Mai Tran, a woodcut and print artist from Mankato, is looking forward to seeing an exhibit at her favorite local gallery, 410 Project. The show is titled “Art Inside,” and it features 60 works made by people incarcerated at Minnesota Correctional Facility - Faribault.

The artists are students in Scholars Serving Time, a Minnesota State University, Mankato program. Tran is impressed with the works the gallery has revealed so far online.  The exhibit runs Aug. 5 - 20, with an opening reception Friday from 7 - 9 p.m.

The Fringe Festival kicks off Thursday and runs through August 14 with shows running under an hour at venues across the Twin Cities. Callie Aho, a director and intimacy counselor from Savage, is looking forward to attending. In particular, she’s planning to see Sheree Froelich’s show “My Empty Arms.”

The two-woman show tells of Froelich’s decision to give her daughter up for adoption more than two decades ago. The subject strikes a personal note for Aho, whose mother was adopted, and she says this poignant show is bound to spark conversation.

The show runs August 4, 6, 7, 11, and 13 at the University of Minnesota’s Rarig Center Arena. The show is appropriate for ages 16 and up. Find information on attending all the Fringe Festival shows here.

Suzanne Tibbetts is a huge fan of Twin Cities comedian Trish Cook, who will be performing along with Jonny R. and “The Rez Reporter” Rob Fairbanks at the NDN Way Comedy show next week. Tibbets, who saw the show a few weeks ago and plans to watch it again, says the three Native American comedians play off each other, but each has their own style.

Cook has ties to both the Red Lake reservation in northern Minnesota and to Minneapolis; she uses both of those worlds in her storytelling.

The show will be at Rick Bronson’s House of Comedy in the Mall of America on Aug. 10. Cook performs at 7:30 p.m.