Local Art Seen: Sam Zimmerman in the AICHO Gift Shop

Friday evening, the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) hosted its very first art opening inside the renovated Gift Shop. The evening had many of its usual components. A strong supportive local community, treats, Native music (by Landon Manitowabi of the Red Lake tribe), and lots of color. Artist Sam Zimmerman sat in front of a small easel working on a painting while talking with guests, energized and energizing.

The event was meaningful on many levels. The title of the show explained the heart of it. The Journey Home, Chapter 2.

"Bird Clan - Totem" -- Acrylic, Ink

"Nimi At Hollow Rock" -- Acrylic, Ink, Silver Leafing

Ziimmerman, a Native artist who hails from Grand Portage, had gone to art school out East, took up residence in Brooklyn, employed as an educator for kids with disabilities. Three times a year during his two decades in New York he would refresh his energy by returning home for moose hunts and other outdoor activities that nourished him in deeply meaningful ways.

During his artist talk he also shared how much the beauty of Alaska inspired him. He's currently living here in Duluth and teaching at Harbor City.

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The West wall of the gallery space was filled with recent paintings by Zimmerman who has been quite prolific since his return from the Big Apple. What follows are a variety of paintings by a number of people familiar to us here, as well as examples of smaller items you can find in the AICHO Gift Show. Many of the items are affordable giclee reproductions, courtesy CPL Imaging.

Jonathan Thunder

Hover Board Designs by Jonathan Thunder

Leah Yellowbird Refrigerator Magnets Like You'll Not Find Anywhere

Detail from "Rollin' in the Deep" -- Leah Yellowbird

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Photo of more paintings by Sam Zimmerman. Some goofball got in the way,
so you'll have to go check them out in person.

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Have a great week! 

Out of Africa: Interview with Artist Steven Boyyi

Wednesday I received an email soaked with excitement from Kelly McFaul-Solem at CPL Imaging. She said there was an artist there that I should meet, a young man from Uganda whose work was fresh and fascinating. I should come over "right now" she said. I couldn't, however. I had meetings and deadlines. I asked if Friday lunch hour could work out. It did, and it was worth the wait.

Founded by Jeff Frey, CPL Imaging is the premiere resource for artists seeking to reproduce their paintings, drawing and other images. Using high end scanners and giclee printing techniques, Frey and company continue to serve the art community here in the Upper Midwest by maintaining the highest standards. On top of everything else, they are just plain good people and it did not surprise me to find Steven Boyyi's work spread across the lobby table when I arrived.

Steven Boyyi's story is worthy of a much longer treatment than I can give you here, but you will quickly discover the impetus for Kelly's enthusiasm.

(L to ) Tim Turk, Dan King and Steven Boyyi. Mr. Turk helped Steven through
the process of acquiring a temporary visa.

Boyyi was accompanied by Tim Turk, a retired nurse who is affiliated with Duluth Bible Church. For four years Mr. Turk has been involved with a mission organization that trains pastors in Nairobi, Kenya, teaching English and tutoring students who speak Bantu and Bimba. Another member of the church met Steven Boyyi during an art exhibit in Kenya, and through a series of efforts helped bring him to the U.S. on a temporary visa.

Besides their shared faith, another common denominator between Mr. Turk and the artist: both lost their parents at an early age.

His work features an innate sense of design.

Steven Boyyi does not know when he was born. He was raised in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. There were no papers when he was brought to the children's home for 30 boys as an infant. "The home was run by big bosses from Ireland and another care taker from Uganda. I was told I was nine months old (when brought there) and stayed there till 17 years." At age 17 the orphanage closed and the boys were forced to live on the streets. Like anyone in desperate straits, he used resourcefulness to survive, making a hammock out of material akin to discarded flour sacks and hanging it from branches in a tree for a bed. He laughs when he describes the first soaking rainfall.

He had goals, though. Taking inspiration from the Bible, he held some of the verses in his heart, such as these words of Jesus, "Do not let your heart be troubled..."

In addition to being artistically inclined, Boyyi was a skilled soccer player. The kids stayed near the university because they had access to the food that was being discarded. One day his skills were observed and he was invited to attend the school on a soccer scholarship. During this time he began to nurture a goal... to get his name out there as an artist that he might develop a source of income by which he could help the thousands of children living on the streets of Kampala.

"I learned the technique of ironing on ginger cloth in the children's home," he says. "A man used to come to teach our big brothers in the home and I was seeing what they did, so I tried it many times and it was not coming out as a good paint, but as I did more and more then I come out with what I have now." What he has now are colorful images with a fresh spirit.

He began making art when he was 13. At 16 he made his first cards which he made an effort to sell to people.

"My traditional name is Makubuya," he explains. "It's not a common name but it belongs to a clan in Uganda called FFUBE clan. I don't know most of the meaning... I (will) know all that when I grow up."

A singular feature of his work is the manner in which he uses pieces of candy wrappers for the colors in his drawings. (Above right) "I started using candy papers when I was 20 years, when the home closed I had few water color prints to use and I had to find a way of making the same thing. So I started with a big paper and glued on the book first and it was nice but big, so I broke it into a smaller pieces, then cut into the small. People found me at the university drawing and said that (I was making) really unique art. I carried on with it and started going to people selling one by one. People liked it but didn't buy. As I went on it got better and still better, till now."

This is how his approach has evolved with time: "I tear a paper around and then I cut in the middle. I glue it, then draw around it to make the Africa life we live in most of my Africa. I base the pictures on my life and the lives of most of the African children who grow up on street and have talents which can be helped to become better people in the world."

Both his spirit and earnestness are contagious. Everyone who meets him seems to take an interest in his art as well as his ambition to help other children who grew up like he.

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To see more of Steven Boyyi's paintings and drawings, visit this page at Jeff Frey Photography.

Throwback Thursday: A Visit with Jeff Frey of CPL Imaging

"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative act." ~Ansel Adams

I met Jeff Frey in 1987. My success in setting up an advertising program at AMSOIL that year caught the attention of a marketing VP for The Chromaline Corporation, a small manufacturing firm here in the screen printing industry. I was hired to become their in-house ad agency.

Chromaline had gone through four ad agencies in less than three years and, among other problems, their literature lacked continuity at the time. I set about to review and analyze their sales and product lit. After having been at AMSOIL, where standards were extremely high, it seemed the Chromaline lit (at this time) was shoddy at best. The product photos on these printed pieces looked especially bad and washed out, so I decided to switch the company to another pro photographer in town who I thought did decent work. First, however, I had to find the original photos that were used in the literature. Chromaline made photostencil films and emulsions in an industry where imaging is important.

Then it happened. I still remember the moment. I saw a black and white glossy, so crisp and rich it was literally eye-popping. The subject matter: a gallon container of photostencil emulsion. I knew then that the problem lay not with the photographer. I found it stunning that a boring, black container could look so dynamic.

Jeff's work has always been nothing short of astonishing. He does true magic with a camera. There are no shortcuts. His equipment is always state-of-the-art, and the outcomes always worth the effort.

Like myself, Jeff is also a New Jersey transplant to the Midwest. But high standards are what brought us together. This past week we talked about the photography business.

Ennyman: How did you get into photography as a profession?
JF: It was a hobby. Then I worked at a camera store here in Duluth, got friendly with an established commercial photographer and partnered up with him. I had pursued the hobby seriously when I was working in the camera store.

Ennyman: What have you enjoyed most about the photography business?
JF: The sales tax reports. (laughs) Writing the check to the department of revenue.

Besides that, my favorite thing to shoot is people at their jobs, because I allow them to participate in the building of the image. They tell me what is important, what they do, how they manipulate what they do. It’s a collaborative effort where the subject is helping to create the image.

Now, with digital, when I shoot to a computer, it’s very easy to get feedback and work together.

Ennyman: What are the two or three biggest mistakes that amateur photographers make?
JF: Thinking they can make money at it. (laughs)
An artist is not necessarily an entrepreneur. Just because you can satisfy customers with nice pictures does not mean you can have a successful business.

Ennyman: What about lighting… how important is that with digital?
JF: It’s every bit as important as it ever used to be. But you don’t need as much now.

You’re way better off making it right from the start. Basically I weigh the situation. After I understand that aesthetically it can happen one way or the other, I ask where it is going to take less effort. You have to know the limits of Photoshop. When it comes to light on someone’s face, there’s no way I am going to try to fix that later.

Ennyman: Do you have any secrets you’re willing to share that help turn good photos into great photos?
JF: Make sure the eyes are in focus. Also, it always makes a photo more interesting with more depth if you include a complimentary foreground element.

Ennyman: How has the digital age changed professional photography?
JF: Formerly, a Polaroid test was as much immediate feedback as we could get to check lighting, etc. The Polaroid was never the final product. You always had to then shoot the film and hope you get it right on film, like facial expression or catching the peak of a jump with a dancer. The dancers are thrilled because they don’t have to jump forty times to make sure you got it once.

I don’t have to worry about bringing different types of film, different speeds, different color balance film. Now we can white balance in the camera, can change the sensitivity on the fly.

Check out a portion of Jeff's portfolio here

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This interview was posted seven years ago today. Jeff and CPL Imaging can also be found here on Facebook. 

Jeff Frey Discusses Giclée Reproduction and How Art Prints Are Created at CPL Imaging

Jeff Frey and some of the work of CPL Imaging.

I first wrote about photographer Jeff Frey in 2009. Quite a few of the region's photographers have had experience working for and learning from Jeff before they launched a business of their own.

Here's my personal favorite story regarding what kind of photographer Jeff is: Burlington Northern Railroad has something like 28 locations around the continent, one of them being here in the Twin Ports. Each year, their annual report would include photos from each location, produced by a photographer in reasonable geographic proximity. Jeff always did the photo from our location here. Then one year, after several years of shooting something from the Superior branch, one of the execs at BN said, "How come the photo from Superior is always the best photo in the book? Why don't we just have this guy do them all this year?" Which they did.

Brian examines a Chee reproduction to ensure it meets quality standards.

In addition his business as a commercial photographer, Frey also co-owned a service business called Custom Photo Lab. One of the industries profoundly transformed by the digital revolution was photography and at a certain point in time Frey's Custom Photo Lab became reconfigured as CPL Imaging. The one common thread from dark room days to the digital was the commitment to having the best equipment and highest standards.

Many of the regions top artists bring their work to CPL Imaging to be scanned and reproduced as art print. I thought it might be worthwhile to learn more about the process and share it here.

EN: For over 30 years Jeff Frey Photography has been a staple of the Northland. Besides commercial photography what other services did you provide?
Jeff Frey: Until 9 years ago we offered a complete custom photo lab that served commercial accounts and the discerning public. We offered film developing, custom (photographic) printing, and copy work. Remember "title slides" and multi-projector slide shows? We did that work, too. Since then, we moved the business from East to West on Superior Street and became a digital-only imaging service.

EN: What is the Giclée process?
JF: The process begins with a faithful digital copy of the original art. On our Certificates of Authenticity we define a Giclée print made from that digital file as follows:
Giclée (pronounced Jee Clay), is derived from the French word meaning, “to spray”. This applies to the spraying of ink as in inkjet printing. If an inkjet print is a faithful reproduction printed with stable, pigmented ink on a specially coated archival medium, it is worthy of the giclée name. The archival nature of this reproduction makes it a work of art that can be passed on for generations.

EN: When did your company get involved with doing Giclée reproductions?
JF: For decades our part of the art reproduction process was to expertly copy the original art onto 4x5 or 8x10 transparency film. That film was then scanned at the printer who made color separations for their lithographic process. Eventually, digital technology (and $30,000.00) allowed us to upgrade to a high end scanner in place of the 4x5 sheet film.

Back then, though, we were still capturing the digital copy for outside printing companies. It was still several years until Epson introduced a large-format inkjet printer that used pigment ink and could print on a variety of archival "art" papers. We purchased one and began offering giclee prints.

Over the years, we upgraded our scanner twice and our printers a few times. Epson has brought us from the original 4-color printer to the current machines that use a 10-color inkjet printing process. (We have 5 of them in operation.)

Internationally renowned watercolorist Cheng-Khee Chee.

EN: What are its advantages? Why do artists seek it out?
JF: Besides the superior reproduction quality and longevity, another key to artists is that once their original is scanned, they can order their prints on demand -- as few an one at a time. Most print orders are fulfilled within a day or two.

EN: How many artists do you currently serve?
JF: We scan art and make prints for hundreds of artists - mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin. We archive their ready-to-print digital images on CDs. We currently have just under 5,000 scans of art on file.

EN: Your website has a Restoration tab. What’s that about and who uses these kinds of services?
JF: We use the same scanning device or digital camera to digitize old photographs, maps, damaged art, etc. Once the image is digital, we can "repair" it using Photoshop. Lots of people with old family photos enjoy the results from this service.

EN: You mentioned earlier that you can provide certificates of authenticity with your work. Why is this important?
JF: The art-buying public pays a premium for a Giclée print. The certificate offers the assurance that buyer is receiving the full value -- a print that is a true reproduction that will hold its color for generations.

EN: You must have a highly skilled staff to keep all these artists coming back.
JF: Yes, the CPL crew is well respected by the art community. Steve (Tigg) Tiggemann, Brian Leonard, and Brad Gille are "as good as it gets" at what they do.

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Here's the link: cplimaging.com

Sneak Peak: Karen Burmeister Part III and the Urge to Commit Art

One of her last works.

During the month of August I have shared a couple blog posts featuring the work of Karen Lynne Burmeister whose collages will be unveiled to the public in a September exhibition at the Duluth Art Institute, the opening reception is September 10. This is part III the first two posts being an introduction to her work followed by an overview of her life and career.

Karen was the middle school Art Teacher at Marshall School for nearly twenty years. She was a beloved teacher. The outpouring of sympathy and support from her students (and former students) after her diagnosis brought tears to her eyes. The reason she was loved by her students is easy to understand: she truly respected them and their work. She believed children had an innate ability to express themselves profoundly through art.

Karen believed with her whole heart that everyone is born with a basic human desire for beauty and self-expression, a desire that reaches all the way back to the beginning of our existence--the Caves of Lascaux and beyond. The drawing exhibited was done by one of her students. She was so taken by this drawing she framed it and hung it on the wall of her studio.

What follows has been written by her husband Loren Martel.

Last Work

Another of her last works.

As time passed, Karen’s health did not improve. Despite all our hopes, she grew weaker. She began having more difficulty both with cutting out images and working in fine detail. In the past, she’d sometimes used a type of finished plywood for her working base, her canvass. She asked me to cut her some larger pieces. She spread out images she’d previously taken from magazines and books over the years. She laid on the floor, with pillows and blankets around her.

By then, she was also battling the negative effects prescription pain narcotics have on mental acuity. Her work subsequently lost some of its verve. This tragic erosion of a rare creative vision is evident in progression from image #1 to image #3. But Karen kept working, and still managed to create works of art that were very beautiful.

The boy in the center of image #3, her final completed work, captures much of Karen’s artistic inspiration. The boy’s posture suggests all the pathos of human life, briefly thrown into a world that is, on many levels, very seductive and beautiful. Karen’s artistic eye is illustrated well by another detail of this image: the ledge the boy is sitting on is a broccoli leaf. Look closely at the shape of the leaf and the way it captures the light. The ability to see the evocative beauty of such a banal object was one of Karen’s gifts. I see that boy sitting on that broccoli leaf as the last spark, before the creative light went out. 　　

Works in Progress

This is an image from her peak period.

Like Karen’s final completed work, the first piece I included as a work-in-progress is weak in composition, though still rich in imagery. This is the very last piece she worked on at all. She was, to some degree, just using up images. She was especially fond of the image in the top center--the two women talking on an old cobbled street, backlit by shop lights and the numinous shapes of stars. She found a few new images in magazines, but only rough-cut them, because she no longer trusted the dexterity of her fingers to cut them cleanly. To create anything, much less a work of art teaming with so much life, while her own was ending, is testament to her spirit.

Though I consider it finished, and a good piece, I included image #2 as a work-in-progress, because Karen remained undecided. She was still contemplating some of the colors and the symmetry of the composition, but she was happy with it overall. She liked the energy. The piece had also gotten jostled pretty badly in her studio and I couldn’t be certain I’d rearranged all the images perfectly, before gluing them down. One more reason I included it as a work-in-progress is because there were still some lines of text scattered amid the images. Karen drew on the inspirational power of words and sometimes placed text in an art piece while she was working. I remembered where two phrases were in this particular piece, and glued them where she had placed them, just to show the process.

Karen was fond of the third piece I labeled as a work-in-progress. (EdNote: Not on this page but at the show.) She was pleased with the image and felt it was complete, but was still contemplating using it as the nucleus of a larger work. 　　

Drawings

One is struck by their evocative dramatic quality.

Karen used to say she wanted to experience something artistic in her life everyday--an exhibit, a book or a good movie. She was a perennial member of arts and book groups. Occasional trips to the Twin Cities for gallery hopping or some other cultural experience was vital for her soul. Even after finding her passion with collage art, Karen continued to attend life drawing workshops, drawing primarily in charcoal and colored chalk. As in her collages, she often portrayed the human figure in an occulted world, where shadows sometimes have shadows, and mysterious darkness is tinged with wild beauty.

Karen was also always drawn to the haunted feel of ruins. There was an old abandoned homestead along the Chippewa River in Wisconsin where we used to often walk. The second drawing is a sketch of the house. Karen naturally gravitated towards an angle in her artistic subjects that exposed entrances and exits. She was deeply fascinated by the metaphorical power of portals and passages, of secret paths and worlds hidden within worlds. 　

A strikingly surreal feeling pervades many of the pieces.

Final Statement

We spoke one final time about Karen’s art, the day before she died. She told me not to worry about it. She said, “Just throw it all in the garbage, honey.”

One of the reasons she said this I can only speculate about. I think when we approach the brink, everything on this side of the veil looks exactly as it is--mortal vanity. The other two reasons she said this, I’m certain of. The first is because she was always humble about her talent. A sweet humility was one of her most endearing traits, especially in a world where egotism is overwhelmingly prevalent. The other reason is because she was worried about the strain it would put on me, after everything we’d already been through. But there was never any question this had to be done. It was necessary for everyone to see just how gifted Karen was, and to appreciate her refined aesthetic sense. It was essential for her beautiful, unique works of art to be preserved.

Bottom Line: Don't Miss the Show

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To see more of Karen's work and read more about the pictures visit Sneak Peek and Sneak Peek Part II.

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Burmeister's work was scanned by CPL Imaging, a premier service agency for art reproductions and preservation. They will likely be available for purchase at some point in time.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Hope I see you at the opening.

Sneak Peek: Karen Lynne Burmeister's Life of Beauty at the Duluth Art Institute

Two very special exhibitions are slated to open in September this year.  A mid-career retrospective titled Spirit features work by Karen Savage Blue in the George Morrison Gallery. The John Steffl Gallery will play host to Karen Lynne Burmeister's Life of Beauty.

Burmeister was a much loved arts educator who taught at the Marshall School for twenty years. After ten months of growing concern that she might have some kind of physical problem she sought medical help in identifying it. The diagnosis of cancer confirmed her fears and after a painful eight month battle she was suddenly gone.

It turns out that Karen left behind a large volume of exquisite collage pieces that were quite striking. The stages of her struggle are reflected in the work itself. After her passing in 2013 her husband Loren Martell took it upon himself to have the works scanned that they might be preserved and ultimately shared. 

The opening reception for both shows will be held September 10, from 5-7 p.m. at the Depot. 

Of Karen Burmeister, Loren Martell writes:

Karen had a bright, facile mind. She was one of those rare people who move with equal dexterity through the left and right realms of mental cognition. As a University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire--student, she was a star in the Physics Department. She could grasp numbers and equations very quickly, yet simultaneously possessed an astute sense of language. She loved words and was fascinated by etymologies. In thirty years, I seldom found a word she couldn’t define. I never found one she couldn’t spell. Pursuit of learning and culture was the passion of Karen’s life. She spent little time splashing around on the surface. She was forever searching for beautiful pearls way down deep. Visual art was the treasure that truly moved her. During our first years in Duluth, she augmented her teaching position in a Montessori school by privately tutoring art. Eventually she joined the faculty at Marshall School, where she taught art for nearly twenty years.

Karen saw art as the tangible embodiment of what was best--the most valuable, the most sublime--in the human experience. Gifted with extraordinary artistic sensibility, she was a fine artist in her own rite. 　

Here are some additional pieces she created, with more to be shared here soon. The best way to see the work will be to attend the exhibition itself in September. 

The brilliance of the compositions becomes especially striking in contrast to the field of black that serves as both background and placeholder for the compositions. 

Special thanks to Tigg at CPL Imaging who took time to reduce the image sizes for faster download here.

More to come!