Amazing

Greetings from the North Shore, where we greet spring with wool hats and gloves, and at the same time, feel  joy to see that the trees and early  flowers aren’t paying any attention to the fact it snowed briefly on Sunday.

Meanwhile, art-making continues.

Learn how to draw on black paper at Art Night this week at Joy and Company.

Art Night is held from 3:30-5 pm at the shop each week and is free, with a suggested $5 donation. The event offers the public the opportunity to experiment with a variety of art supplies at the shop. Instruction included.

Also this Thursday, artists Linda Powers and Larry Dailey will hold an open house at their studio at 166  Round Lake Road off the Gunflint Trail from 1-3 pm. on Thursday, May 22.

The artists are part of the Gunflint Trail Historical Society’s Artist-in- Residence program. Powers is a well-known painter and her botanical artworks have been accepted into regional, national, and international exhibits. Her works are held in prestigious collections, including the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Florilegium and The Huntington Library, Art Collections, & Botanical Gardens, as well as several private collections. To see more of her work, click here.

Dailey studied photography  during his college years, and continues that passion today.

The public is invited to the open studio event.

On Friday, there are two important art openings: Neil Sherman’s Recent Works opens at the Johnson Heritage Post Gallery and The Art of Movement, the Grand Marais Art Colony‘s Summer Exhibition opens at Studio 21. The opening receptions for both will be from 5-7 pm.

Recent Works celebrates Sherman’s artistic exploration of the North Shore, its landscapes, its trails, its moods and its seasons.

He is an award-winning plein air painter and won the Grand Prize at the Grand Marais Plein Air Competition last year. The public is invited to the opening reception. Refreshments will be served. The exhibit continues through June 15.

The Art Colony’s summer exhibition opening is entitled The Art of Movement and the Art of Dessert.

At the exhibit, the work of seven Minnesota artists will be featured embracing this year’s theme, Movement. Exhibiting artists include Alexandra Beaumont, fiber/painting; Chotsani Elaine Dean, ceramics; Olga Lah, sculpture/Installation; Michael Marks, drawing/printmaking; Anne Metcalfe, ceramics; Jack Pavlik, kinetic sculpture, and Moira Villiard, painting.

The reception will also feature a Dessert Auction, featuring the best bakers on the North Shore. They will whip up some sweet treats to help support the Art Colony’s mission of fostering the exploratory growth and experimental power of contemporary artists.

 

TABLA Bake Lab, World’s Best Donuts, Two One Ate, Crosby Bakery, North Shore Winery, UpstateMN, Cook County Co-op, Love Creamery and more will have desserts and kitchen items available for bidding.

The exhibition runs from May 23 – Aug. 30. Studio 21 is open Thursdays – Saturdays, 10 am – 5 pm, at 21 West Highway 61. Free.

Also on Friday, the old-time film series, Films on Friday, will screen  “The Trial” (1962), based on a novel by  Franz Kafka, directed by Orson Wells, and  tarring Andy Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and  Elsa Martinelli.

Here’s the trailer:

The screening is at the Cook County CommunityCenter at 6 pm. Refreshments will be be available.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend and lots of places are opening for the season.

First up is the Cook County Market, which opens in the parking lot of The Hub at 10 am on Saturday.

The market features work by local artists and artisans, and is held every Saturday through MEA Weekend in October. Look for pottery and paintings, fiber art, glasswork, books, handmade lotions, jewelry, rock work and more. There’s live music, too. This week, Briand Morrison will play.

The public is invited to see what our local artists are offering this year.

Children’s Story Hour at Drury Lane Books returns on Saturday at 11 am.

The event is held indoors in inclement weather, otherwise Kevin Kager reads to the children outdoors. Free and open to all.

The Cook County History Museum  opens on Friday.

The History Museum, originally the Grand Marais light keeper’s residence, was built in 1896 and is a National Historic Landmark. The museum has a variety of exhibits exploring local history, including the Civilian Conservation Corps era, maritime heritage, early homesteading in the North Shore, wartime experiences, and much more. Admission is free.

Summer hours are Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 4 pm, closed Sunday and Monday.

To learn more about the History Museum and other Cook County Historical Society news, visit www.cookcountyhistory.org.

The North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum in Tofte will open for the 2025 summer season on Friday, May 23.

Admission to the museum is $5 for an adult, $3 for a child, and $10 for a family. The museum is open from 10 am – 5 pm.

In addition to the museum exhibits there is a Lakewalk between the Museum and Bluefin Bay with information about Commercial Fishing, and ending with a boathouse containing Commercial Fishing equipment and the boat Mary Alice, which honors Mary Alice Hansen, who helped to start the museum. There is no charge to visit the Lakewalk or Boathouse.

The Historic Depot in Grand Portage opens for the season on Saturday.

The public is invited to visit the Reconstructed North West Company Depot at Grand Portage National Monument this season.

In the days of the fur trade, a great variety of people passed through its gates to do business with the North West Company. The Great Hall was the site of the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Men of wealth from Montreal and Scotland conferred with men of action – partners who spent the winter on the frontier and negotiated trade for beaver and other pelts destined for European markets. The partners also met with leaders from nearby Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Cree, and Assiniboine villages to formalize trading relationships. Within the Depot walls, there were also a company store, tradesman shops, and storehouses for trade goods, furs, and supplies for the summer. The company’s partners, as well as clerks and canoe guides, all lived here during their stay. Come inside the palisade and travel back to the time when Grand Portage was the center of the fur trade world.

This year, visitors will find three reconstructed post and sill log buildings (Great Hall, Kitchen, and Canoe Warehouse) and four outside areas (Ojibwe village, dock and historic gardens (European kitchen and Ojibwe Three Sisters gardens). Living history interpreters and wayside signs provide information about the activities of the period.

 The facility is open from 9 am – 4 pm daily through Oct. 13. Free.

The  Chik-Wauk Museum & Nature Center will also open for the season on May 24.

The Temporary Exhibit this year will feature “Derelict to Dream” the creation of the Gunflint Trail Historical Society  and the Chik-Wauk Museum & Nature Center. And the Current Resort Video will feature 18 new resort owners of the Gunflint Trail.

Admission is $6 for adults, $3 for children and free to members of the Gunflint Trail Historical Sciety. Chik-Wauk is ope daily through Oct,  19.

Also on Saturday, there will be a night of experimental music at the Log Cabin Building at the Cook County Community Center starting at 7 pm.

The Watershed Group will play, as will Vodka Pitbull from the Iron Range and Headtriiip from the Twin Cities, with video artwork from Keanu DC. A $10 donation is requested. Listen to The Watershed Group play here. 

There are two events scheduled on the last Monday of the month: Community Mindfulness Night and Ecstatic Dance. 

Community Mindfulness Night features a variety of mindfulness practices led by local teachers. It is held in the wellness space at Two Birds Healing Art Center in Grand Marais.

Carly Jean Puch will teach gentle yoga and breath work this Monday, May 26 starting at 6 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

An Ecstatic Dance session will be held at the Log Building at 7 pm.

Ecstatic Dance is an intentional, judgement-free space for free-form movement without words, accompanied by music. It is open to all. Free. To find out more, click here.

On Tuesday, May 27, there will be a Summer Solstice Kick-off Party at the Community Center to make puppets and scenery for the Summer Solstice Pageant at North House Folk School in June.

The Good Harbor Hill Players invite the community to help launch the magic of the 2025 Summer Solstice Pageant with a festive Kick-Off Party and Puppet Making Workshop on Tuesday from 6-8 pm in the indoor arena at the Community Center.

Puppet Making Workshops will continue at the Community Center from May 29 – June 15:

• Thursdays & Fridays from 3 – 8 pm.
• Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am – 1 pm and 3 – 8 pm.

All welcome. Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

For more information, click here.

On Wednesday, the  Grand Marais Public Library will  host a lively multi-genre panel discussion with three Minnesota authors at the library at 6 pm.

Moving Words is an opportunity for writers and readers to explore various themes together: the impact of literature in their lives, their connection as fellow Minnesotans, and the lens through which we read.

The panel will offer something enriching for a wide variety of readers and writers. 2023 Minnesota Book Award-winner Staci Drouillard will moderate the discussion among three 2025 finalists: Sarah Ghazal Ali, nominated in Poetry for “Theophanies;” Cathy Coats, nominated in Minnesota Nonfiction for “To Banish Forever: A Secret Society, the Ho-Chunk, and Ethnic Cleansing in Minnesota;” and Mubanga Kalimamukwento whose volume of short stories, entitled “Obligations to the Wounded,” won this year’s award for Novel & Short Story. Their books are available at Drury Lane Books or at the library.

This event is free and registration is not required. This discussion is best suited to adults and secondary students.

Moving Words is a program of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library as the Library of Congress-designated Minnesota Center for the Book.

Exhibits:

The exhibit of paintings by Linnaea Borealis Rose continues in the Great Hall at Tettegouche State Park.

The paintings are inspired by walks along the Superior Hiking Trail. The exhibit continues through the end of the month.

The Duluth Art Institute‘s Member Show opened last week with works in every medium by local and regional artists.

Here’s a quick sampling:

 To see all the works, click here.

The exhibit continues through June 9.

 

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery is currently exhibiting the 2025 Secondary School Art Show: Where My Dreams Lay.

Since 1976, this annual exhibition at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery has celebrated the creative voices of secondary school students across Northern Ontario. This year, the title “Where My Dreams Lay” is a lyric in the song “California” by pop star Chappell Roan, whose words express hope, self-reflection, and longing for home.

In 2025, a record number of local and regional high schools are participating with drawings, paintings, sculpture, digital art and more. For almost 50 years, the gallery has supported the dreams of students across our region, whose art offers a window into where their dreams may lie.

The exhibit closes this Sunday, May 25.

Kudos:

WTIP North Shore Community Radio won two prestigious Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards in two different categories:

Breaking News Coverage – “Structure Fire Destroys Historic Lutsen Lodge Along Lake Superior,” produced by Kirsten Wisniewski and Kalli Hawkins, and,

Writing for Broadcast – “Owls’ Silent Flight,” written by Chel Anderson for the original feature North Woods Naturalist which airs on North Shore Morning.

The RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards are among the most prestigious in broadcast and digital news. In response to the award recognition, WTIP executive director, Matthew Brown said, “We are immensely proud of our news team for their live coverage of this devastating fire, and Chel Anderson, for her outstanding ‘Owls’ Silent Flight’ piece.” Brown added that, “our team of staff and volunteers consistently create outstanding content that is vital for our listeners, on so many levels.”

The Radio Television Digital News Association has been honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971. Award recipients demonstrate the spirit of excellence that Murrow set as a standard for the profession of broadcast and digital journalism.

Regional winners automatically advance to the national round of the competition. National winners will be announced in August and celebrated at the Edward R. Murrow Awards Gala in New York City on Oct. 13.

Opportunities:

 The Duluth Art Institute has put out a call for artists from the Arrowhead region to submit work for the 65th Arrowhead Regional Biennial. The deadline is June 2.

As one of the longest-running biennials in the country, this exhibition features a wide range of artwork produced within the last five years from artists residing in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, and Ontario. The exhibit is open to all 2D & 3D work, except AI. It opens Oct. 6. For more information, click here.

Artists At Work:

Online Findings:

Sparky Stensaas and more birding adventures 

Online Music:

Photographs:

 Here’s a selection of photographs we found this week:

Wildlife:

Potpourri:

Flowers:

Landscapes, Skyscapes, Waterscapes & More

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Thank You! to Jeremy Lopez (Live Music schedule, tech advice, music suggestions), Yvonne Mills (proofreading and music suggestions), and Kari Carter (caption corrections) for helping put ArtScene together. And thank you to Visit Cook County for its outstanding Events Calendar.