Getting ready for the next show

The windows remain full of lovely things. Two red pieces went up today. But all the White-on-White and Red-on-Red will come down on Monday, July 6 to make way for the work of Claire Jeanine Satin. Her show, The Pentimento Books & Indeterminancy , opens on Friday July 10, at 7pm. DON'T MISS IT! Claire is flying in from Florida to meet you.

Combat Paper Project Fundraising

The Combat Paper Project is coming to Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis September 21-27 with many opportunities for local veterans to participate. Veterans are invited to pulp their uniforms, create paper, printed images and expressive writing. The workshops,presented by veterans for veterans, are a powerful antidote to the damaging silence surrounding their personal and shared experiences. Inserted below is the official fundraising letter from MCBA. Any help, however small, would be appreciated.

Dear Friends of Peace and of the Arts:

In September of this year, Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and the Susan Hensel Gallery will host The Combat Paper Project for a week-long residency in MCBA’s studios. This unique project, based out of Green Door Studio in Burlington, Vermont, is made possible by a multifaceted collaboration between artists, art collectors, non-profit centers and military combat veterans. Through papermaking workshops, local veterans are given the opportunity to use uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beat and formed into sheets of paper. Later, text and imagery created by veterans are printed on the sheets. The goal is to use art to help individuals reconcile their personal experiences and challenge traditional narratives surrounding service, honor and military culture.


I write today to ask for your help in supporting this endeavor – specifically the project’s residency in the Twin Cities. There are two ways you can help. The first is financially. We need to raise $2,500 to fund this important residency. Any amount you can give to support the project’s local visit and week of free public programming will be greatly appreciated. The second involves publicizing events and programming associated with Combat Paper’s residency at MCBA. If you are able to help in either way, please contact me at your soonest convenience. While we have many resources at our disposal, we need additional community support to make this ambitious endeavor a reality.

It is hoped that this collaboration between civilians and veterans will raise community awareness and stimulate conversations regarding our responsibilities to returned veterans and the dehumanizing effects of warfare. For more information about The Combat Paper Project, you may visit www.combatpaper.org. For more information about MCBA and the Susan Hensel Gallery, visit www.mnbookarts.org and www.susanhenselgallery.com. If you have further questions, I would be happy to talk or meet with you. My contact information is provided below.


I look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Jeff Rathermel
MCBA Artistic Director
612-215-2526
jrathermel@mnbookarts.org

Emily's Windows!

Emily Hertle is a lovely young woman who is graduating from Perpich High School ( the arts high school) today and will be attending the College of Visual Arts in the Fall. She came over before the graduation ceremonies to install her window.

Do drive or walk by. It is lovely.


Artist Statement
Emily Hertle



While making garments I became aware of a pattern among my work, and
would describe my ideas as having three levels: the material, the
garments relationship with the body, and documentation. While
preparing for this show I developed a goal of looking at the world
through an artistic lens. I recently took that into a literal sense
and picked up a camera. I decided to direct a photo shoot for each
garment, To do this I brought together two friends to do modeling
and makeup. The pictures taken then became the background, all of the
sites are on the PCAE campus and either reflect inspiration or the
material used in the garment.

Natural Skin
Japanese rice paper, cattails

Oak Leaves Refined
Dyed abaca

Drink the Rainbow
Plastic drinking straws and wrappers, tulle

A movie of Communion

Eric Buenger made a movie of COMMUNION. Click this link and you will find it on his website! It is lovely.

Jon in the Venice Biennale!

I just received an email from Jon Coffelt who had the show COMMUNION here in the gallery. A piece of cyberspace art that he collaborated on has been accepted in the Venice Biennale http://biennale.net/ in the Padiglione Pavilion. http://padiglioneinternet.com/

Jon says,
""Wikipedia Art" http://wikipediaart.org/ and http://wikipediaart.org/brief-history/ originators Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall conceived the project and Brian Sherwin, Patrick Lichty and myself worked through the specifics of how this would work on Wikipedia. I published the original piece on Wikipedia for the guys and we all fleshed it out over many hours before it received an AfD (article for deletion). Since that time there has been many articles that have talked about the controversy and the hypocrisy behind it. We have been working on this project for some time now."

"Wikipedia Art" http://wikipediaart.org/wiki/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Art

The Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Art_controversy

other related articles:
FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/n/?group.php&gid=75066111912&aref=18815168
What is Wikipedia Art? http://thewhole9.com/blogs/applestooranges/2009/02/14/what-is-wikipedia-art/

Darn cool? yes?

IN SERVICE OF COMMUNITY

images from Oaxaca by Eric Gustafson

MEETING Wed 5/27 6:00 p.m.
A BRAINSTORMING MEETING
CREATING NEW FORMS OF PUBLIC ART TO COMBAT NOXIOUS GRAFFITI

Corcoran Neighborhood has received seed money and is seeking artists and other creatives to help brainstorm and develop a startlingly new ( to Minneapolis) graffiti prevention program that uses public artforms.

(Please note that around here we use the term 'graffiti' to refer to gang tags, which are a serious problem in our neighborhood and are starkly different than public art, including aerosol art, including the great work that goes on at Intermedia Arts etc.)

CNO organizer Eric Gustafson traveled to Oaxaca city, Mexico in April 2008. Oaxaca has problems with graffiti and tagging that are similar, or arguably worse, than Minneapolis'. Oaxaca also has a thriving creative class and “Do-It-Yourself” ethic that recalls the Corcoran/Powderhorn area of Minneapolis. Widely evident in Oaxaca City is a simple but compelling form of public art that any audience will recognize as serving multiple purposes: to beautify, to celebrate local culture and heroes, to provoke thought about ideas and issues, and to prevent future tagging. Most of these images are simple graphic art that utilize minimal lines and shading to express an idea. Most are either pre-printed or painted on durable paper and then applied to a wall surface with decoupage/adhesive (the same technique used widely to apply outdoor posters and advertising in Mexico), or applied directly to the wall with a paint brush.At the meeting, Eric will share examples of public art in Oaxaca city, Mexico.

Please mark your calendar for Wednesday, May 27, 6pm. Susan Hensel has generously offered use of her gallery space (3441 Cedar) for the meeting. Please invite others, especially the creatively inclined.

The end of the Story?

In these changing times it is the simple things, the intimate things, the things that bring the community together that satisfy. It is the old things that sustain: home cooked meals; Sunday suppers; family albums. Not a facile nostalgia for a mythic time, but actions the embrace and nourish.

These are ideas that Jon Coffelt knows intimately. Raised close to the farm and the church in the rural south, he drank from the deep well of southern storytelling: the stories of his Amish grandparents, the secret meetings among the sacred trees, the overbearing relative whose stories were so ubiquitous that community slang used her name to describe anyone overbearing...

His show COMMUNION is full of these stories made manifest in cloth. Come see them, hear them, read them before the show comes to an end on May 10.

Each little piece, lovingly stitched by hand, has its own story to tell. Somehow by miniaturizing the clothing, the stories are able to escape and become real for the rest of us. Even if we never knew the people who wore these shirts, pants, pajamas, uniforms, sweaters, flak jackets, we now share their stories as though they are our own.

It is a simple thing, story. It can never be taken away from us and it is something we can always afford to freely share. And then, the story never ends.