Local Art Seen: Thursday Eve at Lizzard's and Zeitgeist

Shelley Target by Wendy Rouse

Thursday evening I planned to slip in to Lizzard's Gallery on Superior Street to see an exhibition of paintings by Wendy Rouse that had been donated to raise money for the Spirit of the Lake Community School. I can't recall when I first learned of the school and how different its approach was to education. I do know that if public education was working, we would not have all these alternative schools and teaching methods, and the homeschool movement would probably not have become so pervasive. Spirit of the Lake School has adopted the Waldorf Method of education, which I learned about from one of its instructors last fall.

Lizzard's always puts on a nice event and this was no different. Wendy Rouse was not present, but the presence of her work in the gallery has been something one could always count on. Her stunning oil paintings have become well known. In this show her familiarity with watercolor and other media were displayed. The works varied in size, but all showed her to be adept.

When Adam Swanson and a friend arrived I learned that the Zeitgeist was also hosting an event featuring something like 11 artists. Though I'd intended to be home for supper it seemed impossible to bypass this as we were only two blocks away. To my surprise this was no small affair. The artwork not only filled wove its way around the Atrium, it sprawled into the hallway and back into the Zuccone Theater.

There were many familiar faces, both artists and friends of the arts, talking in clusters or sifting through he crowd. Karin Kraemer's ceramic works were shelved to the left of the entrance where a handful of people were talking animatedly. Adam Swanson's work hung in the center of the Atrium wall across the room. Eric Dubnicka had a wall of small pieces in the region before the theater and Ryan Tischer created an interesting space by shrouding a section of theater seats and amplifying his vibrant outdoors photography.

But it was David Bowen's acrylic sculpture's on a pedestal that stopped me. It wasn't clear what I was looking at but the work was indeed fascinating. I located the artist and learned that the pieces were created using a drone to fly over Lake Superior and take 3-D scans of the same location. These scans were converted to the 3-D blocks of acrylic using new technology and chemistry. Five hundred years ago this would have been called Magic.

Here are a few of shots of Bowen's pedestal.

Adam Swanson paintings will be displayed at Pizza Luce again this year.

Thursday evening there were also two poetry events, one at Beaners and one at the Red Herring. Sometimes you wish you could clone yourself, but then that is what makes us who we are. We have to make choices and decisions about how we use our time. 

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Notice, and engage it.