voice of a mother on the phone, mostly offering employment advice based on hot tips like, “Dolores works up in Duluth, and she says that everywhere in Duluth is hiring.”
Art in an Unusual Place
Photo of Artist by Carrie Boberg
I went to see the exhibit by Rob Adams, as discussed on Radio Gallery. It’s being shown within the workspace of a professional design company in Downtown Duluth. (more…)
Ken Bloom’s Tweevening
Ken Bloom packed the Tweed for a “Tweevening.” Ken is a photographer who directs and occasionally curates shows, and as he retires, the Tweed is celebrating his medium. (more…)
Tweed director Ken Bloom to retire in June
Ken Bloom, director of the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth since 2004, will retire in June. UMD’s School of Fine Arts made the announcement Friday afternoon, noting there will be a nationwide search for a new director.
Bloom will return to his lifelong photography career and continue to offer his accumulated museum and artistic expertise as a freelance curator and consultant. (more…)
Francis Chapin at the Art Institute of Chicago
Railroad Yard, Duluth, 1918–1965
There are a few works by Francis Chapin at the Art Institute of Chicago. More info about Chapin can be found on Wikipedia. (more…)
Coal Depot, Duluth Harbor
Coal Depot, Duluth Harbor, Stuart David Klipper
The Art Institute of Chicago has many cool works of art with a Duluth connection available online. (more…)
Eric T. Anderson of Duluth
This photo of Eric T. Anderson, age 56 circa 1963, born in Duluth, is part of the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was taken by Danny Lyon.
I don’t know the story or the man. Do you?
The Slice: Quiltfire
Scott “Starfire” Lunt’s quilt show is on display in the Kruk Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Superior until the end of April.
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.
From Jinny Moe’s photography collection
Virginia “Jinny” Moe of Duluth donated this work to the the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Boy and Girl Holding Hands, ca. 1850, by Bennet. (more…)
Worden Day in Metropolitan Museum, via Julie Nunull Marshall
Another item at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is this item donated by Julie Nunull Marshall of Duluth. (I can’t find any records about her easily, beyond the record of generosity and taste.)
In the 1970s she donated Arcana II, 1969, by Worden Day to the Metropolitan.
Worden Day is now deceased, but immortalized by the generosity of a Duluthian.