From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

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Mental health and community expression in Morris

Missy Polster, a former healthcare worker connected to the 210 Gallery in Sandstone, is passionate about art that intersects with social justice.

She highlights “Waiting for Beds,” a powerful exhibition featuring artists Moira Villiard and Carla Hamilton, alongside submissions from community members. It’s on view at the Morrison Gallery at the University of Minnesota Morris through Nov. 25.

Missy says: It's beautiful, it's moving and it does make you think, which is how I hope everybody wants art to be.

— Missy Polster

A literary road trip through Minnesota’s complexity

Chris Vondracek, a journalist for the Star Tribune currently based in Washington, D.C., recommends “Greater Minnesota: Exploring the Land of Sky-Blue Waters” by author Patrick Hicks.

Hicks, who teaches at Augustana University, takes readers across the state in a travelogue rich with regional nuance.

Hicks will speak and read from his book at St. John’s University in Collegeville Thursday at 7 p.m.

Chris says: I came away from it feeling just this absolute sense of how large and how boisterous and how impossibly contradictory sometimes Minnesota can be.

— Chris Vondracek

Grieving through color and text in St. Cloud

Olivia Norquist is the marketing and programming coordinator at the Grand Center for Arts and Culture in New Ulm. She recommends “Letters to the Void,” a solo exhibition by Eric Twait at the Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud, running through November.

Twait will be present at an artist reception on Friday, Oct. 17, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Gallery C.

The show is a deeply personal exploration of grief following the loss of Twait’s' wife, Maria.

Olivia says: At our gallery, we actually had someone who left in tears after seeing the paintings.

— Olivia Norquist