Duluth poet and essayist Bart Sutter works hard on his lines, and he has two of them in response to winning the George Morrison Artist Award from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council.
First: "I've been calling it northeastern Minnesota's little Nobel Prize, because it's for long-term contribution," he said in a phone interview from his offices at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
Second: "The other piece of that is the message may be, 'We've heard enough out of you.'"
Not likely. Sutter has published six books, in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction and read his work for public radio. He has written plays and published widely. His efforts have earned him three Minnesota Book Awards in three different categories. He's also won a Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, a Loft-McKnight Award in Poetry, a Bush Artist Fellowship and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Jerome Foundation.
He has also inspired readers with his strong sense of regionalism.
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But this ARAC award, which was to be presented to him Friday in McGregor, is one Sutter finds special.
"I've been surprised at how deeply pleased I've been by this award," he said.
He said that many artists, including him, have made "considerable sacrifices to stay" here, and that makes it feel different than some of the other awards.
"Plus, the people who have won it in the past, I feel honored to be in that company," he said, singling out Allen Fields, Louis Jenkins and Bill Bastian from a long list of luminaries.
"I'm continually astonished by the quality of the people in the arts in this community," he said.
Sutter is also connected to the man for whom the award is named, the legendary Grand Marais painter who had an international reputation. Sutter said he lived a year in Grand Marais before finishing college and was inspired by Morrison's example of earning a national reputation from such an obscure place. Later, he got to know Morrison's work in the Twin Cities and finally Morrison himself toward the end of his life.
The award also comes with a $2,000 cash prize.
The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, which is one of 11 regional arts councils in the state and runs a granting program funded with state money and funds from the McKnight Foundation, gave the second of its annual awards to Eileen Keen of McGregor.
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Keen helped organize the group Advancement of Rural Talent, Inc. (ARTs) in the McGregor area in 1978, which renovated a theater. She has also been involved in starting a writer's group, an acting group and a photography group. She has published books, donating the profits from the sales of one to expand the McGregor Area Library.
She has been involved with dance, theater, music and arts education in McGregor, too.
Past winners of that award include John Steffl and Dorian Beaulieu.
