The Year In Review: Interviews of 2016, Part I

A hovering environmental statement by artist Kim Abeles

What a year! And it flew so fast. When I pulled together the interviews that have been shared here this year I had two thoughts. First, it seemed like some of these interviews were just yesterday. I can't believe how long ago they were. Second, I noticed that there were more interviews with authors and musicians this year. Interviews the past seven years were predominantly, though not always, visual artists.

I enjoy hearing creative people in all walks of life discussing their passions. It's been a privilege getting to know each one a little more fully (even though it's only been a surface scratch) and having a way to share their work with other.

Thank you to each of you who shared yourself and thus contributed to making this a more interesting blog to follow than it might otherwise have been. Have a very special New Years Eve and a meaningful year of fulfilling dreams in 2017.

Heidi Bakk-Hansen reminded us that the past is still relevant today.

Five Minutes with Screenwriter Matthew Dressel 

Local Art Scene: Spotlight on Jonathan Thunder 

Local Art Seen: The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial in Duluth 

David Pichaske Talks About Poetry, Culture and His Insightful Dylan Study: Song of the North Country 

Interview with Author Jamie Hoang of Blue Sun, Yellow Sky 

A.I. is no longer future. It is now.

A Visit with Calum Chace on his new book The Economic Singularity 

The Creative Expressiveness of Etsy Boutique Owner Christina Iverson

Steve Addabbo Talks About Personal Highlights in the Music Business 

A Visit with Cheryl Prasker, Percussionist in the Rolling Thunder Reunion 

A Visit with Lonnie Knight, Opening Act for the Rolling Thunder Reunion

Ten Minutes With L.A. Artist Kim Abeles at the Intersection of Problem Solving and Curiosity

Five Minutes of Insight from Twin Ports Social Media Marketing Maven Molly Solberg

Still more to share. Tomorrow is another day. 

Elliot Silberman Talks About 40 Years of Drawing Portraits and More

Elliot Silberman has many passions including fishing, making jug band music and Dylan. This interview focuses on his lifetime of drawing portraits at art fairs along with other related endeavors. Portions of this interview appeared in this week's Reader.

EN: When did you start drawing portraits?

Elliot Silberman: The early 70's, while working at Bethany Children’s Home. I had my own office with a piano, and started sketching the teens mostly, as they came in and out. That’s how I started. There were no Arts and Crafts shows then. Sidewalk sales, West Duluth Days celebration, the Folk Festival was really the only one. At some point then I approached the commander of Goldfine’s by the bridge, asking her if I could set up by the cafe upstairs and do 5 minute portrait sketches on weekends. Did that all summer, later trying the Canal Park area; I was hassled a bit by local police (“Got a permit, young man?”) Grandma's had a couple of barber chairs, and allowed me to sketch there for a spell.

EN: What kind of setup did you have?

ES: I don’t recall having much of a display back then. Just two chairs, and a small easel with one framed sample on it. I charged $1 back then, happy to get it. Never did make more than $30 a day at Canal Park. It never did turn on for me, don’t know why. Even the past few years, I tried the Lakewalk during the day when families were there, tried evenings when couples came out. Tried over by the blue bridge… never did a one. Over the years I tried the tourist boat, the tourist train. I would buy the local paper, and go thru it, looking for crowds. I hit a couple of realty companies twice a week, asking for apartment painting jobs, floor refinishing, house painting, stuff like that. During raising a family, with 3 kids, I taught some adult education classes, too. Guitar picking, water color painting. We had been living in a renovated, add-on cabin, with no overhead. I remember the first art show in Canal Park, I made $50 a day for two days. I said to my wife, "Honey, if I can make $300 a month, I think we can make it. Life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, what was that? We had a garden, too, and a retired nurse down the road who we could bounce health-related questions off of, explaining the symptoms from the kids being sick.

EN: How has the art show scene changed since those early days?

ES: Now, art shows have changed el mucho. The first 20 years were very exciting. Most are average people who wouldn't go to galleries to view art. They loved shopping in grassy parks. I was charging $2 or $3 a sketch at that time. I never would have ventured into public sketching if I would have started charging $5 or more per sketch. That way if I screwed up, which I did, I would give it 3 shots. If I didn’t get a sketch that had a resemblance, "See ya. No charge!" I took the hit.

It was hard not knowing what to expect from myself. Soon every mall had two arts and crafts shows. The two biggest malls in Minneapolis-St. Paul charged $15 for a four-day show. This was very new then, and brought lots of people into the malls. I did very well. Slept on a friend’s couch. I would sketch for hours, people lined up behind me. It was great. And I was improving all the time. At this time caricaturists started showing up everywhere. It became hard to compete with them... I’m still trying to outrun them as they venture out, like I was doing. I knew two caricature artists who started training others in their trade, sending them out by fives to high school parties, which I was doing. I found what I enjoyed most is casual portraits. That is, no fake smiles, no pressure.

About this time I got into the Minnesota Renaissance Festival as a peddler. Everything in a pack, on the hoof. It was embarrassing to wear tights, but I survived. November thru April, I did malls, and I did well. From Rice Lake, Wisconsin and thru the Midwest. I got spoiled.

EN: When did things begin to change?

ES: The art show was one of the greatest ideas brought forth. It gave the average person a chance to market their work, and the average person to buy art and crafts, especially functional pottery. The second 20 years was different. Some of us could see the writing on the wall, as more businesses threw in arts ‘n crafts into their sales as part of their marketing idea.

* * * *
PART TWO of this interview will be posted tomorrow. 

You can learn more about Elliot's music and art at his Icehouse Studio website. 

A Visit with Island Lake Artist Elizabeth Kuth

A few years ago I was visiting the office of then-director of the Duluth Art Institute Kat Eldred.  While talking I became distracted (captivated) by a painting on her office wall. She said it was by an artist who lived out on Island Lake, Elizabeth Kuth, and she practically insisted I see her studio someday.

A few years passed but someday finally came. Earlier this summer I made the trek out. Here I found an artist creating a symphonies of shape, color and form under the direction of her own internal conductor. The word "impressed" is an understatement.

When I arrived that evening she first showed me the large canvases she had stored in her garage. From there we went down to her studio, which is set apart from the house. Essentially we looked at her work, moving from piece to piece, taking in the scope of her creative endeavors, frequently pausing to engage each piece. All this time she provided background on the paintings or an explanation of the problems she’d set about to resolve in each piece.

Her enthusiasm extended beyond the work to her various sources of inspiration, including the energy of horses and the mystery of deep sea monsters. What follows are sections of notes from the exchange that followed. I consider the visit to have been a privilege.

Eliabeth Kuth: This is one of my earlier ones. I just got angry and (was) using dark colors. This is one of the first ones I was doing drawing on. It’s kind of like rock painting, like prehistoric time. I am looking for simplistic form in that way. I am doing forms that are childlike or animal like. Maybe from living out here so long I have connections with nature forms.

I actually need to have a lot of quietness around me. That’s one that started it for me. Scratching marks on it… like a cave drawing.

I’ve been told my work is ethereal. I see that… It calms me down. I am so far over in a visual mind rather than a mathematical mind, so my things are about fantasy with fantasy forms. Imaginative forms come out.

* * *

This is something influencing me now. I’m making a connection with horses. Horses connect to the soul. Also this is influencing me. (She shows me a book about animals in the super deep sea.) They have a lot of mystery. A lot has a sense of birthing, or something coming out of something else and transforming it into something else.

* * *

A lot of my work is coming from the unconscious, that Karl Jungian thing…. This line is responding to this line, creating an energy that takes you that way. We’re always in constant change, and so the work is that way.

Life gets thrust upon you, and that’s the way art painting is. You thrust upon it and don’t tell it what to do.

* * *

EN: How did you become a painter?

EK: I used to draw all the time when I was a little kid, In my bedroom. There were five kids in the family. I didn’t want any conflict so I used to go to my room and draw all the time. When I got out of high school I went to a junior college and then to art school. I knew this was what I wanted to do… went to Minneapolis School of Art & Design. Then I came back here to Duluth because I didn’t have any money to carry on.

In the studio: Track lighting and three large canvases simultaneously.

So this thing of being a loner started to evolve around then. I liked to be by myself and draw. I liked to be by myself and paint. I did a lot of drawing, pen and ink things, did lithography. I was living in an apartment behind my dad’s dental business. I was doing that and working at a photography store, but that is where I found meaning.

My dad wanted me to open a gift shop downstairs in his place. I was upstairs in an apartment but his building was down below.

I got married and had two children, then took a watercolor class with Cheng Ki Chee. Did watercolor for 17 years. I taught at the Depot and adult ed classes in the area for a while.

After my divorce I went back to school. That’s when I started oil painting and printmaking. And that’s when I started to draw every day.

TO BE CONTINUED
Do come back tomorrow to see more paintings and here the rest of her story.

Spotlight on Artist/Writer Marian Lansky of Kenspeckle Letterpress

Rick Allen & Marian Lansky

About twenty years ago while seeking a graphic designer for a direct mail project I had a chance to see Marian Lansky’s early portfolio. Her work made an impression on me even then. Today, with her husband Rick Allen, she helps manage their Kenspeckle Letterpress business from the second floor of the Dewitt-Seitz Building in Canal Park.

EN: Let’s start with an overview of your career history.

Marian Lansky: I grew up in New York City in a musical family. Was supposed to become a musician but I didn't love it. My parents wanted me to audition for the High School of Music and Art as a music major, but I chose art instead, drew up a portfolio, took the test and got in. It was a great education. From there I became an art major at the State U of NY at Buffalo, but dropped out in 1968, in the spirit of the times.

I travelled a bit, ended up in Duluth. Got a job as a nursing assistant at St. Mary's and then went to nursing school and became an RN. Did that for several years before realizing I wasn't cut out for it. Another great education.

In 1989, when my son was two, I started my own business as a freelance graphic designer. I obtained a loan and bought one of the first Macintosh computers in Duluth and taught myself all the software. I became busy right away and for 20 years had almost more work than I could handle. By about year 20, I began to feel constrained. I wanted to try my hand at creating my own visual art again. Since them I've gradually drifted away from design and have begun selling my work. So far so good! I'm still experimenting and this year's show introduces yet another new style of work.

Meanwhile, in the late 90s, my professional illustrator husband, Rick Allen, was watching the traditional illustration market collapse. It was the heyday of photoshopped photos and art directors were not interested in traditional media like linocut or woodcut. We decided to try experimenting with selling some of his older prints and discovered that people loved them.

EN: Can you share with us the roots of Kenspeckle letterpress?

ML: I was still working as a designer in 2003 or 4 when we came across a letterpress shop for sale (online) in Connecticut for $800. I knew we couldn't pass that up... Rick had always loved letterpress and wanted to try it. So we managed to get everything to Duluth and Kenspeckle Letterpress was born. Between letterpress projects, Rick's prints, my prints, our notecards (we have over 100 designs at this point) and the occasional design job or illustration commission, we have the great joy of making a living doing what we love.

We recently expanded our studio to make room for a tiny retail gallery so we can sell our prints and cards ourselves. We have a sign in the window that says "Knock loudly if you'd like to browse. We're in the back making more art."

EN: One of the questions I asked 2 years ago for my blog was, Do you have any favorite pieces? How would you answer that today?

MS: My favorite piece right now is one I did last month. It's called "Leaf Peeping." At least that's the provisional title. Since I'm trying to make a living as an artist/designer, I tend to use titles that give people a handle through which to interpret my work. It is, of course, not a picture of trees, really. Or a picture of anything. But it does remind me of trees in the fall... that astonishing depth of color. Color is my thing, always. This piece is quite vibrant and detailed in person, made of thousands of tiny dots of color, like a mosaic.

EN: Graphic design seems to be a very different field from fine art. Where is the line between graphic design and fine art? How does design inform the arts and vice versa?

ML: For me, art is about the visual interpretation of energy patterns. Graphic design was that as well, only at a very constrained level. This may not be true for other graphic designers, so I can only speak for myself. When I create art, I am also constrained by the need to make a living. So the energy patterns I translate into two-dimensional visual art may be ones that are designed to be pleasing to more people (I hope) and uplifting in some sense. Patterns that lift the spirit a bit. We all need a little lift.

To me it's all a continuum. I can, in my own work, create pieces that are a bit inaccessible to the public, but that please only me... and that is also gratifying. We can choose any point along the spectrum of frequency of vibration to translate into visual representation... so to me there's no hard and fast dividing line between design and "fine art." I have no intellectual statement to make with my art, but I naturally try to represent the lovely unspoken, unseen reaches of awareness.

EN: You make note cards and posters with clever, even inspiring verbiage. Who does the text? Do you do the writing as well as the art?

MS: The words in our notecards are by my husband, Rick Allen, or by me, unless we attribute the quote to someone else. I think there are a couple of situations in which I paraphrased Rumi, on the one hand, and A Course in Miracles, on the other, without attribution. I do write. My written work is online here: www.marianlansky.typepad.com


EdNote: To see one of my favorite Marian Lansky works, pick up a copy of this week's Reader, p. 71.

Artist Interviews: Best of 2012 (Part I)

Before coming to Duluth in 1986 I had been a publishing freelance writer for several years in the Twin Cities. A natural-born extrovert, I enjoyed the whole process of listening to and capturing people's stories, then writing about them. Some of these early pieces included a photographer who wondered if he'd captured a photo of the Loch Ness monster and a couple who met and married in their late eighties. It's been a real privilege to meet so many interesting people and hear so many interesting stories.

Gary Swanson

In recent years I began interviewing artists whom I met through social media. My motivations were several. First, to show the variety of ways in which creativity can be expressed. Second, as a mechanism for sharing their art with others. Third, to see what makes them tick.

Eventually, this led me to focus on the local arts scene here in the Twin Ports. I still reach out to artists abroad but I've taken a keen interest in nurturing our local arts community.

There's an experimental quality to all this. When I was a young idealist I wanted to change the world. It didn't take long for that to become disillusioning. Thirty years later I've decided to roll up my sleeves and see if in some small way I can make a difference here locally. I'm testing the idea that a strong arts community can be a catalyst for the betterment of the larger community, a theory I first heard proposed by the Art Works coalition that brought Richard Florida's ideas here a half dozen years ago.

Here are most of the interviews from January thru April. Enjoy.

Ten Minutes with Cellist/Artist Kathy McTavish

Ten Minutes with Artist/Cartoonist Simon Gray

The Modern Primitive

Ten Minutes with Gary Swanson, The Modern Primitive

Seven Minutes with Painter Melanie Sternberg

Ten Minutes with Annie Dugan, Curator at the DAI

Ten Minutes with Veteran Artist Martin DeWitt

Ten Minutes with Kat Eldred, an Arts-Centered Life

Ten Minutes with Kat Eldred, Part II

Five Minutes With Sandra Cragin

Five Minutes with Colin Wiita

Eight Minutes with Prøve Gallery Director and Co-founder Steven Read

Spotlight on Artist / Writer Jeffrey Woolverton


Thank you to each and all for sharing yourselves here.