Ripple River Gallery
Original work by exceptional artisans
2005 Guest Artists
“Adam’s
Seed”—intaglio print by
George Robinson
March 16 - April 10, 2005…
“WINDOWS & MIRRORS”
Photographs by David Bjorkquist •
Prints and Collages by George Robinson
Some artists view the world as if looking
through a window at the world outside; others see the world as
if looking in a mirror at the world inside themselves. Either
way, the autobiographical vantage point of art is implicit.
Black and white landscape photographs by David Bjorkquist and
George Robinson’s self-portrait intaglio (etching) prints
and collages show both aspects of the artist’s
relationship to imagery.
Bjorkquist takes an intimate view of the
land and focuses on the parts of the landscape that most of us
miss in our hurried lifestyles, especially when many of us
experience the landscape at 50 to 60 miles per hour.
Robinson’s intaglio prints and collage images developed
in response to the way his many roles in life intersect or
collide with the culture and world in which we live. The result
of these intersections are not necessarily represented in an
explicit manner, but are often made visible in subtle, humorous
or sometimes very personal symbols and images.
The collages, which are squared off, cut
apart and reassembled proofs of Robinson’s prints, were
first made in 1999 for an exhibition postcard. They have since
taken on a life of their own with a broader focus. “The
gridlike quality of the reassembled combinations of two or
three images creates a new image that is similar to the
fragmented digitalized image one sees on television when the
station does not want the viewer to see clearly a
person’s face, or in the case of the Super Bowl costume
malfunction, Janet Jackson’s breast. The irony is that
most of the time we all know what we are looking at, which is
somewhat true of the intaglio collage images.” The
fragmentation of the collage image creates movement, ambiguous
space and transparency that is not unlike that seen in the work
of the analytical cubists or contemporary digital
photographers who use digital manipulation to change realistic
images into abstractions, Robinson points out.
April 13 - May 15, 2005…
“COLLAGE & CLAY”
Fabric collage by David Norstad •
Maiolica pottery by Karin Kraemer
With tongue firmly in cheek, David
Norstad, Detroit Lakes area painter and collage artist, creates
quilt-like collages from bits of fabric stitched with colored
thread. Using scraps of old clothing mixed with a healthy dose
of imagination, he offers a glimpse into the lives of his
family and friends.
A graduate of North Dakota State
University with a degree in humanities and social science,
Norstad has been a full-time artist since 1981. His work has
earned awards at numerous regional, national and international
juried art shows. His solo exhibition, “Living on the
Ragged Edge,” toured nine galleries across North Dakota.
In 1997 he was one of 17 American artists selected for
inclusion in the National Acrylic Painters Society
International Art Exhibition Far East Tour. In 1999 he was
awarded the Arts Leadership Award by the state of Minnesota.
Karin Kraemer uses clay as her canvas for
paintings that capture the color and energy of her everyday
surroundings—a still life with a red chair and a potted
plant, green leaping frogs or a lush trumpet vine winding
around a gourd-shaped vase. Her medium—functional
maiolica pottery—begins with wheel-thrown and hand-built
red earthenware clay, fired to bisque and coated with an opaque
white glaze. Glaze stains, mixed with colorants are painted
onto the raw glaze, then fired again to create the finished
ware characterized by vibrant color and flowing, spontaneous
brush work.
“The pots are round canvases with
the white glaze inviting the first brush stroke. I draw from
the places and people around me for my imagery. Capturing the
color and movement of the moment is my aim…the flowers in
my garden trembling in a slight breeze and the sun glowing
through them, or the light coming in the window and lighting up
my friend's face as well as the vase or teacup sitting there. I
like to capture these moments and ordinary things and celebrate
them on the pots. It's these things that matter to each of us
in our own personal lives, and mark our day's
adventures.”
A Minneapolis native, Kraemer has a BFA in
hot glass from St. Cloud State University and an MFA in
ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. After
traveling all over and developing her work, she moved from
Vancouver Island in British Columbia to Duluth, where she now
lives.
“Red Hat Mama”—
fabric collage by
David Norstad
May 18 - June 12, 2005…
“SUMMER & WINTER WEAVE”
— New weavings by Karen
Monson-Thompson
Karen Monson-Thompson weaves wool and
cotton into complex patterns and colors called “Summer
and Winter Weave.” Her new weavings explore a broad range
of new colors and show the influence of Prairie, Mission and
Arts and Crafts design elements.
Monson-Thompson, who works out of her
Superior, WI, studio, is a hand weaver who creates fabrics
using a technique that first enjoyed popularity between 1810
and 1840. The fully-reversible completed fabric is
characterized by light and dark sides, thought to correspond
with the change of seasons. Traditionally, Summer and Winter
coverlets or bed coverings were woven by professional weavers
who used wool and cotton materials furnished by the families
who sought their services.
Karen was introduced to weaving when her
seventh grade art teacher gave her the opportunity to weave on
a harness table loom rather than the frame looms the shop class
made that year.Ê She went on to school for interior design, but
continued to explore weaving and earned a degree in textile
design instead. “I've woven Summer and Winter since I
came across it in an old hand weaving book,” Karen says.
“I thoroughly enjoy the whole process and complexity of
the loom, structures, textures and color.”
Weaving begins with the pattern design,
which can take hours or days to complete. The names of
traditional patterns give clues to their original
inspiration—“Pinetrees,”
“Snowballs,” “Ringed Roses,”
“Blooming Leaf” and “Cambridge Beauty.”
Monson-Thompson combines these traditional designs with her own
innovations to create her signature weavings.
For each Summer and Winter table runner
Monson-Thompson spins six to nine skeins of wool—each 200
yards per skein—a process that can take from nine to 13
hours. She then dyes the yarn, adding another three hours to
the project. “I learned spinning out of necessity one
summer because it was my job—literally. I kept spinning
and dyeing, because at the time it was cheaper than buying wool
yarns.Ê Now it seems fitting that it is part of the whole
process,” she said.
Winding the cotton warp threads, threading
the loom, and tying and winding the warp, add another six
hours. Actual weaving time, depending on the complexity of the
pattern and the number of colors used, is from eight to 12
hours. Karen’s loom is a 60-inch wide, 24-harness dobby
loom, which connects to a computer and software, but is not a
power loom. “I still have to step on the treadles, throw
the shuttles, etc.,” she said.Ê” The dobby and
software saves time in the design process, but hand weaving is
still a very time-consuming adventure.”
“I am a hand weaver, plain and
simple; it is what I do, it is my soul, and I would be so much
less of a person without it.”
Runner by
Karen Monson-Thompson
June 15 - July 10, 2005…
“AMAZING PLACE” — Paintings and pottery by Butch Holden
For Bemidji artist Butch Holden,
Minnesota’s scenic vistas and changing seasons provide
the inspiration for his paintings and pottery. All of the
imagery in a new exhibit of Holden’s work, “Amazing
Place,” is derived from northern Minnesota’s visual
feast.
Holden, who is currently a professor in
the visual arts department at Bemidji State University,
received his BA in art from the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, and his MFA in ceramics from Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN.
Holden credits an instructor at his first
ceramic workshop for opening the door to exploring ideas in
clay. “During a workshop at the University of Minnesota,
Duluth, in 1974, the instructor, Walter Hyleck, challenged my
classmates and me to make a container for ideas,” Holden
said. “I can’t stop!”
“The form and surface of my ceramics
compel closer inspection to markings, colors, shapes, patterns
and textures. Associations and meanings are evoked but not
specifically described,” he said. While Holden says his
sources are distilled from nature and geometry, “I try to
avoid being blatant.” He uses groupings of ceramic forms
to multiply interpretations and to allow him to bypass the size
constraints intrinsic to clay.
Holden says that his paintings are usually
responses to specific perceptual experiences. “This area
is a visual feast. Investing my time to draw or paint increases
my attitude of wonderment.”
”Corny
Landscape”—painting by Butch Holden
July 13 - August 7, 2005…
“BIRDS IN BATIK” — Batik drawings on fabric by Nedra Nicholls
How to you capture the wonder of the
natural world? For artist Nedra Nicholls, her vehicle for
expression is the ancient art of batik. The origins of batik, a
technique using wax and dye, can be traced to Indonesia. Fabric
is brushed with hot wax—which works as an oil
resist—and is then immersed in dye. The process is
repeated for each color until the image is completed. The was
in the batik is lifted from the fabric by applying heat to
paper placed over the fabric. A thin layer of oil remains in
the fabric, which preserves the fiber and colors, making batik
one of the longest-lasting two-dimensional art forms.
Nicholls, who learned batik in 1968, holds
a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the University of
Minnesota. She learned batik in 1968 and then expanded her
technique in 1986 to include hand printing fabrics using both
the painting and woodblock process of Indonesia. With her
well-established love of nature, which she credits to her
father’s encouragement, she concentrates on wildlife,
especially birds, as her subject matter.
Nicholls’ original batiks are
displayed and sold in galleries and at art shows in Minnesota
and across the U.S., and can be found in private collections in
Japan and in Bristol, England, her ancestral home.
“Kingfisher”—Batik on
cotton
by Nedra Nicholls
July 23 - 24, 2005…
“24 HOURS OF ART
CELEBRATION”
Guest artists and the owners of Ripple
River Gallery, Bob Carls and Amy Sharpe, celebrated the
gallery’s fifth anniversary with hands-on art activities.
Bob gave woodturning demonstrations. Guest artist Joan
Malkerson. a painter and sculptor, led a group chair painting
project. Lindy Westgard, owner of Forest Road Art Studio in
Deerwood, led a drawing session for beginning and more
experienced artists.
Twin Cities printmaker Trevor Roediger
demonstrated monoprints . Using water-based inks on glass he
helped each participant design and then “pull” a
print onto paper.
Other guest artists included Esther
SanFelippo, Aitkin, who worked with co-creators on a silk
painting. Fiber artist Sheryl Gormley, Backus, who specializes
in angora yarns, demonstrated spinning and weaver Beverly
Martin, showed weaving on an inkle loom.
Joan Malkerson assists young artists.
August 10 - September 11, 2005…
“NEW WORK BY CHARLES BECK”
Charles Beck captures the environment,
distills it through his own experience and vision, and then
presents it in a form that is at the same time simple and
complex. Once people look at Beck’s woodcuts, they see
the whole landscape differently.
Beck is best known for his woodblock
prints depicting the farm lands and forests of northwestern
Minnesota. From his studio Beck looks out on the edge of the
Red River Valley, with its horizon and sunsets and feeling of
vast space. To the east Beck can turn to the woods and lakes
for inspiration.
Woodblock artist Charles Beck demonstrated
the process he uses to develop a print.
“I need nature. I try not to be
dominated by nature but I need a beginning,” Beck said.
“I suppose I’m influenced most by the horizon, the
separation between the sky and what I call vertical space and
horizontal space. I seem to always need that in my
landscapes.”
In addition to woodblock prints, the
exhibit will include Beck’s carved birds—wild
turkeys, shorebirds and waterfowl. “Beck’s birds
are an extension of his landscapes,” said Amy
Sharpe, gallery co-owner. “Instead of carving every pin
feather, Beck’s carvings bring the essence of the bird to
life.”
In grade school Charlie Beck made drawings
of cowboys and Indians and traded them to schoolmates for
marbles and candy. In the Navy during World War II he
sketched cartoons on letters home. After the war he studied at
Concordia College in Moorhead and at the University of Iowa
where he earned a master’s degree in fine arts. He and
his wife, Joyce, returned to Fergus Falls where he taught at
Fergus Falls Community College for a time.
Beck’s work has been exhibited at
the Walker Art Center, New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the
Twin Cities and at the Mill City Museum in the Twin Cities.
Beck’s original woodblock prints, paintings and bird
carvings have been featured at Ripple River Gallery since it
opened in 2000.
September 14 - October 16, 2005…
“NATURAL PARABLES” —
Paintings by Jil Evans
For the past seven years, Evans’
work in abstraction has been informed by her interest in
Italian Baroque painting. “I have looked and drawn
from ceiling paintings in Rome, and studied the paintings and
drawings of one artist in particular, the Venetian painter from
the 18th century, Giambattista Tiepolo,” Evans said.
Using what she has learned from the Baroque, she has created
paintings and prints in response to contemporary
architecture— even (of all things) the glass and steel
skylight ceiling of Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America.
In “Natural Parables,” a
series of oils on canvas, Evans looked at a bouquet of
snapdragons that a friend brought one night. Without
preconceived intentions, she began to photograph the bouquet
and make drawings from observation. Over time, the bundled and
fisted flowers and stalks turned into paintings. “I
think of them as figurative narratives with cause and effect
relations, carrying the energy of sometimes violent and darkly
humorous foibles in form, an echo from the natural
world—hence the punning title ‘Natural
Parables,’” Evans said.
Jil Evans has exhibited her paintings and
prints nationally and internationally. Her work is in many
private and public collections including the Minneapolis
Institute of Arts, Halle Ford Museum of Art, Stanford
University, Valparaiso University Museum of Art, Steensland Art
Museum, Harry and Margaret Anderson Collection of Art, as
well as numerous corporate collections. She currently lives in
Minneapolis where she maintains a painting studio.
“Natural Parable
#2”—
painting by Jil Evans
October 1, 2005…
FALL OPEN HOUSE & RAKU FIRING
Ripple River Gallery's annual fall open
house offers a celebration of the season served up in a
colorful combination of art and fall color. Special feature is
a hands-on opportunity to experience the alchemy of a raku
pottery firing. Under a canopy of maples in full autumn
splendor, potter-educator Jim Loso, St. Joseph, will conduct
the raku firing. For the third year, Loso will provide small
bisque-fired pots for participants to glaze. After the pots are
glazed, they will be fired in a portable gas kiln and then, in
a dramatic display of smoke and fire, the red-hot pots will be
placed in sawdust and covered to provide the atmosphere that
will give the glazes unusual and unexpected qualities. The
process will take about 45 minutes.
Potter Jim Loso (right) and helper Paul
load pots from the gas kiln into the reduction.
October 19 - November 13, 2005…
“UNHOMOGENIZED” —
Paintings by Magda Szeitz Kearns
“As an artist, I'm really turned on
by vivid color, organic patterns, layers of light and texture,
and above all, humor,” Szeitz Kearns said. “I like
to play with the push and pull between two and three
dimensions. Like some species of birds I am a collector of
bright and shiny objects, and of things that may look dull to
others but for me hold potential for a second life.”
Magda Szeitz Kearns, who lives near Pine
Center, is former associate director of the Jaques Art Center
in Aitkin, and holds a BS degree in art education and a BFA in
graphic design and illustration from Minnesota State
University, Moorhead.
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