Roots and rocks and rivers from the Temperance River by Bryan Hansel.
Greetings from the North Shore, where ancient plants are flourishing again on the forest floor.
Labrador tea by Tashia Hart.
Forest floor beauty by Travis Novitsky.
Wildflowers on Oberg Mountain by Stephen Janasie.
The trees and shrubs are awakening, too, as are some of our most persistent “weeds.”
A dandelion takeover in Minneapolis by Dennis Chick.
It’s all good and signals to all of us that the season is really underway. Another hint: Mother’s Day is this weekend, the YMCA Spring Dance Performance begins on Thursday and the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour starts on Friday, not to mention the Fishing Opener in Minnesota.
And, of course, art-making continues.
This week’s Art Night at Joy and Company will focus on painting the night sky using watercolors.
Paint the Night Sky at Art Night on Thursday.
Participants will be able to choose their colors and there will be a few demos. The event is free with a suggested $5 donation and runs from 3:30 -5 pm. Open to all.
Fiber artists are invited to stop by Dappled Fern Fibers from 6-7 on Thursday and from 10 am to noon on Saturday for a”making” and community gathering sessions.
Dappled Fern Fibers welcomes crafters for make sessions on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings.
The events are free and open to crafters who are working on projects.
Thursday is also Trivia Night at Up Yonder. This week, it will be hosted by WTIP Community Radio from 6-8 pm.
WTIP hosts Trivia at Up Yonder on the second Thursday of every month.
This is bar-style Trivia and will feature a wide range of questions. Open to all. WTIP hosts Trivia at Up Yonder on the second Thursday of each month.
The YMCA Spring Dance Performances are this week, too, and open at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts at 6 pm on Thursday. Performances are also at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday.
Sunny Day, the YMCA Spring Dance Performance will be at the ACA May 9-11.
This very popular, annual event is returning to the ACA for the 8th year.
Look for dancers from the community, ages 3 and up, performing ballet, tap, hip-hop, and jazz styles. Costumes and great music are also a hallmark of this event, which frequently sells out.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for youth. To get tickets online, click here. The performances on Thursday and Friday are sold out.
On Saturday, Staci Drouillard, award-winning author, and a Grand Portage Band direct descendent, will give an Author Talk at Drury Lane Books from 11 am to 1 pm. She will present her latest book, A Family Tree, her first children’s book.
Staci Drouillard will give an Author Talk at Drury Lane Books on Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm about her latest book, A Family Tree. It is her first children’s book.
Drouillard lives and works in her hometown of Kitchibitobig—Grand Marais, on Minnesota’s North Shore.
Staci Lola Drouillard.
Her first book for adults, Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe, won the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History, the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Her second book, Seven Aunts, won the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Staci works as a radio producer for WTIP North Shore Community Radio and authors the monthly column Nibi Chronicles for Great Lakes Now, a branch of Detroit Public Media.
The event is free, open to the public, and mobility aid accessible.
The North Shore Winery is holding a Mother’s Day Market at the shop on Saturday.
Mother’s Day Market will be held at the North Shore Winery on Saturday.
The event features a variety of vendors and is open to the public.
Also, this is the weekend for the nationally acclaimed St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour featuring work by 70 potters from throughout the US and England exhibiting at seven different studios in the valley.
The St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour is May 10-12. To find out more, click here.
The Pottery Tour is an annual gathering of exceptional potters and pottery enthusiasts in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley. The studios are a short drive from each other, allowing some or all to be visited in a single day, and within an hour of the Twin Cities. Admission is free and open to everyone. Refreshments will be served at each location and, hint: potters are usually great cooks. This is a highly recommended event for pottery lovers.
On Thursday, May 16, Julia Nellesen, a potter and intern at North House Folk School, will give a demonstration of the ancient Japanese art of sgrafitto at the Grand Marais Art Colony.
Potter and North House Intern Julia Nellesen will give a demonstration on how to use sgraffito in clay work at the Art Colony on Thursday, May 16, from 5-8 pm.
Julia Nellesen.
Sgraffito, Italian for “to scratch,” is a Japanese surface decoration technique. Nellesen will demonstrate beginner and advanced sgraffito techniques. The public is invited to learn how underglaze, slip, and carving tools can enhance their work and introduce an element of play into their pieces. Tickets are $25. Current students at the Art Colony can attend for free. To find out more and register, click here.
Exhibits:
The exhibit, Species of Special Concern, featuring drawings by Tanya Piatz continues at the Johnson Heritage Post.
Wood Thrush, ink and colored pencil, by Tanya Piatz. Her work is on exhibit at the Johnson Heritage Post.
The artist focuses on raising awareness for habitat conservation, and how our habitat directly impacts the diversity of species found in the environment. She does this by illustrating birds that we see every day, as well as lesser-known species, that are found on Minnesota’s DNR’s Species of Special Concern list. The exhibit continues through May 19.
The Heritage Post is open from 10 am to 4 pm Wednesday through Saturday and from 1-4 pm Sunday. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday. Free.
In Duluth, the Lake Superior Watercolor Society is exhibiting work at Lizzard’s Gallery.
Chickadee Chatter, watercolor, by Sandra Maxwell, is one of the paintings in the exhibit at Lizzard’s Gallery.
Look for a wide variety of techniques and styles from the talented group of artists. The exhibit continues through May.
The new exhibit at the Tweed Museum of Art is entitled The Company of Trees.
The Tweed Museum of Art’s new exhibit is The Company of Trees. It continues through Aug. 10.
The Company of Trees features selections from the Tweed’s Permanent Collection. It is on view in the Court Gallery.
In Thunder Bay, the exhibit, People of the Eyes, by Sam Ash, continues at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
Go With My Friend Grizzly and Cub, acrylic on canvas paper, by Sam Ash. An exhibit of his work is at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
“People of the eyes” is a phrase of identity and pride in the Deaf community. These words describe people who process information visually and have little or no functional hearing. Because Ash was a Deaf artist, these words speak vividly to and of his work. This exhibition includes a new suite of his paintings on view for the first time.
Ash’s work is all about the eyes. As a Deaf artist, he depended on his eyes to live in the world and communicate with other people. As a characteristic of the Woodland Style, Ash drew his figures, animals, and beings in profile. Each large, rounded eye brims with emotion. In several of his images, the figures are eyeless, or sightless. There are also two paintings of a hand, outstretched. This pair of paintings can be understood as a reference to Sign language and Ash’s identity as a Deaf artist. There are no other paintings quite like them in his work. The exhibit continues through June 16.
In Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is featuring an exhibit entitled: The Shape of Time: Korean Art After 1989. It showcases art from one of the last generations to witness South Korea’s authoritarian regime, and the first to experience the democratic freedoms that began in the late 1980s.
Photo by Ella Anderson. She is one of 25 artists exhibiting in “The Shape of Time: Korean Art After 1989.”
The exhibition was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is the first major showing of Korean contemporary art in the United States since 2009. The exhibition highlights Mia’s own efforts to present art from across the globe.
Mia’s exhibition coincides with the high global interest in Korean culture from Psy’s 2012 catchy K-pop hit, Gangnam Style to the more recent successes of the boy band BTS, and many other achievements including the movie Parasite winning an Oscar for Best Picture in 2020. Yet, despite the current global interest in Korean culture, its history, politics, and traditions aren’t nearly as known in the Western world.
Through The Shape of Time, Mia hopes to broaden perspectives and share South Korea’s story of resistance, resilience, beauty, and success. The exhibition offers a nuanced presentation of the vibrancy and intricacy of Korean culture through the artists’ own experiences and anxieties that are both personal and distinctly Korean. Read more about the exhibit here.
Artist Opportunities:
North Shore Health has put out a new Call for Artists to exhibit in its public spaces. The exhibit will run from June 1 through Sept. 30.
This program gives local artists new opportunities for exposure, said Todd Ford, public information coordinator for NSH. “Their work will be seen by a unique audience they may not reach through galleries,” he said. “Our residents, patients, visitors, and staff really appreciate the contemplative, healing ambiance the art provides.” And, he added, the work is for sale and NSH does not take a commission on sales.
To find out more and apply, email Todd.Ford@
Kudos:
Greg Mueller’s studio in Lutsen was mentioned in a book about the global economic power of public art.
Upcoming:
Next Saturday will be very busy.
The highly anticipated Plant Sale and Pancake Breakfast at Great Expectations School will be from 8 am to 1 pm on May 18.
The annual plant sale and pancake breakfast will be held at Great Expectations School from 8 am to 1 pm Saturday, May 18.
Also on May 18, the Community Rummage Sale will be held at the Community Center that Saturday.
The Community Rummage Sale will be held at the Cook County Community Center on Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm.
Questions? Contact the Community Center at 218-387-3015.
On Saturday, May 18, the North Shore Music Association will present the Grand Marais Ole Opry at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts.
The Grand Marais Ole Opry will be at the ACA on Saturday, May 18. The show starts at 7 pm. Among the featured players is Honky-Tonk Jump, who play traditional Texas dance music.
This popular showcase offers a lively mix of classics including country, old-time, and bluegrass. Stay tuned.
And on Sunday, May 19, the Violence Prevention Center will hold its annual fundraiser at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. The event is entitled: Beyond the Reel.
The annual Violence Prevention Center fundraiser is May 19 at the ACA.
There’s a new format this year. Tickets are $25. Stay tuned.
Artists At Work:
Two in progress by Sam Zimmerman.
Turtles by Karin Kraemer. She will be one of the potters at the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour over Mother’s Day weekend.
The Wet Willy, oil, by Scott Murphy.
Print by Sakura Abdel-Rahman.
Max Linehan worked on a number of collage projects and ideas during the 100-day project, which invites artists to do art daily for 100 days.
Nimue of Ravenwood Hermitage in Grand Marais worked on creating 100 ensō and Japanese kanji writings from the Heart Sutra, the Buddhist teaching on emptiness, for her 100-day project.
Plein air in the mountains by Arna Rennan.
May Day in Powderhorn Park 2024 by Michael Ventiner.
Yesterday– Stones, walks, sleep by Mary Beams.
The Light Bubbles drew me right into this tobacco barn, near Viñales, Cuba by Layne Kennedy.
This is How We Survived, 2003, acrylic on canvas by Christi Belcourt.
Online Findings:
Ancient White Cedars threatened by climate change. Photo by Jake Steinberg Star Tribune.
Boundary Waters visitors seek out the Legacy Tree, a northern white cedar that’s a bridge to Minnesota’s past. The warming climate might kill it. Read the story here.
Ever wonder about Bollywood? Here’s an interesting episode:
Interspecies communication? Here’s a great story:
Online Music:
Live Music:
Thursday, May 9:
- Fred Anderson and Ben Obinger, North Shore Winery, 6-8 pm
Tuesday, May 14:
- Eric Frost, North Shore Winery, 4:30-6:30 pm
- Open Stage, Up Yonder, 6-9 pm
Thursday, May 16:
- Gordon Thorne, North Shore Winery, 6-8 pm
- North Shore Swing Band, Up Yonder, 7-9 pm
- Open Old Time Appalachian Music Jam, Community Center, 7-9:30 pm
Friday, May 17:
- John Kerns, Bluefin Grille, 8-10 pm
Saturday, May 18:
- Grand Marais Ole Opry VII, Arrowhead Center for the Arts, 7 pm
- Unity DJ, Up Yonder, 8-11:59 pm
Photographs:
Here’s what we found this week:
Wildlife:
Note: There are a lot of birds passing through the county right now.
Cape May Warbler by David Johnson.
A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak showed up to sample safflower seeds. Photo by Becky Heller.
Mom and her fox baby by Katie Mumm.
A Wood Duck pair claim their nesting box by Dennis Chick.
Yellow-Rumped Warbler by Chuck Olsen.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak by Sandra Updyke.
Brown Creeper by David Johnson.
Cranky Northern shoveler by David Johnson.
A healthy Spruce Grouse by Chuck Olsen.
Moose dash by Roxanne Distad.
Wood Ducks by Paul Sundberg.
Trail cam from Two Harbors by Minnesota Naturalists.
Wood Duck magic by Paul Sundberg.
American Harpy Eagle, found in Middle and South America. Photo courtesy of birdsnaturewildlife.
Goshawk by Chuck Olsen.
Potpourri:
An abandoned train. Photo courtesy of Old America.
Taxi, Friday night lights, Havana, Cuba by Layne Kennedy.
Pods of last year’s Siberian irises by Judy Gray.
Landscapes, Cloudscapes, Waterscapes, Rockscapes:
Good Sunday Morning by Roxanne Distad.
Moon setting over Lake Superior at dawn in the UP. 30 degrees. By Sandra Updyke.
A desert sunset by Travis Novitsky.
Happy Sunday by Bryan Hansel.
Early morning walk by the lake by Sandra Updyke.
Superior Hiking Trail in spring by Tina Hegg Raway.
Sky Dances by Sierra Parsons.
First spring canoe trip in years past by Bryan Hansel
Border Route by Chuck Olsen. Lotsa Peepers out there!
Fall River falls by Bryan Hansel.
The Blue Hour by Ron Benson.
Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy Mother’s Day!
Note: As you probably know– we depend on your support and contributions to keep this blog as vital and interesting as we can make it, in or out of the box. Please contribute today. Thank you!
This week, we’d like to thank our friends who help make this blog possible, including Jeremy Lopez (the Live Music Schedule, tech support, and music suggestions), Yvonne Mills (proofreading), and Kari Carter (caption editing and research.) We’d also like to thank Dennis Chick for his music suggestions. And, for sure, everyone who posts photographs of their work and events on the Visit Cook County calendar, Facebook and Instagram. Thank you all!
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