Twin Ports Arts Gossip and a Plug for Zenith Bookstore

Zenith Bookstore, Central Avenue

This is an off-the-beaten-path blog post, a catch-all of miscellaneous notes from the local scene.

THE TWEED
As most in the Duluth art scene know, Tweed Museum of Art Director Ken Bloom stepped down and left a vacancy there. As of his retirement party in June, there was no word of any immediate prospects to fill the position. More recently, word passed through the breeze that a replacement has been lined up, an announcement coming soon. I've heard that she's going to be quite excellent. If I'm not mistaken we'll learn more within the next two weeks.

UMD SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
The holidays were painful for some this year. A decision had been reached in late autumn to merge the School of Fine Arts with the College of Liberal Arts. Dozens of jobs are being cut and even those who were not cut are heartbroken over the friends who are being forced to move on. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, jazz studies is "dropping from a major to a concentration, and the masters in English program won’t accept new students for two years. Early-childhood studies will be suspended and relaunched in the future."

Evidently declining enrollments are the culprit. UMD has nearly 4000 fewer students than when my children were looking at colleges. Rising tuition costs have no doubt a been contributing factor to the drop in enrollment.

In its most basic form, a college education is a product. Determining how to price a product is one of the challenges every manufacturer wrestles with. Price, in theory, should correspond to value. Does the drop in enrollment suggest that a college education is no longer a no-brainer?

It's a weird time for young people who have grown up receiving mixed messages. On the one hand, they're told that without a college education they will be left poorer and in society's lower tier. On the other hand, they keep hearing about the burden of debt they will be forced to carry if they do choose college. It's a tough decision point.

Alice Cooper's song Eighteen comes to mind here. "I'm eighteen, and I don't know what I want."

THE HISTORIC DULUTH DEPOT
Word on the street is that Oneida, the company that has been managing the Depot these many years, is now yielding control to another company that will manage the property that houses the Train Museum, Duluth Art Institute, St. Louis County Historical Society, the Underground, Playhouse offices and more. It's my understanding that the exorbitant fees for experiencing the exhibits here will soon be significantly cut, giving more people access to the WWII Museum and other collections.

This is hearsay, and I have as yet not been able to find a confirmation.

DAI MEMBER SHOW
For many years the Member Show has taken place the third week of January. This year the Opening Reception is slated for Thursday, February 6, 5 - 8 PM and will be on view through March 1, 2020 in the Great Hall. All Art Institute Members are invited to contribute one new piece that has been created in the year 2019. Make sure your membership fees are up-to-date.

This same evening will be the opening for Laura Andrews & Paula Gudmundson's Integrated Vision in the George Morrison Gallery on the Fourth Floor. Details here.

Do you like books but want to support our local alternatives to Amazon?
I picked up thie FREE Indie Bookstore Roadmap yesterday at Zenith Bookstore.
Thank you, Bob and Angel for planting your store in our community.

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You can see The Bookstore at Fitgers here as well. Zenith and Fitgers are, not
adjacent to one another, nor is Sweet Peas in Two Harbors a short hike away,
though each June thousands of runners have traipsed this path from there past
Fitgers. I'm guess you can find this free map at any of the stories you see here.

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I'm going to call this a wrap. It's the first Saturday of 2020.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

This Weekend’s Northland Arts: Short Form Quick Picks for Arts Fans

Matthew Kluber at the Joseph Nease Gallery

Got Art? There's plenty to see this weekend. And the weather will be perfect.

Friday, June 28, 5-8 p.m.
(One Year Anniversary Tour) Downtown Duluth Arts Walk 
Details regarding participating galleries here on their FaceBook Page

Special thanks to Esther Piszczek for pulling these arts missives together. Her art will be on display at Duluth Fine Pianos, 331 W. Superior Street from 5-6:30 p.m. with live jazz from 6-8 p.m. featuring Ryan Frane on piano, Matt Mobley on bass, and Sam Miltich on guitar 

Friday, June 28, 6-8 p.m.

Mathew Kluber Opening Reception: Friday, I’m in Love, Joseph Nease Gallery, 23 W. 1st Street

Free Range Geese heading to the Free Range Film Festival

Friday, June 28, 7-11 p.m.
16thh Annual Free Range Film Festival 2019, Free Range Film Barn, 909 Country Road Farm, Wrenshall.

Saturday, June 29, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Chum Rhubarb Festival, London Road at 11th Avenue E.

Saturday, June 29, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Zenith Bookstore 2nd Anniversary Celebration, Zenith Bookstore, 318 N. Central Avenue

Saturday, June 29, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Superior Artisan Market Pop-up, Hucklebeary, 106 E. Superior Street
(EdNote: Superior here refers to Superior Street, not Superior across the bridge.)

Saturday, June 29, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Sunday, June 30, 12 p.m.-4 p.m.
Sue Brown Chapin Watercolors Gallery on 4th Grand Opening, 47 4th Street, Cloquet.

Saturday, June 29, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sunday, June 30, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
49th Annual Park Point Art Fair, Park Point Public Beach House, 5000 Minnesota Avenue

Sunday, June 30, 2:30-5 p.m.
Traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony and Origami, Duluth Woman's Club, 2400 E. Superior Street

Sunday, June 30, 5 p.m.
Beer & Hymns, Sir Benedict's Tavern, 805 E. Superior Street
"A gathering for beer drinking and hymn singing on the last Sunday of every month."

STAY CURRENT WITH THE NORTHLAND ARTS SCENE 

at the Twin Ports Art Blog

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Live from Zenith Bookstore

https://www.zenithbookstore.com/

All images on this page come from Zenith Bookstore, Central Avenue in Duluth.

Maybe one day this will become the next City Lights. 

If you have not yet been, you should check it out.

Across the parking lot from Beaners Central.

For what it's worth, at least two of my books can be found here.

No shipping costs when you buy in the store. Nice!

Meantime, what book did you say you were reading today? Or writing?

Writers Read: Going Coastal at Zenith Bookstore

(L to R) Marie Zhuikov, Max Reagan, Judy Budreau, Phil Fitzpatric

The flowering of our arts community these past 20 years has been a thrill to behold. Last year I overheard Barton Sutter say that several decades ago the public poetry community consisted of he and Louis Jenkins meeting for coffee at a local restaurant and sharing their work. Today the burgeoning poetry scene is now seeding a whole range of events from Duluth Dylan Fest to Homegrown, which itself is a showcase of the incredibly vast array of music talent here in the Northland. Then there's theater, and the symphony, ballet and even opera, along with the outstanding exhibitions in the visual arts. And then there are the writers, pecking away on their myriad keyboards, pilfering personal experiences and observations to create hard-hitting stories, gentle uplifting tales, insightful essays, novels for youths and adults, and more. Let's not forget the gardens and the culinary arts. It's hard to believe that in 1999 some people were wondering if we were on the threshold of the end of the world.

What a resurgence this region has seen since the mid-1980's when Canal Park was a patchwork of abandoned buildings, bars and restaurants, as was our Lincoln Park community.

So much for introductions. Last night we were treated to a reading at the newly opened Zenith Bookstore by three writers whose stories were included in the recently published volume called Going Coastal. The event, which included a silver tray of cupcakes courtesy Beaners next door, opened with a welcome by the store's co-owner Bob Dobrow, began by saying, "I'm overwhelmed by the support from our community." I believe the mutual sentiment of everyone present was an extravagantly warm-hearted, "Welcome to Duluth!"

Dobrow then introduced Marie Zhuikov, on behalf of the Lake Superior Writers group. This book was produced as a fund raiser for the organization. It developed out of a contest they had last year. Writers from around the lake submitted stories with nine writers included in this anthology, the winners of the contest. Going Coastal is the fourth anthology published by Lake Superior Writers. For more complete details on the book read Ryan Swanson's review at Zenith City News. Last night's event featured Phil Fitzpatrick, Judy Budreau and Max Reagan reading excerpts from their stories.

What made the panel of readers especially interesting was that two -- Phil Fitzpatrick and Judy Budreau -- were experienced, published writers later in their careers with the third being something of an emerging writer. In point of fact, Max Reagan stated that "The Lake Effect" was his first published story. It's also a very good read.

Fitzpatrick became the first reader, which coincided with his story being the opening story in the book, a story about an Anishinabe man, who leaves the Twin Cities and returns to Grand Portage. It's a wonderful read about an elderly man making his way back home, remembering the places and spaces of his life as he travelled North along the shore, revisiting meaningful places along Highway 61. In addition to being an author and poet, Fitzpatrick is also a Dylanophile, so I can't help but hear a measure of his parallel passion woven into the subtext at certain points. (In addition to making a Dylan-themed presentation during Duluth Dylan Fest this spring, he also attended his 50th anniversary reunion at Harvard where he made an hour long presentation to classmates of his alma mater. It was there in 1963 that he first saw Bob Dylan, who was opening for Del Shannon at the time, and there that he was comforted by The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan when JFK was assassinated.)

Judy Budreau was next introduced and she read from her story "Superior Mordant." Like Fitzpatrick, this wasn't her first rodeo. Both writers were excellent readers as well. She introduced her story with this observation: "Like all fiction, my story begins with a piece of something real." Naturally I thought of a number of my own stories, and guessed that other writers present Tuesday evening were weighing this thought as well. Budreau's lodestone in this story was, "when all is uncertain, everything is possible." Beginning here she wove a story around it about how Lake Superior becomes a reference point for a life.

Max Reagan was third to take a turn, selecting a fragment from his story of a 1919 shipwreck. His writing had all the drama and vividness of an "as if you were there" kind of experience. He's looking to pursue a career in writing, and winning a contest like this will be a nice starting point.

In an unpremeditated moment of naked self-promotion, I will mention here that I won the five-state 1991 Arrowhead Regional Arts Fiction Competition when I myself was a fledgling short story writer. It provided a tremendous boost to my confidence at the time. Two decades later I published it with five other stories as an eBook, but you can also read it here for free on my original website.

Though I'd obtained a copy of Going Coastal several weeks earlier, I purchased a second so as to have a pass around copy. I've lost a number of books over the years by loaning them out, so having an extra to share feels alright. You might want to pick up a few for Christmas gifts for family members who wonder what its like to live on the shores of the largest freshwater lake in the world. I recommend buying local, here at Zenith Bookstore, but if you're reading this from a distance of more than 100 miles, I won't blame you none if you get it on Amazon or here at North Star Press. All proceeds are being designated for Lake Superior Writers.

* * * *

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light. 
–Vera Nazarian

Thank you to the Dobrows for hosting this event, to Jason for bringing over the cupcakes and to all those who shared a bit of themselves with us Tuesday evening.

Meantime, life goes on all 'round us. Engage it...

Photo Credits: All photos here courtesy Bill Swanson except the picture of Judy Budreau reading her story on the left middle of the page.