Fall Schedule for DAI Announced: Another Exciting Season Coming Up

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." ~Thomas Merton

The Thomas Merton quote above comes from a page of quotes around the theme "What Is Art?" What I find interesting here is how the quotes seem to say more about the speaker than the topic. That only makes sense. If as Marshall McLuhan once wrote (and Warhol likewise said) "art is whatever you can get away with," then a definition of art must fall under the spell of the same definition.

In seeking a suitable quote to open a blog post about upcoming events at the Duluth Art Institute, I found a rewarding website called Brain Pickings.

I like this one by Fellini: "All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography." If you replace the word art with"life" you might get away with saying the same thing. Which leads to the admonition to beware of throwing your pearls before swine.

Alas! Here's a Fall/Winter Schedule for the DAI with a lot to look froward to.

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From the Basement: Brent Kusterman, Sept. 22 - Nov. 6, 2016
The work of Brent Kusterman is raw and immediate, layered and mythic. His paintings incorporate found objects and collage, and are focused on keeping the process of art making visible to the viewer. Kustermann is not afraid of a heavy line or rich colors and generates a constant tension throughout the work. A combination of abstract gesture mixed with figural quotations create a middle ground for mind wandering in his canvases.

Rust & Flow: David Everett, Sept. 22 - Nov. 16, 2016
Sculptor David Everett works primarily in iron, exploring the push and pull of pairing seemingly everyday objects with larger mythological traditions. Everett’s exhibit presents two main bodies of work. In the first he transforms trash reclaimed from the beaches of Lake Superior and its tributaries into aquatic creatures and landscapes. The second combines weapons of war and violence with food and sustenance. Everett’s explorations engage us in a dialogue about the unintended consequences of what we purchase, consume, utilize and discard. [EdNote: David Everett is the artisan who transformed the designs into manhole covers for three locations on Bob Dylan Way. He also forged the official marker for the walk in front of the original home of Bob Dylan in Duluth's Central Hillside.]

Fragments/Memory: Adam McCauley, Sept. 22 - Nov. 16, 2016
Employing traditional mediums alongside craft paint, print screens, antique book covers and the universal grid, McCauley builds artwork that is purposefully based in the physical world, staunchly refusing the comforts of representation for his viewers. Built with layers and focused on the formal, McCauley’s work is at once mind bending and fresh, focused and free.

Duluth Quantum Computing Project: Storytelling in a Digital Age (Now thru TBD)
Kathy McTavish is offering free workshops and lectures exploring digital-based art throughout August and September, held at an off-site location (3 West Superior). A composer and media artist who has over 20 years of experience working at the intersection of art, science and technology, McTavish has exhibited multimedia installations at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND and at the 2015 Northern Spark Festival in Minneapolis, MN. Under her guidance the workshop experience will culminate in a collaborative installation in the downtown storefront. This project and exhibition is made possible by the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.

My Mind’s Eye: Portraits Inspired by Shakespeare’s First Folio, October 3 - 27, 2016
In honor of Shakespeare’s First Folio visit to Duluth, The Duluth Art Institute is hosting a portrait exhibition exploring artists’ unique renditions of their favorite characters from Shakespeare’s plays. For more info on Shakespeare’s First Folio, visit: http://d.umn.edu/shakespeares-first-folio/

4North: New Works by Alison Aune, Kirsten Aune, Ann Klefstad, & Arna Rennan, Nov. 10, 2016 – Feb. 2, 2017
In her 1979 book of short stories titled “The White Album,” Joan Didion posits that “a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, and loves it so radically” that they remake it in their own image. The Duluth Art Institute’s fall exhibit, 4North, features four female artists that share a heritage from Scandanavia as well as make their home in the northern reaches of Minnesota near Duluth. While the work diverges in style and medium, the artists share grounding in their dual identity and connection to place. Threads throughout the show reveal a deep reverence for the natural world and the translation and transmutation of patterns and symbols. Four women artists— Alison Aune, Arna Rennan, Ann Klefstad, and Kirsten Aune—create work that sings in harmony and connects viewers to their own personal home, wherever that may be. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of enhancement events.

61st Arrowhead Regional Biennial

Started in 1919, the Arrowhead Regional Biennial features some of the best artwork coming out of the upper Midwest, showcasing the work of exciting contemporary artists from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada. Three awards will be named on the evening of the opening reception with almost $2,000 worth of prizes.

Dyani White Hawk will serve as the Juror this year. White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota) earned her MFA in studio arts in 2011 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a 2015 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Regional Artist Fellowship recipient, 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant recipient, 2013 McKnight Visual Arts Fellowship recipient, a 2012 SWAIA Discovery Fellowship recipient and won the 2011 Best of Classification at the Santa F e Indian Art Market. She draws from her multi-cultural background and education to create paintings and mixed media works that speak to her upbringing as a Lakota woman in an urban American landscape. This exhibition is sponsored by the Depot Foundation and the North Shore Bank of Commerce.

About the Duluth Art Institute 
The Duluth Art Institute is a 109-year-old nonprofit organization—one of the oldest art centers in Minnesota. The mission of the Duluth Art Institute is to enrich daily life with dynamic, innovative visual arts programming that upholds excellence and promotes active community participation. For more information, visit www.duluthartinstitute.org. The Duluth Art Institute's programs and services are made possible through the support of contributing members of the Duluth Art Institute, Bush Foundation, Depot Foundation, Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wildey H. Mitchell Family Foundation

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Meantime, art goes on all around you. Just do it.

How Deep Purple and Hieronymus Bosch Unlocked My Imagination

Last week The Reader Weekly here in Duluth published a review by film critic Peter Rainer regarding a documentary titled "Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil" that has been produced and released to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Dutch artist's death. The Netherlands has a been a fertile soil for painters. Names like Vermeer, Bruegel, Van Gogh and Rembrandt have all become well-known beyond art circles. Though the Hieronymus Bosch celebrations in the artist's hometown this year may or may not make him a household name, it will undoubtedly introduce him to a few more inquisitive folk whose imaginations will be stirred as mine was nearly 50 years ago when I discovered his portrayal of Hell used as cover art for a Deep Purple album.

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Adolescence for most of us was a challenging time as we grew from children with few responsibilities to young adults aware of the broader world, uncertain about our place in it. Most teens struggle with problems of identity and the complexity of sorting out tangled emotions. How do we find  a proper balance between our desire to fit in, our need for affirmation and our competing longings for self-expression and reckless abandon.

In my case, junior year in high school was an especially difficult, painful time. My best friend had been hit by a car at dusk before the first day of my junior year. Last words: "I'll see you tomorrow."

That fall I retreated to my room and stopped watching TV with the family as had been our evening custom. I did my school work and listened to my music. The inner pain and confusion had no real outlet.

Any explanation here of what happened or how it happened is going to be an oversimplification, but these were the elements. What I remember is this. I purchased an album by Deep Purple which had as its cover art this fantastical painting by Hieronymus Bosch from his famous triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights." The three panels of the painting portray Paradise with a naked Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden (left panel), a large square central scene depicting the delirious Garden of Earthly Delights, and the stirring imagery used by Deep Purple that depicts the gruesome horrors of Hell, titled The Last Judgment.

a portion of the painting in graphic detail

I remember studying this painting for hours, its details grotesque and bizarre. I had signed up for my first high school art class that year and with encouragement from Mr. Sebes began to draw my own inner monstrosities. It was liberating.

Decades later, when I recalled these memories, my recollection was that the album was titled Tetragrammaton. My recollection, also, was that this was Deep Purple's third album.

By means of Google I've now discovered that Tetragrammaton was not the name of the album. It was the name of the record company that signed Deep Purple and represented them when they emerged with their first hit record Hush.

There are some further faulty elements in my remembrances. Foremost, the Deep Purple album that I thought had the Bosch art was the one with River Deep Mountain High on it, as well as the song Kentucky Woman. Turns out, that second album was titled The Book of Taliesen. The one with Bosch's portrayal of Hell was simply Deep Purple III. I'd matched everything incorrectly.  This latter, whose songs are completely forgotten to me, made the lasting visual impression that unleashed renewed creative impulses.

Tetragrammaton issued the album in a stark gatefold sleeve, wrapped around with a segmented illustration from Hieronymus Bosch's painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The label ran into difficulty over the use of the Museo del Prado-owned painting, which was incorrectly perceived in the US as being anti-religious - featuring "immoral scenes"; and was thus rejected or poorly stocked by many record shops. The original painting is in colour although it appeared on the LP in monochrome due to a printing error for the original layout and the band opted to keep it that way.  (Wikipedia)

The Bosch painting of Hell is a frenzied macabre scene, with humans being tortured and tormented in a wide range of horrific ways. As a teen who had never seen anything like it, this was quite mesmerizing. Where did all these images come from? One scene shows a giant bird seated on a throne devouring a man with his beak while beneath another man is being excreted from its rectum in a gaseous bubble. The sordid scenes are most unpleasant and graphic.

What's interesting to me in retrospect is that my drawings were not induced by hallucinatory drugs, or drinking binges or ingested stimuli from without. At this time in my life I had never touched a drop of alcohol, never inhaled an illegal substance. I was honor society, straight-laced, probably even a square to the cool kids... just a kid trying to sort out who I was, and expressing some of what I was feeling through my art, primitive as it was.

While visiting my family a couple years back I found a folder with a couple dozen drawings from this period in my life. (Here are five of them.) Making the pictures evidently fulfilled an inner need of sorts. I wasn't a sicko, and the subject matter did not remain a lifelong obsession. My skills were unrefined, but my imagination had begun to soar.

Meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary. What are you looking forward to this weekend?

Another Big Weekend In Duluth -- Tall Ships, Art in the Park and More

This day in music history... Ringo Starr made his debut with the Beatles in 1962. Two years later on this day The Beatles arrived in San Francisco to be mobbed by a crowd of 9,000 fans at the start of their American tour. On this day in 1969 the "Woodstock Nation" was born... a place where hippie dreams and realities collided.  Meantime, life went on.

A small Tall Ship at Karpeles... and more.

This weekend in Duluth will be memorable for many. I've read estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 people coming into town for the Tall Ships festival. If you think the waterfront is impressive when the ore boats come and go, the Tall Ships is a spectacle not to be missed. Unless you have a distaste for large crowds and parking hassles.

For a smaller crowd, but still crowded, try the Hoghead Festival in Proctor, August 15-21. Last night more than 100 classic cars were gathered in the center of town, and an outdoor beer garden helped create a festive air.

Art in Bayfront Park kicks off today and will run through Sunday, August 21. I missed the Park Point Art Fair this year for the first time in a decade because I did not see any ads or promotional notices. At the other end of the spectrum is Art in Bayfront Park in which I seem to be getting notifications by the hour. In addition to the free art fair (except for the parking) they are hosting an awards dinner at Marshall High School called the ARTcademy Awards Dinner/Comedy Night For $25 the evening will include a comic entertainer and lots of awards tomorrow evening from 6:30 till 8:30. Oh, there will be lots of fabulous food.

Recommended art shows tomorrow evening include The Things They Carried @ Prøve Collective and Monica Ares solo show In Their Midst @ Washington Studios Gallery. The Prøve event is featured in today's Best Bets section of the Trib.
 
It's my understanding that Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum will have a Tall Ships tie in on display.

And AJ Atwater's 400 Paintings can be viewed any time day or night, with a glass of wine or

Don't be shy. There will be plenty to see this weekend. Then again, you may just want to get away from it all on one of our many hiking or biking trails and other escapes.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. 

Virtual Reality Meets Virtual Gallery: AJ Atwater's 400 Paintings

"Behind the name is that which has no name..." ~ Borges

It's Almost Wordless Wednesday. To learn the backstory on AJ Atwater's virtual gallery, read the interview we did here. The event 400 Paintings ends Sunday evening at Midnight. May your imaginations be stirred to action.

Visit www.ajatwater.com to see the entire virtual exhibition.  

The gallery's virtual rooms are segregated by price.

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

Trials and Tribulations of the Itsy Bitsy Spider

From very early in Bob Dylan's career his song lyrics have been analyzed, interpreted, studied and debated, especially those containing opaque and even surreal imagery. Whether it be a song with obscure lyrics such as Changing of the Guard, or a song as seemingly straightforward as All Along the Watchtower, plenty of ink has been spilled to explain them. (In the internet age this would be digital ink, natch.)

What happens when we carry this same habit of sleuthing into the nursery rhymes of our childhood? It's fairly well-known that many of the nursery rhymes we learned as toddlers had a background story of one kind or another. By means of Google we can quickly find many of these stories, as well as some entertaining interpretations that were probably absent in the beginning. Here is one of them, an explanation for the meaning of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, an especially cute nursery rhyme when accompanied by the children's hand gestures emulating the itsy bitsy spider and the rain washing him down out of the water spout.


Lets start with the characters.
The Spider - represents the proletariat (middle class) and his ongoing struggle against the bourgeoisie(upper class)
The Waterspout - represents the myth of equality and the American Dream. The spider continues to doggedly scale the waterspouts heights, only to be denied the fruits of his hard work
The Rain - represents the bourgeoisie, impeding the progress of the spider, and standing between him and his ultimate goal of true freedom and equality.
The Sun - represent the easing of difficult living and working conditions. It provides false hope for the spider, prolonging his struggle.

The words the itsy bitsy, could mean powerlessness.
So the poem should go;
The powerless middle class tries to achieve its dreams
But the upper class stands in its way,
but the sun comes out and gives the middle class false hope
and he tries to achieve its dreams again

(See quotetv.com for this Marxist interpretation of the nursery rhyme.) This interpretation of the song/poem can be found in a number of other places online, such as this blog An Arkies Musings.

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Another interpretation of the song can be found at the Spoven Wheedle blog. In this version, the itsy bitsy spider is an alcoholic. The "spout" is the bottle. The poor lush gets washed out, but then gets dry for a spell when the sun comes out. Unfortunately he goes right back to the bottle.

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It's a very short story, and most definitely it's a cycle. The little spider goes into the spout, climbs up, gets washed down and then makes another go of it. Over and over again, the wheel of life.

One blogger ends his rant on the nursery rhyme in this manner:
How does this speak to you as a person on your own impossible and possibly meaningless quest that we call life? When the storms of life smack you around and toss you around like a rag doll and spit you out in a bedraggled mess and you are somehow blessed enough to recover how do you respond?

Are you the itsy bitsy spider, charging back up the spout, challenging the source of your pain again with no guarantee of reward or are you going to shake yourself of and say I risked it once, no more?

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In researching all this I learned that the nursery rhyme has two iterations. In some versions it's the "Incy Wincy" Spider as opposed to the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

One blogger states that there is no real meaning to the song other to help improve finger dexterity in little lads and lassies. This certainly may be true, just as certain Dylan songs may have no deeper meaning beyond what is stated on the surface.

Whatever it means, it sure is cute when children wide-eyed and innocent recite and re-enact it.

Smile and enjoy your day. The sun will come out tomorrow. 

Public Introspection: George Orwell's Why I Write

"From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books." ~George Orwell

This past week I came across a George Orwell quote that went something like this: "I learned from an early age not to believe anything I read in the newspapers." But when I tried to find it, to confirm that my recollection was accurate, I instead stumbled upon an Orwell essay titled "Why I Write" which begins with a similar sequence of words. "From a very early age..."

The essay starts off by explaining the young George Orwell's upbringing, exposure to and interest in poetry, and other factors that led to his taking up an interest in writing. After setting the stage he begins a transition paragraph with this sentence.

I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.

If there are any writers reading this post, I propose that you take some time to reflect on that sentence and mull over the role your own early development played in your becoming a writer. In a broader sense we could all benefit from reflection on that point, how our early development contributed to who we are and what we're doing today.

Orwell then elaborates on the four primary motivations for writing.

Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose. — Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

The essay continues with a poem that speaks to writers and readers of every age, and then proceeds to dive in to the formative historical events that resulted in his producing the work that established his legacy, Animal Farm and 1984.

The full essay, a relatively short read with long aftereffects, can be found here at Why I Write.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Think about it.

Painting by Brent Kusterman can be found at Lizzard's Gallery in Duluth.

Bob Dylan: Content Marketing King

Two people look at a tree. One sees raw material for rocking chairs. The second sees raw material for a poem.

Two people look at a copper mine. One sees jobs. The second sees potential environmental damage.

Two people look at the career of Bob Dylan. One sees a singer songwriter. Another sees lessons in content marketing.

From time to time I've reflected on the career of Bob Dylan from a marketing point of view. I myself have worked in marketing/advertising/PR for three decades and naturally see the world through a marketing lens.

Businesses all over the country have been developing social media strategies and online marketing strategies. They send staff to seminars and conferences. They study the latest trends. And when all is said and done, one of the most oft-repeated maxims of recent years has been the declaration, "Content Is King."

It's interesting how this whole new industry has sprung up teaching businesses how to create killer content marketing strategies. Speakers and groups churn out books, seminars, eNewsletters and generate income (for themselves), even a measure of fame. And what is the message they teach? What is the advice they give?

Content is king. And not just any content. What matters is...
Relevant Content.
Consistent Content.
Evergreen Content.
Original Content.

For more than a half century Bob Dylan's songs have been relevant. For the duration he has continued to produce enduring songs that speak massively, and original albums that connect. Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out Of Mind (1997), Modern Times. (2005), The Oscar-winning "Things Have Changed" will never go out of style. Nor will those early masterpieces, "Blowing in the Wind" and "Hard Rain" and "Visions of Johanna" and on and on.

Who is this man? An August 12 GQ article this week call him the greatest artist alive. "Dylan’s expanse of work is unparalleled in human history," writes Jaideep Varma.* "He changed the nature of his art form repeatedly and is still doing so." Of course this is not news to long-time Dylan fans.

Not only did he write hundreds of truly great songs, he continually re-invented the manner in which he performed them.

I should briefly explain the term Evergreen Content. The concept is best understood in contrast to temporary content that you see in a local newspaper. Today's weather forecast is relevant today. People want to know whether to bring an umbrella to the office today. A nickname for newspapers is "fishwrapper" because once it's read it's only other use is to wrap a trout you caught or, if you have birds, to line the cages.

Evergreen content is probably self-explanatory at this point. It is relevant today, tomorrow and well into the future. When I write about an art show opening it's pretty much like a news story. (eg. Yesterday's review of the Collusion show at Lizzard's.) My artist interviews, on the other hand, aim to produce insights that continue to speak to readers long after the event has passed.

This week I caught wind of The Bob Dylan Project which attempts to make available in one website all the various ways Dylan's songs have been recorded and performed. It's a pretty grand endeavor and if you're a fan you will want to check it out.

This isn't the first time I've commented on Dylan's career from a marketing point of view and it likely won't be the last, though one never knows.

Was Dylan good or just lucky? It's a sure thing that in many respects he made his own luck. He was resilient during changing market conditions in the music industry. We all know groups that produced hits in the Sixties whom you never heard of again. Market conditions changed and these groups faded into oblivion. For more than fifty years, no matter what was going on in the larger outside world, Dylan continued to produce new songs, original songs, relevant songs... evergreen songs.

Maybe we'll have to return to that another day. I get the feeling much more could be said.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. And sometimes even the president of the United States must have to stand naked.

*Why Bob Dylan is the greatest artist alive