Poet Dora Malech gets all Duluthy in a poem published in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker. It’s more that a reference — the poem is basically set in Duluth.
The text of “I Now Pronounce You” is available online, along with an audio track of the poet reading it.
Malech grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now lives in Baltimore. Her connection to Duluth is unknown, unless it’s as simple as the first line of the poem: “Our friends are getting married in Duluth.”
Well, it was a thing for a day, but now the privates are private. Apparently it was a limited-time Father’s Day offering.
Patricia Canelake is a painter and teacher who creates large, colorful paintings that combine figurative drawing with the spontaneous drips, layers and other effects of paint.
P.C.: My aesthetic is an aesthetic of attraction — both obvious and mysterious. Simple figurative, and animal subjects, leashed and unleashed, are the subjects of my work. That push and pull are recognizable experiences. My painting style is a fine balance between storytelling and the rough elegance of form, line and color.
Russell V. Gran, a Duluth native best known for his acrylic paintings and role as the unofficial “patriarch” of the Washington Studios Artist Cooperative, died June 14 of an apparent heart attack. He was 81.
“Endlessly curious and driven to create, his curmudgeonly exterior was merely a facade for a wonderfully humorous, sensitive and loving being,” fellow artist and friend Eric Dubnicka wrote on Facebook.
This is a small salute to the artists who created the art on the walls of what used to be a coffee shop in the St. Louis County Courthouse, now a vending machine area with beautiful walls.
If the creators of these clever paintings want to take a bow by offering their names, please do.
Inspired by other landscape photographers, Like He went from snapping family photos to composing stunning landscapes of our area.
L.H.: My earliest exposure to digital photography started in 2004, when I purchased my first digital camera, a Canon A95 to take photos of my 2 year old daughter. I didn’t become serious until almost 10 years later, when by accident I became a member of a photo competition website, 500px.com, where I was shocked and awed by the beautiful landscape photos posted by the talented photographers throughout the world. I wanted to be one of them. I started to learn how to use my DSLR camera, ND filters, long exposures, Lightroom and Photoshop.
Peter Pestalozzi lived outside Ely, but his art was often seen in the Duluth Art Institute and in local galleries. Peter passed away, and I lost someone who was distant but important to me.
The UMD Romano Gymnasium men’s lavatory can handle a lot of traffic if it needs to. A small entryway opens into a room of eight or ten sinks and a couple big mirrors; that room adjoins one with five or six stalls and as many urinals. Those numbers might be a bit off but you get the gist; it’s a fairly big space. Every surface except the ceiling is porcelain, glass, metal, or ceramic.
For a few minutes on a June or July weekday afternoon in 1996 I occupied one of those men’s room stalls. I was working on the UMD student grounds crew while on summer break from studying for my master’s degree in English. We were mowing grass or planting flowers or doing some other grounds-crewy thing close to the Sports and Health Center that day.
I was in the M.A. program and doing the on-campus job because they were available and I’ve never been clever or courageous enough to be what I actually want to be. That’s a whole other essay. Not really, though. It’s part or most of every adorable little essay I’ve written and will write. My navel brims with mesmerizing regret, and I feel compelled to type it up publicly.
This week we take a look at a different form of visual art with Derick Cich, a makeup artist specializing in weddings, fashion, and commercial clients.
D.C.: I am a freelance makeup artist with a background in both skincare and painting. I’ve been involved in the visual arts my entire life (drawing, sculpting, painting) and went to school for skincare. Makeup artistry is essentially a natural blend of both of those elements for me.
There was a period of my life — the first 16 years — when I vomited with the frequency of a normal person. Maybe once every 17 months I’d feel sick, yack up my recently consumed proteins and resume a normal life. Over the most recent 28 years, however, my puking résumé is made up of just a pair of mega barfs.
Most people would be challenged to produce a list of the times they have vomited since the Reagan administration, but because my experience involves only two stories, I recall them keenly. So, for the sake of human digestive science … or whatever … I now share my hurling history.
It was Aug. 18, 1988, when I completed my final pre-adult barf. I was a high school sophomore, and preseason football practice was in full swing. I awoke in the wee hours of the morning with a groaning stomach, and soon I was staggering from my bedroom to the toilet, where I dropped to my knees for the first of seven sessions of violent retching. At some point in the middle of it, I called Coach Mooers to tell him I wouldn’t be practicing, but hoped I’d be back to normal for the scrimmages the next day.
Whatever hit me that morning was gone in a few hours, and indeed I traveled with the team to the Twin Cities metro-area scrimmages. After playing in the two abbreviated games, I accompanied my teammates on a trip to Valley Fair, where I rode all of the stomach-churningest rides. Indeed, I had recovered.
What I didn’t know at the time was how well I recovered. I would not vomit again for more than 26 years.
Annie Schweiger first achieved PDD fame when she won the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Duluth Art Institute Member Show. Here, she shows some more of her work and talks about the balance of work projects, personal projects, illustration and design.
A.S.: By day I’m a graphic designer and at night I work on illustrations. I mostly work with graphite and watercolor but I’ve been experimenting with digital illustration on a Wacom tablet in Adobe Photoshop.
Team Friday celebrates after winning the 2017 Homegrown Kickball Classic.
DULUTH, Minn. – The Friday bands shut out Saturday to win 2017’s high-stakes Homegrown Kickball Classic 8-0, tying up the overall series record at 9-9.
Art on the Planet is a relatively new gallery on Tower Avenue in Superior, offering an eclectic collection of local artists as well as a number of classes. Managers Nancy and Kat fill us in on how they got to their current location, and what they hope to create in that space.
AOTP: “Art on the Planet” is managed by Nancy Senn of Superior Candles and Kat Senn of katsingerArt and we assumed management of the shop when Twin Ports Stage announced intentions to close “Art on the Plaza” (which was a project of the John D. Munsell Legacy Fund), initiated in October of 2015 and formerly located in the Belknap Plaza of Superior.
Dann Matthews is a designer and illustrator who blends pop-culture knowledge, humor and sharp skills into a mashed-up style for print, product design and more.
D.M.: Most of my work is digital. I’ll sketch and scan an illustration and finish the piece in either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. I have done a ton of designs prepped for screen printing, so I’m most at home in Illustrator. I started designing tees for Threadless.com’s ongoing T-shirt design competition back in 2005. It became my hobby, then my obsession, then my side-hustle. I would usually create 4-6 designs a week and never use two of them for anything.
