Career Development Grant

I want to draw and paint the areas in Duluth that are places where the wilderness is mingling with civilization. My goal is to spend time sketching on back roads, in alleys, on top of the hillside, and in wooded, overgrown pieces of my childhood neighborhood near Lester River. I have recently been looking at historical artwork depicting the Duluth area, and I really would love to do a body of work which joins that history. I like the idea of interpreting the landscapes, neighborhoods, people, urban environments, and animals of the area. The work would involve making art that could reflect our time here- where the modern emerges from the historical, where development emerges from the wild. There is something about that edge of nature that I am wanting to pursue. My goal is to do work that will be a permanent part of the artistic history of the area. I think the true measure of this body of work would be if it evokes the essence of this place and time, and if it stands as compelling art on its own. It would have to be evaluated in a larger context as well as a local one, in that people who don't live here would still have a connection to it. Does it take the personal to the universal? Does it speak to the tension between the wild and the developed? Those would be the measuring tools and questions I would try to answer with this work.