Even within the obscure subcult of fire truck restoration buffs, Jeffrey Schadt is a bit unusual. Most of these gentlemen are ex-firemen or have always wanted to be one, and most own just one truck, which gets polished and brought out for special occasions but will never be returned to service. Schadt (pronounced “Shade”) is … Read more
Sometime this winter, once the tourist season winds down, the owners of Morell’s Chippewa Trading Post in Bemidji will remove a giant taxidermied wolf from the glass case out front, say a few solemn words, and send it off to be destroyed. It’s likely the end will come by fire, though the store’s assistant manager, … Read more
In recent years, young women have begun to reclaim labor-intensive, old-fashioned “women’s work” like knitting and quilting, which their grandmothers perfected and their mothers likely shunned. Some of these women, such as Jessica Rankin, a thirty-four-year-old trained as a painter, aren’t just reclaiming these crafts; they’re elevating them to high-art status. A few years ago, … Read more
The Foreign Service Exam, that portal into the exciting world of international diplomacy, is given once a year, in the spring, on the same day in thousands of locations across the country. Results of the test arrive in the mailboxes of test-takers in the fall. For some, these are not pretty. There are four parts: … Read more
These designs are intended more for the mind than the body. Take Geum’s “web dress,” an ephemeral creation that weaves wire and air to represent the worldwide web, the hold technology has on our lives, and the rise of an interwoven global culture that is blurring the distinctions between countries. The Korean designer works in … Read more
At Palubinskas’ debut show in the Cities last year, we heard one wag comment, “If I went off my medicine for a few days, I could paint that.” But just because you hallucinate, it doesn’t make you a painter. Palubinskas is a painter. Trained as an art conservator in her native Lithuania, her technique is … Read more
Sure, it wasn’t until the 1950s that New York finally wrested the “art capital of the world” title away from Paris. But it’s not as if Jackson Pollock et al didn’t have help from their predecessors, especially before the Depression. That’s when innovators like Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Gerald Murphy, and … Read more
The arresting work of this Guatemalan photographer recollects portraits of Native Americans that Edward S. Curtis captured during the twilight of their traditional tribal life. But Gonzalez Palma’s portraits of Mayan people in traditional dress only look historical. His keen eye for haunting expressions and arrangements, along with a distinctive Kodalith camera and gold-leaf printing … Read more
Beginning in 1947 and continuing until his death in 1965, Walter Inglis Anderson made regular twelve-mile trips from the Mississippi coast to a long barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. He paddled solo in a small skiff, bringing along a few survival necessities and art supplies. On Horn Island, he lived out in the … Read more
“Rug” is too humble a term for Maximo Laura’s works. If we encountered one of these woven beauties on the floor, we’d leap back and circle it as if it were electrified. Complex, colorful, and astonishingly detailed, they reward a lengthy consideration with surprises at every turn. Laura, a Peruvian, sets pre-Columbian iconography into modern … Read more