Discriminating Weirdos

A Dam Fine Pet

  Karen Holte 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

Karen Holte has lived a storied life.  Actually, when Em and I sat down to talk over what we wanted to write about her, we were a bit stymied.  This is a woman who grew up on Isle Royale in Lake Superior-- getting to school by a school-boat, has knit every piece of clothing it is possible to knit, and (if the stories are all true) spent time in San Francisco sitting at the edge of coffee shops watching Jack Kerouac hold court.

But to me, one thing will forever ring true.  It wasn't something that she did, but it was something she told me many years ago.  Apparently, when she was growing up, a family friend had a pet beaver.  She said that he was a great pet, loyal and quiet and always game (in more ways than one).  Best of all, whenever it would start to rain, his damming instinct would kick in.  He would scuttle about the house gathering every piece of clothing he could find, and then stuff it under every door in the place.  He would effectively dam off the house, keeping his owner safe from the impending flood.

When Karen told me that story, I knew she was someone I wanted to get to know.  There's no way that a person who knew a person who had a pet beaver could be bad. (EM's note: and one who would tell the story as if it were the most normal thing in the world...)

I might even take a bullet for a person like that.  I doubt it will ever come to that, but you never know. (AM)

Mentors: Jay Andersen

  Jay Andersen knows how to do stuff 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

In order to be successful, every artist/artisan (what's the difference?)  needs to be good at business.  Or if they are very very lucky, that artist will have a good administrator behind them. 

Jay Andersen is just the administrator you wish you had. 

He's game.  If you've got a good idea, bring it.  Jay will find a way to help you make it happen.

I'm the kind that needs to know how to do things for myself.  Everything. Must know how it's done.  Only recently have I realized that I don't actually have to do everything.  I don't like make t-shirts, I'd rather pay someone else a living wage to do so.  (though I still maintain that after the zombie apocalypse, knowing how to do many things will be important) 

This desire to know how translates also to business.  I married an actor who turned out to be a musician who turned out to be an embroiderer.  I'm a writer who turned out to be a piano teacher who turned out to be a milliner.  One day, when we were both still actors and writers, I waltzed into Jay's office and asked him to teach me how to administrate. 

He taught me.  He taught me how to write grants, how to behave at meetings, who to talk to, how to write a budget....

He also helped us form our theatre company, and wrote scripts, and made chicken coop roofs into thunder sheets. 

Now that I'm a piano teacher/milliner, and Adam's a musician/embroiderer, those skills have really come in handy.  I don't write grants any more, but knowing how to express our goals and paint pictures with our words is dead important. 

Thanks Jay.  (EM)

True North Woods Stories

  True North Woods Stories 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

Nuff said. (EM)

(longer craft/art post tomorrow! or even two!)

Betsy's Puppets

This is the only picture of a puppet that I can find on-line. 

Best I can do!

Yup, that semi truck is somehow a part of a Solstice Pageant. 

Which reminds me,happy Spring!  (EM)

Mentors: Betsy Bowen

  Betsy Bowen with a Recent Work 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

Betsy Bowen is an icon and hero to loads of people who both know and don't know her.  I've said more times than I can count, "When I grow up, I want to be Betsy."  It's absolutely true.  She's not only one of the sweetest and most creative people I've met, but also the one who is most completely living the artist dream. 

She is, principally, a woodcut artist.  She brings these skills to fine art prints and to writing extraordinary children's books.  This is the short story.  The people who think she's great that don't know her, generally are familiar with her books and prints. 

It's an incredibly incomplete picture of a woman who's best work is her life. 

Betsy's got a "farm" that makes art.  Friends and family float in and out of her happy house.  Hippie cars dot the yard. Stacks of art projects fill the house.  Extra chairs for the many potluck suppers hang on the walls.  In recent years, one of her sons built a little Thoreau cabin for more guests. 

  Betsy's Gallery in the Old Playhouse 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

The first time I was invited out was for a Solstice pageant.  Betsy's got a love of puppetry, you see.  Every year, Betsy and friends make a play about winter or summer, light and dark, myth and fancy.  It started out on the farm, but it turns out that Betsy's friends include just about the entire town and then some.  The production got bigger and bigger.  The puppets got bigger, Bigger, and BIGGER, and the pageant moved into town. 

Betsy's expanded her operation through the years, too.  At first, it was just a little studio in one of those miniature houses/cabins that populate town.  But then the big one dropped in her lap.  She bought the old Playhouse building. 

The Playhouse was first a church, and then a school, and then the home to the community theatre, and now home to Betsy's studio, a gallery of joyous art, a small bread bakery, and a couple of performance spaces. 

It's kind of like Alice's Restaurant, except every inch is made beautiful, because fanciful joyous beauty just comes gushing out of her, and out of everyone in her influence.  (EM)

Special Edition! From Grand Marais, Minn!

As you've heard from Adam, we're back home for the next week, in Grand Marais, Minnesota. 

Theoretically, this is my "spring" break from piano teaching.  Doesn't look much like spring outside here, and it probably won't for a while.  Last year, I came up for Memorial Day (end of May), and the leaves had just popped!

 

Photo of Downtown Grand Marais could have been taken an hour ago (but wasn't) by Jenny Peters

No matter, we're happy as clams (though they are known scientifically as the most morose of bivalves) in the late winter weather.  It's currently snowing.  Lake Superior is mostly iced-over.  The world is covered in a thick blanket of snow.  Nothing is quieter than a world covered in a thick blanket of snow.

  Chickadees004.JPG 
  Originally uploaded by moesewco

 

I've been having a grand time taking pictures of extremely ordinary things.  I've been completely enchanted by chickadees, but who isn't?

 

 

Today, I spent a substantial amount of time becoming a one-woman marketing machine for Etsy.  I want to teach a class up here this summer on selling on Etsy.  There's more artists/crafters/makers up here than you can shake a stick at, but not enough audience.  This is an economy that needs diversifying, and these artists need to make a living. 

I'm not the most successful Etsyan out there, but I do know how to teach.  I know, too, that there's no better way to learn to do a thing than to have to teach it.  Right now I'm making myself get serious about this idea of mine by telling as many people as possible about it.  The tactic will make me get off my butt and develop a plan, but will also make good buzz. 

That's the sort of thing I do when I'm on vacation! 

I'm also about to teach myself how to crochet.  In a bar. 

In the next week, we'll be profiling some Grand Marais makers.  A woodblock print artist/gallery owner.  A father/daughter dairy farm.  More to come! (EM)

Overheard at the drug store

We had to go to the pharmacy yesterday.  The man ahead of us in line was wearing a shiny, black fake-leather jacket and shiny, black leather shoes.  His hair was combed, and he was wearing a shirt with a collar.  Another fellow (this one in Carhartt overalls, a flannel shirt, and an oily baseball cap) saw him standing there and gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder.  The following ensued:

Carhartt: Holy JEEZ, you're dressed to kill!  Where you headed?

Leather: Funeral.

(AM)