Artists tend to be solitary types. They spend much of their time alone with their thoughts deep in the creative process. Ensconced in their studios – for most, on the edge of their living space in basement or garage or attic – they create their visions and apply their skills with few, if any, words and rarely with spectators.
That changes next Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On Oct. 1 and 2, some 75 artists from every corner of Moorhead and Fargo throw open the doors to their most private spaces and thoughts … welcoming some 5,000 visitors to visit their studios and ask questions to their hearts’ content.
“This is the 13th time we’ve done this to expose people to art,” says director and co-founder Jon Offutt, whose glass-blowing studio is located in south Fargo. “We want to invite the public to get to know the artists who live amongst them. We are in your neighborhood! Come take a look.”
About 75 artists who work in every conceivable medium are taking part in this year’s open-studio event. A total of 38 are welcoming guests to their personal studios. The others are involved in group facilities – NDSU’s Printmaking Education and Research Studio in the old Northern School Supply quarters at 650 NP Ave. and the Roberts Street Studio at 515 Roberts St.
The Plains Art Museum hosts the Studio Crawl Preview Exhibition through Oct. 15.
Here are glimpses of three artists’ creative homes here in Moorhead. A map and list of all sites along with what you’ll see there, is available online at fmva.org/studio-crawl/
Grady Carlson
“Grain elevators have always intrigued me,” says Moorhead native GradyCarlson. By day, Grady teaches art at Moorhead High School, spanning the gamut from painting and sculpture to clay, drawing, mixed media, graphic design and “pretty much everyone else.”
Twenty years ago he was one of those students himself, inspired by Mick Dunn and Jay Raymond. After earning his degree in art at MSUM in 2000, he returned to Moorhead High as a teacher, working beside Dunn: “Honestly, they are the reason I became an artist and teacher,” he says of his mentors.
The blocks and wedges of the area’s familiar elevators caught Grady’s eye several years ago. “There’s something majestic about them,” he reflects, eyeing the oil painting of the Hawley landmark on his easel. “I admire old buildings, but enjoy portraying them with a more contemporary approach.”
While he plans to display some 30 to 40 works in all media throughout his studio, home and garage, Grady is best known right now for those elevators. That’s partly because he has attained a certain degree of artist celebrity this year – with three of his 3½ by 5 foot canvases on display in the new US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Grady was one of 1,100 who submitted portfolios in the initial call for featured artists and one of just 47 who were chosen. His elevators hang in the hallways within the suites – unfortunately, off limits to his fans who’d like to view them.
Instead, come to his studio on the south side to see a selection of oils from the same series, along with pottery bowls and mixed-media assemblages from found objects. He has a particular passion for Abraham Lincoln; another highlight of his art environment is a series of obelisks inspired by the 16th president.
If you visit, Grady will be waiting to talk with you about the process of turning inspiration into finished works. “Some artists love having people watch them work,” he says. “That’s not really me. I like to get into the zone when I work. Disruptions are difficult.” So plan on a visit surrounded by the work of his hands and mind.
“Who’d I like to invite? Anybody who likes looking at art – they’re all the right people,” he adds. “This will be my third Crawl. It’s a great event.”
Jodi Peterson
Jodi Peterson teaches high school students to appreciate translating their ideas into all kinds of media, too. She has taught art and driver education at Norman County West High School in Halstad for 23 years. Her students learn about painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics and her personal passion: working with hot glass.
That’s what Jodi will be demonstrating during the Studio Crawl in her second-floor work area above her garage north of MSUM. Visitors can look at – and touch – her creations in slumped and fused glass, as well as her specialty, original glass beads. “They’ll be able to make their own bead, too, when they stop by,” she promises.
A native of Oklahoma, Jodi did most of her growing up in Duluth, where she also attended the University of Minnesota. She studied art and art history, but also earned a certificate in drivers ed. “Back then, there were tons of art teachers,” she grins, “but you could always guarantee a job with drivers ed.”
Sculpture, painting and weaving were her first loves as an undergraduate. “I realized I like to make objects,” she reports. “I’ve never stayed with one kind of thing very long. There’s always something new to try.” When she was completing her master of liberal arts degree at MSUM in the early 1990s, she was exposed to the wonders of turning glass panes and rods into living, flowing works of art. “I was hooked,” she remembers. “What I didn’t know was how addictive it could be.
“To me, hot glass is like a dance. You have to know and respect the medium. Glass doesn’t necessarily do what you expect it to,” she explains, pointing toward the small kiln in which she makes a variety of dishes and abstract pieces. “You have to work with it – figure out what it wants to do, and let it.”
When she makes her signature beads, she works with what she calls “flamework” – colored glass rods and heat supplied by MAPgas or propane torches. She heats and rotates the rods, turning them into molten globs she fashions into always-evolving patterns and shapes.
Her latest work is glass assemblages combining slump glass shapes into wolves and other images. She also stencils patterns and characters on glass disks, counting on the heat of the kiln to meld them into glistening circles.
Ron Williams
Like a solid majority of the Crawl artists, Ron Williams has teaching in his blood. But after retiring from the Department of Operations Management and Construction Management at MSUM, the civil engineer turned to other longtime passions, including the medieval reenactors of the Society for Creative Anachronism and his art, woodturning.
“I’ve always liked working with wood. I made furniture for a while,” the enthusiastic woodworker – who happens to be married to Mayor Del Rae Williams – recounts. “Then Phil came along.” That’s Phil Holtan, perhaps the region’s most prolific woodturner. “Phil did a little bartering with my wife: If she’d do his taxes, he’d teach me woodturning.”
And that was it. “It’s not too hard to get started,” Ron says, gesturing around his well-equipped studio between MSUM and Concordia. “Then you’re sunk. You decide what you’d like to make, what woods you’ll use, what tools you need … and you’re hooked. At this point, there’s not very much I can’t make out of wood, except for carving. I’m not a carver.”
Ron’s passions have prompted him to make vast numbers of turned-wood plates, bowls and drinking vessels for his fellow medievalists – a process that he demonstrated earlier this summer at Viking Fest. He also makes bowls, lidded boxes and – when youngsters visit during the Crawl – toy tops and even simple peg dolls. He has made other objects, too, ranging from cremation urns to authentically turned and painted folding chairs true to the medieval ethos. An artist friend’s arthritic fingers inspired him to develop brush holders, in which the shortened paintbrush can be mounted inside the smoothly shaped barrel.
“Sometimes wood just shows up in my driveway,” he says of his raw material – maple, ash, cherry, walnut and feather-light willow. He appreciates elm as well, but disease prevention has made that a more challenging choice. “Elm has a fascinating grain. It looks like feathers,” he notes.
Each piece of wood – from gnarled burls and logs to smooth, weathered beams he’s rescued– has its own life and its own personalities. Holding the raw material in a high-speed rotary vice, he brings his tools up to shape and hollow it. In recent months, he’s made many “eccentric bowls,” with the opening offset within the outer shape.
He’s hosted about 100 visitors during past years’ Studio Crawls, and anticipates a similar number – young and old – next week. Here they’ll see the artist turning vessels, boxes and toys before their eyes. “And I’ll be talking,” he predicts. “I love to do this.”
