Artist Margaret Carroll at the opening of her show at Johnson Heritage Post, which will run through April 23. Carroll lives in the Twin Cities but has a special love for the Gunflint Trail and creates a lot of paintings of the Northwoods.
Creating artwork is a beautiful privilege. Artist Margaret Carroll knows this well. As a chaplain specializing in oncology at Unity Hospital in the Twin Cities, she treasures the time she is able to spend expressing herself artistically.
Carroll is the featured artist at the current Johnson Heritage Post in Grand Marais and was on hand at the show’s opening on Friday, April 1, 2011.
Over the music of Michael Monroe, the swishing of wine, and the munching of cheese and crackers, Carroll said she was given a good piece of advice by a wellknown artist many years ago in New York City: he said it can be best to make a living doing something else and then create art for the pure joy of it.
So Carroll is able to say about her own work, “It’s for joy.”
Carroll loves the Gunflint Trail. On her website, www.mcarrollartist.com, she says, “I paint the wilderness because it is alive and completely untamed. To me, the Boundary Waters area is pure living soul. I am fascinated by the cycle of death and rebirth in nature.”
Also featured at the current Johnson Heritage Post show is the work of the late Marilyn Taus, who has deep Cook County roots. Her grandparents were Charlie and Petra Boostrom, who built Clearwater Lodge.
Carroll is generous as well as talented, however, because she is sharing her show with the work of the late Marilyn Taus, whose grandparents were Charlie and Petra Boostrom of Clearwater Lodge. Taus died four years ago from cancer, and her mother, Harriet Taus, is a good friend of Carroll. Harriet was on hand for the opening, along with many other members of the Boostrom family.
Marilyn’s husband, Ken Dumdie, is an ardent promoter of Marilyn’s work. He gathered artwork distributed among many of Marilyn’s friends and put it together for this show. “She’s in many collections around the country,” he said.
Marilyn was proficient in many art media, Ken said, and even took marblecarving classes in Italy. “She was an artist,” he said. “That was her life.”
Ken and Marilyn spent a lot of time in Cook County. “We felt at home here,” he said. Dumdie is an artist in his own right and participates in the North Shore’s Crossing Borders Studio Tour. He has specialized in leatherwork but has expertise in other art forms as well, including glassblowing.
About showing Marilyn’s work here in Cook County, Ken said, “This is something I always wanted to do.”
Carroll and Taus’s work will be on exhibit until Easter (April 24). Carroll sells her work from her studio in the Northrup Building in Minneapolis and welcomes visitors every Thursday from 5-9 p.m. and during special events. She can be reached at (763)567-0737.
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