Five Cool Shows Featuring Twin Ports Visual Artists This Weekend

The Twin Ports arts scene is sizzling. Despite a bit of chilly weather dropping in from the north, Friday night will be a great evening to enjoy the arts. Here’s a brief overview of just a few of tomorrow night’s events.

Love Your Local Artist
Beginning at 5:30 there will be as many as 28 artists displaying work at the Superior Library, sponsored by Friends of the Library, in a show titled warmly, Love Your Local Artist. There will be refreshments, including wine, and music. This event is a great way for the community to discover the wide array of creative expression taking place in our backyard. Not only will you get a chance to see and purchase original works, you will have an opportunity to meet the artists themselves and discuss their work. I’ll have some new pieces on display, joined by Andrew Perfetti, Jeredt Runions and many others. This was a great event last year with 14 artists, and this year you can double your pleasure as you begin a night of gallery hopping.

ACROSS THE BRIDGE....

PRØVE GALLERY
The theme for this month’s show is "Good things come in small packages." The 2012 Tiny Art Show is a group exhibition showcasing small pieces of artwork, curated by Richard Hansen. When the call to artists went out, the essential instruction was that pieces must be able to ship in boxes no larger than 12" x 12”. A whole swath of artists has contributed to this event including Aaron Kloss, Andrew Lindberg, Anna Crea, Austin Boe, Christopher Hagen, Coleman Miller, Ed Newman, Jason Whitcomb, Karen Burmeister, Kay Nelson, Lindsay Schmitt, Lucas Anderson, Marcus Meldahl, Marla Peterson, Nicole Richardson, Pamela Clifton, Reese Nurmi, Robert Adams, Scott Scheirbeck, Sharon Rodgers, Jacob Swanson, Garit Pederson ... and PRØVE Collective members Justin Iverson, Nickolas Monson, Steven Read, and Anthony Zappa. This is, like, a BIG collection of TINY ART! The DJ collective the Crunchy Bunch will be spinning records. The event is free and open to the public.

Washington Galleries
If you get your car parked in the right spot, you can begin at the PRØVE, then walk up to see Ryan Tischer's landscape photography exhibit "Bound to the Light" at the Washington Galleries from 6-9 p.m. The exhibit is comprised of images from Minnesota's North Shore and southern Utah, including Zion and Canyonlands National Park.

If you think this is a strange combination of landscapes, Tischer would remind you that “no matter where you travel and photograph, there's always one element that's equally important –the light.”

Tischer titled this exhibit “Bound to the Light” because he feels both connected to and at the mercy of light. “Sometimes I'll be in the right location, with a great composition, but the sun comes up and it's bland, so I just shrug it off and show up again the next morning. But when all the elements do come together, it can be truly magical and makes all your efforts worthwhile.”

Ochre Ghost Gallery
After you hit the Tischer exhibit, you'll glide back down the hill to the Ochre Ghost for the Robert DeWitt Adams’ exhibit, Cold War Toys featuring multimedia paintings from 6-10 p.m. Influenced by the war toys and movies of his childhood, Adams strives to understand how they contribute to one’s identity and world view. Taking inspiration from the graphic style of Soviet propaganda, he interweaves this with fragments of capitalist marketing as well as Dada, folk and pop art.

"I am interested in formation of identity, and use collage and fragmented paintings to invoke the layering of experience that creates the self,” Adams explains in his statement. “I am interested in beauty that is overlooked, in discarded objects, neglected environments, and in this case, the phenomenon of war. I take an aesthetic approach, investigating the appeal of colorful battle maps and game boards, the attraction of uniforms and flags."

Diorama-rama 5
AS IF this isn’t enough excitement for one evening… the Diorama-rama returns to the Sacred Heart Music Center at 8 p.m. featuring miniature scenes and live music… The Diorama-rama is a community art event that everyone is welcome to participate in. The more diorama, the better the event. Musical guests include: DJ 45, The Black-Eyed Snakes, Cockfight, and Dan Anderson and his Silk Sheiks. There will also be animation’s by Duluth’s own Bridget Riversmith. It’s $5.00 at the door but you just might want to go so you see what the excitement is all about, in case you want to participate next year with your own diorama.

SATURDAY offers even more opportunities for those seeking to satisfy an aesthetic itch. Love at the Snoodle VI promises to be the biggest blowout yet for Tonya Borgeson and Emily Herb, beginning at the Staecoach Gallery (3rd Avenue West) then moving to the Snoodle out by the Duluth Zoo. In addition to contributions from 35 local artists there will also be music and fire dancers, among other visual delights.

This show will be like a progressive dinner, if you’ve ever done that kind of thing. There will be a traveling Art Reception, starting at the Stagecoach downtown from 5:00-6:45 with art, music and refreshments. A limo or bus will transport guests to the Snoodle where they can enjoy the Bionic Wow Puppet show, art, music, a fire-dance performance and more refreshments

Here’s Tonya, an art instructor at Lake Superior College, can be seen here giving the scoop on "Love at the Snoodle" for The Playlist.

BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE WAVE AND THE READER FOR OTHER EVENTS AND HAPPENINGS, BECAUSE THERE REALLY IS PLENTY HAPPENING.