Planet Sandtrap: Distractions and the Challenge of Living Purposefully

Photo by Justin Aikin on Unsplash

In the 90s Susie and I befriended a homeless man who became a friend for about ten years. It happened like this. Susie was doing pottery at the Duluth Depot at the time. The kiln for firing and the workspace designated for potters was located on the first floor. Just outside is where the train museum is located. 

There was a man named Robert who loved trains and did volunteer work there once a week. He was a big man, tall and somewhat overweight, unkempt but gentle. Often he would come into the pottery studio and sit there, sometimes engaging in conversation. Susie suggested that I take him to dinner sometime, that he was an especially insightful person and I might enjoy getting to know him. I went along with the idea, made a plan and we followed through. I had no idea this would develop into a ten year friendship with our family or that we would be at his side when he was unplugged on his deathbed at the hospital.

Robert lived in the Seaway Hotel at the time. Located in Duluth's West End it had a seedy reputation, but was affordable for down-and-outers. In that first hour together over dinner I discovered what an unusual and interesting man he was. 

We later began calling him Train Man because of the similarities between himself and the savant Dustin Hoffman played in Rain Man. We soon learned about his obsession with trains, that he had watched every single movie in the library and rated them on the accuracy and qality of their train scenes.

One of the observations he made in that first encounter, though, was how the Seaway was a microcosm of the culture at large. He called it Planet Sandtrap.

He proceeded to name the various traps there: drugs, booze, hookers, porn and gambling were preeminent. 

Do you have life goals that are being thwarted by your own sand traps? In golf, there are other hazards as well. Lakes and ponds, forests and trees can all interfere with your golf score. While golfing in Florida once I not only had my ball end up in a small pond, there was an alligator in there as well, two hazards in one.

Those who aspire to be the best they can be in any field of endeavor reach that height by avoiding sand traps and making other sacrifices as well. 

Even when you play your cards right, however, things don't always work out. As stated in Ecclesiastes 9:11, "I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."

Nevertheless, if you have something to aspire to, you'll generally get much closer to your goal by avoiding the sand traps. You'll have higher self regard and fewer regrets as well.

Kathy McTavish's Chance Unfolds at the Tweed

"Code is a literature ::: a pattern language ::: a score. It is a choreography ::: a performance. A code renderer is the weaver ::: the mill ::: the alchemist ::: the wizard. Code is a spell ::: an incantation ::: an intent. When code is performed it is an activation of text ::: a linguistic gymnastics." --Kathy McTavish

Thursday evening the Tweed Museum of Art held its opening reception for Kathy McTavish's stimulating multi-disciplinary full immersion experience called Chance. Chance is an exploration of the  intersections between art and technology, humans and machines, the networks, sound and mathematical systems.

This installation includes a landscape of painted walls representing the human in print. Multichannel sound surrounds networked machine quartets that are choreographed to draw interconnected chance-infused, emergent and interconnected animated patterns.

In addition to being an aesthetic experience, the exhibit is intellectually and philosophically stimulating. The concept of chance is as old as the history of mankind. In early times it was bound up with notions of randomness and fate, with multiple layers of religious belief systems indexed in. Likewise there's something perpetually intriguing about risk and games of chance. So it was against this backdrop I was most interested in this latest creation that was now brought public.

Chance not only generates images, sounds and sensations, it also sparks new thoughts which it would seem interesting to explore in a deeper dialogue. The idea that the computers render infinitely and are never the same is interesting because despite the fact that the room is constantly changing (including transformations as the external light shifts from day to night) why does it feel like at some point something is missing. That something is the story, or the person behind the code. A full engagement with the installation might lead one to ask questions about the meaning of existence, and what it means to be human.

According to McTavish, the components of the exhibition evoke a sense of change, infinite flow, emergence, friction and resonance within the enclosed space. It reminds me of markets -- the commodities exchanges, Wall Street -- and how these, too, perpetually change, have their rhythms and apparent randomness within structure.

The audio portion of the exhibit is equally unscripted, which she describes as "an ever-shifting blend of found sound and the hum of electrically-generated sine waves."

Last night I participated in an art show in which one of my own paintings was titled "At the Intersection of Time and Chance."

Many artists have found new expressions by means of the incorporation of randomness and chance into their work. (I think here of Max Ernst, for example.) Kathy McTavish has performed her explorations in a 21st century era in which digital phenomenon have become transcendant.

Here is some additional information about the work, which I imported from her web page associated with the show.

about

Christine Strom & Erika Mock
at the entrance to the exhibit.

Chance is a synergetic installation that combines code, image, and sound to create a cross-sensory, polyphonic experience. A landscape of painted walls and multi-channel sound encloses the viewer. Choreographed by code, a circle of machine quartets investigate chance, emergence, friction, resonance and change ::: a cloud orchestration.

Chance opens October 19, 2017. The year-long exhibit will be a living, evolving space ::: a residency / habitation / research lab / performance space. Printed artifacts will be left in the space to give the feel of blueprints / notes ::: a score. The Sax gallery at the Tweed is a luminous space. Its many skylights filter shifting seasons and variable weather patterns ::: a photosynthetic recitation. It provides a sanctuary ::: a place for rest and reflection.

This is a time of great planetary change and political turmoil. Chance has evolved under these skies. There is a machine / human friction present in the space. As the work evolves I have a sense of trembling before god ::: a struggle towards language & coherence ::: an ongoing ritual of conceal & reveal / imprint & erasure / struggle & resistance. As a queer artist I inhabit a landscape of the infinite between. This work embeds an infinite series of choreographed transitions. Machine renderers will perform their twists and turns (their monitor-bound between-ness) 24/7 for a year. The marks across the wall echo the arc of my body.

Chance explores the intersections between art & technology / humans & machines / polyphony & mathematical systems. My generative artwork is inspired by the mathematical representations of ecosystems that I studied while a student at the University of MN, Duluth. Mathematical models are often used to represent physical systems ::: our ideas about how the world works. They are like a score / orchestration / script / generative code. Algorithmic blueprints draw the contours of change and movement ::: convergences, divergences, emergent patterns and cascading, system-level impacts. Mathematical models can depict the complexity and profound tension between independent threads and the bounds of interconnected webs ::: the polyphony of life.

Code is a literature ::: a pattern language ::: a score. It is a choreography ::: a performance. A code renderer is the weaver ::: the mill ::: the alchemist ::: the wizard. Code is a spell ::: an incantation ::: an intent. When code is performed it is an activation of text ::: a linguistic gymnastics.

In a perfect confluence of electricity, network, rhythm, memory, processing, action & reactions a program comes to life ::: Pinocchio ::: a real boi at last. The program (the cybernetic ze) speaks to us, calculates for us, responds to our touch : our keystrokes. It becomes our mirror :|: our cyborg self ::: our memory.

other thoughts

Chance is a frayed thread, a stochastic cloud, a pointillist field, a variance, a complexity, an uncertainty, a ragged line. Chance is a prayer ::: slim window of chance ::: survival in this time of profound climatic change. Evolution requires variability, chance and fruitful deviation. A system's ability to adapt to change depends on its ability to mutate ::: on trial & error & improvisation.

This installation combines code, paint, and sound. A pure tone can be modeled with a sine wave. Sounds produced by horsehair, pine pitch, metal, wood, friction, sinew, bone, breath and reed are a complex crash and tumult of waves more like an ocean than an oscilloscope. Worldly sound is gorgeous in its noise and deviance from pure tone. The exhibit blends the generated hum of sine waves hovering near 4 tonal centers with a subtle chordal wash of natural sound.

Indeterminacy ::: a line opens into a surface of possibilities. Random numbers ::: probabilities ::: a pattern emerges from the haze. Time & space carve out convergence or dissolution ::: balance, extinction or chaos.

Connectance ::: ecosystems embody the tension / balance between individual life threads and the complex web of community. Resilience of the whole depends on intricate relationships between the parts. To live in a networked, interdependent system is to be bound but also to be fed.

A BRIEF SNAPSHOT FROM THE BALCONY

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NOTEWORTHY

The Opening Reception for Three States is from 2-5 at the newly opened Joseph Nease Gallery at the corner of First Avenue West and First Street. 

ALSO

Karin Kraemer is hosting her Grand Opening from 5-8 in her new West End location. 

Come check out her new space, Duluth Pottery, which includes a studio AND a gallery.

MEANTIME ART GOES ON ALL AROUND YOU.

ENGAGE IT!

Quick Preview of Tonight's Show @ Goin' Postal, Plus a Peek at KM's "Chance" at the Tweed

Last night was a busy arts night in the Twin Ports, at least for those who tried to catch Chance (Kathy McTavish's new exhibit) at the Tweed and simultaneously needed to get ready for the Goin' Postal 2017 Fall Art Show tonight. In the interest of giving "Chance" the suitable coverage it deserves, I will save my notes and most of the photos for another post soon.

The lights were on late last night as Andrew & Becky Perfetti and friends busied themselves with hanging tonight's show at 816 Tower Avenue in Superior. A shipping store by day, it's also an art gallery (salon style), music studio and creative space for a range of other interests.

The Fall Art Show will be from 6 to 9 with an afterparty down the street at Top Hat Tavern (the current iteration of the former Cove) with a special appearance by Laura Velvet and the Bookhouse Boys and (rumor has it) live painting by Dusty Keliin.

There will be some wonderful new images by John Heino, always a treat.

There will be art of all stripes, plus friends of the arts, old and new. Three new contributors to this year's who are Adam McCauley, Eric Dubnicka and Elizabeth Kuth. Others who have produced and brought new work for tonight include Glenn Blaszkiewicz, Becky Perfetti, Andrew Perfetti, Tal Lindblad, Marcie Crain, Dusty Keliin, John Heino, Ed Newman, John Dromeshauser aka Johnny Mudd, Ash Marnich, Richard Rosvall, Tara Stone, Kerry Gauthier, and Cully Williams.

Will you join us?

Detail from one of three abstract paintings by Elizabeth Kuth.

Another gem.

HERE ARE SOME IMAGES FROM LAST NIGHT AT THE TWEED

Entrance to the Gallery.

Jonathan Thunder, an emerging Native artist gaining national attention.

Christine Strom (L) of Tweed staff with textile artist Erika Mock.

FWIW, Erika Mock makes wearable art and is having a special Live four-day show online at her Etsy store here. Type in the code YES17 to receive Free Shipping during the four days of this sale. Check it out. Original Christmas gift ideas or just a little color for yourself to get you through some drab winter days.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. And yes, I do hope you can make it to our Goin' Postal Fall Art Show tonight. (And don't forget 2-5 at the Joseph Nease Gallery tomorrow.) And... 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Culley, Chance, Nease and More

Whimsicality.

Juxtapositions.

Imagination.

Culley crafts crisp lines forming fascinating and unexpected imagery, 

some of it fraught with emotion. You'll see many new pieces like these 

this coming Friday if you attend the 2017 Goin' Postal Fall Art Show.

816 Tower Avenue in Superior. 6-9 p.m.

Reminders 

Ribbon Cutting @ the new Joseph Nease Gallery 

THIS AFTERNOON at 3:30 p.m. 23 West 1st Street

Kathy McTavish's "Chance" Opening Reception at the Tweed, 

Thursday evening. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

The 2017 Goin' Postal Fall Art Show, 

Friday 6-9 with afterparty at the Top Hat.

"Three States" Opening Reception at the new Joseph Nease Gallery, 

Saturday 2-5 p.m.

* * * *

So much to see, so little time. 

Will we see you there?

Event Reminders: Local Art Scene

GOIN' POSTAL FALL ART SHOW IS NEXT WEEK
OCTOBER 20, 6-9 P.M.

SHADY REST

Prøve Collective

/TOMORROW EVENING 7:00-10:00 P.M.

RIBBON CUTTING FOR 

JOSEPH NEASE GALLERY

23 West 1st Street, Downtown Duluth

Wednesday October 18, 3:30 to 4:00 P.M.

CHANCE 

@ the Tweed

Kathy McTavish's New Installation

Opens Thursday, October 19.

* * * *

* * * *

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

Nease News: Two Openings In Two States

When Karen and Joseph Nease moved to the Northland a couple years ago you knew right off that they would become a welcome addition to the Twin Ports art scene. Artist/painter Karen Nease, finding inspiration in the natural beauty that ebbs and flows around us, was quickly at work on her first Northland show. Husband Joe, meanwhile didn't waste any time doing the essential footwork necessary to locate the ideal space for a new gallery. The Joseph Nease Gallery in Kansas City had gained the attention of national art magazines and in a relatively short time established itself as a serious player in the region.

Well, the Neases are in the Northland now, and it is with pleasure that I share this blog post announcing Karen's new show at the Kruk Gallery in Superior, and the premiere show in the new Joseph Nease Gallery in Downtown Duluth. Anticipation is running high for both these events.

As Above, So Below.
Karen Nease Opening at the Kruk

Superior, Wisconsin - The Kruk Gallery, University of Wisconsin – Superior presents As Above, So Below. The exhibition features a new body of artwork from Karen Owsley Nease’s wave portrait series. Exquisitely painted, and dramatic, these oil paintings portray the waves as powerful, elemental forces. They are monochromatic in palette, ranging in size from small studies to the full size of a wave. The breaking multi-faceted waves create strong patterns of light and dark drawing the viewer closer. As Ann Landi describes, “ … this artist builds up her pictures in glazes until the surface reaches a seductive luminosity. “

Karen Owsley Nease is a contemporary landscape painter whose “…seascape painting draws from the traditions of Western landscape painting, and subverts those traditions as firmly as it refers to them. By doing so it encourages us to retune our way of perceiving the non-human world which surrounds and supports us,” states Ruth Henriquez. Throughout her career, Nease’s artwork has sought to extend the meaning of landscape beyond the Western European tradition. She achieves this by presenting the power of the waters with no reference to humans whatsoever except for the viewer’s own reaction. Her paintings present the forces of nature as entities in their own right, inviting the viewer to see the subject in new ways.

Nease's artwork has reference points in her own efforts toward habitat restoration, American transcendentalist landscape painting and the work of more recent artists such as Neil Welliver, April Gornik and Vija Celmins who are similarly engaged with both the landscape and its use as subject matter for formalist experimentation. Almost photo-realistic when viewed from afar, the paintings become more painterly and abstract as one approaches. From the catalog essay by Ann Landi, “the wave series keeps viewer pleasurably off balance, flirting with abstraction…”

Karen Owsley Nease, artist, states, “I am thrilled at the opportunity to introduce this new and ongoing series of artwork to the Northland. The Kruk Gallery is an ideal space to present my large scale wave paintings and it is important to me that this work can be seen at such a lovely space at the University of Wisconsin – Superior, whose programs play an important role in the protection of Lake Superior which is so nearby.”

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, October 5, 2017, 5-7pm
Exhibition dates: October 4 – October 26, 2017.
Gallery Hours:
Monday - Wednesday 12:00 - 6:00 pm,
Thursday 9:00 am - 6:00 pm,
Friday 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Three States
Joseph Nease Gallery Opening in Duluth

It is a little less than a month before Joseph Nease Gallery opens with its inaugural exhibition Three States on October 21, 2017 with Matthew Kluber, Kathy McTavish, and James Woodfill. If you are unable to make the opening the show will run through January 6, 2017.

So what is Three States?

Art critic, Dave Hickey once suggested “that all an artist needs is to decide where to live, how to live and what they want their art to look like.” Similarly, as a gallery, all you need to know is where you want it to be, how you want it run, and what you want the work you show to look like. Thus, we are in Duluth, Minnesota, with a thoughtfully run gallery showing artwork that we want (you) to see.

In our inaugural exhibition titled Three States, we feature artists from three states with work that is related by motion, technology and finally formed by the space it occupies. Each of these artists, Matthew Kluber (Iowa), Kathy McTavish (Minnesota), and James Woodfill (Missouri) share these commonalities, but through painting, projection, motion, and vantage point options give distinctly different viewer experiences. Matthew Kluber is an artist whose “painting (projection)” work investigates the intersection of painting and digital technology. Kathy McTavish is a media composer, cellist and installation artist whose work blends data, text, code, sound, and abstract, layered moving images. And James Woodfill, an interdisciplinary artist whose work is focused on direct experience through the composition of objects, occurrences and site.

In order to fully introduce the gallery during this inaugural exhibition, we also will be showing at least one recent artwork of each of the artists with whom we are currently working, including work by James Brinsfield, Marcus Cain, Cary Esser, Peter Granados, Rachel Hayes, Don Kottmann, Heidi Pollard, Warren Rosser, Eric Sall, and Tim White.

For more information, Follow the New Joseph Nease Gallery on Facebook.

* * * *

TONIGHT
Don't miss tonight's Opening Reception for IN SITU in the John Steffl Gallery at the Duluth Art Institute, on the fourth floor in The Depot.

* * * *

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it!

Chance Preview: Kathy McTavish @ the Tweed

This past week I finally got a sneak preview of the latest project Kathy McTavish has been working on, an installation titled Chance. Here are the opening paragraphs of her promotional statement, along with a handful of images I captured of the work in progress.

Chance is a synergetic installation that combines code, image, and sound to create a cross-sensory, polyphonic experience. A landscape of painted walls and multi-channel sound encloses the viewer. Choreographed by code, a circle of machine quartets investigate chance, emergence, friction, resonance and change ::: a cloud orchestration. 

Chance opens October 19, 2017. The year-long exhibit will be a living, evolving space ::: a residency / habitation / research lab / performance space. Printed artifacts will be left in the space to give the feel of blueprints / notes ::: a score. The Sax gallery at the Tweed is a luminous space. Its many skylights filter shifting seasons and variable weather patterns ::: a photosynthetic recitation. It provides a sanctuary ::: a place for rest and reflection

The room that houses the exhibit is itself is an architectural wonder. 

Installation art to some extent is a relatively new phenomenon, though one could easily point to the Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal and other architectural wonders to support the counter-argument that installations are nothing new. What's happened in the past half century is simply a new iteration.

Kathy McTavish has a strong following here in the Northland art scene. Her works are continuously evocative and original, thought-provoking and surprising. And when October 19 rolls around, I hope to see you there so we can talk about it.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. What have you seen recently that moved you?

32 Random Phrases from Popular Mechanics August 2008

"Randomness is too important to be left to chance." ~ Robert R. Corveyou

Whose Machine Reigns Supreme?
Taking the Scream Test
The Science of Fear
An American Passion
I’ll Try Anything
Drill It and Shoot It
The more you ask, the more we’re different.
Man, I wish I were anyplace but here.
Guys, want to take fewer trips to the bathroom at night?
Not all fishing buddies have facial hair.
Nematode Nation: Tiny worms reveal large secrets.
Use them as a concert hall – or a sanctuary.
Still haven’t rolled over your old 401(k)?
All along you told them they could change the world.
Turns out you were right.
Progress is easy to take for granted.
If you want to do great things in your world, spend some time in ours.
Unrespected Aerospace
“We look at this place as the best-kept secret in the business. We can see the future from here.”
Look First
Why is Michael Phelps the ultimate athlete?
Ditto
The King Is Back
Hands-Free Can Shaker
Fire When Ready
Primal Screamer
A Fast Bot Finds Work
The Ultimate Paint Job
Mutually Assured Saturation
Why do they make it so complicated?
Fight Back
That’s Ice Cold Common Sense

“The man who said ‘I'd rather be lucky than good’ saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control.” ~ Chris Wilton in Woody Allen's Match Point

Of this last quote and observation, it really is humbling when one considers it... beginning with your birth. Which genetic imprint you received from your father when millions were competing in the initial conception. The nation you were born into. The nurses who handled you, or mishandled. Astrologers would add at this point... which sign of the zodiac you were born under, and the time of day. The circumstances of your early years, how many siblings you shared a home with, or a room. The teachers who formed your ideas about learning, creativity, personal worth. Likes, dislikes; active, inactive. How we got our first job, and the complex factors that in subtle yet imponderable ways determine our careers, our friends and lovers, our miscellaneous adventures through space and time.

How about you? How did you become who you are? How much is choice and how much chance? Tell me what you think.