Betsy Bowen Block Prints at the Edge Center Art Gallery

Betsy Bowen: Block Prints is this month's exhibit at the Bigfork Art Gallery. Betsy is an illustrator of the wildlife and domestic life around her longtime home near Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore. The immediate lure of color and line in Betsy’s woodcuts invites viewers to discover the good-humored stories she tells with her images. Come and see Betsy’s block prints at the Edge Gallery from September 6th to the 29th.  The gallery is next to the Bigfork School and is open from 10 am to 4 pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Admission to the gallery and September 7th reception is free.

If you are a parent or grandparent, you're most likely familiar with Betsy's children's book Antler, Bear, Canoe, found in children's bedrooms throughout Northern Minnesota and beyond. The book carries young readers through the seasons of the year in an "ABC" format and is also one of the first books introduced to kindergartners at Bigfork Elementary School. 

Constructed with bold colors, Betsy's woodcuts delineate the essence of our northern lifestyle, history, and existence: they literally pulse with the feeling of Northern Minnesota. 

Of her work, Betsy says, “Poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote that ‘Scientists tell us that the world is made up of Atoms, but we know it is made up of Stories.’ Now here is a concept that shaped my view of the world.” Bowen's prints are from the stories “that hold the very form and energy of our existence.

Bowen will be showing her woodcuts at the Edge Center for the Arts September 6th through the 29th. An open house reception is on September 6th from five to seven P.M. at the gallery. This is an evening you don’t want to miss.

There was also an Author Event at the Bigfork school where Bowen had an opportunity to speak to the K-3 students (See below).  She Read from her book, Antler, Bear and Canoe plus explained the art of block printing. The Bigfork Art Gallery Committee also donated 100 of Bowen's books to the school.