Carolyn Olson

A collaboration between Zeitgeist and the Duluth Transit Authority working collaboratively to bring public art to bus shelters in support of “National Day Without Driving”. Art wraps will be installed permanently creating an inclusive positive space.

Each shelter depicts a different season with an inclusive group of folks waiting for the bus to arrive. I am thrilled to be a part of this effort. Public art is one of my passions. Making transportation welcoming and available to everyone is who we need to be as a community.

These four drawings will eventually be at 13th Ave E. and Superior St./Duluth transit shelters. Thanks to Zeitgeist and the DTA for the opportunity!

Get ready for the holiday with pepparkakor cookies! Hearts and Emigrants.. Unless you’re Native American we are all emigrants.
Holiday card set available – 25 cards with blank inside and white envelope $100 includes tax and shipping cost. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery.

(Lois Bersell Olson) Pepparkakor recipe:

1/2 c butter
2/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c honey
1 egg
2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp coriander
1/8 tsp cinnamon

Mix all together. Chill. Roll out to 1/8” thick and cut out with shapes. Bake at 375 degrees F for 5-7 minutes. Makes 4 dozen

Choose your favorite cookie on a blank card to send to a friend (who probably loves the same cookie as you!!

Art as resistance refers to the use of artistic expression to challenge, critique, and confront social, political, or cultural norms, often with the aim of sparking change or raising awareness about injustices.

Examples include: spontaneous street art and graffiti created in protest to the killing of George Floyd, Dante Wright, Breanna Taylor and others; Black Lives Matter murals, music and performances; Anti-apartheid murals as powerful visual statements opposing the racist regime; and Anti-war paintings by Picasso and Goya as well as and street art by Banksy just to name a few.

Know that art has been used by dictators and fascist regimes against us as well to maintain control. Examples include: WWII’s Nazi Germany’s graphic propaganda with swastikas’ and “Aryan ideals” which opposed modern art (Bauhaus) and expression. Their excessive pageantry created a false narrative of community support for their cruel policies; the Soviet Union glorifying cruel leaders like Stalin while silencing dissenting artists and communities who chose to speak out against the regime; and Mao in China used powerful graphics to reinforce loyalty to the communist party/Mao

Its important to know the key ways they employ art to maintain power: Dictators establish and maintain their authority through a carefully cultivated image of being powerful, infallible leaders. This is often achieved through widely circulating portraits, statues, and symbols of the leader to reinforce their authority and deify them. Creating monumental public buildings and monuments that convey a sense of grandeur, strength, and the regime’s dominance. Art is used to rewrite history, presenting a version that aligns with the regime’s narrative and justifies its actions. Authoritarian regimes tightly control artistic expression, promoting only the art that aligns with their political agenda and suppressing any forms or artists deemed subversive. Artists who resist face severe consequences like persecution, censorship, or worse. 

Remember that art can also be a powerful tool for resistance against oppressive regimes. Artists often find ways to subtly embed messages of dissent or critique within their work, even under strict censorship. This can involve using allegory, metaphor, and other forms of symbolism to convey subversive meanings. Art, in this context, becomes a vital means of resistance, resilience, and maintaining individual autonomy.  (Ms. Google)

I have found drawing a way to deal with anxiety about the fascist regime currently running our country. Join me in speaking up for our family and neighbor’s. Stay safe. Stay strong.

Mutual aid is where people in an area, or a community, come together to support one another, collectively meeting each other’s needs without the help of official bodies like the state or NGOs. It often arises due to neglect of government provision for certain classes of people.

Mutual aid, in simpler words, is cooperation for the common good.

Mutual aid is a horizontal mode of organisation, aiming to break down hierarchies and practice collective decision making. However, the concept of mutual aid encompasses a wide variety of practices – there is no one-catch-all term or definition, it is a universal practice rather than a singular concept. All of the examples listed on this site attempt to speak to the universality of this practice, but by no means aim to define them rigidly.The idea of solidarity, rather than charity, underpins mutual aid. Resources are unconditionally shared, as opposed to charity which is often conditional and means tested. 

Mutual aid has been around for a while. Dean Spade, a trans activist and scholar defines mutual aid as, “work that directly addresses the conditions the movement seeks to address, such as providing housing, food, health care, or transportation in a way that draws attention to the politics creating need and vulnerability.” In other words, mutual aid is solidarity not charity.

Mutual aid groups have been around through every corner of U.S. history in the form of unions, activist groups, and organized networks. Spade notes that some of the most famous examples of mutual aid in the US are from the l960s and 1970s. The Black Panthers’ free breakfast program fed tens of thousands of Black children and ultimately helped contribute to the establishment of federal free lunch programs. In 1970, the Young Lords took over the sixth floor of Lincoln Hospital and fought to provide medical care and testing to neglected communities in the predominantly Black and Latinx South Bronx. And before Roe v. Wade legalized abortions, a group of women in Chicago helped 11,000 women access abortions.

https://www.theegayagenda.com/mutual-aid
https://www.mutualaid.coop/what-is-mutual-aid/

The Free Breakfast for School Children Program, or the People’s Free Food Program, was a community service program run by the Black Panther Party that focused on providing free breakfast for children before school. The program began in January 1969 at Father Earl A. Neil’s St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, located in West Oakland, California and spread throughout the nation. This program was an early manifestation of the social mission envisioned by Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, along with their founding of the Oakland Community School, which provided high-level education to 150 children from impoverished urban neighborhoods. The breakfasts formed the core of what became known as the party’s Survival Programs.^[2] Inspired by contemporary research about the essential role of breakfast for optimal schooling and the belief that alleviating hunger and poverty was necessary for Black liberation, the Panthers cooked and served food to the poor inner city youth of the area. The service created community centers in various cities for children and parents to simultaneously eat and learn more about black liberation and the Black Panther Party’s efforts. (Wikipedia)

“Laundry Love” is a national organization dedicated to providing laundry services to people with low and no incomes. Our local chapter in Duluth, MN is now in full swing offering free laundry services once a week. Volunteers staff Spin City (Spirit Valley) laundromat for three hours at a time, offering people the chance to wash up to two loads of clothes per week. Laundry Love volunteers provide snacks and activities as well, hoping that this service is more than just a place to clean your clothes, but an opportunity to build and celebrate community.

Brake Light Repair Clinics are events where organizers change people’s broken tail lights for free in order to to reduce police interactions and have discussions with people about their personal experiences with police.

More than 50,000 drivers are pulled over in a traffic stop every day in the U.S., according to the Stanford Open Policing Project. Reports document black folks being pulled are over 20 percent more likely to get a ticket than white drivers, underlining the stark racial disparities within the criminal justice system.

The process for fixing brake lights is simple, but will help in reducing community interactions with police and help educate the community on legislation that activists are interested in passing.

Brake Light Clinic impact our communities by reducing the number of police interactions working-class people encounter due to bogus reasons such as broken brake lights and building relationships with our neighbors!

(https://mutualaid.dsausa.org/) 

Chosen families are made up of folks who aren’t related by blood but who treat you with love and respect while offering support. Chosen family is often a norm in many queer communities, often out of necessity and solidarity. When a blood family isn’t accepting, it leaves people more open to building those deep bonds regardless of age. 

According to recent research from The Trevor Project, only 37% of LGBTQIA+ youth feel like their home is an LGBTQIA+-affirming space. Among transgender and nonbinary youth specifically, less than one in three people believe their home to be gender-affirming. Unsurprisingly, this can take its toll on mental health; that’s where chosen families come in. 
For many teens and young adults, their closest friends act as chosen family members. Or, your chosen family might consist of more distant relatives who you feel closer to than your immediate family. There really are no rules when it comes to cultivating your chosen family. Even people who have good relationships with their biological family can have a chosen family, too. This simply lends itself to double the love and support that one receives and provides.

“Chosen family” refers to a group of people who are not biologically or legally related but who are considered family due to the strong bond and support they provide, often like siblings, partners, or close friends. While “work family” refers to the relationships formed with colleagues and co-workers at the workplace.

While distinct, work family and chosen family can overlap. Colleagues can become close friends, and chosen family members can even work together. Both types of relationships are crucial for personal well-being, especially in a world where individuals may not have strong support networks within their biological families. 

Chosen family, often formed with neighbors or other community members, are relationships built on mutual support, love, and understanding, regardless of blood ties. These chosen families can provide a strong sense of belonging, love, and support, acting as a source of strength when biological family bonds are weak or absent.

Neighbors can be a source of mutual support when biological family can’t or are unable to be there.

Traditional holiday gatherings can be difficult for folks to celebrate with blood family members whose way of life is not aligned with theirs. For example, often queer family members are not invited to biological relative holiday gatherings

Chosen family gatherings are a way to celebrate with like minded folks who support and cherish them. Some folks are welcome in bother biological and chosen family celebrations which supports folks at the holidays, often a stressful time regardless.

Lake Ave and Superior St./Lake Superior Fountain and Park with Trans-Affirming Street Side” pastel on paper will join a great group of artist in the YWCA’s 2nd Annual Gender Joy Art Show, May 2-31, Zeitgeist Atrium Gallery, Duluth. Opening on May 9th. This event is celebrates the joy that comes with expressing our genders freely, publicly and without apology!

For the foreseeable future my drawings will depict Mutual Aid and Chosen Families. Generous support has been given through the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, Equity grant and the Minnesota State Arts Board, Creative Support for Individual Artists grant. I am very grateful.

Mutual aid is a voluntary, collaborative exchange of resources and services for common benefit that take place with community members working together to overcome social, economic, and political barriers in meeting common needs. This can include physical resources like food, clothing, or medicine, as well as services like breakfast programs or education. 
Resources are shared unconditionally and is not charity. It is an ongoing service where groups often go beyond material or service exchange and are set up as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.
Mutual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten the hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision-making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team. With this joint decision-making, all participating members are empowered to enact change and take responsibility for the group.

I intend to draw attention to historical and modern day mutual aid/community service and its place in a thriving community.

Chosen Families are nonbiological kinship bonds, whether legally recognized or not, deliberately chosen for the purpose of mutual support and love. Basically, these are the people who understand you, support you, celebrate you, help you, and love you, even without biological ties.

As I continue to explore pastel on paper I intend to tell visual stories where I hope folks will recognize and see themselves thriving in the drawings. These two drawing series are intended to remind us of our history as well as what’s currently going on in our communities, reminding us that despite the racist exclusionary systems which continue to exist – we’re not having it. And, we are not alone.

Pictured above – Pepparkakor Heart Cookie (Lois Olson recipe), Spritz Wreath Cookie with Green Sugar and Red Hots (Lois Olson recipe), Milk Pistachio Cookie Dipped in White Chocolate (Nic Sharma recipe), Rosette Flower Cookie (Hazel Wallace and Lois Olson recipe), Thumbprint Cookie with Almonds and Currant Jelly (Lois Olson recipe), Cat’s Tongue with Almonds Dipped in Dark Chocolate (Magnus Nilsson recipe), Chocolate Crinkle Cookie (Cook’s Illustrated), Peanut Butter Kisses (Lois Olson recipe), Lingonberry Shortbread (Aunt Olga and Aunt Agnes Swanson recipe)

5″ x 5″, gouache on paper, $150 each framed

“Sju Sorta Kakor” or “Seven Kinds of Cookies” is a Swedish Christmas cookies tradition that starts with a shortbread dough made with flour, sugar, butter, egg and vanilla. This simple dough is made into seven different tasting and looking “småkakor” or little cookies. Why seven? The number seven is linked with mythology and luck. During “kafferep” (coffee party) it was said that if you served less than seven then it wasn’t enough, but more than seven it was thought of as showy.

So what’s your favorite holiday cookie?

Three “småkakor” will be a part of the “small works show” at Lizzards Gallery and Framing opening Saturday, November 30th as part of our Small business Social. I’ll be adding new småkakor to web site over the next few months. Defiantly will be more than seven!