Local Art Seen: One Builder's Perspetcive @ Benchmark Tattoo

The Green Boat

This week I was notified that I shouldn't miss the opening for Benchmark Tattoo's current show featuring half hull model ships by Garry Couch. Half hull shipbuilding is a form of American folk art in which 19th century shipbuilders constructed scale model replicas of an actual hip's hull. Much like the development of car concepts in Detroit or airplanes like those created by local airplane manufacturer Cirrus Design, the models do more than appeal to the eye, though appeal they do.

Garry Couch's interest in this kind of work began with a quest to find a line drawings for a Lake Superior fishing boat. Eventually this morphed into numerous line drawings that have become wall art, and a series of half-hull ships. Couch prefers the 1"= 1' ratio and the work he's produced reveals exceptional craftsmanship.

Photo depicting Couch taking measurements.

The artist hails from Bayfield, a small port on the South Shore of Lake Superior about an hour east of the Twin Ports. Instead of designing ships, Couch finds existing boats of interest, takes measurements and performs a version of reverse engineering. The exhibit includes photos of the artist with his hand-crafted tool for taking measurements along the keel of one of these boats. The measurements get scaled down to produce these various drawings which are now on display, and the models that accompany them.

The artist has been a professional builder of wooden boats for four decades, making both fishing boats and sailing vessels. His skills have been applied to restorations as well as the creation of new boats. You can learn more about the artist and his craft here at stillbuildingboats.com.

Benchmark Tattoo is located on 8th Street near the corner of 19th Avenue East in Duluth, just minutes from UMD and practically across the street from Chester Park Cafe. The exhibit is titled One Builder's Perspective. Make it if you can. A really rewarding show.

Local Art Seen: Kandy at Benchmark Tattoo & Gallery

Carla Hamilton

I arrived at Benchmark Tattoo around 8:45 Friday eve. There were a dozen young people out front sitting, standing, talking, laughing. A dog lay near the door, in the way of the door actually, and one could see inside that there were people getting tattoo work on a couple of the beds, or stations (whatever they are called.) It was my seventh art opening of the young night, and I not yet beginning to tire of seeing the new work by so many interesting people.

The show here was titled Kandy and it featured work by Carla Hamilton and Cully Williams, the son of a close friend of hers. Hamilton, who lived in Germany for 19 years, had a stash of artwork that did not come back to the States when she first returned. Since that time she went back and retrieved a portion of it so that I looked forward to seeing some new pieces. Four of these were in the June Goin' Postal Show, but I anticipated more, plus some other new work. 

"Separate" by Cully Williams

Cully Williams presented a number of smaller pieces, some with edgy content. He also had a very large piece into which he had clearly invested himself, an immense line drawing on what appears to be brown butcher block paper. The drawing is essentially a vortex creating the illusion of lines converging in the center of the paper at infinity. Because of the nature of the lines it could also be seen as folded paper depending on the angle one looked at it. 

Williams also took special care in building a unique frame for the piece using glass, wire and turnbuckles. His meticulous attention to detail and tedious execution of the concept served to produce a mesmerizing effect.

Hamilton's new work likewise has features that entice including her ongoing fascination with color. The surface textures on her mixed media paintings are especially interesting. One gets the feel that she has poured a thin layer of glass over some of the pieces, like a glaze, and like raku pottery the crackling produces effects both unexpected and unique.  

Cully Williams with his line drawing.

From Hamilton's "Mädchen" series

Detail of Hamilton's effects

"Presents" by Williams

"Zerbrechlich wie Starke" by Hamilton

If you're taking a meal at Sarah's Table sometime in July, take a stroll across the intersection and check out this new show by Hamilton and Williams. You'll find it intriguing.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Especially here in the Twin Ports. Enjoy it.

Dan Hansen at Benchmark Tattoo: An Artist Statement

"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres." ~Pythagoras

This month, Dan Hansen's latest work is on display at Benchmark Tattoo in Duluth. A few weeks ago I shared an interview with the artist here. What follows is a more extensive statement about the show, its meaning and the challenges he overcame to achieve it.

Title: Sofia
Greek translation of sofia is wisdom.
Artist: Daniel Hansen

The function of my show is to present a work of historical fiction. This work is the lost writings of Pythagoras. He was born on the Greek island of Samos, sometime around 569-580 BC. Pythagoras was a philosopher, mathematician, and founder of a religion known as Pythagoreanism. He is attributed with coining the word "philosophy" which means lover of wisdom. He is most famous for his Pythagorean Theorem in mathematics. What is known about Pythagoras is written from other philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch among others. There are no text that were written by Pythagoras himself, although it's rumored he wrote poems under the name Orpheus. It can be difficult to sort out the facts from myth. There is controversy as to whether he existed at all. However I love a good myth and the claims of what he did are quite fascinating indeed.

It is said that Pythagoras traveled to various places such as Egypt, Chaldea, and Phoenicia. He studied in the mystery schools of Egypt. Wherever he went he gathered knowledge of geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and esoterics from secretive mystic cults along his journeys. He collated all this knowledge into his own religious system based on numbers. He integrated everything of the known reality together as a seamless continuity. Geometry, mathematics, astronomy, grammar, music, and philosophy were inseparable from one another. In his system all things in creation were comprised of numbers, ratios, and relationships. An interconnected universal code that acted as a programming language of which reality was built.

The Pythagorean Brotherhood was a secretive mystery school he established in Croton where he taught his knowledge to initiates. He was a very democratic individual. Women were treated as equal and allowed into the brotherhood, something that was unheard of in that era. He believed in Transmigration of the Soul or reincarnation. Pythagoras was also a strict vegan but discouraged eating of beans because he thought that flatulance was part of the spirit escaping the body. He became a political adversary to the ruling class who feared his radical ideas and distrusted his secret society. His school was burned to the ground. He was then chased down and murdered.

This show is exploring his number theology of the base 10 number system, numbers 1 through 10. Each number's philosophy is explained in a quasi-biblical writing style in parts. It also functions as a creation myth. I used many ideas from various philosophical successors of Pythagoras because so many seemed to be heavily influenced by the Pythagoreans. I added some of my own ideas in the mix too. I did the text and visuals in Adobe Illustrator and used Photoshop some with file preparation for the print shop. They are printed on 24.8"x35" papyrus sheets I ordered from Egypt.

There was an entire fiasco with getting the paper shipped which was delayed 4 weeks, and then the printer breaking down at the print shop for 3 weeks. It was beginning to look like this show would never happen. Then everything started coming together. Working at a feverish pitch for the last week and a half, my assistant Lucas Anderson helped me age the papyrus by burning the edges with a lighter. We were going to darken the brown of the paper with watercolors but the wetness made the paper wrinkle. We needed the sheets flat enough to photograph in order to create the additional prints for sale. Getting the photos for prints was a real lighting challenge because of the reflectivity of the paper and the ink was so shiny. We couldn't use the flash or bright lights. We closed the shades in my apartment and set the papyrus on my futon. We had to block off light coming in from the window. We also had to time the shots with the movement of clouds covering the sun (which was very synchronistic of the universe to supply for us) so it was dark enough in my apartment with the abysmal fluorescent bulbs as ambient light. It all happened to turn out great though. I think the photos turned out to look much better than the original prints. Oh the irony!

The questions lingering might be what prompted me to have this show? Why Pythagoras? How did you even discover him in the first place? This is where things get socially risky to admit.

It all starts with me duking it out with a grim neuromuscular disease my entire 36 years on this periwinkle globule that is earth. I could not fit in anywhere. I was stuck in an assisted living apartment with no hope of ever feeling like a valid human (or like John Travolta in Battlefield Earth would say "Man Animal"). You name the category. Social, career, romance, politics, ideology. I was a total failure at it all. Everything felt disjointed, disconnected, faulty, suspicious, irrelevant, cruel, absurd, and a complete waste of my time. I dropped out of UMD in 1998 and it seems as though I fell off the face of the earth for about 17 years. I was on a deep search for escape. What I didn't realize was... I was on a quest for meaning.

It was about 2006 and I fell down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Suddenly there was an answer to all the heinous continuity breaks that had been plaguing me all my life. The world was controlled by 4000 year old satanic vampire bankers controlled by grey aliens controlled by reptilians controlled by mantoids controlled by the Annunaki! Ah hah! That sure made a lot more sense than "stupid politicians" or "it's the Koch brothers".

At this time I was an atheist. I thought that satanic stuff was just a bunch of ancient L. Ron Hubbard fluff with psychopaths taking themselves too seriously. We're obviously controlled by aliens was the conclusion at that point... only I wasn't about to worship an alien called Xenu who flew here in a DC-10. I thought everything was micromanaged like in the Soviet Union from (1965-1971) but on a world wide historical scale.

Then it occurred to me, after watching the 800th alien documentary on Youtube, that these things were trans-dimensional. They were coming from another dimension. Maybe the dimension was hell. Maybe aliens were actually demons. That's when I started to rethink my atheist mindset. That was a real crisis. I was beginning to enjoy my "anything is permissible" brand of nihilism. That's when I started to study the occult and what the heck this sorcery business was all about. That's when I had another epiphany: it's all consciousness manipulation.

A line from the movie 'Jacob's Ladder' states it perfectly: "The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth." That's when I started thinking maybe these aliens/demons are just another form of legend and myth that can certainly manifest itself but will come in the guise of whatever cultural goggles a person has strapped on. That's when I pulled off the aliens, conspiracies, and occult goggles and put on the comparative religion/mythology goggles. That's when everything became clear to me.

It dawned on me that there doesn't even need to be pre-planned conspiracies when there's a little thing called synchronicity that's occurring under everyone's nose constantly. Those odd improbable coincidences that happen all the time. Those synchronicities led me to my man Pythagoras who may or may not have existed. He helped me gain a sense of perspective on the universe and a sense of myself. And where I'm actuality at and what it all means! That's why myth is real and why we all need it.

I'm going to end this with a quote from one of my favorite new guys Jordan Peterson: "Reality isn't made from matter, it's made from what matters".

Thanks to Benchmark Tattoo for hosting this exhibit! Thanks to Bent Paddle and Carmody's for supplying some great beer! I'd like to thank my assistant and compadre Lucas Anderson for being my right hand all these years. Oh the high adventure and perilous journeys we've weathered together. Love you Bro! Couldn't have made it without you. I'd also like to thank Alicia Gaskin for rescuing me from PR oblivion as the clock stroked midnight. You really packaged and tied this effort together. Love you too! Was fun racing against the clock with you. I'd like to thank ShelDon for being a clutch player in getting these prints off at the last moment and making papyrus history with me! Thanks Melanie! A big thank you to my parents Mark and Wendy Hansen for producing me and facilitating this mound of madness on 4 wheels all these 36 years. I know it hasn't been easy but we all lived to tell the tale! Victory lap! Thanks Mom and Dad. Love ya! Also a shout out to my PCA’s at Superior View Apartments for getting me out of bed and loaded with caffeine every morning. Thanks, love you too!

Daniel Hansen
Email: kenobiwon3@gmail.com
Facebook: Dan Hansen

Local Art Seen: Benchmark Tattoo's December Show

Saturday between book signings, my son and I went up to check out the December show at Benchmark Tattoo. If you're in the neighborhood, you should check it out. They're in the new building kitty-corner from Sara's Table/Chester Park Cafe. Since their opening, Kyle and Dane have utilized a portion of their space as an art gallery, with track lighting installed to highlight the works they display.

This month's show features clusters of paintings by each of the various artist's they have represented since opening this summer along with a preview of works by Esther Piszczek, who will be the featured artist in January.

Here's an overview of the work. To fully appreciate it, check it out in person. Like a good poem, art is to be savored in an unhurried manner. Take your time and engage.

Jeff Dexheimer

Kristin Grover

Carla Hamilton

Katheryn Lauer

Ed Newman

EdNote: Esther Piszczek's Zentangle-inspired work not pictured here.

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Today's Trivia: French architect and engineer Gustave Eiffel was born on this day in 1832. In addition to the tower in Paris that takes its name from this man, he was responsible for designing the armature that holds p the Statue of Liberty.

Wordless Wednesday: Benchmark Tattoo -- Late November

Five Minutes With Artist Kyle Voigtlander

Kyle Voigtlander is a young, Minneapolis-based artist whose work has been on display at Benchmark Tattoo since his show there in August. The tattoo parlor in located in the new building across from Chester Creek Cafe/Sara's Table on Eighth Street here in Duluth.

EN: When did you get serious about making and showing your work?
Kyle V: It wasn't until a while after I earned my undergrad, maybe two years or so. I made I drawing that I liked and got really good feedback from those who saw it.

After that it was just a matter of making more. I took a few months and really figured out what it was I was trying to do, and did that until I had about six drawings. Then I was able to display in the restaurant I was serving at, and once people started seeing my work it's been a steady stream of sales and new opportunity. About 30 drawings later, I'm now booked for shows for the next six months and don't plan on stopping.

EN: Where were you trained?
Kyle V: I graduated from University Northwestern St. Paul. I was part of the digital media art program there, and took several classes that really helped me develop as an artist.

EN: What are your primary themes?
Kyle V: I'm not sure. When I'm making a drawing I'm really all about that drawing and just having fun with it. There's really no motive in my work other than doing my best work, enjoying it and arriving at the end of my process with a high quality drawing.

EN: Who are your favorite artists?
Kyle V: Kandinsky, Audubon, Com Truise, The Pharcyde, Oliver Vernon, Pat Perry, Conor Nolan, Mickey a.k.a. Loveable Monster, Feng Meng Vue, Shaina Lund, Steven Janowicz.

EN: Where does your inspiration come from?
Kyle V: For me it's more about maintaining a sense of awe and wonder toward creation than actively searching for inspiration. Having the right type of attitude allows just about anything to inspire me, and also allows me to draw inspiration from every aspect of my life experience.

EN: Any up-coming shows?
Kyle V: Blue Moon Cafe in Minneapolis for the month of October. November I'll have my drawings at the Seward Cafe, on Franklin Avenue. December I'll be at Espresso Royale, the official coffee house of St. Katherine's University. Then it's off to Gethsemane Lutheran Church for a two month show during January and February. That's all I've got scheduled for now. It was really great to have my work in Duluth and I hope to be back sometime in the near future.

EN: Do you have a website or somewhere we can see your work online?
Kyle V: I post my work on facebook. You can see them there, otherwise check out my Behance page.

EN: Is there anything especially unique in how you create?
Kyle V: I'm really not sure. My focus is trained so intently on my finished product that my process isn't really something I dwell on. I just draw as much as I can, put in as much time on a drawing as is required, and just keep going. Guess you could say my process is between me and the all knowing God, and the finished drawings What are you working on now that has you jazzed?

I'm jazzed about a drawing of a vulture I've been working on for a while. It's bigger and bolder than a lot of my work, and a showcase of my development over last year. I've got several other projects that I'm excited about, but I think the vulture will be the biggest achievement.

EN: You identify yourself as both a Christian and an existentialist. Can you elaborate on this a little bit? 
Kyle V: I do identify as Christian, but I'm still young, and growing in that. I am fiercely independent and often act on my own without considering what God's will might be, and those natural tendencies of mine fit quite closely to the existentialist approach, so I identify as both.

EN: How does your world view impact your art?
Kyle V: In terms of my art, worldview gives a solid sense of meaning and purpose to my creative process. My worldview shapes my definition of art: human representation of God's creation. I'm convinced that the more I learn about and live out the values and everything else associated with my worldview, the faster my skill as an artist develops.


OTHER TWIN PORTS ART HAPPENINGS
UMD Faculty Biennial at the Tweed, 6-8 p.m. tonight.

Goin' Postal 2014 Fall Art Show this coming Friday the 24th

Zeitgeist 5th Anniversary celebration October 20-24

Local Art Seen: Chairs, Visions and Influences

Today, Mad Magazine illustrator Sergio Aragonés is 77.

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There were several openings this week in the Twin Ports. Kris Nelson's ongoing Chairs project has been appearing in a number of spaces recently, one of these being the Red Mug Coffeehouse. After years of watercolors, stained glass, weaving, ceramics and other creative explorations Nelson finally found a focus for her creative energies. She has been painting chairs since 1996 and her goal is to complete 1000 chairs by the time she's 100. She's one-fifth of the way there, and you owe it to yourself to grab a bite to eat or some coffee some time in the next few weeks so you can see what the "Chair Lady" is all about.

Thursday evening I was able to check out a new exhibition by Esther Piszczek titled Visions at Beaners. Piszczek is an emerging artist and fairly recent transplant to the Twin Ports who's focus is Zentangle-inspired creation. It seems like every show demonstrate new explorations and this one is no different. In her Visions show she's begun placing her ornate patterns onto frames, glass and mirrors. Be sure to follow her on Facebook because she has quite a few items that will make nice Christmas fare. I'm sure she'll make known the whereabouts of her upcoming shows there if you miss it here.

My own event at Benchmark Tattoo was called Influences. Benchmark Tattoo is a wonderful new space in the Twin Ports for showcasing artists. From my first interactions with Kyle and Dane I observed a professionalism in their manner of dealing with the artists whom they represent.

The reception ran from 6-10 p.m. last night. My initial reaction to a four hour event was to fear it becoming too long, too much. I was wrong. The four hours flew by like a weaver's shuttle and provided the valuable time for unhurried visits with friends and visitors.

The work displayed here expresses a variety of the primary influences on who I am and have become. It is not a comprehensive “explanation” of where my attitudes and convictions come from, but it does express a large swath of the territory from which my creative passions were derived.
Over the course of the next four weeks, if you get a chance drop in and check it out.

There's always more to see and do than there is time. Thanks to all who joined us last night at Benchmark Tattoo. It was a very special time.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Enjoy it.

Jorge Luis Borges and Other Influences

Last night while looking for A Yellow Rose by Borges, I bumped into this stimulating passage, the opening to Bruce Lord's essay Some Lovecraftian Thoughts On Borges’ “There Are More Things”

I had read many of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories several years before discovering Lovecraft, let alone studying the latter seriously, and so the idea of Borges owing any debt to or admitting any influence from HPL was new and somewhat shocking to me when I first encountered it. While reading "Dreams In The Witch House" for the first time, however, I found it to be quite Borgesian (I didn't have any problem with taking such an anachronistic view of the relationship, as Borges has based entire stories around such errors). The story of an increasingly alienated and detached academic who becomes lost in his field of study and ends up transcending the known laws of the universe reminded me of the hapless people caught in "The Library Of Babel." In a similar vein, both authors used the technique of referring to fictional literary and scientific sources as well as legitimate ones (often combining the two in lists of books or thinkers) in order to better facilitate their stories’ fantastic elements.

The occasion for seeking out a story by Borges was my art opening tonight at Benchmark Tattoo here in Duluth. The title of the show is Influences, one of them being the stories of J. L. Borges.

This passage explains one of the devices by which Borges' stories become magical. You read and don't have a certainty about what is real and what is not. It's a device I've used, to greater or lesser effect, in some of the stories included in my collection of six titled Unremembered Histories, especially Two Acts That Changed The World, and The Empty Space.

This isn't why I sought out A Yellow Rose however. Rather, it's the notion at this very brief story's end that when we create art or books or anything, we're just adding more things to the world and not necessarily adding more meaning or value to it.

For forty years or more I've commented that it is the people we meet and the books we read that most influence us. I've said it so frequently and for so long that I have not really questioned it. But this morning I am thinking otherwise. Some people aren't readers but they watch movies and listen to music, both of which are highly influential.

As I prepared my show I realized that my ancestors have been a major influence. I've taken inspiration from being descended from men like the pioneer Daniel Boone as well as the heroic Rob Roy McGregor. And the belief that I have made more sensitive to the plight of our native peoples by the native blood that my brother and I believe is in our veins.

Andre Gide has noted that places influence us as well, and this is certainly true. Not only the places we go (I've lived a year each in Mexico and Puerto Rico) but also the places we have lived. (In my case, Cleveland, New Jersey, Minneapolis and Duluth.)

But there's still great power in the books we read. And actually, when you read a book you're meeting a person anyways, for books are written by people, and in point of fact you may very well get to know that person better through his or her writings than through any number of hours in social concourse.

The art opening tonight is at 1831 East 8th Street, in the new building across the street from Sara's Table, just east of Chester Bowl on Skyline Drive. Hope to see you there... I'll have copies of my book on hand. And from what I hear Kyle and Dane really make it a welcoming event worthy of your time.

Who have been your influences? And more importantly, who are you influencing? Regarding the latter, make it be good.