Duluth rock-skipping takes rightful place as greatest thing ever
With Duluth’s natural renewable bounty of perfect skipping rocks, the time is now to claim the mantle of one of the top rock-skipping destinations in the world. I propose a Duluth League that plays by its own rules, owing to our iconoclastic position as Outdoor Adventure Capital of the United States. Envision a day when Duluth’s rock-skipping force fans out over the globe to win championships and decimate festivals. Tomorrow (Saturday July 13, 2PM Leif Erikson Park) will usher in such an age. A Facebook comment about the contest said, “I remember a rock-skipping contest in Duluth in the 1950s.” It’s revealing of Duluth’s decades-long funk that this never blossomed into an annual contest, or festival, in the intervening 70 years. By comparison, look at what the Michiganders of Mackinac Island have going: they just had the 51st Annual Stone Skipping Competition and the Governor comes and skips the first stone. If Duluth had kept its 1950s contest going, we’d be ahead of Mackinac Island by 20 years… (more…)
Selective Focus: Susanna Gaunt
Susanna Gaunt is an artist who creates installations and draws on her background as a photographer. She works with paper, dimension, transparency and light to combine 3D structures with 2D layers and textures. She currently has work on view at the DAI until August 11.
SG: For 20 years, I worked primarily in photography, both exhibiting photographs and teaching at a private workshop school in Montana. In 2013, our family landed in Duluth and I decided to learn new mediums by enrolling in the BFA program at UMD. It was there that I began focusing on installation pieces that incorporate drawing, printmaking, collage and embroidery alongside the photography. The common denominator with all of these is paper – I love working with different types of paper textures and exploring the possibilities of creating layers of both meaning and visual interest. Experimenting with multiple finishes, such as shellac and encaustic wax, allows me to find the right amount of translucency to both conceal and reveal content. (more…)
Announcing the People’s Free Rock-Skipping Contest
This Saturday, July 13, 2PM, Leif Erikson Park beach. Prizes are gift certificates etc. donated from local businesses (Pizza Luce, Vikre Distillery, Hoops Brewing, Sir Ben’s, Global Village, Whole Foods Co-op, Duluth Coffee Company). If the weather turns on us we will reschedule, but it’s supposed to be full sun and little-to-no wind, which is critical for great rock-skipping. From the folks behind the People’s Free Skate, this is the first of what must become an ongoing rock-skipping festival, either annually or more, a lifestyle choice. Aren’t we having informal rock-skipping contests all summer anyway? All I know is, Lake Superior produces truly great skipping rocks, and Duluth deserves to be known as The Rock-Skipping Capitol of the World. Read on for contest rules!
Chris Godsey on Pressroom Podcast
Episode #186 of the Duluth News Tribune’s Pressroom Podcast features Chris Godsey, whose recent essay on Perfect Duluth Day, “Why Some Men Kill Women,” examined men’s violence against women. (more…)
Postcard from Gooseberry Falls State Park
This undated postcard from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography offers a scene at Gooseberry Falls State Park. (more…)
Lake patrol continues
Working closely with the Sheriff to keep y’all safe over the past few days.
The Slice: Gowns of Glensheen
Glensheen Mansion has 16 gowns on display at the historic estate this month. The collection includes dresses ranging from the late 1800s to the 1920s.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
Duluth woman asserts right to go topless on Park Point
An incident on Park Point about two weeks ago has raised the question of whether it’s legal for women to be topless on Park Point beaches. Fox 21 reported over the weekend that Duluth photographer Michelle Bennett was “approached by a Duluth officer who didn’t know if he could arrest her” for exposing her breasts in public. (more…)
Duluth author part of Jeopardy! clue
What is Lake Superior? According to the television game show Jeopardy! and host Alex Trebek, it’s the place where “the lives of 3 women centuries apart intertwine upon the shores” in Duluth author Danielle Sosin‘s The Long-Shining Waters. The answer/question was part of episode #8030, which aired Friday, July 5, on the CBS network. (more…)
Superior in The New York Times
Superior appears briefly in The New York Times opinion piece “This Chemical Kills. Why Aren’t Regulators Banning It?” (more…)
Forty-three Seconds at Holyoke Park
Holyoke Park is a small community park in Holyoke Township, about 20 miles southwest of Duluth. The Net River runs through it.
The Prism
In the YouTube description of his new video shot in Duluth and Superior, Eric Nordrum writes:
I’ve tried to be as open and honest about my mental health as I possibly can. I’ve struggled with severe anxiety and depression for ten years and I recently made the decision to start living my life again. I’ve made a lot of life changes recently and I wanted to express how I feel through this video. The concept is simply that we all go through a lot, and sometimes we seem stuck in an endless world of grey, but if we see it through to the end and try to see the bigger picture, we can start filling our lives with color and happiness again.
The True Story of My High Seas Encounter with the Sheriff
The lake was calm and warm with a mild breeze blowing inland. I put out in Floyd, my patrol flamingo, and went upshore via flipper power. Then I drifted back toward town on the prevailing breeze. (more…)
Selective Focus: Tom Moriarty
This week in Selective Focus, artist Tom Moriarty shows some of the wide spectrum of work he’s done, and discusses how drawing, DIY, and demolition derby have formed his way of working.
T.M.: I always love experimenting with different mediums and workflows, and I try and keep the creative juices flowing in a lot of different directions. Right now I’m focusing a lot on muraling. Sometimes I’m existential ramblings in smears and splats of acrylic paint and sometimes I’m drawing portraits tight and trim on a tablet with a stylus. I love making collages and then illustrating over them (I call em collagistrations). I do this a lot for gig posters and event flyers. Black and white illustrations for letterpress. I do graphic design, typography and branding a bit too. For a few years now I’ve been messing around with interactive art in my spare time. Connecting paintings and sculptures to microcontrollers with conductive inks and alligator clips. They output sound when you physically interact with the art… like a musical instrument. I haven’t found that sweet spot with tangible application so for now that’s just for fun. (more…)
Rich Mattson and the Northstars – “What’s Your Story?”
The latest music video from Rich Mattson and the Northstars features home-movie travel footage, edited by Reggie Pype. The track is from the album Totem, released in January.
The band plays a street show in Virginia on July 11 with Horse Fzce and Charlie Parr.
Monthly Grovel: July 2019 Edition
In the past year — from July 2018 through June 2019 — the PDD Calendar published 8,045 Duluth-area events. Each one was edited by a human being before the “publish” button was pushed.
It’s a tremendous amount of work to keep up with all the submissions from the more than 1,000 organizations that have sent us info about their concerts, plays, seminars and cornhole tournaments. That’s why once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support. (more…)
Bethany Lutheran Church could become restaurant
Fox 21 is reporting that brothers Chuck and Robert Bagley are working on turning the former Bethany Lutheran Church at 2302-2308 W. Third St. into a restaurant.
A People’s Free Skate gem by Johnny of the Northwoods
Recorded at this past winter’s #peoplesfreeskate, in response to DNT reporters prompting him. Just getting this off my phone now. Cast your mind back to blessed February.
The Slice: Harbor Symphony #2
Ships and foghorns create a misfit symphony in the Duluth-Superior Harbor.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north. Composer credit for this clip goes to photographer Ted Pellman.
Duluth View from Cascade Park in 1899
This photo from Detroit Publishing Company shows the view looking out from Duluth’s hillside at Cascade Park toward the Downtown area and Minnesota Point. William Henry Jackson is credited as the photographer.
The Library of Congress dates the image as circa 1902, but research by Mark Ryan for the story “W. H. Jackson’s Photographs of Duluth” for Zenith City Press puts the time of Jackson’s visit to Duluth as the summer of 1899.