The First Friday

Yesterday was the first Friday of the month and as such there was an art show in the neighboring town. Every month that I can, I visit the artist talk. Last night there were two artist talks.

The first artist talked about her art displayed in the main gallery. It was beautiful. The first thing she told us was that all the framed work we see is prints. She commented on how bringing the original would cause her stress as she would be concerned that something would happen to them.

It wasn’t a selling point. What would or could happen. The prints were beautiful and who would have known if she wouldn’t have said they were prints. She described the process that brought her to doing the art she was doing.

In here early education she originally thought that she would be studying water critters. There appeared to be a lot of travel in her work, and she had travelled all over the world to visit friends and family. Due to her interest in saving life on earth, she started to look at fish and water critters.

You would be impressed with where all she went if I could tell you. The places had no meaning to me other than I recognized the places at the time. i.e. The Nile.

Ellen Sandbeck (Duluth, MN) has been making papercut artwork since 1988. In this exhibition, she explores the bio ecologies and endemic species of the world’s major rivers. Each piece is large, multilayered, cut by hand with scissors, and takes months to create. MacRostie Art Center

Ellen, the artist changed her major in college to art as she had been working with art her entire life and missed that when she was focused on animal study.

She said she worked primarily with smaller paper until she discovered that she would only be taken seriously as a woman artist if she did large art pieces. That is what she has been doing now then for many years.

The audience then asked specific questions, including how long one piece of art would take to finish. Ellen explained she hasn’t really paid much attention to that. She did say she is changing that now as she is getting older, and she put the date her next piece was started on the back.

Then she talked about it taking a minimum of eight pieces of paper to be glued to the back of her work and her husband does the gluing for her. Then the max of paper used is 14 pieces of paper. That was the most colorful piece and easy to pick out.

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Listening to the artist is always the most interesting part of First Friday for me. I meet fun people and other artists there and this evening I met a director of outreach and grants that was very personable, and interesting.

The Director asked if I was an artist and what art I am involved in, and she got excited when I told her I write. She quickly pulled out her card and asked me to reach out to her. She mentioned that they have small grants for writers, and they didn’t get much response for the grants they have available.

We sat together through both of the artist talks.

The second artist was in a space that is Native American Art. In that space there were quilts on the walls with designs of Native culture. He described each quilt, the meaning of each and his process of creating his designs.

Blankets are an important part of Indigenous culture; they serve as expressions of generosity, offer warmth, and provide places of safety. Rick Kagigebi (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe) has been creating blankets for over forty years. His appliquéd mural blankets in this exhibition tell stories conveying Ojibwe cultural values. Giinawind Gallery photo — MacRostie Art Center

Rick stated he probably made 500 block quilts and he has a definite process for that where he used his math skills. He was a math teacher in his previous life. Then he talked about making probably 50 art designed quilts that have been a perfect fit for many.

The male artist talked about his interest in blankets since he was in his late teens and thought he probably finished his first quilt when he was 18. He said he didn’t know much about his culture until he was in his late teens. He has put much of what he has learned since into his quilts.

Rick noted that he took time off from quilts when in college and for a few shorter times. He talked about learning to sew. He credited his wife for helping him with his cultural knowledge.

I liked that he said, “I don’t think it is appropriate to call Elders, elderly. It is not respectful and even though I have grey hair, I am not an elder yet.” He went on to talk about how much wisdom elders have from living life.

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Overall, it was a great First Friday, even though I only got to one other exhibit. A glass shop where my daughter and 2 granddaughters are in the middle of a stained-glass project. Somehow, we thought we could finish a project in a few hours, and it would take us about 20 hours.

We have about 10 hours left to finish the project we started. Art is not simple or easy I say and maybe that is why I am so impressed with what I see and the story behind it all.

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First published by Mercury Press on medium.com