Spring has finally sprung

A poetry performance, two plays, an artists-in-residence open studio, an interview with a portrait artist as well as lots of live music are set for this weekend on the North Shore.

First up is an interview with Grand Marais portrait artist Jan Attridge on WTIP Community Radio at 9:45 a.m. on Friday. Attridge will be interviewed by Jay Andersen and will talk about her life as a painter and her latest project– painting portraits of people with that special companion in their lives.

The interview is one of the Artist Open House series, and can be found on WTIP’s web page here.

April is National Poetry Month and the Grand Marais Public Library will host nationally recognized poet and performance artist Moheb Soliman for a presentation at the library at 6:30 p.m. on Friday. Soliman will present “Homes: A Great Lakes Vista,” an interdisciplinary project about Great Lakes nature and culture he developed through a grant by the Joyce Foundation.

The poet and performance artist is interested in issues of identity, modernity, belonging, and the limits of language in capturing human experience. For over 15 years he has presented and curated performance, literary, and video work in the US and Canada. Soliman was born in Egypt, grew up in the Midwest and in various locations around the Great Lakes. He now lives in Minneapolis. The presentation is free.

At 7 p.m. on Friday, “Little Red Robin Hood,” a community youth production of the Grand Marais Playhouse opens at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. “Little Red Robin Hood” is a “fractured fairy tale,” taking a humorous detour through Robin Hood’s Nottingham and Sherwood Forests, courtesy of writers Flip Kohler and Cindy Marcus, who have developed multiple scripts for Disney.

The play continues through April 24 with showtimes at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are available at the door.

On Saturday, Kah-Nee-Tah Gallery in Lutsen will hold a “Spin-In” from noon to 4 p.m. Anyone with a spinning wheel or drop spindle is welcome to join in for an afternoon of creativity. Refreshments and snacks will be provided. Free.

Also on Saturday, the Grand Marais Art Colony‘s invited artists-in-residence, Mary Bergs and Lisa Hochstein, will hold an Open Studio in the Founders Hall at the Art Colony from 2-4:30 p.m. The artists will be working on an installation for the 10-days preceeding Earth Day, April 23.  They each have a long history of working with re-purposed materials, largely gleaned from the day-to-day stream of waste and refuse.

For this particular project, the artists will use cardboard boxes and packaging materials that have been solicited and collected from local businesses, the recycling center, and from generous community members. The completed installation will explore the re-contextualization of found materials, the architectural space of the gallery, and the challenges of collaboration over time and distance.

The artists will hold another Open Studio session from 2-4 p.m. on Thursday, April 21 and give an Artist Talk at noon on Earth Day. All invited.

Also, the art students at ISD 166 have an exhibit of the work they made for “A Sense of Place,” which was shown at the Johnson Heritage Post gallery last month.

This inspiring collection of paintings, drawings and collages are installed in the lobby and halls at the ACA. They will be up through the performances of  “Little Red Robin Hood.”

“West Side Story,” a production of Lake Superior Community Theater, moves to Two Harbors this weekend, with performances at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Two Harbors High School Auditorium. Tickets ($12 adults) are available at the door.

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery opens an exhibit by Frank Shebageget this weekend, with an Artist Talk set for Friday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. EDT.

 

Shebageget’s installation and sculptural exhibit, entitled “Home/works,” weaves together a complex history of Northwestern Ontario seen through the veil of development and its lasting impact on Indigenous lives. The repetitive and precisely made objects often question the promise of development under the veneer of progress. For example, in his work Beavers, Shebageget references the de Havilland Beaver, an iconic bush plane used to open northern Ontario and transport goods. It also became linked with the removal of children from communities to residential schools.

Similarly, the installation Small Village II evokes the standardized and government issued mining houses that concurrently point to both the forced relocation of Indigenous communities and capitalist ideals of modern living. Stacked vertically, these single family houses also reference the proliferation of condominiums increasingly found in urban centers across Canada. The exhibit continues through May 29.

Three exhibits continue at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery in Thunder Bay including “Three Minute Miracle,” a film/multimedia presentation by Amalie Atkins; “Canadian Contemporary 32,” from the collection of Dr. Bob Chaudhuri and “Boundless” by Michael Belmore, a sculptural/drawing installation.

 Upcoming

•  Art for Earth Day, a gallery hop in Duluth featuring exhibits, receptions and more, will be held throughout the city on Saturday, April 23.
• The musical “42nd St.” opens at the Duluth Playhouse April 21.

In other art news, Edie Michalski’s painting, ” Mouth of the Beaver Bay River” is on exhibit at the Minnesota Watercolor Society’s Spring Exhibition “Nourishing Life Through Art” at the Reedy Gallery, University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.

The exhibit runs through June 29.

Sivertson Gallery has just received a new shipment of coloring books which run the gamut of art styles and narratives. Coloring pencils and markers can be found at Joynes and Joy & Co.

Applications for the Eric Thomas Emerging Artist Scholarship are due by April 23. The annual scholarship provides full tuition and cost of materials for a young Cook County artist to attend a Grand Marais Art Colony class of their choice. Cook County high school students who are completing their sophomore or junior year, or equivalent home-school program, are eligible to apply. The winning scholarship recipient will demonstrate clear artistic interest, originality, and motivation. For more information, contact the Grand Marais Art Colony at 387-2737 or email director@grandmaraisartcolony.org.

April 22-24 is Volunteer & Service Learning weekend at North House Folk School. Click here to find out more and sign up.

The dates have been set for the Hovland Arts Festival. It will be held July 2-3 at the Hovland Town Hall. Stay tuned for details.

The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council is accepting applications for board members. The current openings are for representatives from Koochiching County, Aitkin County, At-Large members from any of the seven counties in the Arrowhead Region, and a Student Liaison. The Board is especially looking for individuals with knowledge of dance or photography. For more info, click here or call 800-569-8134.

Plein air painter Neil Sherman is teaming up with Hungry Jack Outfitters to lead a 3-day painting class into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness July 14-17. The class will be painting on scenic Duncan and Rose Lakes. Rose lake is well-known for its amazing views from the palisades along the Border Route trail,  quaint waterfalls and infamous Stairway Portage. HJO will provide everything except your sleeping bag and painting equipment. This will be an excellent opportunity for the beginning paddler and/or painter, but is open to all levels of experience.

For more info about this unique opportunity, contact Nancy Seaton at 800-648-2922 or email info@hjo.com.

Here’s the music schedule for this weekend:

Thursday, April 14:

• Gordon Thorne, Poplar River Pub, 6 p.m.
• Heck Yeah Holler String Band, Gun Flint Tavern, 6:30 p.m.

Friday, April 15:

• Pete Kavanaugh, The Roadhouse, WTIP Community Radio, 6 p.m.
• Adam & Tim (Black River Revue), Gun Flint Tavern, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 16:

• Gordon Thorne, Lutsen Resort, 7 p.m.
• Adam & Tim (Black River Revue), Papa Charlie’s, 2 p.m.
• Adam & Tim (Black River Revue) , Gun Flint Tavern, 7:30 p.m.
• Big Wave Dave & the Ripples, Papa Charlie’s, 9 p.m.

Sunday, April 17:

• Sunday Afternoon Jazz with Briand Morrison, Gun Flint Tavern, 3 p.m.

Tuesday, April 19:

• Briand Morrison, Poplar River Pub, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20:

• Open Mic Night, Gun Flint Tavern, 5 p.m.

We found some unusual photos this week.

Here’s the first one … Space Roses. Last week, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus, based in Bishop, Calif., launched a daring experiment–they flew a bouquet of roses to the edge of space attached to a helium balloon to find out if they would survive. They did. Here’s a photograph of the flowers floating 116,000 feet above the Earth’s surface.

The roses were hitchhikers on a cosmic ray payload, which the students sent to the stratosphere to monitor increasing levels of space radiation. En route to the top, the flowers were exposed to a dose of cosmic rays 100 times Earth normal, air pressures as low as 0.2 percent of sea level, and temperatures as low as -63 C (-81.4 F). Three hours later, the roses parachuted back to Earth and landed … in Death Valley. To find out more about this experiment and the students who designed it, click here.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, David Johnson posted this photo of space from a different perspective.

And the Cook County Historical Society posted this fascinating photo from a completely different space/time frame.

And here’s another shot that is a surprise … Lake Superior?

And then there’s this one…

 

We did find some wonderful “normal” photos.

 

 

 

And last, but not least, this incredible shot of steelhead “flying” up the Knife River to spawn. Enjoy!

Have a good weekend, everyone!