It's Monday and I'm still working

It's Monday. It's 8 pm and I am still working. What else is new?

Well, it is the last day of the regular gallery schedule for the next 6 months!

Leslie Sobel on the Stonearch Bridge overlooking the great Mississippi River.

Zach and I packed Leslie Sobel's show today...if you missed it you can see it in the gallery archives...show #40!!!! Times sure does fly when you are having fun. Leslie showed at the beginning of the second season and at the end of the 7th season. Rather nice, if uneven, brackets.

"SO", you ask, "Now what?"

Well...I sat in the yard for a bit today and mused with Zach about the difficulty we both have at not working (Hence, it is now 8:15 pm and I have been at it since before 10 am.) I am already thinking of ways to use the gallery, before we re-commence in January.

I am considering doing an artyarn show in the fall...I am considering truncating the yearly schedule to September through May or June...I am considering having a fiber oriented set of summer shows each year...I am considering....

Art yarn by Susan Hensel

I am considering sitting quietly by big water and letting my busy brain empty out and quiet down. But until that happens, I will putter away in here, playing with fiber, reading, writing and dreaming. Zach and I will maintain Monday hours through July, when he leaves for grad school! I will be studying in various places at various times throughout the 6 months...starting with the Artwear Symposium at the Textile Center in Minneapolis.

Gallery Musings

Today was spent on promo for the Wool Market, yawning from lack of sleep, evaluating the results of the current show in the gallery, updating the website, interviewing several people for the potential new position of gallery associate in January, photographing fiber and recording dye results.

The work day flew by, with both Zach and I smiling as we we realized our work responsibilities were waning. He has finished 2 of his three jobs before grad school and I am almost to the sabbatical date! We are both waxing philosophical/nostalgic even though we will be working together another 2 months!

Leslie Sobels' show comes down after Memorial Day, but we will maintain our Monday hours, getting caught up on gallery admin and planning, web restructure and repair, generalized computer stuff! Our Fridays, which may occasionally become Thursdays or Wednesdays (call before you come), will be spent dying and cleaning out the basement cracks, crannies and crevices to make a fuller functioning lower studio.

South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market Arrives!

South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market

at

Susan Hensel Gallery• 3441 Cedar Ave S • Minneapolis

Demonstrations! Refreshments! Yarn! Fiber! Roving! Batt Your Own Wild Batt!

This new experiment will start Memorial Day Weekend...When you are out shopping yard sales, stop by and shop with us! You will find great values in materials and finished textile products from local artisans.

The tentative line up for May 29 is:

Sue Hensel: batts, roving, yarn, Batt Your Own Wild Batt station and/or spinning demo

Kat Corrigan: Frankensweaters and sewing demo

Pauline Mitchell: weaving, tapestry demo

Stefanie Moss: weavings from handyed yarn

Pam Angier: miscellaneous fiber goodness from the Fiber Studio

Travels with Leslie

Leslie Sobel's time in Minneapolis is coming to a close. We had a picnic by the Mississippi River and walked across the Stone Arch Bridge and continued on into the Mill Ruins Park to observe the archaeological digs preserved for us. Her show runs through the end of the month. Be sure to call to see the work! We will be open Monday's and Friday's, 10-5. We will also be open May 29, 10-4 for the South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market. Be there or be square.

More Rust Belt to Artist Belt info

The conferences started in CLeveland. You can read about the most recent conference and watch powerpoints at this link. This is way cool stuff! Artspace, who is very active here in the Twin Cities, was one of the presenters.

http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CreativeCompass.shtml

From Rust Belt to Artist Belt

Leslie Sobel, here tonight in the gallery, is involved in the Rust Belt to Artist Belt conferences and was instrumental to bringing the conference to Detroit. http://www.detroitmakeithere.com/article/20100405/DM01/304059989

April 2010...

"Wayne State University's TechTown led the city's bid for the conference, working with a number of other local organizations, including The Heidelberg Project, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design and WSU College of Fine, Performing, and Communication Arts.

The group should know in the next couple of weeks when the conference will be held, said Julie Brock, development director for TechTown.

TechTown has hired Leslie Sobel, an independent artist from Milan and president of the Milan Area Arts Council, to help plan the conference and to expand participation of arts organizations beyond Detroit to those in other Southeast Michigan counties, Brock said.

“The conference is centered on the idea that rust belt cities are the perfect breeding ground for new artists, with low-cost living, industrial spaces and open land you can't get in New York or (Los Angeles,)” Brock said.

“Because it's been so successful in Cleveland the past two years, they wanted one of the other rust belt cities to take it.”"

Leslie Sobel arrives soon!

Her ideas and her images precede her! The gallery and I have been living with Leslie Sobel's lush surfaces and images for nearly a month. Friday you can come and meet her. The reception, free as always, relaxed and informal, as always, is 7-9pm on Friday, May 21.

Read about visiting artist Leslie Sobel

Zach Pearl wrote a wonderful article about Leslie Sobel. Click this link to read it. Come meet her May 21, 7-9pm.

Leslie Sobel to BE HERE! MEET HER AGAIN!

The month of May is always a time to take a step back and acknowledge the splendor of our surroundings in bloom. In step with this, Susan Hensel Gallery is proud to present Earth & Air by Michigan-based artist Leslie Sobel, whose sculptural paintings celebrate nature's beauty and explore issues of climate change. Working in the encaustic technique, a painting process using heated wax, Leslie's creations are rich in color, teeming with texture, and alive with light! Inspired by images of the Earth from space, Leslie builds layer upon layer of wax, crafting miniature mountain ridges, glaciers and waterways that seem to "pop" right off the canvas.

Have a chance to meet the artist, and see this charming and impressive body of work in person! Join the Susan Hensel Gallery on May 21st, 7-9 p.m. for a reception and informal artist talk. Hear how Leslie first became interested in making art about the environment, and find out more about her years of experience making imagery in wax.

BEING Susan Hensel Gallery

What does it mean to BE Susan Hensel Gallery for 7 years? Well, that will be investigated over the next 6 months by Susan! Regular programming of the gallery will be suspended June 1, 2010 -Dec 31, 2010. The regular programming of gallery shows will resume at that time with a solo show my Dean Ebben: IN THE HOUSE OF THE MINERAL SPIRITS. followed up by A Reader's Art and an Installation by Libby Soffer, Sara Christensen Blair& Gregory Blair and Debora Miller.

But, the gallery will not be silent. I will be focusing on my relationship to fiber and textiles in my personal art. Since I moved to Minneapolis 7 years ago, a transformation has been happening. I tell people that I was "bit by a sheep." I learned to spin on a drop spindle and spinning wheel not long after I got here. No matter what I do, no matter how I resist, the fiber keeps luring me away! My son thinks he'll come out to visit someday and find an urban sheep ranch! (I just heard that someone up the street was raided by animal control for raising goats in their apartment!) So, this summer and fall I will be spinning, weaving, studying in and around the fiber arts. Stay tuned!