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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An arts retreat

Andrew Rosendorf of Minneapolis says he wouldn’t be the playwright he is today without the support he received early in his career from the Tofte Lake Center.

He wants artists at all levels of their career to know that applications for next summer’s artist retreats are open now through the end of December. 

Andrew says: I just want you to imagine going to a pristine lake near Ely, Minnesota, that’s adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. You paddleboard, you canoe, you wade feet into the lake.

You sit around a fire pit at night looking up at the crystal-clear night sky, like you’re at a planetarium. And you also get a work on your art surrounded by a community of artists. That’s Tofte Lake Center. I find it’s a soul-centering place that leaves lives and breathes the value that nature is nurture. 

It gives access to artists at all levels of disciplines, and identities: those who are emerging, parents, BIPOC artists, arts educators who need time to center their own work and small collaborative teams. 

I first got introduced to Toffee Lake Center because about 15 years ago, when I was in my late 20s, I went there to work on a play, and Liz Engelman, who is the founder and who runs Tofte Lake Center, said, “Come work on your play. We believe in you and your voice.” And for any artist starting out, there’s a huge sense of imposter syndrome, and here was a place early in my career telling me I belong, and that’s kind of everything for an artist.

— Andrew Rosendorf

Gratitude and celebrating love

Kerry Johnson is the high school choir director in Worthington. This Sunday, she’s headed to the Worthington Chamber Singers’ Christmas concert. The theme of the concert is “Love Came Down,” and for this 30th anniversary performance they will sing a work they commissioned from Venezuelan composer Reinaldo Moya, entitled “Ya Germinaba.”

The concert is Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Worthington. The concert is free, with a free-will offering. 

Kerry adds: Eric Parrish, the director, just really kind of has a knack for choosing themes and music that just really become more timely as the process of preparing that music goes on.

This year, the focus is on hope and on gratitude and on celebrating love, and the fact that we are more similar than we’re not. And I think this fall, especially, that’s an important message to to put out into the world, just that we have a lot of common ground that we need to tap into.

 — Kerry Johnson

Escape into the world of dreams 

Mabel Houle appreciates the vibrant community of artists living in her Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis, and she recently got a sneak peek at a show by three local artists at the Vine Arts Center.

“Dreams and Abstract Schemes” features the works of Kim Pickering, Susan Kolstad and Karen Brown. It will be on view for the next three Saturdays, including during this Saturday’s Seward Frolic. 

Mabel appreciates art that transports us away from reality and into another world.

Mabel says: I find Susan’s collages of these earthy landscapes very soothing, very comforting.

Her paper has such wonderful textures, and the colors are just calm and peaceful; and that’s quite different [from] Kim’s vivid dream images, which are more mind-bending, very colorful, very, very abstract — just beautiful images of something that's not in this world.

Karen creates these very unique sculptures that are not completely human and not completely animal.

— Mabel Houle