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Fun for Families @ the DAI

Family Day at the Lincoln Center
Saturday, Oct. 2, 11am-2pm
2229 W. 2nd Street , FREE!
Sponsored by Northland Foundation
Get a jump on fall at our free Family Day. Several make and take art projects are available to wrap your imagination around. It’s always a crazy and creative day – don’t miss out on all the messy fun. Learn how to throw bowls on the wheel and experience art making ideas that can be easily replicated at home.

Handmade Holidays!
Saturday, Dec. 4, 11am-2pm
2229 W. 2nd Street, FREE!
Sponsored by Northland Foundation and Carlson Orthodontics
We’ve added another free Family Day with a holiday theme! Forget the mall – do your shopping at the DAI! Make unique handmade gifts, cards, and customized wrapping paper for your loved ones this season. Even the littlest of gift givers can get in on the fun.

Programs & Events in our Galleries

4 Great Shows – 1 Big Party
Sept. 23, 5-7pm, Depot Great Hall
To celebrate the four exceptional exhibits on view this September, we’re hosting a special party for the public. Don’t miss this opportunity to see our summer blockbusters before they come down as well as the chance to see Adu Gindy’s recent creations.

Adu Gindy Artist Dialogue,
Oct. 7, 6-7pm, Steffl Gallery
Get a behind the scenes look at Adu Gindy’s latest exhibit at the DAI. Gindy will be on hand in the Steffl Gallery to talk about her exhibit “Bits and Pieces: A Visual Journey” and share details on her road trip diary of paintings.

Liz James Artist Dialogue,
Oct. 21, 6-7pm, Morrison Gallery
A unique opportunity to talk to Liz James amidst her work on display in the Art Institute galleries; James will speak about her process and motivation as an artist.

Arrowhead Biennial Celebration,
Nov. 4, 5-7pm, DAI Galleries
Don’t miss this special opening celebration for the Arrowhead Regional Biennial and Liz James ceramics exhibition. The evening features the unveiling of the Biennial catalog as well as the prize winners of the exhibition.

2010 Arrowhead Biennial Panel
Discussion, Dec. 2, 6-7pm, Depot Great Hall
Join us for a discussion on this important regional exhibition. Panel members include: Paula Brandel, Director of the MacRostie Art Center, Jen Webb, Art History Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and several artists.

Grant Awards to Individual Artists
Duluth Art Institute exhibiting artist, Eun-Kyung Suh, was awarded an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her work is on display in the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program Galleries from July 16 until September 26, 2010.

Grant Awards to the Duluth Art Institute
The DAI received an Arts Access grant of $5,190 from the Minnesota State Arts Boards Legacy funds to hold two free workshops with public art project artist, Wing Young Huie at the DAI’s center for arts education in Lincoln Park. The workshops for young people and adults were specifically designed to reach out to the Lincoln Park neighborhood via Port-Traits: Duluth Superior Shows it’s Face – public project portrait exhibit this summer, displayed in the Depot’s Great Hall.

Support from foundations is depends upon a strong showing of community support -- Contributions by individuals, households and businesses.

Children to benefit from arts enrichment bequest to DAI
Though Thomas and Katherine “Katy” Gibson had no children of their own, they became like extended family to dozens of youngsters who grew up in their Hunters Park neighborhood. Thanks to their foresight and generous spirit, hundreds more children will benefit through the years from education and arts enrichment opportunities in our community thanks to bequests made recently through the Katherine J. Gibson Trust.

While Thomas died in 1968, Katy lived until age 96, passing away just last June. “They were a very gracious, enthusiastic couple with many loyal friends,” recounts Duluth attorney Robert “Bob” Fryberger, whose father was one of Gibson’s good friends. “The Gibsons loved and were most proud of Duluth.”

Thomas was born and grew up here; his first job was working as a grain trader – following in his father’s footsteps. Eventually, the center for grain trading and jobs shifted to Minneapolis. Desiring to stay in Duluth, Thomas became a real estate broker and, for many years, worked with the Ramsland Real Estate Company.

Katherine “Katy” Joyce Gibson was born in Minneapolis and moved to Duluth in 1915. She graduated from Stanbrook Hall and attended Mary Mount College in New York. In addition to being a member of the Alpha Phi Sorority and Junior League of Duluth, Katy was also a long-time member of Holy Rosary Catholic Church and the Republican Women of Duluth.

Katherine gave careful thought and consideration when choosing beneficiaries for the Trust. She wanted to help the community that she had called “home” for the greater part of a century, which is why she decided to gift institutions that focus on education, the arts, assistance to the disabled, and helping disadvantaged children and their families. In the end, the Trust was divided between 27 beneficiaries, including schools and arts organizations in Duluth – and only in Duluth, noted Fryberger, a trustee of the estate.

“We are extremely grateful to Katherine (and Thomas) Gibson for their life’s work in this community…and for their vision in directing funds to so many worthwhile organizations here,” said Samantha Gibb Roff, DAI executive director. “We will honor their memories by using these funds (this $36,200 gift) to expand arts programming for children and families. What a wonderful precedent this couple has set; what an incredible way to leave a legacy in this community.”

----Adele Yorde

From the Director
Are we all clear now about what makes a great portrait? Starting in March, we enjoyed the painted impressions of Sarah Brokke and her students from the DAI’s education program, then came In Focus: National Geographic’s Greatest Portraits, from the Smithsonian Institution. Next, Wing Young Huie, helped us launch a public art project: Port-Traits: Duluth-Superior Shows its Face, viewable on our Facebook page and in the Depot’s Great Hall. Wing also led four workshops exploring identity and diversity issues embedded in how we see each other. The final piece was Wing’s Retrospective spanning his time growing up in Duluth to his grand University Avenue Project in St. Paul this summer.

Different elements conspire in the creation of a great portrait, but it is clear that humans really, really like looking at depictions of each other. With the number of visitors we attracted to the Depot (June’s attendance was up by 38% over 2009) to the amazing press we received by our region’s media, the DAI has raised its own profile this year as a result of our Art of the Portrait project. The Depot Foundation, Cartier Agency, and CPL Imaging/Jeff Frey Photography were generous supporters. Our members and contributors make it all possible. This is, after all, your community art center.

What’s ahead? Don’t miss our 4-exhibit season opening party on Sept. 23, celebrating Wing’s Retrospective, Port-Traits: Duluth-Superior Shows its Face, Adu Gindy’s new work in Bits & Pieces: A Visual Journey, and Seaworthy, the DAI’s collaboration with the St. Louis County Historical Society and the Duluth Children’s Museum. In November we look forward to a new Arrowhead Biennial and the ceramic work of Elizabeth James. See you in the galleries and in the studios.

----Samantha Gibb Roff

Help a kid go to art camp and build a new generation of artists!
Consider adding $25 to your class fee and help build the DAI’s scholarship fund. Last year we were able to give 8 full art camp scholarships because of our community’s generosity.

What makes a great portrait?
What makes a great portrait? From mid-March through September 2010 the Duluth Art Institute is taking an in-depth look at this question. The DAI’s six-month “portrait project” is concluding with a Wing Young Huie retrospective and “Port-Traits” a twin ports public art project.

From the Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Exhibit In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits has moved on to its next stop in Texas. The exhibit was a huge success with record attendance to DAI galleries. We’re sorry to see the exhibit move on, but we are still featuring the art of the portrait with our public art project Port-Traits and a retrospective of photographer Wing Young Huie.

Public Art – Project Portrait
With the help of award-winning, internationally-known photographer, Wing Young Huie, the DAI has launched its own public art project designed to encourage everyone in the Duluth-Superior area to create their own “great portraits” while getting to know each other a little better. “Port-Traits: Duluth-Superior Shows its Face,” is a northern version of a new public art project by Wing beginning May of 2010 in Minneapolis. “University Avenue Project,” is a gallery of 500 photographs exhibited in store windows and on buildings along the six miles of University Avenue between the Minneapolis border and the state Capitol. At the center of the project is a spectacular installation site where images will be projected nightly on billboard-size screens, accompanied by recorded soundtracks from local musicians and monthly live performances.

Blending documentary photography with revelatory statements by his subjects, Wing has created a tapestry of words and images raising complex issues of race, class, gender, sexual preference, immigration, religion and cultural disconnection. The DAI’s “Port-Traits” project in Duluth will use Wing’s interviewing technique to set the scene for our community portraits. Wing’s subjects responded to one of several questions, including:

· What are you?
· How do you think others see you?
· What advice would you give a stranger?
· How has race affected you?

Their answers, chalked on blackboards, reveal the hopes, dreams and fears of Americans new and old, all striving to make their way in a complex, vital urban community.

The results from our community are on display in the Great Hall of the Depot, on the DAI’s own Facebook page, along with other locations in the Duluth and Superior area. Business sponsors for our public art project is Jeff Frey & Associates Photography Inc. and CPL Imaging.

Opening July 29 and extending through September in the DAI galleries in the Depot, this exhibit will emphasize Wing’s early life as a Chinese –American growing up in Duluth, along with photos representative of his well known public art projects that explore identity and our changing ethnic landscape, including: 9 Months in America: An Ethnocentric Tour, Frog Town, Rural Minnesota and Lake Street USA.

The opening of Wing Young Huie’s retrospective will feature a presentation by the artist himself. Huie will discuss his early life in Duluth, his career as a portrait photographer and his work this summer with the Duluth Art Institute’s public art project: “Port-Traits: Duluth Superior Shows its Face”. This will be a unique opportunity for residents of the Twin Ports to interact with an extremely celebrated artist whose star continues to rise. This exhibit is supported in part by a grant from the Depot Foundation and contributing member Mary C. Van Evera.