NXN Visual Arts Week Is Here

It's here. NXN Visual Arts Week has arrived in the Northland. Along with the art, it's also supposed to warm up and pretend to be spring.

The idea of devoting a week to the celebration of visual arts is neither unique nor new. Ottawa, for example has been celebrating the arts with a week of gallery openings and shows from April 25 thru May 4 this spring. NOW HEAR THIS: This week it's our turn. So even if on one level this is nothing unique, on another level it feels remarkably new.

This is Year One of North x North, the Music and Arts Experience. To make it happen has been a monumental effort by a whole lot of volunteers. Some artists and events didn't get listed in the press packets. Some galleries may not have been included in the calendars. But from where I sit, even with a few fumbles and blocked kicks, the game is on and the local arts scene is moving the ball down the field.

For a quick overview of some of the events lined up this coming week, check out the DAI Visual Arts Week page. You'll see times and places for events at Lake Superior College, Pineapple Arts, Tweed Museum, Phantom Galleries Superior, Lake Superior Glass, the Duluth Art Institute, Prøve Gallery, Washington Gallery, Ochre Ghost, Northern Prints Gallery Goin' Postal, and more. And more.

The schedule shows happenings nearly every day at Pineapple Arts. (I have had a few pieces there) If you can only make it to a few, try dropping in Tuesday for their exhibition, Faces of Earth: Art by Children and Youth. It's is a celebration of K-12 student work assembled by six UMD art ed alumni art teachers, an experimental exhibition in this experimental space. There's plenty more in that space the rest of the week in an effort to support art in the schools.

A quick plug for the 2013 Goin' Postal Spring Art Show. It's Friday the 10th. There will be as many as 20 artists' works displayed, including many of my usual pieces plus some new things. My John & Yoko painting will be auctioned off along with some other pieces by other artists. There will be an afterparty at Bev's Jook Joint next door with live music and more.

I mention this in part to note that Tower Avenue is torn up and to find the gallery/event you'll want to enter through the alley from Ogden. Undoubtedly there will be signs. Just follow the yellow brick road.

Study for John & Yoko

Early version of John & Yoko, mixed pigments on panel, 36"x 24"