Beaver River by Paul Sundberg.
Middle Gooseberry Falls by Paul Sundberg.
Grand Portage High Falls by Paul Sundberg.
Greetings from the North Shore, where it sort of feels like Rainbow Days for some reason.
Right place, right time. {hotographer unknown. Email joan.farnam@gmail.com if you took this photo so I can give you credit.
We’re starting to see beautiful arcs as the sun illuminates water droplets from waterfalls and quick passing showers. We’re also beginning to see rainbows in our gardens as the early flowers bloom, and, best of all, colorful art is everywhere. Exhibits, galleries, and the craft market are showing off new work for the season. In short, welcome to June.
This week, the Good Harbor Hill Players begin puppet-making workshops for the Summer Solstice Pageant, which will be held at North House Folk School on June 22 at 8 pm. Meanwhile, there’s lots of fun, creative work to be done to make puppets for this popular event.
Help create the puppets for the 2024 Sumer Solstice Pageant. (File photo.)
Artists, performers, crafters, and helpers of all ages are welcome to come help make puppets for the show. Puppet Workshops will be held at the Community Center May 29 – Jun 18, Tuesday – Friday from 3 – 8 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am – 1 pm and 3 – 8 pm. There are no workshops on Mondays.
Dress rehearsal is Thursday, June 20 at 6 pm at North House Folk School. For questions email info@goodharborhillplayers.org
This week is the last Art Night that will be held indoors at Joy and Company for the summer season. Instead, the shop will move its art-making opportunities to the back lot through October during the day. Watercolor, free paint, and painted rocks will be offered during the summer – instructor-led demos will be postponed until fall.
Meanwhile, this week’s Art Night will be a free paint, with lots of supplies to choose from, including cool colors to paint the northern lights.
Art Night at Joy and Company is from 3:30 pm to 5 pm.
This week’s Art Night will be held from 3:30-5 pm at the shop. It is free with a suggested $5 donation. Open to all.
Joy and Company is also planning special events during the summer, so stay tuned.
Tonight is Trivia Night at Up Yonder as well.
It’s Trivia Night at Up Yonder.
Trivia Night is hosted by WTIP Community Radio this week and will be held from 6-8 pm at Up Yonder. This is a bar-style Trivia, open to all. Free. Prizes.
The last Thursday Hygge Party and the Saturday Fiber Circle for the season held at Dappled Fern Fibers will be held this week.
This is the last week for the Thursday night Hygge Party and the Saturday morning Fiber Circle at Dappled Fern Fibers. The summer schedule starts June 2. See below.
Starting Monday, June 3, There will be two Beach Knitting sessions– Mondays from 10 am to noon and Tuesdays from 5-7 pm.
Beach knitting sessions start on Monday.
In Duluth, Zeitgeist Theater presents “Potus,” an uproarious Broadway debut by playwright Selina Fillinger.
“Potus: or, Behind Every Great Dumb*ss are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” opens at the Zeitgeist Theater in Duluth on May 30.
“Potus: or, Behind Every Great Dumb*ss are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” is a comedy about the women in charge of the man in charge of the free world. Performances are from May 30 through June 7. For tickets, click here.
On Friday, the Northern Landscapes Festival begins at North House Folk School.
The Magnolia Warbler is one of the birds participants in the Northern Landscape Festival will be looking for this weekend. Photographer unknown.
This year’s course offerings allow nature lovers the chance to explore the North Shore and learn more about the local ecology and geology. Discover the language of birds, forage for spring wild edibles, and learn the identifications and uses of many local plants. Registration for Northern Landscapes Festival courses is open now (find a full list on the event page at northhouse.org).
Two public events are also part of this festival.
On Friday night, the film, “A Sea Change for Lake Superior” will be shown at 7 pm.
The film asks: What does the warming of the greatest of the Great Lakes mean for its natural systems? What does it mean for the lake’s legacy as being famously cold, clear, and clean?
These questions are at the heart of this public television documentary co-production between Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education and PBS North.
See the trailer here:
On Saturday night, North House will host April McCormick of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, for her presentation Izhi-Ganawendadnamang Nibi, Manoomin (How We Care for the Water and Wild Rice).
April McCormick of the Grand Portage Band will give a presentation about water and wild rice at North House June 1.
The event will be held at 7 pm in North House Folk School’s Blue Building. Free and open to all.
Saturday is busy. First up is the Cook County Market, which will be held in the parking lot of The Hub from 10 am to 2 pm.
The Cook Market is held on Saturday in the parking lot of The Hub from 10 am to 2 pm. The public is invited.
The market features a wide variety of arts and crafts from local vendors including pottery, paintings, weavings, leatherwork, jewelry, rock lamps, handmade lotions and balms, knitwear, and more. Open to all. Live music, too.
There are two events at the Grand Marais Art Colony‘s Studio 21 on Saturday.
From 10 am to 1 pm, an Open Studio with Juried Artists-in-Residence Amanda Hamilton and Robyn Moore, followed immediately by an Opening Reception with Duluth painter Sarah Seidelmann for her exhibit in the Gallery Store, “Making Love Visible.”
The Open Studio with Hamilton and Moore will feature a chance to meet the artists and see their artistic processes. Hamilton (painting, mixed-media collage) is from Minneapolis, and Moore (multimedia and printmaking) is from Morehead, KY.
Embodied Knowledge, photopolymer gravure on Hahnemuhle Copperplate, by Robyn Moore
Balancing Light In Two Worlds, acrylic on canvas, by Amanda Hamilton.
At 1 pm, the opening reception for Seidelmann begins. A press release states that “The painter is on a mission to make love visible in this world and, through her paintings, to give others courage and grit and joyful exuberance in life’s journey.”
Surf’s Up at Stoney Point Get in the Car by Sarah Seidelman is one of the pieces currently on exhibit at Studio 21 through the end of June.
These joyful pieces light up the Gallery Store. The store also features work by several local and regional artists.
The public is invited to both events. Refreshments will be served. Free.
And finally, the Harbor History Tours, sponsored by the Cook County Historical Society are held each Saturday from 1-2 pm. The tours are free and open to the public. Participants meet at the Historical Society’s Museum on South Broadway.
Here’s a delightful and fact-filled video about Harbor History created by the late Molly Hoffman. So interesting to watch and highly recommended. Molly was a stickler for details and there are plenty of them. Click to view and enjoy.
Exhibits:
The Johnson Heritage Post opened a new exhibit by artist Kim Gordon. The artist is inspired by the Northwoods and Lake Superior and expresses this in two mediums: Oil painting and batiks.
Northern Flowage, oil, by Kim Gordon.
Along the Lake Shore, batik, by Kim Gordon.
This is an extraordinary body of work by a talented artist. The exhibit continues through June 10.
The Grand Marais Art Colony‘s Summer Exhibition, “Embodying the North Shore,” opened at Studio 21 last Friday to accolades. It features an extraordinary selection of works by local artists collected by Gene and Bonnie Martz over many years. The works were donated by their estate to the Art Colony.
Artists represented include Betsy Bowen, Jim Brandenburg, Dave Gilsvik, Keith Havens, Gene Martz, Dan & Lee Ross, Elaine Sivertson, Howard Sivertson, Jan Sivertson, and Liz Sivertson.
Here are a few examples from the exhibit:
Palisades, oil, by Keith Havens
A watercolor by David Gilsvik.
Triptych, acrylic, by Liz Sivertson.
The exhibit continues through Aug.31. Studio 21 is open Thursday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm.
Grand Marais potter Ann Ward is exhibiting work at Betsy Bowen’s Gallery.
Pottery large and small by Ann Ward, new in Betsy Bowen’s Studio Gallery.
Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center, located on the North Shore of Lake Superior, has partnered with Minneapolis-based public artist, Diver Van Avery, to host a unique, site-specific art project available for visitors to experience from June 1 to Oct. 3.
Van Avery spent four months in residence at Sugarloaf Cove. She wrote and created an audio story featuring original songs about how the restoring woods of Sugarloaf Cove and the expansive water of Gitchi Gumi help a griever release their pain, discover love, and remember their origins.
The Seeker, an interactive art and nature project, begins at Sugarloaf Cove June 1.
Visitors can listen to this site-specific story as they walk the one-mile trail from the visitor center through the forest, along Sugarloaf Creek, to the shore of the Great Lake. During the summer of 2023, “The Seeker” received overwhelmingly positive feedback and Sugarloaf is thrilled to premiere it to the larger public this summer.
For more information and to download the story, click here.
The Cross River Heritage Center has opened for the season. Among the exhibits– pottery by Schroeder potter Kari Carter.
Kari Carter is exhibiting he pottery at the Cross River Heritage Center.
The Tweed Museum of Art has a new exhibit entitled: The Company of Trees: Arboreal Selections from the Tweed’s Permanent Collection, curated by Anne Dugan.
Witch Tree Variation, cropped, color pencil, ink on paper, by George Morrison is on view at the Tweed Museum of Art.
“It is not hyperbole to say that trees are one of the most vital entities of our world. Their very breath makes life on earth possible, turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. They moderate our climate, conserve water, filter the air, and prevent soil erosion. We use them for building, fuel, nutrition, and play. Trees are natural sanctuaries, providing critical habitats for wildlife, housing complex ecosystems, enhancing biodiversity and offering shade and solace to all who wander near.
“Humans cannot make trees, but we can use them as muse and material. Arboreal life began 200 million years ago and humans came around about 294 million years later. We have been trying to figure them out ever since. We use the same language to describe trees as we do the human body – trunk, limbs, and sinew. We use similar language when talking about human community and connection as well – roots, branches, and family trees.
“This exhibition draws from the Tweed’s permanent collection of artists with its deep regional connections and looks at the ways artists have observed, celebrated, desecrated, and employed the tree.
“From reflecting on their sacred role to luxuriating in their beauty, to studying their biology and using their bark and branches for making art, the artists in this gallery, like all humanity, owe a creative debt to trees.”
The exhibit was organized by guest curator Anne Dugan, and features local and regional artists as well as artists connected through the global community of arboreal life. The exhibit continues through Aug. 10.
Upcoming:
“Of Place and Time,” an exhibit of oil paintings by Paula Gustafson and pastels by Linda Ricklefs Baudry opens at the Johnson Heritage Post in July.
Sleeping Giants, oil on canvas, by Paula Gustafson.
Show Yourself, pastel, by Linda Ricklefs Baudry.
The exhibit opens with a reception from 5-7 pm on July 19 and runs for three weeks. Stay tuned.
Lyric Opera of the North will present the opera La Bohème at the Marshall Arts Performing Center on June 14 and June 16. Composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
The Lyric Opera of the North will present La Bohème at the Marshall Performing Arts Center on the UMD campus.
This is the Duluth opera company’s first production of Puccini’s classic opera featuring passionate lovers, struggling artists, and soaring singing.
The opera will be sung in Italian, with English subtitles projected above the stage. The opera is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, including one intermission. For tickets and more info, click here.
Opportunities:
This is the last call for artists to submit work to be exhibited in the corridors and reception areas of North Shore Health. Both 2-D and 3-D pieces can qualify.
Call for artists to submit work to exhibit at North Shore Health.
The deadline is May 31, For more information, contact Todd Ford at 218-387-3508 or email at Todd.Ford@northshorehealthgm.org. The pieces can be for sale. NSH does not charge a commission.
The Northeast Minnesota Book Awards is accepting book nominations through May 31.
Northeast Minnesota Book Awards has put out a call for nominations for this year’s awards.
The categories include:
- Nonfiction: nonfiction works such as history, biography, guidebooks, cookbooks, books about science and nature, scholarly works, and art/photography books.
- Fiction: novels, short stories, plays, and other works of narrative fiction.
- Poetry: collections of poetry or a single poem of book-length.
- Children’s Literature: picture books and beginning readers, generally for ages 0-7.
- Middle Grade/Young Adult: chapter books and books for a teen audience, generally for ages 8-18.
- Memoir: books that examine some aspect of the world from a highly personal perspective.
Artists at Work:
“If there was a single truth, it would not be possible to paint hundreds of paintings of the same subject.” — Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso in his studio in Cannes, 1966. Photo by Arnold Newman.
A delicious photo sandwich by Layne Kennedy.
Morning Cup, oil, by Scott Murphy.
Put our handmade barn quilt on the shed at Hungry Jack Lake this weekend. Photo.by Dennis Chick. To see a PBS documentary about barn quilts, click here.
How the day went, by Mary Beams.
It was Spring, and they fell in love with her by Rachel Rae Klesser.
Online Findings:
Horror High Film Camp will be held in Minneapolis and Chisholm this summer. Read more about there.
Lake Superior Project – Reserve Mining and Silver Bay, Parts 1 & 2, WTIP Community Radio.
Online Music:
Live Music:
Thursday, May 30:
- Gordon Thorne, North Shore Winery, 6-8 pm
- Bump Blomberg, Gunflint Tavern’s Rooftop Bar, 6-9 pm
- Open Old Time Appalachian Music Jam, Community Center, 7-9:30 pm
Friday, May 31:
- Jim Miller, Bluefin Grille, 8-10 pm
Saturday, June 1:
- Zahir Orest, Cook County Market (Senior Center Parking Lot), 10:30 am
Sunday, June 2:
- Ginger Bones, North Shore Winery, 3:30-5:30 pm
Monday, June 3:
- Briand Morrison & Roxanne Berglund, Bluefin Grille, 8-10 pm
Tuesday, June 4:
- Eric Frost, North Shore Winery, 4:30-6:30 pm
- Joe Paulik, Bluefin Bay behind Bluefin Grille campfire on the beach, 6-9 pm
- Open Stage, Up Yonder, 6-9 pm
Wednesday, June 5:
- Joe Paulik, Bluefin Grille, 8-10 pm
Thursday, June 6:
- Gordon Thorne, North Shore Winery, 6-8 pm
- Tommy Wotruba, Raven Rock Grill at Skyport Lodge, 6-8 pm
- Bump Blomberg, Gunflint Tavern’s Rooftop Bar, 6-9 pm
Friday, June 7:
- Timmy Haus, Moguls Grille and Tap Room, 7-9 pm
- Bump Blomberg, Bluefin Grille, 8-10 pm
Saturday, June 8:
- Tom vanCleve & Erik Hahn, Cook County Saturday Market (Senior Center Parking Lot), 10 am
- Shannon Murray, Grand Marais Public Library, 1 pm
Sunday, June 9:
- Briand Morrison, North Shore Winery, 3:30-5:30 pm
- Timmy Haus, Moguls Grille and Tap Room, 5-7 pm
Photographs:
Here’s a selection of photos we found this week:
First, a Sparky Stensaas video on one of his wildlife trips:
Wildlife:
Eastern Bluebird by Chuck Olsen.
This Hummingbird landed on my lap by Chuck Olsen.
Oranges out and a colorful visitor by David Johnson.
Grouse nest by Nathan Slettedahl.
Northern Parula by Michael Furtman.
Rose Breasted Grosbeak by David Johnson.
Cutest toll collector, Clearwater Road by Annie Possis.
Indigo Bunting on a Bluebird house by Lori Sparkly Franklin.
Newbies by David Johnson.
Golden-winged Warbler male (Vermivora chrysoptera).
Flowerscapes:
Tulips! by Jim Boyd.
Crab apple blossoms by Judy Gray.
Cascading into Dusk by Maryl Skinner.
Potpourri:
Lady Grey by Don Davidson.
A ramp-age in a day by Trish Francis.
A big’un by Jamey Penney-Ritter.
Bea’s Lemonade Stand. Photo by Kelsey Kennedy.
What is this? These grandsons didn’t know what a record player was until now. Fascinated by Grandpa Archie’s player with his vinyl records. Photo by Amanda Takes War Bonnett-Beauvais.
Porch knitting season by Erika Hahn.
I now see the flaw in planting catnip in my herb garden by Jaye White.
Landscapes, Waterscapes. Skyscapes & Moonscapes:
Tonight after I got the groceries unpacked by Don Davidson.
Hovland by Gary Arands.
Sun by Mike Wiggins, Jr.
My world by Teresa Chmelik.
The rise by Ann K Jorgenson.
Dreamy Full Flower Moon by David Johnson.
Holiday Visitors by Kristin Heikes Blomberg.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Note: If you enjoyed NorthShore ArtScene this week, please consider contributing. We value your support and depend on it to keep providing art news, music, and photographs to you every week. Thank you!
We also want to acknowledge our friends who helped make this issue possible, including Jeremy Lopez (the Live Music Schedule, tech support, and music suggestions), Yvonne Mills (proofreading), and Kari Carter (caption editing and research.) Thanks to Chuck Heller and Adam Kirsch for music suggestions! And to Visit Cook County for its outstanding calendar of events. Thank you all.
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