Bob Dylan's Amazing Balancing Act

Bob Dylan is the consummate story-teller. Even when it's surreal ("Changing of the Guard") and even when a few of the facts are wrong ("Hurricane"), and especially when it feels very personal ("Tangled Up In Blue"), he knows how to tell a good story. He's been telling them in song all his life.

What makes a good story? First, there are the characters. And it's the author's task to make the reader or listener care about those characters. Second, there is a theme. "Simple Twist Of Fate" is about cognitive dissonance, and perhaps a $100 misunderstanding. "Neighborhood Bully" is a penetrating overview of Jewish history and why this beleaguered nation behaves as it does. Third, there is plot. "Lily, Rosemarie and the Jack of Hearts" not only has a storyline in spades, it's just plain fun as a tune. Fourth, there's usually a setting, a space in time. Again with Lily etc. it's the wild west. Finally, the story illustrates another feature of story writing: conflict. "There's something funny going on, you could feel it in the air." In the end there are decisions made.. with consequences.

If you read Chronicles, Volume One, you'll find that Dylan's not only a good story teller in song, but a writer of stories as well. Dylan's autobiography won't tell you the whole story of his life, and it won't be told in the traditional start to finish manner that many biographies follow. (eg.: Young Abe was born in a log house in Kentucky...) I've read it twice and recently picked it up again in preparation for this week's Dylan Days / Dylan Fest activities. Spring has finally sprung in the Northland.

Dylan's story is a about characters whose lives he intersected in one way or another. Anecdotal evidences of his influences peppered throughout.... John Hammond, Buddy Holly, Gorgeous George, Bobby Vee, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Van Ronk, Joan Baez...  in settings far and wide.

But what amazes me most after reading a dozen other Dylan biographies over the years is that he had so much privacy that he could still write volumes about what we didn't know. Dylan is perhaps one of the most public of all public figures. His website, bobdylan.com, tells where his every live concert has been played for more than a half century, and every playlist from these concerts. We can track where he's been and where he is going, how many times he's played "Gotta Serve Somebody" and how many tours of Europe he's taken.

Which leads one to wonder how people in the spotlight create private spaces and thereby preserve their internal sense of self. Dylan has not only been a master of the craft of songwriting and performing, but he's also demonstrated a brilliant ability to balance his public and private spaces and selves. It's an amazing balancing act.

On one level, who Dylan really is is none of my business. But he's had a heckuva run telling stories that intersect with all of our business. It's an amazing balancing act.

The week ahead will be a celebration of all things Dylan. Join us tomorrow night for the Hard Rain concert at Weber Hall, UMD, Duluth as Scarlet Rivera, violinist who accompanied Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue and his Desire album, accompanies Gene LaFond and the Wild Unknown.

Better yet, join us at all the week's activities here and in Hibbing.
Check out the schedule to see where you can plug in. Celebrate the arts with us as we remember this man's significant contributions to music and culture. Or just come along and listen to the music.

Dylan portrait by Ed Newman. Photo by Andrew Perfetti, featuring Scarlet, Gene and the Wild Unknown, Weber Hall 2012.

Wordless Wednesday: Signs

Confessions of a Steampunk Journalist

Eric Horn

This week the Duluth Art Institute is hosting the 2nd Annual Steampunk Spectacular on May 16 & 17 at the Depot. I kid you not, this is not something you see every day… I’ve already noted part of the agenda for this event and hoped to draw your attention to at least some of the very special artist/inventors who will be there. This morning I’d like to invite you to a lecture that I have the privilege of being part of this Thursday evening at The Underground from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Our working title for the lecture is:
"Steampunk 101: An International Movement & A Duluth Phenomenon” 
Manifestations from Our Rust Belt Steampunk Scene

Part I will be a presentation by David Beard, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Department of Writing Studies, University of Minnesota Duluth. Beard has been a fan of Steampunk culture for quite some time and has written extensively on the topic. I’ll be presenting the local Steampunk culture, as much as I understand it through close association with some of the local artists involved with this movement, or diversion, depending on how you look at it.

As for me, when it comes to Steampunk I consider myself late to the dance… I’d seen it in myriad ways, in a Will Vinton claymation movie about Mark Twain, in a variety of films from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But I’d failed to grasp that it was itself a genre, until the scales fell off my eyes. Eventually I became fascination with it as a cultural phenomenon, and allowed my association with it to influence some of my art.

Like postmodernism, Steampunk is a catchall for a variety of manifestations along a convoluted stream of individual expressions. Attempts at a perfect definition are elusive, but there are common threads that stitch these various components together as David (Professor Beard) has explained.

If at first you don’t “get it” you needn’t be alarmed. Sooner or later you’ll understand.

Patty and Wally Mahnke

One of the things that struck me about nearly all the people who have immersed themselves in Steampunk art and activities is that they have become real students of history in order to get their costumes and gear accurately created. Whether Roman times, Medieval times or Victorian Era, each period of history has its own fashions and technological limitations. Steampunk role-players research this in depth in order to conceive and produce their own fashions and gadgetry.

It may be too late to rustle up your complete dream attire for this year, but if you're interested in being a part of the train ride Friday evening (5:30 - 7:00 p.m.) or partying in the Railroad Museum afterwards, here are some images to give you an idea of what others might be wearing. Don't worry, you may come as you are. No one will make fun of you. Afterwards you can start collecting ideas for next year's costume.

Last year, as I was going into the Depot I saw a young man with a weapon affixed to his left forearm. Upon closer inspection I realized he had modified a typewriter carriage with a few gizmos, and hed had "the look." 

The Steampunk art show and Emporium in the Great Hall will be free both Thursday and Friday, open to the public up till 7 p.m. The train ride will cost you a few bucks as will the party in the Railroad Museum, to defray expenses of making this a true Spectacular. And don't forget the afterparty.

Photos courtesy Andrew Perfetti Photography

Night Train / Red Dust @ The Underground

The Mission of The Underground is to serve as a community meeting place for culture and conversation, for arts and education, offering diverse programming to foster the artistic and intellectual life of Northern Minnesota.

This past fall the Twin Ports Arts Align held its monthly meeting in the space that formerly housed the Children's Museum at the Depot here in Duluth. The aim was more than to simply be a social hour. The organizers asked us to help name the new space. In the course of the evening we were to place a vote for one of several proposed names, or invent a name of our own which could be added to the list for consideration. When the dust cleared, the space had a new name: The Underground. As a multi-purpose event center, the space is well suited for a vibrant future.

The Underground is just one of many venues for theater, music, dance and poetry that is being shared during this month of highlighting the arts in our community. We have the Minnesota Ballet, Rubber Chicken Theater, Renegade Theater Company, Lyric Opera of the North, the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Wise Fool Shakespeare, the MN School of Fine Arts and the Zeitgeist Arts all eager to entertain, while exploring the heights and depths of human experience.

Tonight at 7:30 p.m., The Underground is presenting Night Train/Red Dust, a multi-media experience featuring new poetry by Sheila Packa accompanied by film and cello by Kathy McTavish.

The careful reader will discover that Packa's writing contains many rich veins of ore, accompanied by miscellaneous precious stones and shimmering flakes of gold.

"I claim my words from the broken
English, damaged roots
Finnish syntax, mineral rights lost

Eminent Domains
from small print, unreadable clauses
labor contracts and mine dumps
old factories and invisible contamination

my words, in the run off,
in open streams – oxidize
form like tree rings in industrial circles

heat in the smelters, pour like lava into steel
form these rails that carry the trains
these trains that carry this freight"

For myself, this theme is inextricably linked to Dylan's North Country Blues, another lament about this complicated part of our Northland.

"Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran empty
But the cardboard filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty."
~Bob Dylan, North Country Blues

During the past year I've been amazed by the degree to which musical accompaniment can bring poetry to a new level, though it shouldn't surprise any of us as this is what Dylan's lyricism has always produced. McTavish's more abstract accompaniments produce an almost unearthly exquisiteness that can transform the words and images and give them wings, as I attempted to express in my review of the Packa/McTavish performance of Holy Fool. Attend if you are able.

Funded by the Jerome Foundation & the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.

Bridgett Riversmith’s Recycl-O-Scope

It's finally here. This week is the 2nd Annual Steampunk Spectacular, May 16 & 17 at the Depot. Steampunk art, steampunk fashion, a steampunk emporium and live entertainment all conspire to make this year's Duluth Art Institute Steampunk Show even more of a spectacle than last year's stunner. Day one of the event is being called a Steampunk Symposium. You may visit the Steampunk Art Show from 10:00 a.m. till 7:00 p.m. with a strong collection of local steampunk enthusiasts as well as some visiting artists from New Orleans and the Northwest.

Concurrent with the art show will be a Steampunk Marketplace from noon till closing as well. If you haven't created your costume yet for the Friday night train ride (Yes, you get to go back in time!) you may pick up a few embellishments for your costuming here.

And if you're not sure what all this steampunk fuss is about, you may attend a lecture on the subject in The Underground at 6:00 p.m., presented by UMD professor Dr. David Beard along with myself. David will present a framework for understanding Steampunk's roots and I will share the various ways in which steampunk culture has been manifesting itself in our local art scene.

For a complete rundown of Friday's scheduled events visit the dedicated DAI Event Schedule.

Bridget Riversmith's Recycl-O-Scope Returns
  

Bridget Riversmith

If you attended last year's Steampunk event here in Duluth I'm sure you were overwhelmed by the astonishing variety in the costumes, the wares and the context... going back in time to be with steam powered locomotives in the once great depot train museum. In the midst of all this there was an unusual device that utterly fascinated... Bridget Riversmith's Recycl-O-Scope. If I were a judge I'd have declared it Best of Show, and this was a show that already was over-the-top. So, it made me happy to get another chance to see it on display and in action.

What, pray tell, is a Recycl-O-Scope?

Well, if you go back in time, before film and film projectors, there were inventive people who strove to create a motion in pictures. When I was a kid my dad would make little flip-books with drawings that might show a boy kicking a ball, or some other little fun sequence. Bridget Riversmith is a teaching artist and animator who works with children with disabilities, and just so happens to fascinate them by having them not only creates flip books, but through a scanner and software converts them into short animations.

At Adeline's in April

Riversmith's fascination with animation led her to research the early development of motion picture techniques, which led her to the Steampunk era when the fervent spirit of invention was everywhere. When I spoke with her recently she took me on a little tour of these early developments. The first of these was the zoetrope,  "a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures." (1)

According to Wikipedia, the zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

Earthworks and Skyscrapers, by Riversmith

Riversmith explained how in 1877 Charles-Émile Reynaud, a French inventor, designed a machine called a Praxinoscope and later the Theater Optique as an improvement on the zoetrope, turning it into a suitcase-sized theater to make it a three dimensional experience. In 1892 he projected the first animated film in public, but was later trumped by other forms of moving pictures. 

EN: What influenced you to make your Recycl-O-Scope?

BR: Biggest influence… My grandparents were farmers, the best mixed media artists in the universe, finding out what can be done with materials on hand. I’m a creature of necessity. Building zoetropes solved a problem.

I found something in Hungarian, but essentially did some elementary geometry and math. I used almost all bits of a (broken) dryer. I learned welding to accomplish this. I created handle for the drive wheel from a drill and other parts. I've been inspired by Dick Rosvall as well and I'm a big fan of Terry Gilliam’s films.

EN: Why are people so atracted to Steampunk?

BR: People are attracted to what the Victorians were trying to do. They were self-made inventors, fearless. People didn’t draw an arbitrary line between the arts and sciences. It was all the same thing, resulting in amazing discoveries. Creating an arbitrary line between the two results in stagnation. People enjoy the projects. Isaac Asimov once said, “Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.”

People were rising above a society steeped in superstition. They weren’t exclusive. It was a period with an incredible range of creativity, a real inspiring time. It’s interesting to see, too, how a lot of visions of the future had rails and airships....

EdNote: I share all this today because if nothing else, when you get over to the Steampunk Spectacular this Thursday and/or Friday, I want to make sure you don't miss Bridget Riversmith's upgraded Recycl-O-Scope. Her husband won't have to spend the evening cranking it with manpower this year.


(1) Wikipedia

A Strong Finish For NXN Visual Arts Week

Inside the heart of radiopluto

If you were out and about last night, you saw an incredibly wide range of work by local and regional artists on display at at least a half dozen locations on both sides of the bridge. As I've repeated all too often, it would be nice to clone oneself sometimes, and last night here in the Twin Ports would have been one of those times.

The Stewardess Syndrome
During a recent Delta flight I made the observation that stewards and stewardesses on airplanes must have a tough challenge emotionally because they meet so many interesting people on a daily basis but their relationships with these people never have any depth because there is no time to really develop anything beyond the superficial. I asked a stewardess about this and she said yes, it is a serious problem. She works twelve hour days, and does not even work with the same people every day. It does take an emotional toll.

This thought hit me last night that there are absolutely so many interesting people in the arts community, and so much interesting work being done, but we're all so busy we can sometimes fail to engage the work or one another beyond the most superficial levels. It was especially apparent to me last night because I so wanted to see everything and everyone... and without exception every conversation was too short.

For myself the evening began at the 2013 Goin' Postal Spring Show. The "Gallery" displayed more works by more artists than ever and it was gratifying to see so many young and old, artists and non-artists and friends of artists there. Many hands were involved in making this event so warm and energetic, but a few should especially be cited including Andrew Perfetti, who has donated his business space to the arts in such a visible way, Carla Magnuson, who worked tirelessly to communicate with the artists and bring everything together. And then, kudos to all the artists who shared their passions here.

Wall of works by Becky Brandt

I'd like to give special recognition to Becky Brandt and Tara Stone whose new work shows a maturing development in their draft(wo)manship and craft(wo)manship. But in truth, everyone had some pieces I found noteworthy, and space does not permit a complete elaboration. Dusty Keliin was well represented with both ceramic works and paintings. I also had some new work there along with fifteen other artists and photographers. If you missed it, I'm fairly certain much of the art will remain in place during the weeks ahead. Even thought Tower Avenue is torn up you'll be able to find it easily by looking for the signs on Ogden near the tracks.

Raku piece by Hendershot

On the Duluth side of the bridge the shows were many and of a wide variety that was totally engrossing. I hopped up to the Mud Sisters opening at Washington Galley first, as it was an early eve event. Six women who work with "mud" demonstrated the range of things one can do with a little clay and a pinch of imagination. The show featured work by Beth Carpenter, Susan Schnetzler, Wendy Wright, Sue Damme and Joan Hendershot. There was a few bronze pieces by Carpenter, but the rest of the gallery featured stoneware, raku, porcelain and fire clay. I can't say enough about the vitality of our local ceramics scene, fostered by a number of established artisans like the Husbys, Dave Lynas and Tonya Borgeson.

The back of the Prove offered a collaborative blackboard, chalk provided.

Two blocks down the hill the Prove Gallery was in elite form last night, presenting two exhibitions... one in their own gallery space and a second across the street in the Gardner Hotel. I found both spaces exhilarating. This is where I regret the lack of a clone. I would have preferred staying much longer at the Radiopluto menagerie of moods, which had Kathy McTavish's fingerprints all over it, though I also so a reprise of other Prove Collective concepts as well. Inspiring, beautiful, even painful. Thanks for taking this on. Just being inside the space made you feel a part of it.

Our week-long celebration of the visual arts here in the Northland will include events today at Pineapple Arts and the Northern Prints Gallery, along with an afternoon re-opening of Superior Depot for the Phantom Galleries Superior display there featuring Sarah Brokke's Shift and works by others.

Hope you've enjoyed the week. The lineup for dance, theater and music this coming week should be equally inspiring. Be part of it.

A Little Bit of Luke Holden, and a Lot More

Luke Holden, 2012

On an evening like this last spring I met Luke Holden, a young artist from the Bemidji area whose work was being displayed at the Ochre Ghost Gallery. The Ghost continues to be a nice little gallery for bringing people doing original and sometimes unconventional contemporary work to a wider public.

Tonight is the culmination of NXN visual arts week here and there will be a lot to see so plan your evening well in advance. In addition to the traditional trio of galleries doing the Second Friday Night Art Crawl (Washington, Ochre and Prove) there is also an opening in a new space across the street from the Prove. Be sure to check out Luminaries at the Prove Gallery and #RadioPluto at The Gardner Building across the way.

But don't stop there. There are happenings at the Duluth Photography Institute, Northern Prints Gallery, Pineapple Arts, and a gallery Skywalk Tour.

Over in Souptown is the Goin' Postal Spring Show featuring new work by Carla Magnuson, Jeredt Runions, Dustin Keliin, Becky Brandt, Anthony Sclavi, Andrew Perfetti, Lindsey Graskey, Justin Sinks, Matt Stengl, John Heino, Tal Lindblad, Colin Wiita, Big Andy, Chelsea Miller, Eric Horn, Tara Stone, Christian Dalbec, Sharon Rogers, Mike Trepanier and yours truly. I've  decided to auction off my John & Yoko tonight, so if you are one of the several people who've asked for pricing over the past year, you may want to get a bid in.

As I said, plan the evening well so you know where you want to end the later part of the evening. Prove is open till 11:00 p.m. and the Goin' Postal Show is throwing an afterparty at Bev's Jook Joint next door with several stellar local performers, The Tico Three, Five Pints of Rye, Next of Kin and Dennis.

But first, let's hear what Luke Holden has to say about making art.

EN: How and when did you come to take an interest in art? 
LH: My parents are artists and they've always encouraged me to paint and draw.

EN: Where did you study? 
LH: I studied visual art at Perpich Center for Arts Education, aka: "the arts hi" in Golden Valley MN. Most recently I am studying printmaking at Bemidji State University.

EN: Who are your favorite artists and why? 
LH: My favorite artists are my friends, because when you know the artist it makes the work more meaningful. It tells things about the person.

EN: Where do you live and what do you currently do for a living? 
LH: I live in Bemidji. I am a student worker in the screenprinting studio at BSU. I am also a personal care attendant for an adult with autism.

EN: You like to draw. Describe how that started and how you developed your style. 
LH: I travel alot and it’s easy to keep a sketchbook. Drawing is the foundation of alot of other processes and I probably will never master it. My style is sloppy, basically. I like drawing fast and not fussing with it much. I've noticed I draw best when I'm distracted, like on the telephone. Theres something about things coming out of my hands without alot of intention. I like that.

EN: Do you have a name for you style? 
LH: No, I don't have a name besides sloppy.

EN: Where can people see more of your work? 
LH: People can see more of my work in the basement of the Bemidji Community Art Center where my studio is. Also at random art shows in Northern Minnesota!

Here are a few additional pieces from last year's show.