Congrats to Duluth artist Catherine Meier. I drove 160 miles to see her opening at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design — and it was worth it.

(Catherine Meier, “I could hear voices on the wind, Sage Creek Rim Road” (right panel), Graphite on paper)

Catherine was one of four artists receiving fellowships and exhibiting this evening. On hand were many Duluth celebrities (at least celebrities in my life) — UMD/CSS faculty member Dan Nolan, Tweed Museum director Ken Bloom, among others.

Reviews are here:

Armed with a pencil and huge rolls of paper, Meier has set out to draw the Great Plains, an infinity of space undulating to invisible horizons. Her bravado in undertaking such an impossible task is admirable, and the resulting scrolls – which cascade down the walls like waterfalls of sky and grass – are memorable even though the essence of so vast a place cannot be caught on paper.

Reviews like this remind me why I think Catherine is among the most important artists in Duluth — because she is really an artist working through a project, a problem. Her experiments with media, with technology, all cohere around an attempt to document our inability to represent landscape and the experience of horizon in art. Her art, always massive undertakings, only reinforce the unimaginable, the difficulty of engaging the natural landscape, of finding ourselves in that landscape.

If you happen to be in Minneapolis, check it out!