Ennyman's Territory: Local Art Seen: Studio 101 Artists @ the DAI

This month's show in the John Steffl Gallery at the Duluth Art Institute features the artists of Studio 101, In Situ. In addition to art on the walls, the gallery has been set up to reflect the working space of an active studio where artists come together -- and in this particular case the artists of Studio 101 -- to paint together.

A special feature of this studio setup on the balcony of The Great Hall is that every Wednesday during the month of October the artists come and do their live painting here, the public invited to come watch. I can tell you from experience (I visited this past Wednesday for a little bit) that it's more interesting than watching paint dry.

Goran Hellekant

Each week they have a different model on a central podium and you can see, compare the various ways the artists interpret what they see. On the 4th they painted Terry Millikan, an artist who used to maintain a studio in Superior and who will be having a show at Lizzard's later this fall. This week Jamie Rosenthal sat for the four painters who came together on the 11th.

It was interesting to learn that the studio had originally been started by Jeffrey Schmidt and Penny Clark, who together operate Lizzard's Art Gallery & Framing. The seven artists who currently paint in Studio 101 (named for its address on Michigan Street) are Dorothea Diver, Lee Englund, Goran Hellekant, Constance Johnston, Cot LaFond, Dale Lucas and Larry Turbes.

I arrived after they'd been painting for about 90 minutes. You can see the impressive progress these artists made in such a short time.