All About Karl Krogstad

Karl Krogstad

Saint Sinner Chef Artist Filmmaker Norwegian
1948-2019

Karl is Deeply Missed
 

Karl died of heart failure. Shocking news because his wife and daughter thought he had the best heart ever. So did many other people.

Smart people had many thoughts

"Krogstad was both a slave to beauty and a lenient master of it; he's was a Picasso-esque ceramicist, a Euro-juicy painter with a bit of a cult following, an excellent adventurous cook, and a stand-up comic who prefers to sit down." -- Tom Robbins

Krogstad had based his career on being a misunderstood artist. If one felt inclined to pander to his audacity, the names Cocteau and Eisenstein might come to mind. That aside, Krogstad was the greatest film-maker that the Northwest has ever produced, having won awards in most major film festivals in the world. He was overhead saying, "Somebody has to be Karl Krogstad, so it's me." For this reason, the study of any work of film art must consider the history of its screenings." -- Standish D, Lawder-Yale, "The Cubist Cinema" NY Univ. Press.

Karl believed his urge to create was "a primitive passion to glorify the cult of pictures and printed thoughts."

Karl's Many Talents

Karl Krogstad Directs!

The irrepressible Karl Krogstad has made over 60 films since the early 1970s, animated, experimental, music videos, documentaries, and features, and earned his fair share of festival awards in the process. Most made on a shoestring and employing the talents of volunteers, Krogstad's film projects essentially served as inspiration and community film school for a generation of Seattle filmmakers and film lovers. More than being a maverick director, Krogstad's flamboyant personality and promotional antics, not to mention other eclectic creative pursuits, made him a community legend.

Karl Krogstad Paints!

Karl Krogstad was an artist who didn't create art for publicity, fame or wealth, although those are all nice things, but Karl Krogstad painted just because it fulfill him. Karl Krogstad took inspiration from everywhere: travel, animals, minerals, vegetables, people, circuses and clowns, bear and bicycles, and the abstract and absurd.

He made no distinctions between high and low forms of art and culture, for Karl Krogstad, there was nothing beyond the art. "Art," he said, is merely an urge that arises within from time to time that must be fulfilled."

Learn to Cook From Karl!

Karl Krogstad was a not only a brilliant cook, but a tactile artist who understood how to incorporate taste, touch, sight, smell, and yes, even sound, into the experience of cooking and eating food. He knew that good cooks faced a variety of decisions every time they turn on the stove and understood both the physical and mental side of preparing a delicious meal.

A dreamer, a rebel with a cause, and a noted artisan, Karl Krogstad Cooks, has a limited number of episodes on YouTube, which offers chefs of any skill set a nifty set of step-by-step instructions on how to create seriously good food. That is some excellent tea.