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Issue #21.1 |
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In this Issue: Child's Play
—Featuring an essay by James Beard Award-winning food writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl on the pleasures and perils and of introducing your kids to art
Arts programming for kids isn’t just The Wiggles, Hannah Montana, and Sesame Street Live. With museums and performance venues increasingly conscious of building audiences by getting them while they’re young, there’s no shortage of cool arts events specifically geared for the smaller set. For this issue of a+E, legendary Twin Cities food critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl offers her funny, candid reflections on the promise and pitfalls of introducing her young son to art. Zoom In showcases comic artist and college freshman Blue Delliquanti in her own words with a very special strip she made just for a+E. And, finally, with autumn upon us You Are Here points you to tons of art fairs, music festivals, art markets, and interesting theater on the horizon. Back to school season is fantastic, huh?
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| Point of View: First Crayons and a Thousand Arms of Doubt and Hope by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl |
 WHEN MY SON WAS FIFTEEN MONTHS OLD, I BOUGHT HIM HIS FIRST box of crayons. I was leaving the Galleria after a business lunch, and I bought them with the typically bizarre mixture of best intentions and overwhelming guilt that seems to come with being a parent.
On the one hand: What was I doing at the Galleria when I could be at home with the baby?
On the other hand: I had read on the Internet that some other mother of a fifteen-month-old was already archiving her child’s drawings. Why wasn’t I archiving my kid’s drawings? How could it be that my darling didn’t even have any drawings to archive? Bad mother!
On the third hand: Didn’t I want to be modeling good, strong, working-woman behavior for my little boy? And if I didn’t, what was the alternative? Modeling living-under-a-bridge behavior?
On the hundredth hand: Does buying crayons for a fifteen-month-old put undue pressure on a kid, like buying an SAT prep book for an eight-year-old? Once I was in the store and surveyed the options, I had new doubts: maybe fifteen-month-olds should work, not in crayons, but with collage! Perhaps the two of us should be exploring Jean Arp’s ideas of automatic composition and the organic beauty of chance? Don’t Arp’s collages kind of look like they were done by toddlers anyway? Or, wait: Is it wrong to buy scissors for a fifteen-month-old?
Bloody hell.
.... Dara's essay continues on mnartists.org
 CLICK HERE to read Dara's reflections on the perils and pleasures of trying to raise a creative kid, her toddler's first experience making art, and how she learned the hard way to let him eat the crayons if he needs to.
About the author: Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a James Beard Award-winning writer on food and wine, and the recipient of the 2005 Loft/McKnight Fellowship for fiction. In addition to her weekly City Pages column Dara currently writes a monthly column for the magazine Experience Life, and occasionally contributes to magazines including Gourmet, Wine & Spirits, Midwest Living, and Condé Nast's Traveler. She is a frequent radio and television guest, and can occasionally be heard on local Minnesota broadcasts of NPR’s All Things Considered and Weekend America; on television she wears a wig and funny sunglasses in her role as monthly restaurant critic for local NBC affiliate KARE-11. She’s also working on her first novel, a black comedy about adolescent girlhood tentatively entitled Tempest, Tossed.
Credits: Photo (top) of one of the three installations by Sarah Sze comprising Grow or Die, part of the collection of artwork commissioned for the Walker Art Center's Cowles Conservatory. Photo courtesy the WAC. Photo (bottom) of Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl by Sara Rubenstein appears courtesy www.saraphoto.com.
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Remembering Dismemberment: Catherine Sullivan
 Click here to read Ann Klefstad’s review of Catherine Sullivan’s new video installation at the Walker Art Center, Triangle of Need.
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Catherine Sullivan, erstwhile dorm-mate of local dancer Dylan Skybrook (who collaborated on this show), has been making exciting video installations and films around the world. Her Triangle of Need is at the Walker Art Center through November 18.
This isn’t a movie, it’s a video installation in a gallery. You can walk in and see it any time. What’s the difference? Movies, at least here and now, are usually striving to be seamless illusions, alternate worlds in which one disappears for an hour and a half. That’s often a wonderful experience, but it’s not one that Catherine Sullivan is trying to create. … Click here to read Ann Klefstad’s full review of the Catherine Sullivan exhibit on mnartists.org.
What: Triangle of Need by Catherine Sullivan
Where: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
When: The exhibit runs through November 18
Tickets: $10 (FREE for children under 12 and WAC members)
Credit: A production still from Catherine Sullivan’s multichannel video installation, Triangle of Need, 2007. Courtesy the artist, Galerie Catherine Bastide (Brussels), and Metro Pictures (New York). |
Old Hand
Click here to read the full review of this retrospective of John Orth’s work by Ann Klefstad.
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John Orth is showing a retrospective of sculpture, drawings, and paintings at the Tweed Museum of Art, on the University of Minnesota campus in Duluth. The show is called Archetypes and Armatures and it’s deeply pleasurable.
It’s a surprise to come across sculptor John Orth’s work and realize what depths of time and attention have accumulated in it. He’s been working steadily for over 30 years, getting up in the morning and opening a sketchbook, planning work, traveling to the studio and building flasks and molds for casting, carving patterns, pouring iron, welding steel. He’s been thinking about the forms he makes, thinking about what he sees on the way to the shop, thinking about whether all this makes any sense. And steadily, surely, with a good eye and a lot of skill, he’s made work that reflects this constant practice of imbuing materials with intelligence. … Continue reading Ann Klefstad’s review of this exhibit on mnartists.org.
What: Archetypes and Armatures: Sculpture and Drawings by John V. Orth
Where: The Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota-Duluth, MN
When: The exhibit runs through November 18.
Tickets: FREE and open to the public
Credit: Party Wagon by John V. Orth, acrylic on rag paper. |
Radio mnartists: Larry Yazzie
 Listen to Marya Morstad’s interview with Fancy Dance champion Larry Yazzie on mnartists.org.
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Producer Marya Morstad continues the Radio mnartists series of podcasts and KFAI radio interviews with Minnesota artists with champion Fancy Dancer Larry Yazzie.
Larry Yazzie is an International lecturer, educator, performer, and a World Champion Fancy Dancer. Raised on the Meskwaki Indian settlement in central Iowa, he began dancing at the age of seven. Throughout his childhood, Larry was taught the traditions of the Meskwaki People, including the flamboyant and energetic fancy dance with colorful regalia and the northern Plains style of singing. … Listen to this podcast interview with Fancy Dancer Larry Yazzie on mnartists.org.
What: Dots and Feathers, a Co-production of Katha Theatre and Native Pride Productions
Where: The O’Shaughnessy Auditorium of Saint Catherine’s College, Saint Paul, MN
When: September 28-30
Tickets: $25 (some discounts available)
Credit: Photo of Larry Yazzie courtesy of the Native Pride Dancers. |
The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen by John Heimbuch
 Read an interview Jaime Kleiman conducted with Walking Shadow Theatre director Amy Rummenie earlier this year about work, life, and theater as an ethical act.
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Originally a 2004 Minnesota Fringe Festival hit, a reading of this new full-length version presented by Walking Shadow Theatre Company culminates a week-long rehearsal and workshop process and is directed by Amy Rummenie. In London's heated summer of 1720, the financial bubble grows, investment mania fills the air, and England's Thief-Taker General seizes his criminal empire in the shadow of the Tyburn Gallows. But when a daring young highwayman takes the streets, he cuts a path through London that could undo everything. The play is a historical adventure of ambition and betrayal set in the world of crime, investment, and the printing press. … Listen to an interview with director Amy Rummenie from earlier this year on mnartists.org.
What: The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen by John Heimbuch
Where: Walker Community United Methodist Church, Minneapolis, MN
When: September 7, 7:30 pm (doors at 6:30 pm)
Tickets: $8
Credit: Photo from the 2004 MN Fringe Festival production, from left to right, of Keith Prusak, John Heimbuch, Tom Sherohman. Courtesy Walking Shadow Theatre Company. |
READ ON for a quick handpicked sampling from the rich variety of events listed on mnartists.org/calendar ... |
| Classes & Workshops |
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Attend the September portfolio review at Minnesota Center for Photography and get expert feedback on your shots from professional photographer and U of MN art professor Greg Hallman
(Minnesota Center for Photography, Minneapolis, September 20)
Bring the kids for a day of creative fun at Family Art Day in Moir Park and celebrate the artistic expression of those with disabilities in the process
(Moir Park, Bloomington, September 16)
Celebrate the new school year in style at WACTAC’s Student Open House: The Big Dance with music from DJ Talk Radio, an artist’s talk with Miami-based artists Friends With You, an Artlab, and continuous film screenings of Rineke Dijkstra’s video study of young British clubbers
(Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, September 27)
Credits: (Top)
Tapestry #3 by Greg Hallman, inkjet print, 2006. (Bottom) Skywalkers at Miami Art Basel 2006. Photo appears courtesy of Friends With You. |
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| Fairs and Festivals |
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The Bloomington Literary Council presents Harmony: An Exploration of Relationships, its third annual festival fusion of music, dance and poetry
(Bloomington Art Center, Bloomington, September 7-9)
Fall into the Arts Festival
(Centennial Lakes Park, Edina, September 8-9)
Celebrate Latino, Asian, and African cultures through food, local and global art, music, and dance at the WISE Cultural Art Imbizio
(Hamline Park Plaza & Rose Garden, Saint Paul, September 8)
7th Annual Maple Grove Art Fair
(The Shoppes at Arbor Lakes, Maple Grove, September 15-16)
See artists at work, listen to some music and poetry, and make some art of your own at the Sticks and Stones Kanabec County Artist Tour
(Hovland Farm, Mora, September 28-30)
Credit: Photo (bottom) courtesy the Fall into the Arts Festival |
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| Lectures and Readings |
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| Music |
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Theater
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Zeitgeist, composer Scott Miller, poet Philippe Costaglioli, and videoartist Ron Gregg gather to present an artistic response to the promise and peril of change in Shape Shifting: Shades of Transformation
(Studio Z, Saint Paul, September 28-30)
Strange Love: a two-part multidisciplinary appliance musical performance-installation inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
(The Northwestern Casket Company, Minneapolis, September 21-October 14)
Uncle Vanya, a provincial comedy set in the twilight of czarist Russia by Anton Chekhov
(Commonweal Theatre Company, Lanesboro, September 7-November 11)
Credit: Photo (top) of Zeitgeist musicians courtesy the artists' website.
Photo (bottom) of Charles Campbell and Elliott Durko Lynch, courtesy of the Southern Theater. |
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| Sales and Galas |
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Gallery 122 Art Market showcasing work from a slew of Twin Cities artists
(Gallery 122 at Hang It, Minneapolis, September 29)
The $99 Sale at the Soap Factory
(Soap Factory, Minneapolis, September 14-15)
One night art exhibit, fashion show, and live music event: Mush, Mush Masculinity!
(ACVR Warehouse, Saint Paul, September 8)
Franconia Sculpture Park Fall Gala
(Franconia Sculpture Park, Franconia, September 15)
Alley Cat: A tribute/benefit in memory of comic artist and bicycling advocate Eric Lappegard
(Altered Esthetics Gallery, Minneapolis, September 8) |
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| Visual Arts |
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Glass from the American-Swedish Institute and Its Local Influence
(Gage Family Art Gallery, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, September 14-October 26)
Overstockpile: Sculptures and installation by Mari Richards exploring the results of too much going in and not enough going out
(Vesper College Art Gallery, Minneapolis, exhibit runs through September 12)
Studiopolis Group Show GREEN, featuring the work of over 70 artists exploring the meaning and metaphor behind the word “green”
(Northrup King Building, Minneapolis, September 6-8)
Salvaging Beauty: Photographs by Jimmy Ray Ostgard
(ArtSpace at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, September 7-November 7)
Out of Context: Images of the American Rock Anthem
(Frank Stone Gallery, Minneapolis, September 14-23)
Beauty Walks a Razor’s Edge, new work by Luke Hillestad, Jack Spencer, and Michael Thomsen combining elements from the Great Masters with lyrical influences from contemporary icons like Bob Dylan and Joanna Newsom
(Flanders Gallery, Minneapolis, September 15-November 3)
Credits: Photo (top) courtesy of the Gage Family Art Gallery. (Bottom) Salvage 38, photo by Jimmy Ray Ostgard. |
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You Are Here event listings are drawn entirely from the mnartists.org calendar, so if you want to improve the odds that you'll see your happening linked here, you'd better start posting your events!
We've made it super easy to begin: here's a step-by-step guide that'll show you how to promote your own events on the new arts calendar. Browse through more up-to-the-minute events listings or post a show of your own on mnartists.org's new DIY arts events calendar. |
The mission of mnartists.org is to improve the lives of Minnesota artists and provide access to and engagement with Minnesota’s arts culture. |
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