Almost Wordless Wednesday: First Visit to Lizzard's Gallery in 2022

Lizzard's Art Gallery & Framing is one of many galleries in Duluth featuring regional artists. The gallery is located at 11 West Superior Street in the heart of downtown. Here are just a few of the pieces that caught my eye when I checked in last week.

"Grasping Light" -- Matt Klooster, Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 36

"Her Wild Life is Coming Back I"--Sarah Brokke, Oil on Canvas 20 x 30

"Fifth Avenue West"--Scott Murphy; Print on Canvas

"Walk Across the Lake, look"--Adam Swanson; Acrylic on Board, 14 x 18

"The Aquarium"--Scott Murphy, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 24

"Antler Swing"--Naomi Christianson, Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20

A nice piece by the late Terry Millikan

Due to reflections this is a poor photo of Danielle Thralow's very cool 
photo of a lightning strike on Lake Superior. She has been doing a series
of striking images from her porch on the West Central Hillside.

 

Despite two years of Covid, Northland artists have been active. The art scene is still alive and well here in Duluth. Thursday evening there will be an artists reception in the Zeitgeist Atrium featuring work by the Lake Superior Abstract Group.

5:00 p.m. @ 222 East Superior Street. Join us! (Masks required.)

Local Art Seen: Collusion at Lizzard's Features Painting and Raku

Thursday evening Lizzard's Gallery hosted the opening reception for Collusion, a show featuring paintings and raku pottery by two pair of collaborator-artists. The pottery exhibited was created by Richard Gruchalla and Carrin Roseti. The 25 paintings in the show were produced by gallery owner Jeffrey Schmidt and Kristen Wasyliszyn. Schmidt, a 26-year resident of Duluth and owner of the Lizzard's Gallery, met Wasyliszen at UMD while working on their fine arts degrees.

This exhibition had been primarily created over the past eight months in Wasyliszen's St. Paul studio. The manner in which they worked is itself interesting. She would paint the first part of each painting, and then he would finish. Schmidt supposedly has trouble knowing how to start, and Wasyiszen's trust was such that she he confidence in where he would take things once underway. You can see the results which will be featured here through September 30.

In addition to being an art gallery highlighting many popular and familiar regional artists (eg. Anne Labovitz, Patricia Canelake, Adam Swanson, Aaron Kloss) Jeffrey Schmidt also does framing. Because many of his customers are in the Twin Cities, Schmidt would deliver framed work once a week and then rush over to the studio to "finish" another of the paintings Wasyliszen had started.

Wasyliszen & Schmidt

The titles on the pieces reflect the fun spirit with which the work was created. "It All Started Here" and "Johnny Jumps Up" and "Put A Bird On It" and "There's an Umbrella Under It All" can only be described as whimsical. Yet the work is earnest and engaging.

Richard Gruchalla has spent more than three decades making pottery. Five years ago he was joined by his wife in these creative endeavors. As anyone who has been around the pottery scene knows, raku firings can create some magical effects. Gruchalla and Rosetti are producing some wonderful work.

Lizzard's opening receptions always have that touch of class, with an exceptional spread that is worthy of the artsy environment where it's found. The featured work is displayed near the entrance of the gallery while the rest of the walls display in a mosaic-like fashion a vibrant variety of paintings and drawings in various styles. When you go, be sure to take a tour upstairs in the balcony area.  Schmidt frequently rotates the work so that as the seasons spin, you'll always find something new on your next encounter.

Props to Mr. Austin

This one reminded me of a Bob Marley song.  "Three little birds..."

The gallery was bustling.

Thursday evening the Tweed Museum was hosting a gallery talk by Iron Range photographer Vance Gellert whose exhibition is currently on display on the balcony level there. He's a storyteller in pictures. Because of the scale of the prints, it's worth the trek to check it out.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Slow down and drink a draft. It's good for you.

Local Art Seen: Terry Millikan at Lizzard's

Thursday's opening reception for Terry Millikan's much anticipated new show "Surprised by Joy" put a glow on many faces. It was nice to see the waves of friends and fans who came in to congratulate Millikan and take in her new work.

It was good to see gallery owner Jeffrey Schmidt present, as he had been ill the week leading up to this show and rumored to have been in the hospital. He stood tall and looked in good health as the music and generous warmth of the crowd filled both floors of the gallery.

Millikan's new work is quite different from the pieces I've seen at her former gallery in Superior. The work still remains fluid and laden with color. Here are some photos from the event and the work now being exhibited at Lizzard's. The gallery is open six days a week, and Sunday by appointment only.

Read more about Terry Millikan here.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Especially at Lizzard's.

Local Art Happenings for the End of September

If you have never been to Lizzard's Gallery and Framing in downtown Duluth, Terry Millikan's opening reception for her new show "Surprised By Joy" would be a good time to check it out. Lizzard's is just a half block west of Pizza Luce and the Tech Village on Superior Street, so it's easy to find.

Terry Milikan's new solo show features paintings that emerged from the incalculable joy she felt in moving to her new rural setting up near Knife River. The opening reception is tonight from 5-8pm. with live music to be performed by Terry's son, Sean Murphy.

Lizzard's represents quite a number of local artists and would make a worthy destination for anyone who happens to be downtown during the day.

This Saturday September 26 from 10-5 is the Lester River Rendezvous at Lester Park, Lakeside. It's a family event with food, music, crafts and from what I hear a "whole lot of family fun."

For a recap of other places to see art in public spaces check out my summary of September art events here.

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AND Next Monday, one more Group Show of works inspired by Lake Superior. Check it out.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Be part of it.

Terry Millikan's "Surprised By Joy" Opening at Lizzards

Kinetic Sculpture Park

I've been a fan of Lizzard's Gallery as long as I can remember. For years it claimed our attention on the lake side of Superior Street before moving to mid-block between Lake Avenue and First Avenue West. The gallery features quite a number of high caliber local artists and first rate shows such as the upcoming opening for Terry Millikan's "Surprised By Joy."

For a number of years Millikan has maintained studio in the 1890's Trade and Commerce Building (a.k. Old City Hall) in Superior, but sometimes she prefers to move off the grid to a getaway in the vicinity of Knife River. Perhaps this latter is what triggered the look of her new work, which while still featuring vibrant colors re-shapes them into more distinct forms.

Terry Millikan grew up in Rochester Minnesota in a creative family. An accomplished colorist with a snazzy sense of design, she captures vitality with color and pattern. Magically she creates rhythm and movement. Much like Millikan’s fresh sense of existence, her work is never static, but lively, energetic and engaging. Influences have included living in Oaxaca, Mexico; her time spent at Joshua Tree, California, and life along the northshore in Northern Minnesota. Her connection to nature is evident in her use of rich ochres, warm reds, deep purples, quinacridone golds, and the colors of the earth, sky, and water.

She's been affiliated with Lizzard's for many years and it's nice to see her featured in this upcoming show a week from Thursday.

EN: When did you first become serious about being an artist and how did that come about?

TM: My mother provided me with a creative environment because she was a painter. When I was a kid she showed me things that sparked my interest in art. I recall receiving positive reinforcement for my drawings all through school and determined to go for a BFA at University of Minnesota, which actually prepared me for nothing, though it did strengthen my resolve to continue painting no matter what the circumstances.

EN: How long were you in Mexico and what were your takeaways from that experience?

TM: In the nineties, I moved with a French Algerian painter to Oaxaca, Mexico for the purpose of making art. There, under the influence sun drenched plazas, the lush gardens of the Xochimilco studio, the notable Oaxaca painters, Toledo, Tamayo, and Morales, colorful weavings from Atitlan and wildly inventive Mexican folk art in general. Eventually, I abandoned my use of local color in favor of more vibrant saturated colors, while making the leap from representational subject matter into abstraction. The four years I spent in Oaxaca profoundly changed my artistic direction.

EN: I saw that you had many wonderful art volumes in your studio. Who have been your biggest influences?

Mood Indigo

TM: Oh. Yes. The art books. I’ve always read voraciously about art and artist. Over my long career I’ve deliberately copied paintings by disparate masters from Giotto and Duccio to Van Gogh, Bonnard, Matisse, and Cezanne in order to better grasp their technique; their compositions, and more deeply appreciate their unique vision. Looking through art books has always fed me. For many years I was chiefly inspired by abstract expressionism, especially the more gestural work by Gorky, early visceral Pollacks, and Frankenthaler’s stains on canvas. As I’ve gotten older my interests are gravitated towards the early modernists, which I see as a group emanating, more or less, from the obdurate old curmudgeon Cezanne. I am revisiting the “isms” under the rubric of Modernism and I am drawn to Braque’s cubism. Malevich’s constructivism, Leger’s “Synthesism”. My approach to painting seems to have a taken a more intellectual bent in my 70’s. Perhaps my physical energy for spontaneous, gestural, and explosive painting is on the wane. I arrive at my painterly decisions through cognition and deliberation.

EN: Cool. Your work has always had such a kinetic feel. Where did this energy come from?

TM: It comes from my background. There was a push and pull between one atheistic parent and one staunch fundamentalist Christian parent. Confused and lonely I turned to nature as my solace. I would say I am a pantheist, rejuvinated and inspired by the vitality of growth and change. I try to tap into the essence of living things, which is the source of the energy in my work.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower…. Dylan Thomas

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Thursday September 24 has two openings to keep mark on your calendar. If you're in the Twin Cities, try to catch Mark Zapchenk's Mediterranean Melodies 4:30 - 7:00 p.m. at Luther College. And if you're in the Twin Ports, Terry Millikan's "Surprised By Joy" is opening at Lizzard's Art Gallery & Framing in Downtown Duluth.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Check it out.

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.