Duluth Book Releases in 2024
Every year a gob of books by Duluth-area writers and/or about Duluth-area topics hit the shelves of local bookstores and warehouses of e-commerce corporations. Here’s a look at what’s new and coming soon in 2024.
Every year a gob of books by Duluth-area writers and/or about Duluth-area topics hit the shelves of local bookstores and warehouses of e-commerce corporations. Here’s a look at what’s new and coming soon in 2024.
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument. (Photo by Matthew James)
A few weeks ago a postcard of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument appeared on Perfect Duluth Day that included the text “by the noted sculptor Paul W. Bartlett of Paris.” That didn’t seem like a particularly French name to me so I decided to see if he was actually a noted sculptor and actually from Paris. Both counts proved accurate.
Bartlett was from Connecticut, but grew up in France and spent a considerable amount of time in Paris. But Bartlett only designed the statue in front of the monument. The architect Cass Gilbert designed the base that supports the flagpole. And both of these people gained considerable attention during their respective careers. Their most prominent works are within a few minutes walk of each other in Washington D.C. And when I learned this, I was attending a conference in Washington D.C., so I paid a visit to those works.
The Duluth News Tribune reports artist Tim Cortes has opened an art studio and gallery in the former warming shack at the Duluth Heritage Sports Center’s Sill Arena.
Minnesota Public Radio reports on the new George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts at the University of Minnesota, which serves as an “interdepartmental study center to support the creation, presentation and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms.” Morrison was a renowned abstract painter and sculptor, and a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He died in 2000.
The inaugural exhibit at the center is on display in the Katherine Nash Gallery until March 16. It includes work by Duluth-based artist Jonathan Thunder.
The Duluth News Tribune reports the nonprofit Duluth Art Institute is searching for a new home as it prepares to leave the St. Louis County Depot, where it has had galleries and workspace since 1975.
Former Duluthian Nancy Valentine teaches bamboo painting online (thanks to an arts grant).
Coloring pages related to this project are available via Google Drive.
Behold another year of Duluth rawk and/or roll as visually displayed via Perfect Duluth Day’s traditional year-ending gallery of gig posters.
This post is about the new Minnesota State Flag, about abstract art, and about the exhausted feeling I get in contemporary politics.
Frau Holle’s Werkhaus is Duluth artist Joellyn Rock‘s latest mixed-media installation, on display at the Tweed Museum of Art through February as part of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s faculty and staff exhibition Everything & Nothing. It was first exhibited in the group show Catching Up / Resurfacing at Joseph Nease Gallery.
Welcome to the 2023 PDD Holiday Gift Guide, an annual tradition that highlights products made in Duluth and the surrounding area. You’ll find 16 gift ideas here, but the comment area is open for suggestions.
When Masha Conner isn’t working as a nurse at WE Health clinic, she can be found pouring her passion for abortion access, drag shows and cosplay into her character designs. A collection of her drawings and a recent interview can be read below:
In general, concert tickets are not attractively designed. These days people show up at the gate with a computer printout as evidence of admission purchased online, or more often just hold up their phone to display a code. When there are physical tickets involved, they tend to be nothing more than a faded Ticketmaster logo with the show details in grey, all-caps print. And that’s just in the case of mainstream traveling artists.
When it comes to shows featuring local bands, there often are no tickets involved at all. Admission is frequently free or it’s a cash-at-the-door affair. But there are a few occasions where tickets to local shows get arty.
Photo by Jess Morgan
A few years after moving to Minnesota, Maelo Cruz self-published a 64-page comic called “Part Timer,” about a character who “dreams of being a full time artist while working a regular job that sucks the life right out of them.” His artwork is primarily autobiographical and self-reflective, giving viewers a glimpse of his experience living and growing up in Puerto Rico and fatherhood. View and learn more about his comics, below.
Photo by Nia Sayler.
Duluthians who love the local music scene may have stumbled across Kathryne Ford dancing with her acrylics while live painting. Ford performs most Tuesdays at the Rathskeller with jazz group the Hot Club of Duluth. A collection of Ford’s work called “See the Bloom” is on display at Wussow’s Concert Cafe through the end of October. Below is a recent interview and some snapshots of her artwork.
Over the summer, Prøve Gallery hosted Untethered, an exhibition of paintings and prints by Patricia Canelake of Knife River. In this video by Frank Sander, Kelsey Lundberg interviews Canelake about the simple figures and animals, leashed and unleashed, that are the focus of her work.
