Zoom In: Filmmaker Coleman Miller

Artist Opportunities

»CLICK HERE for a daily-updated list of many, many more opportunities for Minnesota artists in every discipline on mnartists.org

CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS, FASHION DESIGNERS, AND STYLISTS: mnartists.org, MNFashion, and West Photo are sponsoring MNfashion FLASH, a quarterly series highlighting the best of MN fashion. Fashion photography submissions will be juried by a panel of professionals working in fashion and photography, and winning entries will be featured in the 2008 Voltage: Fashion Amplified LOOK BOOK and posted on mnartists.org. For the first round of entries, judges are looking for photos, designs, and styles that play on the color green.

CALL FOR MN MUSICIANS: mnartists.org is sponsoring mnSpin, a quarterly music contest  featuring Minnesota musicians with winning tracks selected by panelists from the music industry

(The extended submission deadline is January 11)

GRANTS FOR EAST CENTRAL MN ARTS ORGS ARE AVAILABLE: The East Central Regional Art Council (ECAC) is seeking art organization project grant applicants in Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine, and Mille Lacs counties

(Deadline January 15)

ATTN PHOTOGRAPHERS: MCP is offering a free workshop “Marketing Your Photography: Getting the Work You Want Thursday” led by Scott Streble

(Workshop is January 31)

CALL FOR ARTISTS: The Artist Mercantile seeks “green” minded artists who want to show work at the St. Paul Art Crawl this April

ATTN WRITERS: The Twin Cities Daily Planet hosts a free writers’ workshop for any and all writers (citizen journalists are welcome) every Monday at the Rondo Library in St Paul

CALL FOR ARTISTS: The Belfry Center is looking for your 2-D art submissions for an exhibition curated by Minneapolis artists Lisa Leppa and Rebecca Shewmake

(Deadline is February 29)

CALL FOR ART: The Loring Park Art Festival is calling for art in a variety of media for next August’s art fair

(Submission deadline is March 15)

CALL FOR BOOK ARTISTS: Susan Hensel Gallery is calling for submissions of books/book objects that emphasize the mark of the hand, with special weight given to entries using handmade paper for Reader’s Art 8 (Handmade with Care)

(Deadline January 30)

JOB POSTING: Wet Paint in Saint Paul is looking for an experienced framer

JOB POSTING: The Rochester Art Center is seeking a new Marketing Manager

(Application deadline is February 1)

CALL FOR JURORS: The Powderhorn Art Fair Is taking resumes for people with expertise in 2-D and 3-D visual art forms who are interested in serving as art jurors for next summer’s fair.

(Deadline February 1)

ATTN CERAMICISTS AND POTTERS: The Duluth Art Institute is offering an artist residency in ceramics—a stipend and free studio space are available in exchange for 20 hours/week serving as studio manager

(Application deadline is January 25)

CALL FOR FILMMAKERS: The MOSAIC festival asks aspiring filmmakers, arts organizations and community centers to submit concept proposals for an original film embodying the spirit of community and diversity central to this summer-long festival—the winning film idea will receive a $10,000 production budget to make the movie

(Deadline January 18)

Featured Forum: A Community Dialogue on the Present and Future of Arts Coverage in Minnesota

»CLICK HERE to go to the forum discussion on this topic, and offer your own two cents.

Make Your Voice Heard: What Kind of Arts Coverage Serves Artists and Audiences Best?

Here at mnartists.org HQ, as we busily plan for the new year and reflect on the changing arts and media landscapes, we find ourselves wondering: what kind of arts coverage best serves the needs of both artists and audiences?

In fact, it's such an important question, we think it's time to start a community-wide dialogue on the topic. So, over the coming weeks we're asking critics, editors, and arts journalists to weigh in on the state of arts writing and how they're adapting to changes in media, financial support, and dwindling readership; we're approaching artists working in a number of disciplines to give their thoughts on the kind of coverage that most fruitfully and responsibly serves the creative communities who work in the arts.

So: All of you who buy tickets to see shows or who watch films, those of you who attend gallery openings and save up for that special piece of original art, and all of you who read books or go out to lend an ear to local music, tell us: What kind of arts coverage serves you best?

We will collect a variety of the most thoughtful, provocative, and salient viewpoints to emerge from this dialogue into a series of articles which will be published in mnartists.org's online arts magazine, MnArts, throughout the month of January. If there's enough response from you, we'll begin assembling your remarks for a round-up article as early as next week.

Join us in a lively, open (and moderated) discussion in the mnartists.org forums. You do not need to register to participate in the forum discussion, but posts will be monitored for adherence both to the topic and to commonsense guidelines for civil discourse.

On Location: BodyCartography Talks About the Importance of Place

CLICK HERE to read Camille LeFevre's article on BodyCartography's upcoming dance productions and the ambiguous nature of what falls into the category of "site-specific" dance.

Before the launch of their dance series at the Bryant Lake Bowl, Camille LeFevre chats with Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad about how the essence of a location figures into their performance projects.

Before heading out of town during the holiday break, I arranged a phone interview with Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad about their three January shows at Bryant Lake Bowl. Last Sunday, January 6, Ramstad joined his fellow performers from Miguel Gutierrez’s New York troupe, Powerful People (in town for a Walker Art Center gig), in a collaborative program of new works (Downtown Comes Uptown). On Sunday, January 20, Bieringa and Ramstad (as the BodyCartography Project) present excerpts from a work-in-progress, Made in Japan. On the middle Sunday, January 13, BodyCartography presents a series of dance films, collectively titled Moving Image: Minnesota, that Bieringa, Ramstad and friends made from 2004-2007 at places in Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota. Bieringa and Ramstad call these films “site specific.” Which Bieringa, after putting me on speakerphone and tucking into her lunch, insists is not a space-time anachronism or dislocation of performance from site...continue reading this article on mnartists.org.

What: Three Sundays of Dance presented by The BodyCartography Project
Where: Bryant Lake Bowl, Minneapolis, MN
When: January 13, Moving Image: Minnesota with special guest, Elliott Durko Lynch, 7 pm; January 20, Part 1: Made in Japan with special guest Anna Marie Shogren, 7 pm
Admission: Tickets are $10 at the door or online at the Bryant Lake Bowl website. For more info call the Bryant Lake Bowl at 612.825.8949.

Credits: Stills from Moving Image: Minnesota (courtesy of BodyCartography)

EXCHANGE: A two-part dialogue in letters on art and the disordered mind between visual artist Amy Rice and writer Marya Hornbacher

CLICK HERE to read part one of this exchange of letters

CLICK HERE to read the second and final installment in the conversation

Amy Rice, acclaimed painter and Spectrum Artworks Director, and Marya Hornbacher, critically hailed author of the forthcoming memoir, Madness: A Life, let us in on a frank dialogue about the connection between an artist's work and state of mind.
_____________________________________________
From: Susannah Schouweiler
Sent: Monday, November 12
To: Amy Rice; Marya Hornbacher
Subject: Art and the Mind

Hi Marya and Amy,

Marya, you said something recently in a blog entry on your website that really stuck with me: “Mental illness is many things, difficult and painful to be sure, at times, but also something that can teach a person a great deal about reaching for peace and finding it.”

I also found another of your remarks to be illuminating: "People vary in what they call people with mental illness: 'victims,' 'sufferers,' sometimes 'survivors,' or the myriad other terms we have for people whose minds are clinically disturbed. (I myself often use crazy, nuts, and batshit, because I am referring to myself, and I can.) Actually, there’s a movement of people who call themselves 'mental health consumers,' as opposed to 'bipolar/depressive/schizophrenic/etc. people' or 'the mentally ill.' I don’t feel at all like a victim; and while, I admit, sometimes I feel like I suffer because of my illness, it is not the primary feeling I have. I think suffering is an occasional part of being alive, and I don’t experience suffering as much as I experience, basically, having a rough patch or a crappy month or something like that. And at times it’s far more extreme than that, and it debilitates me and destroys my capacity to do my work; but what are you going to do besides work with what is? I always want to say to people who say I 'suffer' that actually I do pretty well, and that it’s just the way it goes. But 'survivor' always feels a little weird to me. Don’t know why, totally. I don’t feel like I’m bravely soldiering through some righteous battle; I feel more like I’m just trying to keep body and soul together like the next guy, and that I do pretty well, considering.”

To what extent, in your minds, do the effects of mental illness actually spur creativity? Do you think there are circumstances where these less trod paths of mind, those that upset and disturb especially, can be fruitful and productive rather than pathological and hurtful? Is the pain of mental illness a necessary part of its fruitfulness? Is a “peaceful” mind, in that context, really a desirable goal? --Susannah _______________________________________

...continue reading for the provocative, funny, utterly candid responses from Amy Rice and Marya Hornbacher in this two-part exchange of letters.

Image credit: A Special Delivery by Amy Rice

Shadows of Solidity: Bruce Tapola at the Rochester Art Center

CLICK HERE to read Amanda Vail's incisive take on the ongoing Bruce Tapola exhibition

Amanda Vail muses on the masterful interplay of wit, easy familiarity, and alienation in Bruce Tapola's oblique sculptures and paintings on display now at the Rochester Art Center.

The splendid thing about Bruce Tapola’s exhibition, Paintings for Germans, Sculpture for Snobs at the Rochester Art Center, is that one look simply won’t do. While many of the pieces—his color field paintings with vague humanoid forms or the monotone object assemblages—can be taken in at a glance, the exhibition as a whole demands repeated viewing. Attempting to dissect any one piece can be frustrating, but by wandering the entirety of the show, vague impressions emerge; and, after a while, a fully formed discourse begins to coalesce from those disparate pieces. It is very tempting, in fact, to view the exhibition, not as a showing of Tapola’s separate works from the last few years, but as a single, large installation. It is not an easy show to simply walk into; the pieces require a bit of effort on the part of the viewer; but making sense of Tapola’s artwork is a pleasant task, aided by the sense of play and happenstance that runs throughout. In the first room, a rope trails loosely over the gallery monolith...continue reading about the Bruce Tapola show on mnartists.org.

What: Bruce Tapola: Paintings for Germans, Sculpture for Snobs
Where: Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN
When: Exhibition runs through January 27, 2008
General admission is $3

Image credit: Installation shot: Untitled Sculpture (Ted's Bench) and Dutch Clump, The Velocity of Dust on wall. Photo by Scott Stulen.

Radio mnartists: Carl Flink

CLICK HERE to listen to Marya Morstad's podcast profile of Carl Flink

Producer Marya Morstad continues the Radio mnartists series of podcasts and KFAI radio interviews with Minnesota artists, with a profile of choreographer Carl Flink, just before his new production, Wreck, opens at the Southern Theater.

Carl Flink is the founder and artistic director of the performance group, Black Label Movement (BLM). He is also the Director of Dance and a tenured associate professor with the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota.

What: Black Label Movement presents Wreck by Carl Flink

(Music by Mary Ellen Childs)

Where: The Southern Theater, Minneapolis, MN

When: January 11-13 & 16-20, Wed.-Sat. at 8pm, Sun. at 7pm

Featured Collection:

FUNCTIONAL SCULPTURE

Furniture from the Upper Midwest

Glenn Gordon and Laurel Bradley, Co-curators

»CLICK HERE to browse through a collection of featured Minnesota furniture designers and artisans with work on display in this show.

An exhibition of contemporary studio and prototype furniture by sixteen independent furniture makers, sculptors and industrial designers from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Useful and practical are not words typically used to describe works of art. But a new exhibit at Carleton College does just that. Functional Sculpture: Furniture from the Upper Midwest features the work of 16 contemporary furniture makers, sculptors and industrial designers who ask the question, "When does furniture become art?"

With works ranging from handcrafted, one-of-a-kind studio furniture to multiples designed for mass production, Functional Sculpture features chairs, tables, cabinets, music stands, and other types of furniture. While wood is the predominant material used, the exhibition also showcases pieces made with glass, leather, fabrics, plastics, carbon fiber, and metals—often used in bold and ingenious new ways. Styles run the gamut from the geometric austerities of Modernism to works that invoke the curves of Art Nouveau, the flair of Art Deco, the strangeness of Surrealism, and the playfulness of Italy's postmodern Memphis movement of the 1980s....continue to mnartists.org to see a sampling of some of the work you'll find in this exhibition.

What: Functional Sculpture: Furniture from the Upper Midwest
Where: Carleton College art gallery, Northfield, MN
When: Exhibition runs from January 11-March 10, 2008.

On January 11, show co-curator Glenn Gordon will offer an introductory talk for the exhibition at 7:30 pm in Boliou Hall, room 104, followed by an opening reception from 8:30 to 10 pm in the art gallery. Both events are free and open to the public.

Image credit: Metropolis by George Mahoney

From Human Voice to Human Ear: The Rose Ensemble, Ruth MacKenzie, and the Trio Mediaeval

CLICK HERE to read Dean Seal's insightful observations on the work of these virtuosic performers

Dean J. Seal delves into the vocal artistry and enduring attraction of early a capella music, with a focus on those composers and musicians whose calling is to preserve and reinvigorate the art form.

A Capella music is done only with the voice and has its origins in music for the chapel performed in a cathedral setting. The voice was the only instrument allowed, because it was the only one created by God and was, therefore, sacred. Scholarly, professional artists and organizations specializing in this area of early music are hitting their strides in recent years, especially in 2007. In the past year, The Rose Ensemble, an early music ensemble based in St. Paul, won a major International Choral Competition in Tolosa, Spain, making them kind of the flagship of the fleet. Twin Citizen Ruth MacKenzie added to her corpus of acclaimed work with a presentation of songs for Advent, Theotokos, at the seminary where she is wrapping up her studies in theology and the arts. And in November the Trio Mediaeval rolled into town from Norway, bringing their disciplined clarity to a repertoire that was hitting the Billboard charts and mesmerizing audiences from the Fitzgerald Theater to the Arctic Circle....continue reading Dean Seal's essay on mnartists.org.

Walker Art Center

One for the Road