"This has been one of the stupidest things I've ever agreed to in my life," said Russ Gran, of his upcoming show featuring a collaboration between himself and poet Ryan Vine.
But when he says stupid, Gran really means terrifying, and when he says terrifying, he really means challenging.
"Distant Engines -- a Broadside Series," showing at the Washington Galleries through July, is a result of Gran and Vine putting their paint and poetry together to tell 16 unique stories throughout the exhibit.
"I really had to pay attention to the ideas that were coming out of Ryan's head," Gran said.
The process went something like this: Gran would meditate over one of Vine's poems and then paint. Then Vine would spend some time with one of Gran's paintings and then write a poem. "We certainly had some arguments about the interpretation of each other's work," Gran said.
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It's clear that both artists had to bend their style in order to fit the other's, but not bend so much that they became illustrators of each other's work.
"I'm honored to have gotten a chance to work with Russell and to see the images I've fretted over for years realized in his paintings," Vine said in his artist's statement for the show. As for Gran, the subject matter of people and ideas, strayed from his regular work on architecture, plants and animals. "This disciplined me," he said.
The result is a telling and vivacious exhibit that will force its observers to not only digest the painting, but the poem that goes along with it.
Both the poems and paintings will have a familiar sense about them, as Gran, 69, and Vine, 28, were born and raised in Duluth. Local characters, neighborhoods, bars and stigmas pop up throughout "Distant Engines" -- even the title hints at the trains and ideas rolling over the hill.
Both Denfeld grads, though 42 years apart, both students of Duluth colleges, both teachers at one point and both residents of Washington Studios, the men have bridged the age gap easily. "Ryan is a man of the mind," Gran said of his young friend. "In certain ways we think alike, and that's what had brought us together," Gran said.
The men first met when Vine was applying for a space in the Washington Studios, the artists cooperative founded in 1996 which offers an environment in which artists can create, exhibit and perform. The gallery, within the building, is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Gran is putting the final touches on the show before it hangs for the reception on Friday, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Washington Gallery. And Vine, well, he's leaving the rest of the collaboration up to Gran, because as this story runs, he is sitting on a beach somewhere in Mexico, perhaps writing or perhaps just soaking in the sun.
