The Jerome Foundation has announced the first recipients of the new Jerome Hill Artist Fellowships program. Duluth-based artist Kathy McTavish was among the artists chosen from 1,172 applications.
“In farming terms, field trials are an opportunity to determine effectiveness of experimental techniques in agriculture.”
On Sunday I went to the Free Range Trials at the Food Farm in Wrenshall. Free Range Trials is a lab for artistic process and creative experimentation through the exhibition of work by Kathy McTavish and Cecila Ramon. The lab will be open daily between 2 and 5 p.m. through Sept. 3. To learn about Ramon, you can listen to KUMD here.
Chance: Poems
Tuesday night I attended the publication party and reading for “Chance: Poems,” an anthology of poems edited by Kathleen Roberts in honor of the art installation currently at the Tweed Museum.
An Impression of Kathy McTavish’s Video/Audio Mixed-media Installation Chance
Destroy the binaries. That was the phrase echoing in mind after considering Kathy McTavish’s new site-specific installation, Chance, at the Tweed Museum. McTavish is a cellist and media composer who works in the often underrepresented world of multichannel video and sound environments, or digital, code-driven works of art. She uses layered, interchanged information in order to “create cross-sensory, polyphonic landscapes,” combining digital elements of animated video patterns and sound in a kind of seismic virtual collage.
So I attended the first meeting of the Duluth Quantum Computing Project designed and taught by Kathy McTavish, local cellist and multimedia artist. The series of workshops and mentored projects continues into the month of August. There, Kathy will bring what she described as a hybrid of fine arts, of high technology, and the ingenuity of the spirit of the MakerSpace in Duluth. As Kathy put it in last night’s class, “simple materials such as HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript, a text editor and a web browser will be our tools in creating new work.”
According to McTavish, “artists have been leveraging this space to explore new forms.” But the workshop is not only of value for creativity — McTavish believes using these tools will grow economic opportunity. “These technologies are of high value in the today’s market. In other regions of the country, coding classes provide artists with creative tools and career opportunities.”
Is there a hole in sky? Art mesmerizes the Food Farm!
Media artist Kathy McTavish and the new-music ensemble Zeitgeist took over two windowless rooms of the Food Farm root cellar in Wrenshall this past Saturday to present the interactive exhibition Høle in the Sky to an audience of about 25 people.
On Friday night I saw Cheng-Khee Chee demonstrate his painting at the Tweed Museum — OMG what an honor and a treasure to watch someone create a painting of Koi before your eyes. Thanks to Tweed Director Ken Bloom for making this possible.
Poem by Sheila Packa; video by Kathy McTavish.
A culmination of efforts in painting supported by the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Artist’s Grant at Lizzards Gallery in historic Downtown Duluth. Opening Reception Thursday, Dec. 2, 6-8pm featuring Kathy McTavish on cello.
