Eric Dubnicka: "Learning My True Art Work"

Monday I had an opportunity to visit the home and studio of Eric Dubnicka, local artist and former curator at the Tweed Museum of Art. The conservation swept over a wide swath of topics from work-life balance to the current state of the Duluth arts scene.

Dubnicka is the kind of artist who subscribes to the idealist maxim, "If I only had five dollars left I would buy art supplies before food."

He made observations about . some of the changes taking place as the local art scene undergoes a generational shift. He himself has been greatly appreciating the older (75+) makers who have been singularly dedicated to their craft like Jerry Ott and Pat Joyelle. At another point he also expressed concern about artist's tendency to play it safe and the resultant loss of spontaneity. Other topics included concerns about patronage (or lack of) for the arts and the financial challenges artists face.

A question we also explored was the matter of permanence. Institutions and collectors look for art that will last because it is an investment. This devalues temporary art and pop-up shows that are intentionally temporary yet beautiful, Dubnicka's two-hour pop-up show on the Summer Solstice being an example of this stripe.

The conversation wove in and out amongst many other themes. To retrieve them you will have to find that fly on the wall and see if she/he had a tape recorder.

What follows are a variety of images from my two-hour visit. You will note a several recurring themes including fascinations with symmetry and textture. The layered wire work has become his latest exploration.

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On the beach... front page of the DNT.

Am looking forward to my next studio tour. 

What have you been working on these days?

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Get into it.

Alison Aune's Art Space Inspires Both Eye and Soul

Friday evening during the Downtown Duluth Arts Walk I loitered briefly in the studio of Alison Aune, an arts professor at UMD whose studio space is located above Pineapple Arts with about a half dozen others. It's a great space, if you ever get a chance to visit. I personally love seeing studios and artist spaces. To think that it was once a bare room with white walls!

The image of a pond filling with algae comes to mind... except instead of the studio filling with photosynthetic-green cotton candy, the walls and surfaces accumulate a different kind of life form: art. In Aune's studio, it's Swedish designs.

Much of what lay on the counter had been completed for an upcoming event in Estonia. Aune explained to me how the designs were not arbitrary and merely decorative as many people suppose. Each has symbolic properties. It might be an aerial view of a well or a farmer's field. In short, like many things there's more than meets the eye.

Both she and her sister Kirsten, whose studio I visited last month, work in bright, vibrant colors. Kirsten, who works in fabric, draws inspiration from more contemporary Scandinavian forms. Alison is drawing from the deep well of history, somewhat akin to a genealogist, except she's researching the DNA of form and design, not great-great-grandparents.

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The Art Walk nights in Duluth are taking place the last Friday of each month, rain or shine, wind, snow or hail, unto perpetuity and beyond, initiated by the nonprofit Downtown Arts Collective which includes 25 organizations. Co-chairs of the DAC are Joellyn Rock of the new Rockingchair Studio and Amanda Hunter from the Joesph Nease Gallery.

Related Links
Ornamental Joy, story about Alison Aune at MN Artists .
Alison Aune Wikipedia page
Colors from the North. Article for The American Swedish Institute about Alison and sister Kirsten's upcoming show https://www.asimn.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/alison-aune-kirsten-aune-colors-north
Selective Focus interview with the artist at Perfect Duluth Day . 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Jill Mackie's Studio Is Cool

Last Wednesday I flew home from a two week road trip that included Tampa, Washington D.C. and my mom's home in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. The last day of my trip I took advantage of an opportunity to visit the home and studios of artists Frank Holmes and Jill Mackie in Narrowsburg, New York. Narrowsburg is a small town less than 500 in population on the edge of the Delaware River just northeast of Scranton, PA.

The home is exactly what you might expect find when two world-class painters take up residence somewhere. The house is large, lovely and ideally suited for painters. The main floor consists of an entryway with a wide foyer/hallway that goes to the rear of the dwelling, symmetrically dividing the space here into three sections. To the right you will find the studio of Frank Holmes, 1973 winner of the Prix de Rome. To the left you will see the studio of Jill Mackie, who has had work displayed in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. When the sun shines, both studio spaces have an abundance of light from their expanse of windows.

Like myself, Jill Mackie is fascinated with faces. Here's a link to our interview last fall, and here are a few snapshots I grabbed while visiting last week.