Joe Klander is one of the artists featured in the Tweed Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition, “Creating Apart: Local Artists Respond to a Global Pandemic.” He’s an artist and ophthalmology tech at St. Luke’s Hospital. In this video by documentary filmmaker Mike Scholtz, Joe talks about how the pandemic gave him time to work on one of his dream projects.

This is the fifth in a series of nine short videos, each featuring a local artist who found themselves creating apart. As we post them here on PDD, they will also be added to a permanent page, Creating Apart. These shorts are just a small part of a larger project called “Stories of Wisdom from Bodies in Separation: Archiving the Coronavirus Pandemic Through the Lens of Humanities” which was organized by UMD professors David Beard and Devaleena Das. They received a Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund this project.

Ten local oral historians are currently conducting interviews for this project. Look for additional articles and artwork inspired by those interviews on Perfect Duluth Day throughout the fall and winter.