Monday, May 25, 2009

Expressions of the Feminine at Van Brabson Gallery

The fourth annual Expressions of the Feminine Psyche
exhibit opened this May 2 with food, music, and many friends of the artists.
It's open until June 30, 2009.

At the Van Brabson Gallery in Minneapolis, a nondescript, gray, square building set back from the road, a celebration of spring and Mother Earth inside enlivened the white rooms full of framed photography, glittering cases of jewelry, and impressive oil paintings.
Visitors were greeted by Bonnie Brabson's dark abstracts, and welcomed to scribble their thoughts in the guestbook next to handmade cards and mixed media art by Pam Cox.
According to the gallery owner, who video taped the reception to show her mom on Mother's Day, anything that women artists thought of in relation to 'the feminine psyche' could become that theme. The feminine mystique is shifting and broad, and could include anything as its art-- even her video of crowds mingling and browsing the artwork.
Beneath a row of Untitleds, Marcia Soderman-Olson's strong, abstract oils with their energetic centers, Marcia and a couple of her fellow exhibited artists chatted and snacked. Her paintings' blue-green to black strokes seem to structure colored business within-- or, perhaps, frame the scraped color strokes of attempted paintings past, beneath them. Perhaps they are the structures of the present scratched away in their construction to reveal layers of past adventures, each color a layer. Lines where thumbnails had lifted up fresh paint from the middle of broad strokes made the audience conscious of their creation.
On an adjacent wall, Corean Komarec's clear, realistic photos provided contrast and focus for the show. Nature, balance, and representations of women in sculpture were the themes of her prints, reminding people that the feminine in art is everywhere; it is a major part of perceptions of beauty.
Besides Komarec's prints and Cox's cute cards for sale, Dragon Treasures bracelets and necklaces by Kelly Frampton, worth hundreds of dollars, are for sale at the gallery. Her materials are found and recycled treasures as well as semiprecious stones, which charmed the gallery space from each display case. Frampton spent enough time with each piece to describe the sort of energy boost coming from her jewelry's different sets of stones. From malachite to bloodstone, the whole variety had been cleansed by the four elements in the process of turning found parts into art.

Nancy Schwartz, with paint left over from home projects, created abstract portraits in her series, A Woman Becoming. Her paintings use balance, subdued colors full of the textures of many days of experiments: scraping, thinning, texturing, layering paint in representations of women with blurry faces that fill their frames. Everything about these works requires interpretation of colors, as shadows or flesh or clothes-- and then it seems to ask, 'Why do you think of me as that?'
Everything requires sympathetic interpretation, and that's part of the feminine psyche.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Representative Ellison's Record


What does it mean to vote 'Present?'
It's got to be better for a Congressman to vote 'Present' than to ditch work, or to submit themselves as 'Not Voting' because of emotional attachment or other concerns.
But isn't it better to take a stand on something than just to vote 'Present?'
My representative in the U.S. House was faced with a Resolution about Israel and Palestine early this year, and he chose not to take a stand.
On January 9, 390 Representatives passed this Congressional position saying that Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks from the Gaza Strip-- implying that this ally should send rockets back at the impoverished, sanctioned people trapped in the Strip-- and Rep. Ellison from Minnesota merely said 'Present.'
As the only Muslim in the House, why could he not say NO to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people for their religion, their ethnicity, and their claim to the land? Is our well-armed ally, Israel, really so threatened by bottle rockets from little reservations, shooting over the 20-foot wall that separates these peoples?

A young woman at my workplace shared her insight about Rep. Ellison, as one of his former Muslim Minneapolitan campaign workers. She and fellow ex-campaigners visited Ellison at his office in the Minneapolis Urban League, asking simple questions about policy towards Palestine-- he yelled at them in response and ended their meeting. According to this angry young woman, he yelled, "DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH! DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO SAY!"

He's our representative in the government, and that's all we can hope to do.

I also hoped to visit Rep. Ellison at his local office, concerning funding for green jobs. Along with some very concerned constituents and both MoveOn.org & H.I.R.E. organizers, we filed into his office in February and gave our petition to a staff member. She heard us out, but the Representative was not 'present.'

Perhaps when the numbers of dead and displaced in Palestine match the numbers killed and displaced in Darfur by Sudan, Ellison will step forward. In the middle of April, Ellison was arrested for protesting for the first time-- outside the Sudanese embassy in D.C. He and four other Congressmen and women thought that genocide in Darfur was worth crossing a police line and paying a $100 fine for.
According to WCCO:
"I have never done this before and its not the kind of thing I plan on doing in the near future. But given the gravity of the situation, the massive numbers of people whose lives were at risk, I thought it necessary to take this action," said Ellison after his release.
http://wcco.com/national/keith.ellison.arrested.2.995458.html

Minneapolis vs. Shrubs & Gardens

Published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet:
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2009/05/24/urban-farming-needs-you.html


One day a fastidious gardener and homemaker noticed that his well-groomed shrubs on the boulevard were cut down. He noticed-- when the City of Minneapolis sent him a bill for trimming his shrubs on the boulevard outside his house, though they weren’t in the way of the sidewalk.

A pattern had emerged in the City’s visits to his property, where he poured his heart and soul into raised bed gardens, a greenhouse, and custom heating and cooling for optimum energy efficiency.
When the Housing Inspector cited him for having a treated wood foundation for his house, sturdy but seldom employed in American homes, the City regarded it unstable just because it was different.
When police ticketed him for the inoperable vehicle left in his neighbor’s driveway, they didn’t bother to correct their error following his complaints.
Since he first put an anti-war sign up in his yard, the Housing Inspector routinely bothered him—perhaps that’s where it all began.
Activism can put someone on the City’s bad side, even when he or she just wants to grow herbs and vegetables to support his or herself—for activism is often wound up with community gardening, and vice versa.
The UrbanFarm in Southeast Como neighborhood has been a home for sage, spinach, collard greens, chives, and sustainable construction projects, as a dynamic community garden for the past ten years. Its resident farmer and food deliverer, Roger Peterson, now needs volunteers’ help more than ever.
Organic farming in the city is drawing a lot of interest, but unless the City steps in, it can’t pay any interest—or fees or back-taxes, for that matter. This summer back-taxes are due, and though weekly fundraisers have brought people to UrbanFarm this spring, the garage sales and plant sales haven’t raised enough to save the farm. The City may send police to block Peterson from his house as it decides what to do with his property in the middle of a middle-income neighborhood full of young families.
Who will step up to water the compost pile and weed the beds that span three back lawns, while Peterson is kept away? Who will continue the tradition of carrying buckets of fresh produce on a bike trailer around town, to donate to the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and other charities?
As Peterson appeals the property taxes, neighbors and volunteers will likely decide the fate of UrbanFarm, by meeting up at its monthly bonfire and open house this June.

They too can appeal to the City-- for example, for the gardens’ adoption into one of many new ‘green’ initiatives under the umbrella of Homegrown Minneapolis. As part of the Department of Health and Family Support, the initiative’s four subcommittees could provide for proposed projects like small enterprise urban agriculture, locally grown foods in schools, and backyard gardening learning opportunities for youth. They could even integrate these aims—as Peterson did over the years at UrbanFarm.
It has been a place where neighborhood children and Dinkytown youth alike visit and help with the shoveling; where amateur musicians jam on Open House days and college students browse the numerous stacks of science books; where Peterson’s black Labradors greet new volunteers; where kindred spirits in the city meet each other and share produce they help to harvest. It still can be this way.
The super-insulated structures’ solar panels, circulation system, underground water storage and thermal mass stood as examples of innovative architecture for neighbors interested in sustainable living. Peterson himself has been an example of humble activism with his actions, teaching others how to continue the routines at UrbanFarm.