Marching Toward Spring

Greetings from the North Shore, where our trusty Canada Geese flock is beginning to arrive, and lawns are greening up. It looks like spring is here, but no one else but the geese believe it. Meanwhile, we’re all basking in the warmer, sunny days, and the maple sugar people are putting in long hours to capture and process that sweet goodness from the maple trees. Cheers and good health to all.

Meanwhile, our online lives continue, with some interesting offerings.

This week, the Grand Marais Art Colony welcomes Minneapolis-based painter Leslie Barlow as their Instagram Takeover Artist. She will be posting on the Art Colony’s Instagram page on Thursday and Friday. Barlow creates life-size figurative oil paintings that share stories and explore the politics of representation, identity, otherness, and race. She also teaches at the University of Minnesota, helps run Midwest Mixed, and is the director of Studio 400.

 

Barlow will be teaching a beginning oil painting class in June at the Art Colony. For more info and to register, click here.

North House Folk School continues Wood Month, with a free Lunch & Learn online presentation on Friday by Julia Kalthoff, a talented axe-maker, who, according to a press release, is on a quest to determine the details that make the difference between good and bad axes. Her journey started when she fell in love with forging at Gränsfors Bruks at the age of 19, and went on to learn about all things axes at Wetterlings, where she managed the small factory for five years.

At the Lunch & Learn, Kalthoff will share some of what she’s learned along the way, from the history of axes to her research with carvers and metallurgists, culminating in a tour of her small-scale workshop where she produces highly coveted axes. To register for the webinar, click here.  Free.

Also, it’s the EquinCox this week and WTIP Community Radio is celebrating it with a membership drive.

Exhibits:

Betsy Bowen opened an exhibit of new work at her studio entitled “The Farm in Winter, Inside and Out” featuring a fascinating collection of new etchings and drawings completed this winter during the 100-Day Project.

The week-long exhibit at her studio continues through Saturday, March 15. The studio is located at 301 1st. Ave. W. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Covid protocols in place.

The Johnson Heritage Post exhibit, “Reflecting Light Into Darkness: An exhibit by the Spirit of the Wilderness and ISD 166″continues through March 28.

This is the 12th Annual art show sponsored by the Spirit of the Wilderness and the Cook County ISD 166 High School art class. The exhibit features a mix of mediums and artworks by Cook County community members. The Johnson Heritage Post is open on Thursdays from 1-4 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free. Covid protocols in place.

Lutsen sculptor, Greg Mueller, is exhibiting new work in the windows of the Art Colony’s new building on Hwy. 61.

Hovland artists Dan and Lee Ross opened an exhibit at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis last week entitled “Untying Time.” The show features new monoprints and sculptures.

Minnpost.com recently featured a story about them and their work. Click to read. The exhibit continues at the Groveland through April 17. The exhibit can also be viewed online. Click here to see.

Here’s Bryan Hansel‘s latest video: Finding and Photographing Ice Birefringence:

Art Online:

The Duluth Art Institute is featuring a number of different exhibits which can be viewed online, including “Ann Magnusson: Personal,” an exhibit of her series of dyptic paintings which combine a portrait and interior spaces.

In her Duluth series, viewers will find four portraits of current and former northern Minnesota residents, from a silversmith to a retired accountant. Companion portraits examine their interior studio spaces and living rooms as well as one artist’s exterior building. To take a virtual tour, click here.

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery is currently closed to the public, but works can be viewed on its Facebook page. One exhibit, entitled Piitwewetam (Rolling Thunder), is a commemorative exhibition presenting artwork by the Gustafson family, showing how beadwork and hand-made items come from an ecology of relationships and love.

The view the work, click here and scroll through the page.

Here’s a video of snow art by Kim Asmussen, who lives in Schreiber, Ontario.

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Here is a collection of photographs which won the International Photo Contest Celebrating the Art of Movement.

This is a fascinating collection of photographs. To view, click here.

Artists at Work:

A Video Potpourri 

 This bowling alley video shot in Minneapolis went viral. Here it is again.

 And here’s a great interview with the people who made it.

Here are some other videos we found.

Jon Batiste was recently interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air, and the interview is so joyous, we just had to share. It’s appropriately entitled “Sharing Joy in a Painful Year.”  Here’s the link. The interview is 47 minutes.

Batiste has been playing pop-up shows at Black Lives Matter protests, vaccination sites, and voter registration events. “I wanted to articulate through the music and through my presence there that we’re all in this together,” Batiste says. “ltimately, this is our time. This is our world. We have to come together and understand that or else everything is going to completely disintegrate.” His new album is ‘We Are.’

Here he is performing jazz.

Here’s a group of throat-singers.

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Of interest:

And some blues …

Live Music:

Thursday, March 18:

• Gordon Thorne, North Shore Winery, 6-8 p.m. For reservations click here or call (218) 481-9280.

Wednesday, March 24:

• Erik Koskinen, Singer Songwriter Series at Papa Charlies, 8 p.m., Masks required except when actively eating or drinking. All tables reserved seating. For reservations, click here.

Photographs:

Let’s start with wildlife:

Maybe not so wild:

Landscapes, Skyscapes and Snowscapes:

Aurora-scapes:

And, for the first time in months, the Northern Lights have been dancing in the sky. Here are some of the photos we found:

Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay safe!

 If you enjoyed NorthShore ArtScene this week, consider making a donation today. It’s easy. Just click on the icon below. And Thank You!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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