North Shore Arts Scene

Greetings from the North Shore where all things point to the beginning of summer. Visitors are in town, exploring the lake, the lighthouse, and the beach, and taking rides on the good ship Hjordis. Fishing has been good, as have trips to the Boundary Waters. It continues to be dry though, so if you are out and about in the woods, be extra careful with fires. Luckily it’s been cool so far.

On this corner, we celebrate the beauty of Lake Superior, especially when it reflects the azure blue sky.

And art-making continues.

This week, participants in Art Night at Joy and Company will learn how to fold paper origami flowers.

It’s easy to do, with spectacular results. Paper will be supplied as well as instruction. Art Night is free, with a suggested $5 donation and is held from 3:30-5 pm at the shop. Open to all.

Then, from 4-6 pm on Thursday, the Grand Opening Celebration of the new Grand Marais City Hall building will be held.

The public is invited to view the new office space as well as the spacious new liquor store. Refreshments will be  served and small tasting stations will be set up in the liquor store. The public is invited.

Also on Thursday, the Summer Solstice Puppet-making Workshops continue at the Cook County Community Center.

The workshops are held from 3-8 on Thursdays & Fridays, and from 10 am- 1 pm and 3-8 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Open to all. Children under 10 should be accompanied by an adult.

The workshops continue through June 15. The Summer Solstice Pageant is at North House Folk School June 21 at 8 pm. Making puppets for the Summer Solstice Pageant is always a fun thing to do and the public is invited. Free.

Friday is busy.

First up is the Northern Landscapes Festival at North House Folk School featuring a wide variety of classes, workshops and presentations and a film.

Look for a chance to hunt mushrooms, sharpen your photography skills, participate in bird watching events, learn beekeeping and more. To see the full schedule, click here.

On Friday night, the award-winning film, Bad River, will be screened at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts at 7 pm. The presentation is a collaboration between North House and the Grand Marais Film Society.

The documentary chronicles the Wisconsin-based Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its ongoing fight for sovereignty, a story which unfolds in a groundbreaking way through a series of shocking revelations, devastating losses, and a powerful legacy of defiance and resilience, which includes a David vs. Goliath battle to save Lake Superior, the largest freshwater resource in America. As Eldred Corbine, a Bad River Tribal Elder declares: “We gotta protect it… die for it, if we have to.”

Check out the trailer here:

 

The film is free and starts at 7 pm at the ACA.

Also on Friday night, the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council will present the Maddie Simons Arts Advocate Award to Joan Farnam in a special ceremony at the Johnson Heritage Post starting at 5:30 pm. Joan is being recognized for the  blog, NorthShore ArtScene, which she has published for more than a decade, as well as her contributions to the art community on the North Shore.

The two other 2025 ARAC Arts Award winners are: Karen Savage-Blue, who received the George Morrison Artist Award, which recognizes an artist who has made significant contributions to art in the region, and Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes, who received the Award for Transformational Art, which recognizes the efforts of an artist to transform their community through their work.  These awards were presented at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College on May 9. To read more about the awardees, click here.

The public is invited to the award ceremony on Friday.

Saturday kicks off with the Cook County Market, which is held in the parking lot of The Hub from 10 am to 2 pm.

Local vendors exhibit everything from pottery to paintings, jewelry to rock art, baked goods, leatherwork, fiber art and more. Open to all.

On Saturday evening, author Kent Nerburn will give an Author Talk at Drury Lane Books at 6 pm.

Nerburn is the author of “Lone Dog Road” and 15 other books on spirituality and Native American themes.  He has been praised as “the one writer who can bridge the gap between Native and non-Native cultures.”  Kent has twice won the Minnesota Book Award.  His book, “Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce,” was a New York Times best seller, and his internationally acclaimed “Neither Wolf Nor Dog,” which was the One Book South Dakota selection for 2019, is used in multi-cultural curriculums around the world. He is currently serving as cultural liaison to the International Smile Network in their work providing dental and cleft palate surgeries to children on the reservations in South Dakota.

The talk is open to the public and is free.

Also on Saturday, Ferin Davis Anderson will present: “The Culture, Science and Future of Fires” at North House Folk School as part of its Northern Landscapes Festival.

As the North Shore climate changes, an understanding of the boreal forest we call home and wildfire has never felt like a hotter issue. We are pleased to welcome environmental scientist and resource manager Ferin Davis Anderson to discuss her book Wildfire: The Culture, Science, and Future of Fire, exploring the long relationship Indigenous people have had with fire, the ecological importance of burns and a reflection on fire’s regenerative and important benefits and destructive capabilities alike.

Ferin is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa/Ojibwe/Anishinaabe/Mitchifs in North Dakota. Ferin is responsible for stewarding and restoring natural areas for the Shakopee Mdewakaton Sioux Community’s Natural Resources Department. She works to weave Indigenous knowledge and western science to practice holistic land stewardship. This includes using fire as an ecological and cultural tool to achieve beneficial and healing outcomes. Witnessing Indigenous people revitalize and reconnect with this practice has been one of the greatest gifts of her career. Ferin was also part of a team that helped bring bison back to the SMSC – a relative that will help the Community connect with the land and their culture.

On Sunday, June 1, Ferin and Hope Flanagan will teach a course called Healing Fire Leading to Cultural Revitalization. Learn more and register for this class here. 

On Tuesday, June 3, Minnesota’s Lake Superior Coastal Program will celebrate 25 years with an Open House and reception at Cook County Higher Education from 2:30-4:30 pm. 

Since its inception, the program and partners have invested more than $3 million to support coastal resources, management and communities in the region of Cook County and the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

The public is invited to this special open house that is both a Thank You and welcome to the communities that have worked with the successful coastal program.

 Drop in to:

• Connect with Coastal Program staff and Coastal Council Members
• Network with peers and partners
• Explore how the Program has shaped our region
• Enjoy refreshments with friends and colleagues.

On Wednesday, author Arnold R. Alanen will join the Grand Marais Public Library at 6 pm for a reading and discussion of his new book “The Scenic Route: Building Minnesota’s North Shore.”

The Scenic Route is a field guide to the cultural landscape of the North Shore Scenic Drive, one of the Midwest’s most famous byways. Arnold R. Alanen explores the built environment—from cabins and resorts to parks, logging operations, lighthouses, and beyond—and shares stories from the people who shaped the cultural heritage along Minnesota’s North Shore.
“Arnold R. Alanen’s The Scenic Route solves many mysteries and documents our human imprint on the North Shore in detail,” writes Staci Lola Drouillard, author of “Walking the Old Road.” “From the early mailruns of John Beargrease to Mineral Center and the Outlaw Bridge, this book connects the people and places along the route to our shared, often complicated history.”

“A superb exploration of the cultural history and built environment of the North Shore,” Tim Cochrane, author of “Making the Carry,” writes. “Arnold R. Alanen shares how the Highway 61 corridor took shape as well as the stories of the many people who left an imprint with their houses, resorts, businesses, fisheries, churches, and beyond. And he thoroughly documents the succession of structures that once stood along this corridor. The Scenic Route is wonderfully illustrated, but the best part is that Alanen really likes his subject. His concern and appreciation for the cultural landscape of the North Shore shines throughout.”

The presentation will last for one hour, with time for questions and book signing afterwards. This event is free and suitable for all audiences.

 Exhibits:

“Neil Sherman: Recent Works” is currently on view at the Johnson Heritage Post. The exhibit features a great selection of plein air paintings of Cook County in all seasons. Look for icy shores, green landscapes, fall views, iconic moments on the trail, and more, as well as a sweet series of solar plate prints.

Sherman has been painting Cook County for years and is the 2024 Grand Prize Winner of the Grand Marais Plein Air Competition. The exhibit continues through June 15.

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 and open to all.

“Movement,” the Grand Marais Art Colony‘s Summer Exhibition at Studio 21, features multi-media works by seven regional artists.

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 exhibit continues throughout the summer. Studio 21 is open from 10 am to 4 pm Thursday through Saturday. Free.

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

The work was inspired by hiking the Superior hiking Trail. The exhibit is free. The public is invited.

The Member Show continues at the Duluth Art Institute featuring work by more than 140 member artists in a wide variety of media.

The exhibit continues through June 9.

Use the QR code below to see all the works in exhibit.

 Upcoming:

Objects to Crave, a unique gift shop located at 4907 E. Hwy 61 in Hovland, will open for the season on June 6.

The shop will be open every weekend through October. Click here to learn more.

The Hovland Summer Arts Festival is July 5-6 this year at the Hovland Town Hall. The festival features artwork from a number of local artists as well as live music, demos and more.

To find out more about the arts festival, click here.

Opportunities:

North Shore Health has put out a call for artists to exhibit in the facility in June.

The works of art should celebrate and reflect one or more aspects of the cultural, historical, geographical, or community attributes of Cook County and/or the North Shore. The selected art will be placed in areas of high profile to be viewed and enjoyed by visitors, patients, residents and employees of NSH.

Submissions must be received by May 31.

Questions about the display area and submissions can be directed to Todd Ford at 218-387-3508 or email at Todd.Ford@northshorehealthgm.org.

The MacRostie Art Center and The Reif gallery announce “In Praise of Pollinators,” an open-call group exhibition celebrating the role of pollinating species in the natural world. Artists of any age and level of experience working in any 2-dimensional medium are invited to participate. The exhibition will also feature a collection of photographs by Ann Gorman of Bemidji.

 

The exhibition will run from July 14 – Sept. 5, 2025, in the Reif Gallery, located at 720 NW Conifer Drive, Grand Rapids.

“In Praise of Pollinators” is an open exhibition. Anyone is invited to submit a piece that meets the following requirements:

• One theme-appropriate submission per artist
• Two-dimensional (wall-hanging) artwork only
• No more than 30″ in any dimension
• Ready to hang

Submissions must be received no later than Saturday, July 5.

Artists at Work:

Online Findings:

Today you can convert speech to text with the click of a button. Youtube does it for all our videos. Our phones will do it in real time. It’s frictionless. And yet, if it weren’t for an unlikely crew of protesters and office workers, it might still be impossible.

This week, the story of our attempts to make the spoken visible, the magicians who tried, and the crazy spell that finally did it. Listen here.

Online Music:

Photographs:

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

Wildlife:

Flowerscapes & Treescapes:

Potpourri:

Landscapes, Skyscapes, Waterscapes:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

P.S. This week would be a good week to donate to NorthShore ArtScene. We’re always so glad to hear from you! And your contribution will help keep ArtScene available to you. Thank you.

 

 

Thank you also 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.