In Water or On Walls
Article + Photos in the Duluth News Tribune // This past October, my talented husband Josh Rude was featured in the Duluth News Tribune, sharing how he creates handmade wooden paddles as functional art. You can read it here.
2016 Holiday Pop-Ups and Shows
2016 Holiday Pop Ups! See here…
Shop local: HOLIDAY pop-ups and a little secret
Interested in shopping local and seeing some of my new work? And my husband’s work via Glorud Design? And hearing about our new space? That’s right…we’ve been dreaming, dreaming, dreaming away over the years and have always come back around to having a space of our own – a design lab of sorts. Somewhere we could spread our creative wings, curate beauty and collaborate with each other and other artists over time. So in the next few weeks, you’ll have the chance to find us in Duluth. Come and see us – we would love to talk shop! 🙂
We’ll be vending at two local pop-up shows this holiday season as HAIKU – the name of our new studio and showroom – opening the spring of 2017 in Duluth’s Woodland neighborhood. Stay turned!
So for gifting your dear ones, we’ll have a great collection of fine art and fine woodwork available. Think petite encaustic paintings to treasure, amazing canoe paddles, home goods in walnut (the vases are my favorite), and lovely prints and cards. Find Josh and myself at the:
RED HERRING LOUNGE
208 E 1st St.
Duluth, MN 55802 view map
218-481-7318
WHEN: Saturday, December 10th, from 11am to 4pm
WHAT: Holiday Pop-up with live music, and cocktails! Enjoy downtown’s winter energy and support local businesses at the same time.
DULUTH VINEYARD ART FAIR
1533 W. Arrowhead Rd.
Duluth, MN
55811 view map
WHEN: Friday, December 9th 4-7pm and Saturday, December 10th 10-3pm
WHAT: This second annual fair showcases local artists and designers from the Duluth area. Lots of easy parking and an amazing array of creative gifts made from hand. We are looking forward to seeing you. (These walnut vases will be available at our HAIKU booths!) xo Merry, Merry!
Back to Mexico…
I spent two weeks in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, this September creating encaustic work for a new residential development. I have been working hard at working hard in Mexico…the sunrises make it all so worth it. Looking forward to returning for a few more projects in the spring. You can see more pictures and pick up on a few more details over here on Instagram. xo
Intermediate Workshop – March 12 +13, 2016
Join me this spring for an intimidate encaustic workshop at the Duluth Art Institute. We will spend March 12 + 13, 2016, from 9-4 each day, reviewing the basic techniques of encaustic and moving forward into our unique expressions. We will discuss gold leaf additions, texture, mixed media and appropriate fusing. Don’t miss this class – let it propel you into a new creative space and a truer expression of your artistic self.
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Intermediate Encaustic
Natalie Salminen Rude
Saturday and Sunday, March 12 & 13
9am-4pm
$250 ($300 non-members) + $45 supply fee paid to instructor
Lincoln Center for Arts Education – Duluth Art Institute
Explore techniques beyond the basics of encaustic, while refining previous encaustic knowledge. Morning demos include building texture, exploring gold leaf, and continued use of the torch and mixed media collage. Afternoons reserved for developing your own work. Intermediate level. Space is limited.
To register, click here.
Holiday Happenings
- I will be selling artwork along with 21 other artists at the Duluth Vineyard on Saturday, Dec 12th from 10-1. Stop in and enjoy some local talent.
New Work!
detail – My Modern Gesture | oil on canvas | 36×60 | 2015 | Natalie Salminen Rude
I’ll be showing new work at the Kruk Gallery on the campus of University Wisconsin- Superior during the month of October. You are invited to the opening:
October 8th from 5:00-7:00pm
The show runs through OCTOBER 30th.
Find more details here. See you there!
The Slow Website Movement
So this business about updating one’s website…
In 2011, I thought I should finally begin to move on that great idea I had to update my trusty flash based website. Turns out, the trusty bit was beginning to fade. Kicking since 2004, my site’s little can-do-attitude just wasn’t fancy enough to keep up with the rapidly growing technology that was on the scene. Mobile devices and tablets emerged and there we were, just like that: vintage. (Gasp!) In my mind, I made due with “charming vintage” and life moved along. I had to make peace with what it was. At the time, my family and I were living in Ontario and life was busy: we were in the throws of two little ones and a pregnancy, setting up life in a new country, buying and fixing up a house, full time ministry, part time design work, and I was also trying to be in the studio painting.
We were in the throws.
Creating a new site seemed a far off hope. So I plodded along. Tiny bits here, little scraps there. Hoping that over time, over dirty diapers and over day-dreamt crumbs, that I wouldn’t lose track of all of this. I went along at the only pace I could muster, the pace of a family who cares about people and relationships and shared meals and spontaneous chats with neighbors in the front yard. This is the green grass of life. Life in community. This is the beautiful mess of a life that doesn’t stop. It tumbles and snowballs and then you add more kids and more friends and more cities and it grows on, gaining momentum, growing beautifully; intricate, weathered and wild. But what it doesn’t grow is elegantly designed portfolio websites. No, it doesn’t. This one I had to fight for. And so I plugged along. But the thing was, it wan’t at the world’s pace.
It wasn’t at the world’s pace.
This can cause all sorts of trouble, turns out. I think I may have lost some of you along the way. But hey, that’s okay! I wish everyone the best, I really do. We are so bombarded with the “new” – New websites! New experiences! New styles! New food! New kombucha-ginger-wasabi-dahl-from-that-tiny-island-no-one-has-yet-heard-of-packaged-in-a-hand-made-tin-from-sustainably-harvested-buckwheat-by-children-rescued-from-over-chlorinated-swimming-pools. What? You haven’t heard of this yet? Ah, yes, the tyranny of the NEW. There’s so much of it that you can start to feel lost.
Meanwhile, my little family and I have been swimming in the sea of the everyday. Take mealtime for example. Eating dinner takes a long time because 80% of that time is untying knots in bibs and reminding kids not to eat with their thumbs and I’m wiping messy faces and sweeping under the table for the fortieth time that week (well maybe wishing I had swept). This is where I’ve been. I once was lost but now I’m found. I once felt like I would be lost if I wasn’t swimming in the current of the “new.” But enter GRACE! Enter meaning! This is where I’ve been: Besides continuing to make art, I’ve been making a home(s), making babies (fun!), making friends and yearning hard with God’s steady hand to make our life meaning-full. You know, art does that. Art beautifies and glorifies and points us in the direction of the divine. It’s just that sometimes we get confused and we look outside of ordinary for the divine. Turns out ordinary takes time.
Four years later, this little site has finally taken shape. You are here! Reading this. Maybe you’ve been following my artistic journey from my get-go. Thanks for sticking it out. You are probably used to it now, but this is how we get things done around here: we use old fashioned time. Because I won’t move along in my business if it means leaving my family or my friends behind. I think I learned my lesson when I was doing full time art festivals around the country. I was too busy for a meaning-full life. I no longer choose that path for myself anymore.
There is a quote from the magical Rilke in my artist statement that speaks about gestation and patience. It will never not be a part of my artist statement because I think he hits the nail on the head when he says this:
“Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.”
Things take time. This website, this little life of mine as an artist and a wife and mother, well it is unfolding, growing, gestating. So welcome to the slow-website movement. Leave it to me to try to pair two things that seen completely at odds with each other: slow + technology. (I love to see possibility where there is none!) You’ve seen it here first, folks.
What I’ve really desired over the years was for my website to be a catalog of my work history, accompanied by story. The words that I share alongside each painting are deeply important to me. It feels good to finally put the two formally together. I pray this blesses you.
More on that later. For now, enjoy perusing this labor of love. Make yourself a cup of tea and enter the gates of the slow-website movement…may you discover a meaning-full gem along the way. I’ll catch up with you when the time is right.
→ Black and White Photographs courtesy the talented Stephi-O Photography ←
Many hellos and warm welcomes. I'm a visual artist and haiku junkie based in Duluth, Minnesota. This here is a little slice of what's happening...