May Fourth was a great day for nerds around the Duluth area. Claimed by Star Wars fans with the slightest bit of imagination, only the slightest, the Fourth of May is Star Wars Day. I cringe, still, every time I hear someone say “May the Fourth be with You.” Except when William Shatner says it, because the irony I read into it is delicious.
Railroad Yard, Duluth, 1918–1965
There are a few works by Francis Chapin at the Art Institute of Chicago. More info about Chapin can be found on Wikipedia.
Coal Depot, Duluth Harbor, Stuart David Klipper
The Art Institute of Chicago has many cool works of art with a Duluth connection available online.
This photo of Eric T. Anderson, age 56 circa 1963, born in Duluth, is part of the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was taken by Danny Lyon.
I don’t know the story or the man. Do you?
Virginia “Jinny” Moe of Duluth donated this work to the the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Boy and Girl Holding Hands, ca. 1850, by Bennet.
Another item at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is this item donated by Julie Nunull Marshall of Duluth. (I can’t find any records about her easily, beyond the record of generosity and taste.)
In the 1970s she donated Arcana II, 1969, by Worden Day to the Metropolitan.
Worden Day is now deceased, but immortalized by the generosity of a Duluthian.
A huge collection of world art is available online at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This “charger” (which won’t do anything for my cell phone) was owned by Winifred E. Higgins, who lived at 2401 E. Second St. in Duluth.
The charger was manufactured by the Kalo Shops, which Wikipedia calls “the leading maker of Arts and Crafts movement silver in Chicago.”
(I didn’t know either — a “charger” is a plate that sits under the other plates. Your server places your salad plate atop your charger, then your soup bowl atop your charger, then your dinner plate atop your charger, before the charger is removed for dessert.)
The Jerome Foundation has announced the first recipients of the new Jerome Hill Artist Fellowships program. Duluth-based artist Kathy McTavish was among the artists chosen from 1,172 applications.
WDIO tells me Empty Bowl is off, this year. I own five bowls, and I have probably broken five more — these things get used in my home. I love useful art, and Empty Bowl fills my heart and home with useful art.
Colleagues who throw pots as an art form worry that Empty Bowl hurts the market for pottery, but I would say that the twenty bucks I spent there would never have been spent on something in a gallery — it is the confluence of art and charity that makes Empty Bowl magic.
What is next for Empty Bowl? I don’t know, but I hope it returns.
Issue #12 of Split Rock Review is available. My favorite piece is “Transfers” by Hava Zitlalik.
Tim Kaiser appears to be reorganizing his recordings on SoundCloud, and so this gem appears on my feed.
University lectures showed me quite a bit about the entangled lives of the past that shape our present. Last Thursday, Dr. Deborah Petersen-Perlman gave a historical tour of Poland. She opened with a video that shows the borders of European nations, beginning hundreds of years before the invention, even, of the nation-state.
Today, I point to another blog by a Duluthian, this time John Boucha. You can tell because his name is the URL.
I’ve been discovering blogs by Duluthians lately. Sister Scotland collects the observations of a Superior student as she studies abroad. Some observations, about the taste of haggis … well, I will never be okay with food cooked in a stomach. It feels like duplication of effort; we only need one stomach in this process. But others, they are just playful thoughts on life.
Daniel Levar was a Duluthian in Minneapolis at the time he submitted this sketchbook to the Brooklyn Art Library.
