Art Hounds: An artist sketches on quarantines and social justice
Plus, ‘A Gift,’ a traveling performance for audiences of one or two and a Lowertown exhibit features dozens of Minnesota artists
Minneapolis singer/songwriter Taylor Johnson, aka Proper’T, gives a shoutout to an illustrator whose work is both prolific and diverse. Ocean Jurney, aka Chanci, draws, paints, makes collages and writes comics.
“One thing I love about [Chanci] is their vulnerability,” said Johnson. “It’s really a journal of how they’re experiencing life,” with poetry and sayings incorporated within colorful line drawings. Chanci, who identifies as a queer white artist, often uses their art to call for racial equity and social justice issues.
Johnson describes how he first experienced Chanci’s ability as a sketch artist.
Several years ago, they were together at a brunch when a fire broke out across the street.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Johnson and several others rushed to help.
Situation resolved, they returned to find that Chanci had sketched and written about the scene, in all of its intensity.
Ashley Hanson, executive director of the Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led organization based in Granite Falls, Minn., recommends a performance by New London, Minn., artist Bethany Lacktorin called “The Gift.”
It’s an interactive, COVID-19-safe arts experience for an audience of one or two that’s part of Lacktorin’s “Art by Appointment” series, which encourages people to make an appointment for art the same way they would for other self-care.
“There’s a lot of special magic in arriving and experiencing it,” Hanson said. She described the 45-minute performance as a form of call-and-response. The performer and audience communicate through objects and create a story.
The show is touring rural Minnesota towns. Hanson’s organization hosted the show at the Yes! House last week. It next travels to the Hutchinson Center for the Arts on March 27 and 28.
Tickets are limited. While you’re in Hutchinson, Hanson also recommends checking out the exhibit by Thomas Pultzier, “Bewildered Herd,” which runs through April 9.
Paul Melchert is a pediatric hospitalist from Stillwater, Minn., who loves art.
Recently, he enjoyed the “No Holds Barred” show at the Argyle Zebra Gallery in St Paul’s Lowertown.
The show features 85 local and regional artists with a variety of styles.
Work by familiar names hangs near pieces by emerging artists.
“It’s kind of a rebirth in letting people know that they’re still here,” says Melchert, who admires how the gallery has adapted to COVID-19. To replicate the feeling of a traditional opening, he reports that “each individual artist has been given a voucher to host five of their friends or family, kind of one household, for a one hour event with beverages and snacks to make them feel special and supported.”
