Don't Go Into The Light

It's been a very busy year, and the last three or four months didn't disappoint. After wrapping up a fairly busy nursery season at Shelterwood, managing or teaching 35 photography classes at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, teaching landscape painting for three weeks at Chautauqua Institute, photographing at several sites in far northern and southwestern Minnesota, yesterday I opened my exhibit, "Don't go Into the Light," at my Minneapolis gallery Rosalux. 

Reflection of artwork in the plate glass window.

The gallery is open 12-4pm Saturdays and Sundays through November and I will be on site for Sunday hours. We are also hosting a couple of special events on climate change and native plants:

Radical Resilience: Climate Change, Habitat & You

Saturday, November 19^th, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

&

Native Plant Clinic

Sunday, November 20^th, 12:30 PM – 4:30 PM

Has news of a changing climate left you feeling anxious? Has the current drought changed the way you feel about your home landscape? If you want to irrigate less, help pollinators, feed birds, and see thriving life, this free program was designed for you.

Rosalux Gallery and the artist and owner of Shelterwood Gardens, Frank Meuschke is hosting an event on Minnesota-specific climate changes and what you can do to build resilience into your home environment.

Radical Resilience: Event Schedule

Seats are limited. To help with a headcount, please register using this link.

 

1:00pm: Frank James Meuschke introduces the event, gallery, and artwork

1:15pm: Past, Present, & Future Climate in Minnesota -climate scientist Sam Potter, PHD

2:00pm: Q&A with Sam

15 minute break

2:30pm: Bird & Bat Habitat (in Your Yard) -Hennepin County wildlife biologist Nicole Witzel

3:15pm: Q&A with Nicole

3:30pm: Planting for a Changing Climate -Shelterwood Gardens’ Frank Meuschke

End of Program: Free Bird & Bat House Raffle!

To limit spread of the Omicron Covid in our community, we encourage masking at this group event and please stay home if you do not feel your best. Thank you.

 

 

Pulping

My favorite heirloom Roma (speckled Roman, above), have been pulped in the sloppy strainer contraption I bought several years ago. It's been a terrible year for tomatoes, so humid and damp that blight set in well over a month ago. It's been a very good year for green beans and potatoes, broccoli and basil. The fall cauliflower and Brussels are floating giant leaves but no sign of anything edible yet. 

Soon we leave for a weekend in Milwaukee to hang an exhibit. I'll be showing photographs, a first. I'll post the information when it's all set up. In the meantime, check out my Instagram feed (you can find it here), from which I've harvested, maybe even pulped, the exhibit's images. 

Endeavor

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -ink on paper, 1999

My blog has served many purposes for me over the last seven years and 1855 posts. Now, we are in a time of transition -not only of place, but also our work and identity as artists. One of the things I would like to do here is bring the artist to the fore whereas previously it hummed in the background. This means I will write more about my projects and exhibitions, but it also means I will seek to contextualize my actions as art. I think my readership is open-minded and will welcome this. 

On July 26 I will be giving a presentation in New York City at a salon called Presenting at 17. Presenting is orchestrated by my good friend and fellow artist (and Italian-American!) Elise Gardella. The salon is open to any and all guests, albeit standing room only beyond the fixed number of seats. My goal for this long awaited moment in time is to recalibrate all my experiences, productions, and insights into a string of connected actions -a life of curiosity and the land. Expect me to utilize this blog as the forum to stitch different ideas together, many that will be pulled from prior posts. I may publish the presentation here simultaneously, although without the effect of my physical presence and voice, a hot NYC room in late July, and a dozen plus sweaty bodies.

I will be teaching my intensive week long course in Vermont this summer at Art New England -2nd year running and with greater enrollment! I will develop this class each year it is taught, eventually branching it into different courses to be taught elsewhere. 

I have seven(!) paintings in an artistically diverse exhibit, Arcadia: Thoughts on the Contemporary Pastoral. My good friend and fellow artist Steve Locke curated this outstanding and provocative collection of art for the Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery. I will be there for either the opening (Friday, July 10) or the roundtable discussion (September 18) or both if I can swing it.

There will be reminders about these events as they near and, as always, journaling my experience of the land. Posts may be less frequent as I enter this very busy time. It is summer, of course, so we're mowing lawns, evading mosquitoes, and absorbing reflected green wavelengths while sipping cold drinks.

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -pencil, gouache and watercolor on paper, 1999