Featured articles explore the intersections between the mind's hidden byways and the creative impulse.
December's featured articles focused on the artistic potency of difference and the occasional serendipity that accompanies suffering. What happens when trauma informs the artistic impulse and when creativity plays in the little-understood byways of the mind? Table of Contents
Features Global Trauma, Global Healing: An Interview with Kevin Kling and Interact Center's Jeanne Calvit
Theater veteran and spiritual theater correspondent for mnartists.org, Dean J. Seal, interviews legendary storyteller and Interact's Jeanne Calvit about the intersections of trauma and the power of embracing one's "contrariness." Darning Mental Socks: "Mind Fields" at Intermedia Arts
Jay Gabler investigates the issues and artists involved with Intermedia Arts exhibition, "Mind Fields," featuring work by artists who are all, in some way, wrangling with the intersections between art and the mind. Music of Woodcarving: An Ode to Printmaker Charles Beck
Filmmaker Deb Wallwork offers an evocative essay in response to Fergus Falls artist Charles Beck's gorgeous woodcut landscapes. Her short film on Beck (co-directed by Mike Hazard) just won the Grand Prize in the Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival. EXCHANGE: A dialogue on art and the mind between visual artist Amy Rice and writer Marya Hornbacher
The first installment of letters between visual artist Amy Rice and author Marya Hornbacher in this new series of artist-to-artist topical dialogues. EXCHANGE: Amy Rice and Marya Hornbacher in conversation about art and the disordered mind (Part Two)
Amy Rice, acclaimed painter and Spectrum Artworks Director, and Marya Hornbacher, critically hailed author of a number of books, including the forthcoming memoir Madness: A Life, (Houghton Mifflin, April 2008) continue their candid conversation about the tangled relationship between creativity and the disordered mind in this second and final batch of letters. The Price of Admission
Just before the opening of Fables and Pyramids, her show with Joy Kops and Peter Weizenegger at the Tweed Museum this past spring, artist Adu Gindy sat down with Suzanne Szucs to talk about the place of necessity in her work, the death of her longtime partner, Kamal Gindy, and about the value of facing the pain of loss and mortality head-on, with a a spirit of resilience and even buoyancy. In Performance Choreographers' Evening from Nine Different Angles, by Lightsey Darst
Dance critic and poet offers a funny, incisive dispatch from this annual avant garde dance spectacle at the Walker. A Pleasantly Prickly Playdate with "Mr. Marmalade"
Read Jay Gabler's review if this new production from Walking Shadow Theatre Company--on stage through December 8. Not Your Niece's Nutcracker: The Ballet of the Dolls' "Nutcracker?! (not so) Suite"
Dance critic Lightsey Darst saw Ballet of the Dolls' ballyhooed rendition of this beloved holiday classic, and came away impressed with the irreverent wit and sheer fabulousness of this company's interpretation of "The Nutcracker". In the Galleries Seeing the 3-D Biennial at the Minnesota Museum of American Art
Ann Klefstad turned her jaundiced eyes to the MMAA Biennial devoted to sculpture, and she came away ambivalent about the state of the field and our evolving relationship to "stuff-in-the-world." A Birthplace Elegy: Alec Soth's "Dog Days Bogatá"
Mason Riddle muses on the compelling new exhibition at Minneapolis's Weinstein Gallery, featuring work by nationally acclaimed photographer Alec Soth that serves as an unflinching, personal chronicle of his daughter Carmen's birthplace. The Experience of Time: Interview with MoMA Curator Susan Kismaric
Mason Riddle interviewed Susan Kismaric, curator of "Present Tense: Photographs by JoAnn Verburg," opening January 12, 2008 at the Walker Art Center. Shadows of Solidity: Bruce Tapola at the Rochester Art Center
Amanda Vail muses on the masterful interplay of wit, easy familiarity, and alienation in Bruce Tapola's oblique sculptures and paintings. You can see this unusual exhibition at the Rochester Art Center through January 27. Profiles Art on the Wall: Look Around You, Art is Where You Choose to Find It
Read Emma Berg's interview with Tom Proehl (Executive Director of the MN State Arts Board) and his partner James LL Morrison on their passion for local art, and browse through some of their personal collection. ZOOM IN: Artist of the Fantastic, Michael Thomsen
Read a revealing profile of Austin, MN-native artist Michael Thomsen, and hear about about the enduring lure of the circus for him and how his first job as a kid, sorting through junk drawers of the recently deceased, left its mark on his artwork. Coming to a Radio Near You: Electric Arc Radio and the Lit 6 Project
For its first couple of years in production Electric Arc Radio was on the airwaves in name only--but now that's all changed! MPR/The Current will be broadcasting episodes from the fall 2007 season of this fabulously camp, accessibly literate show every Sunday this month. Whet your appetite for the broadcast by reading this access+ENGAGE profile on the writers, actors, and musicians behind Electric Arc Radio--find out about the persuasive powers of malt liquor and their bold reinvention of the traditional author readings. What Light: This Week's Poem What Light: This Week's Poem: Sharon Chmielarz
What Light: This Week's Poem returns for a new competition cycle, with a bit of winning verse from Sharon Chmielarz selected by What Light judge, Leslie Adrienne Miller. What Light: This Week's Poem: John Vick
Read this week's winning poem, "personne agaçante" written by John Vick and selected by What Light judge, Sarah Fox. What Light: This Week's Poem: Jeff Kelley
Read Jeff Kelley's winning bit of verse, "My Daughter Practicing the Piano". What Light: This Week's Poem: Allister MacMartin
Read this week's winning poem, "A brief family history" by Allister MacMartin. Radio mnartists Radio mnartists: Aldo Moroni
Producer Marya Morstad continues the “Radio mnartists” series of podcasts and KFAI radio interviews with Minnesota artists. Listen to her interview with Sculptor Also Moroni about his epic work, “ Babylon." Happy New Year! Here's hoping that 2008 brings you every happiness.
