Artist Carl Gawboy takes a rest on the Voyageurs Bench at Cross River Heritage Center. Gawboy collaborated with wood fabricator Jay Newcomb of Duluth on the unique bench.
On Aug. 5 the opportunity to see a constellation of Carl Gawboy’s migration to a seasoned world of artistic expression begins at Cross River Heritage Center in Schroeder. The exhibition at Cross River Heritage Center includes watercolor pieces from Bois Forte Heritage Center in Tower, Minnesota as well as other private collections.
Gallery pieces for sale include the Voyageurs Bench Gawboy created with fabricator Jay Newcomb. The Voyageurs Bench is painted on plywood and acrylic and attached to the Jay Newcomb bench. The bench has been on permanent display at the Duluth Pack Store in Canal Park and returned to Newcomb for restorative touches. It now sits prominently in the main gallery at Cross River Heritage Center.
Ink Drawings from Morton and Gawboy’s Talking Sky will be exhibited at Cross River Heritage Center. On Sunday, Aug. 17 at 1 p.m. Gawboy and Morton will be at Cross River Heritage Center for a Talking Sky book signing.
“I knew before I even started school that being an artist was what I was going to do,” said Gawboy in the 2011 documentary Carl Gawboy Portrait: The Art of the Everyday by Lorraine Norrgard.
Gawboy’s artistic eyes were drawn to watercolor in his early years. He went on to create murals for Superior Public Library on the history of Superior, Wisconsin. Later, three-dimensional acrylic painting on plywood became Gawboy’s focus. His painted works were attached to benches and other wooden forms created by wood fabricator Jay Newcomb. They were exhibited at the Duluth Art Institute in 2006.
Not only has Gawboy become an internationally known artist since he saw his future at pre-school age, he became a professor of American Indian Studies for 12 years at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. Teaching a class at the College of St. Scholastica in Native American astronomy was the result of 25 years of his own research. Now mythic proportions are subjects of Gawboy’s artistic eyes. Gawboy is currently collaborating with Ron Morton, professor emeritus in the Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Minnesota Duluth, in Talking Sky: Ojibwe Constellations as a Reflection of Life on the Land.
Leave a Reply