In Focus: Photographer Andrew Perfetti

Andrew Perfetti has been a guitarist in Uprising and other local bands for several years. By day he’s been owner of Superior’s Goin’ Postal, a shipping store and copy center. His passion for photography and the arts has resulted in the establishment of Perfetti Photography.

EN: How did you come to take an interest in photography?
AP: I wanted an excuse to go out to different concerts when I wasn’t playing. Artistically I always wanted to be involved so I took photos of bands playing. Some of the bands noticed my work and started requesting that I come, hiring me to do album art and band posters.

I started branching off into different areas of photography, eventually getting hired to do commercial work with bigger name bands and clients outside the local entertainment scene. As a natural progression of my passion for photography and study of art, I gravitated toward fine art photography, developing my own style to integrate fine art with commercial work.

EN: Who are your favorite photographers and why?
AP: My favorite? Annie Leibovitz , for her ability to show the humanity in all of her subjects, famous or non. Robert Mapplethorpe, for his passion for documenting anything he found important. Robert Capa, for his fearless drive to take the important shots.

EN: What are some of the things that inspire you as an artist?
AP: Documenting my life. Photography has allowed me to slow down my mind and take notice of moments that I might otherwise would have disregarded or failed to appreciate the significance of. It also allowed me to reflect on my own life and my role in the lives of my friends and family.

EN: What’s your take on the Twin Ports arts scene?
AP: The Twin Ports Arts Scene has an amazing abundance of talent and passion. It is as relevant to me as the global arts scene and, in my opinion, as full of quality work as you will find in New York or any of the other art hubs in the world or United States. It is not without its cliques though. But as of recently it has been gaining momentum and many fragments of it seem to be uniting for a higher cause.

EN: What has changed in the way you approach your photography over the past three years?
AP: I’ve evolved into more commercial work and less Photoshopping. I approach each image with a little more clarity of thought and a more experienced eye.

EN: Does this mean you’re moving away from fine art photography?
AP: No, I am not moving away… but at the moment time constraints with my business do not afford me the time that I have had in the past. I am evolving and my tastes have changed so that my work is becoming more defined.

EN: In what way?
AP: I am pursuing creative projects with more thought and spending less time hunting for opportunity. In the past a lot of my fine art work has been the result of spontaneity, whereas my schedule is more structured, so I am approaching photography in a more focused manner.

EN: You’ve been involved with some collaborative work…. What kinds of things have you learned through those experiences?
AP: Collaborative work has helped me grow as an artist and given me the opportunity to try new things that would have otherwise been outside the scope of my interests. I have been fortunate to work with some very inspiring and talented artists who have enabled me to participate in other genres that would have otherwise not been on my radar such as Steampunk and fashion.

EN: Your shipping business is also something of an art gallery. Can you describe how this happened? How can other businesses get more linked to artists?
AP: After about four years of developing my business I was offered the opportunity to show some art from a local artist. The experience of being surrounded on a daily basis by that artwork changed my quality of life for the better. It was then suggested that I do an art show for that artist and the success of the show convinced me that other people in the community really enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to experience the art.

I started getting an abundance of people requesting more art and stopping in to my business just to see the art. I found it to be enriching for both my personal life, my business and the community as a whole. The amount of enthusiasm of the local community towards the art I was showing also helped me develop confidence in my own art. I was overwhelmed by the support and interest of the local business community and city and decided to make it my mission to showcase local artists and provide an opportunity for them to get their work seen.

EN: Do you have any upcoming projects for 2013.
AP: I am currently developing a project with Friends of Industry where we will be creating photo shoots inspired by classic horror and sci-fi films as well as other art forms based on the same ideas, including sculpture, painting, fashion, etc. I'm also creating work for the May 10, 2013 Goin' Postal Art show which will include a lot of my new work and the works of sixteen other artists.

Alan Sparhawk and his Retribution Gospel Choir

EdNote: Find more of Andy's work at www.andrewperfetti.com

Wordless Wednesday: Cutouts

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

Belles-lettres is a French phrase meaning "beautiful" or "fine" writing. In this sense, therefore, it includes all literary works — especially fiction, poetry, drama, or essays — valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone.*

Every once in a while during my regular visits to the public library I stop to skim titles on the discard rack near the returns window. For pocket change you can find some fairly interesting volumes. This past month I picked up Ian McEwan's short novel (or long novella, depending) On Chesil Beach.

From the aesthetic beauty of its opening lines I sensed the story would be worth my investment of time. McEwan is an old school stylist who composes his work with beautifully crafted sentences, woven into a masterful picture that packs volumes. The opening sentence tells all. "They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." Crack open this kernel and you will unfold the entire story of these two young people's lives.

One critical reviewer on Amazon.com described the book this way: If you are easily seduced by beautiful sentences, you'll feel On Chesil Beach is a five-star book. If you love exploring inner dialogue, you'll be even more pleased with this book.

I happen to be one who is seduced by beautiful sentences. Norman MacLean's A River Runs Through It grabbed me from its opening lines. Likewise The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Another favorite, and all of these I have read several times, is Andre Gide's masterfully exquisite Isabelle.

McEwan has already proven he is a capable writer and On Chesil Beach is a worthy 13th novel. Even the afterword is written with an amusing carefulness, a comic remark to help relieve the tension: The characters in this novel are inventions and bear no resemblance to people living or dead. Edward and Florence's hotel--just over a mile south of Abbotsbury, Dorset, occupying an elevated position in a field behind the beach parking lot--does not exist.

The story is set in 1962 England. The characters are two, Edward and Florence, and the name selection could not have been more suggestive. These were names from an era that was soon passing. 1962 would be a cultural turning point in England, as well as America, forever altered by a sea-swell of events.

The name of the beach is also noteworthy. Chesil was the name of an Old Testament town in south Judah. The word means ungodly. (Josh. 15:30)

On Chesil Beach is essentially an intimate, detailed portrait of three fateful hours in the lives of two people, told in the form of a five-part play. The first act takes place in the living room area of the honeymoon suite as the newlyweds are served a catered meal one course at a time. The reader follows their interior monologues as they kill time, constantly aware of the four-poster bed in the other room, visible through the open door.

I couldn't help but think of Dorothy Parker's treatment of the same theme in her hilarious short story "Here We Are" depicting newlyweds in those fateful hours before their first undress. McEwan's story is far weightier with its bleakness foreshadowed throughout.

The second act shows us how they met. They do love each other. Part three depicts the events that occurred in the bedroom. Part four details their courtship and the final act is what happened afterwards, a short summation of the rest of their lives.

Quotes that pop into my head at this point include this piece of advice we've all heard in various configurations: "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that determines who you are." Certainly this might well be at the center of this story, because had Edward and Florence responded differently this would not have been the tragedy it became.

I found the book thought-provoking, though the graphic nature of the central event will make squeamish readers uncomfortable. McEwan writes with mastery. I may have to find more of his work.

*The Free Dictionary

The Steampunk Symposium: Call For Artists

My first introduction to Steampunk was two years ago at a Friends of Industry event, the world premiere of Chronicle by Eric Horn.So when A Night of Steampunk took place at the Depot Train Museum last year I was ready. You don't have to step back in time in a costume to enjoy it, but it sure was fun to do so. Like a kid who's dad flipped him up in the air and caught him again, I was grinning big and saying, "Do it again!"

Well, they're doing it again.

This coming May 16 & 17 the Duluth Art Institute will be hosting a two day event called The Steampunk Symposium and Spectacular, a two-day gathering of artists, performers, and fashion designers to celebrate Steampunk art, literature, and culture. For this reason the call has gone out for artists to share their Steampunk-inspired works for events within the Steampunk Symposium and Spectacular. There are three categories where artists can become involved: the t-shirt design contest, the art exhibit itself, and emporium/marketplace.

One reason for noting the event now is to make sure you yourself have plenty of time to begin collecting gear for your own Steampunk outfit. I mean, if you're going back in time, you might as well look the part.

The T-Shirt Design Contest has an April 13 deadline, so you still have a month to put something together. Key things to incorporate into you finished design are the words Steampunk Spectacular and the initials DAI. Design winner will receive a $100 cash prize and two free tickets to the Steampunk Spectacular. More importantly, everyone in the region will be snapping up these t-shirts and wearing your artwork as a badge of honor, letting everyone know that they were there. For submission details and a registration form visit the DAI T-Shirt Contest page. You needn't be present to win.

The Call for Artists has already gone out, but if the couriers never reached your castle I'm here to let you know that it's time to step up. The DAI is seeking Steampunk-inspired works for the gallery section of the event. There will also be performers and fashion designers celebrating Steampunk. Deadline for gallery submissions is April 19, 2013. Details here.

There is also a Call for Vendors who may be interested in selling their wares, a marketplace for Steampunk art, literature and culture. Tables will be set up and space rented out in the Great Hall for this purpose. Information on how to apply for vendor space, rules regarding setup, hours and all other details has been compiled on a DAI web page established for this purpose.

Whether you're going all out or just a curiosity seeker, the event will be just one more highlight of a bejeweled month of arts, music and culture here in the Northland. Mark your calendars.

Photos courtesy Patricia Mahnke

The Most Dangerous Man In The World

Back in the nineties, when the Internet was young, I came across a magazine called 2600, a quarterly publication for hackers. The whole idea of it was foreign to me and like everything Internet it made me curious. We've all heard stories of kids who by means of their net connections broke into places they shouldn't have been to produce unanticipated effects. On one occasion a satellite was re-directed which resulted in 90% of all U.S. pages becoming inoperable for a time.

According to Wikipedia the name of the zine "comes from the phreaker discovery in the 1960s that the transmission of a 2600 hertz tone (which could be produced perfectly with a plastic toy whistle given away free with Cap'n Crunch cereal—discovered by friends of John Draper) over a long-distance trunk connection gained access to 'operator mode' and allowed the user to explore aspects of the telephone system that were not otherwise accessible."

There's plenty about the modern world that is unusual. And considering how many varieties of experience and cultures we come from, it's not surprising how many varieties of people there are in the world. Julian Assange is one of these, labeled by some as The Most Dangerous Man In The World.

Earlier this years I finished Andrew Fowler's biography of Assange. Well-researched, well-told, the book gives you insights about the founder of WikiLeaks, his roots, his life lessons and who he really is. The book is available on Amazon.com and a Kindle version can be had for just 99 cents.

The story begins in 1971. His mother Christine was a hippie artist who escaped from a cult and for a time lived in a cottage on an island off the coast of Australia. She and inifant Julian bounced around in various places trying to avoid the son of a cult leader who may have been Julian's father. "The Family" was an isolated group that included LSD as a centerpiece of some of its rituals.

Julian was a smart kid who took an early interest in computers. His mother would paint and he would head to his room. At age eleven he was writing software for the Commodore 64 his mom bought him. As a teen he came involved with a group of non-conformist geeks who called themselves The International Subversives. Utilizing the early backbone of the Internet (pre-WWW) they became hackers, going so far as to interfere with a NASA rocket launch.

There are a number of rather critical reviews of Fowler's version of the Julian Assange story, one of many bios that have emerged since Assange became a high-profile newsmaker a couple years back. Even if The Most Dangerous Man is thin on details, as one reviewer wrote, I still found it an interesting read simply because I really knew nothing about this man other than he posted secret military documents that purportedly put lives in danger.

Remember, what the media says and what really happened is also fraught with a measure of unreliability.

There were many insights I gained from this volume, foremost being his relationship with Daniel Ellsberg, who to some extent served as a mentor with regard to Assange's activities. Ellsberg, you may recall, outraged President Nixon and the Pentagon by releasing what became known as "the Pentagon Papers" to the New York Times. At the time, Henry Kissinger called Ellsberg "the world's most dangerous man."

Ellsberg, a military analyst with the RAND Corporation, explained his behavior this way. "There were 7,000 pages of top secret documents that demonstrated unconstitutional behavior by a succession of presidents, the violation of their oath and the violation of the oath of every one of their subordinates..."* His aim was to create open public debate about the Viet Nam War to which he had become opposed.

According to the book Ellsberg both supported and chastized Assange for some of his WikiLeaks activity. Ellsberg was extremely critical of Assange after the latter dumped a large volume of U.S. State Department  communications into the public realm without first reading them. This would set a very bad precedent, as there really are some things that should not be revealed, like names of embedded servicemen and agents. According to the book there were no lives lost from this incident and Assange agreed that he could never do something like that again.

For what it's worth, I found the book to the a helpful read that gave insights I would not otherwise have had about the man. Ellsberg himself endorsed the book with these words: "A gripping thriller. By far the best account of Julian Assange's motives and the talents that make him so dangerous."

The Internet as an agent of creating transparency is also capable of toppling governments, as we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt. There's something to be said for people with courage enough to stand up to the State with a flashlight to shine on what power brokers prefer to keep hidden. When Ellsberg was labelled dangerous, one must ask, "To whom?" Same with Assange I suspect.

Something to think about.

* http://www.democracynow.org/2007/7/2/how_the_pentagon_papers_came_to

Serious Whimsy to Spectacle, 5 Art Exhibitions Opened Last Night in Duluth

Mary Hunt's "Privacy No More" was original and mentally stimulating.

Mother Nature was kind for a March evening of art openings in the Northland. You could have left your scarves and gloves home while traipsing about the downtown art scene here in Duluth last night.

Just for the Season Gallery featured paintings and prints by Doris Sampson, and it was good to see Doris again. Earlier in the afternoon she did some live painting. She continues to be productive and has produced some colorful new work using various effects. As I spoke to others later in the evening I discovered that quite a few were unaware of this gallery tucked in to the Holiday Center. If you find yourself in the vicinity be sure to stop in and see the range of local artists represented.

Sculpture by Ares

Washington Gallery featured work by two women artists new to the area, Monica Ares and Mary Hunt. Both are doing imaginative original work. It's my hope to learn more about their stories and share more of their work here. Hunt, who received her MFA at the University of Delaware, has produced an array of pieces that explore one of the challenges of living in a digital age. A "digital artist with the heart of a painter" is one way she has been described. An innovative explorer working outside the boundaries of any specific medium is how I would describe her.

Ares, too, had a fascinating exhibit. Like Hunt, she works in a variety of media. A Native American who has spent a good deal of time in the Southwest, she feels at home here in Northland. Her show is titled Beneath Perceptions. Both artists will have their work in the Washington Gallery thru the end of March.

Ochre Ghost had Andy Hardman's photography on display. This particular show featured photos from a nine month stint in New York at the Webster Music Hall. The images are striking.

LaMahieu's work made me hungry to see more

Double Dutch is the newest addition the Second Friday gallery romp, and a welcome one at that. Once again there was not only music and art, but also poetry as Bob Monohan of Chaperone Records showcased some new material and dusted off a few older favorites. Though a relatively small space on the corner of Lake Avenue and Superior Street, it's a comfortable little world with a lot to see. Last night featured art by Brian Ring and Ryan LaMahieu.

And then there was the PRØVE. Packed, as usual, with friends of the artists and the growing community of fans here. There was plenty to chew on here with an assortment of artists assembled under the rubric TEXT. Music by SNOBARN capped the evening. I can't say enough about the vibes last night. Except that by the time I got home the music scene was only beginning. Great to see everyone last night. Thanks to all who have contributed to make it happen.

4 Tips That Will Improve Yer Writing

When I was a young artist I heard an instructor say, "It takes a thousand bad drawings to make a good one." This was such a liberating idea because it helped me get loose and not worry about trying to do great work right off the bat. It inspired me to be productive so that the first really good drawing would be sooner than later.

This is not to say that those first drawings were awful. There were elements in many of my early drawings that to this day I find interesting, even impressive. For the most part the draftsmanship and execution failed to attain the heights toward which the concepts aspired. I was an amateur.

The point here is that one suggestion made an immense difference in my life as a young artist. I didn't need twenty or forty tips to set my pen on fire. And this morning I am not going to outline fifty or one hundred things you should do to become a better writer. Rather, I will share four. If one of these connects with you and it changes your life, pass it on.

Advice For Beginning Writers

1. Write every day.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: A writer is one who writes, not one who simply talks about writing. You don't have to answer to me on this, or to anyone else for that matter. Either you are writing or you are not writing.

It can be journal writing, recording dreams, blogging, writing poetry -- whatever it is you are earnest about it. You set aside a space in time to put words on paper, or onto a document in your laptop, whatever. Just do it. No one has to know that you're writing, or what you're writing for that matter. Just write.

2. Get assignments.
There are all kinds of publications that print work by beginning writers. Some may even put a little cash in your pocket. Getting assignments will help you in a number of critical ways. First, you will learn how to write in a context. If you are writing for the newspaper, there is a certain tone and style for reviews or news stories and a different kind of style for the opinion page. Second, you will find that there are benefits to having deadlines. Learning how to meet deadlines demonstrates your reliability which will help you get more assignments. Third, you will learn how to work with an editor, or how to deal with editors who mess with your beautiful words. If you can't handle that...

3. Produce excellent work.
As you write, constantly challenge yourself to learn new ways to express an idea. Keep stretching. Learn how to edit and tighten sentences. Learn how to convey abstract ideas.

A young writer friend recently began sending me short stories to read. He has never attempted fiction and I agreed to look at a couple. I've read five now and here is what impressed me. Each was written in a different way. Some were first person, some third person. One was told from the point of view of a nine-or-ten-year-old. One was eighty-percent dialogue with almost no action. Another more description and drama. In short, he's taking steps toward being serious about the craft.

4. Find a mentor.
I met John at a writer's group in the Twin Cities. After a couple meetings I recognized that he had been where I wanted to go. I had been writing for several years but had yet to reach the first rung of a ladder. John showed me the way. He reviewed my articles and pointed out their shortcomings. He took time to show me how to present my manuscripts for consideration by publications. He challenged me to not settle for mediocre when producing work that I cared about. 

I suppose the Eastern adage applies here: when the pupil is ready the master will appear. Write every day, get assignments and sweat drops of blood in your effort to produce superior work... and when the veil is lifted you'll begin to see the light.

Have fun along the way. Don't take yourself too serious yet. It's a long and narrow way. Write on!