Art Hounds

Anastasia Hopkins Folpe of Rochester, Minn., first encountered the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona several years ago.

“I would describe it as a hidden gem,” Folpe said. “It's on the river in Winona, kind of behind the downtown. You have to hunt for it a little bit.” 

She credited the museum’s director Scott Pollock for investing in spaces devoted to younger visitors.  

“It's just a very welcoming and mellow place. I just like to go there and hang out. I think people just don't know about it. So I hope everyone learns and goes there.”

Peg Guilfoyle is a writer living in downtown St. Paul and a longtime arts enthusiast. She’s also a fan of sea shanties.

“There is something about coming off the street into a room filled with singing,” she explained. “I'm here to testify to the flat fun of the sea shanty sing-along held monthly at the Dubliner Pub on University Avenue in St. Paul, and also in Minneapolis at Merlin's Rest on Lake Street.”

“No band, no sheet music or lyrics and all volunteer singers,” Guilfoyle enthused. “Who knew there were so many people who love sea shanties?”

The next sea shanty sing-along will be July 10 at the Dubliner.

Katrina Knutson of Minneapolis is a teaching artist and muralist. 

“You should definitely go check out the Chroma Zone Mural and Art Festival,” she said. The event will feature new murals painted by six artists.

“I'm really excited to see work by Sydney James, who is an artist who's visiting from Detroit,” Knutson added, “and Leslie Barlow, one of my very favorite Minnesota painters, will also be painting a mural.”

She pointed out additional pleasures of the festival, its location in St. Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone, between the two downtowns: “It's a great neighborhood to go around because there are dozens of murals within a few blocks of each other,” Knutson said, who takes friends and out of town visitors on a tour of the murals.

Events related to the festival are scheduled through Sept. 16, including a talk by artist Sydney G. James at Urban Growler in St. Paul on July 14.

Kyle Bernier is a Minneapolis-based art therapist and author of “Lazy Creativity: The Art of Owning Your Creativity.” He wanted to introduce Art Hounds audiences to the work of Susanna Gaunt, whose work can be seen through Sept. 5 at the Merrill Lynch Fine Arts Gallery of the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth.

“Susanna is a Duluth-based artist who's been working at the GLA for a year now on the Great Lakes Almanac,” Bernier said. “Susanna has been gathering stories from the community about their engagement with natural history, whether at the aquarium or just out in nature in general. Susanna has taken the survey and created artwork from those stories that she's now put up on display.”

Gaunt’s work can also be seen online.

Heather Beal of Minneapolis is a journalist who writes about the arts and all aspects of the built and natural environments. She recently heard about an art event that she says “sounds very cool.”

The event is Midsummer: a Summer Solstice Festival, taking place Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minn. 

“I've always enjoyed touring Franconia’s grounds because of the wonderful way that more than 100 sculptures by contemporary artists are woven into the landscape,” Beal said. “There is always something new to see and experience. This is why I'm especially looking forward to the Franconia Summer Solstice Festival. It offers opportunities to interact with the work of 10 local artists, including several whose work is in progress or has recently been installed at the park.”  

Activities include contributing to a prayer flag installation, making Solstice suncatchers and creating crowns from native flowers, as well as taking part in a maple dance, pine tree derby and a lantern-lit procession. There will also be a sunset observation and a bonfire. At 10 p.m., the Minnesota Astronomical Society will provide telescopes that visitors can use to view the night sky.

Laurel Podulke-Smith of Rochester, Minn., is a performing arts enthusiast. She recommends a new production of “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Rochester Repertory Theater. 

“The Rochester Repertory Theater is unique among community theaters because it's entirely volunteer-staffed,” she says. “I'm excited about this production. Because, first of all, it's a fantastic play, a fantastically dramatic play. It has an almost all-Black cast and it's co-directed by two Black directors, E.G. Bailey and Shá Cage.”

The play runs through June 25.

Noah Hynick of Minneapolis works at an escape room. He recommends a new play at Bryant Lake Bowl titled “The Assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand.” The play was written by Minnesota stand-up comic Joey Hamburger and is produced by Jackdonkey Productions.

“It's all about the events leading up to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand,” Hynick explains. “It's sort of a tragic comedy and follows some real things that happen as well as some not quite true things.” 

“Lots of places are still feeling the effects of COVID and everything. And now having new theaters come out, I think it's a really good chance to support smaller theaters and new art,” Hynick said.

The show runs June 14-17, with an additional performance June 22.

Amy Garretson of Rochester is the education and community outreach coordinator with the Rochester Art Center. She’s excited that a new art house movie theater has opened in the Cooke Park neighborhood of Rochester, Pop’s Art Theater.

“The type of films they're showing are either films that are shown before the wider release at the big theaters, or they're just independent cinema that you're really just not going to see screened anywhere else in southeast Minnesota,” Garretson said. “After a long drought, there's finally a place where you can go to see interesting, innovative independent cinema here in Rochester.”

Pop’s Art Theater’s screenings currently include “Dalíland,” a 2022 film about Salvador Dalí starring Ben Kingsley, and two classics of Hong Kong action cinema, “Police Story 2” with Jackie Chan and 1972’s “Fist of Fury” with Bruce Lee.

St. Paul’s Christine Sweet is a former classical music broadcaster with Classical MPR and a current member of the Twin Cities theater community. “Ladyslipper Ensemble is one of my favorite local chamber music ensembles,” she says. “And that's because every time I've been to a Ladyslipper concert, I hear something wonderful that I've never heard before — whether it's brand new or just new to me.”

She explains that Ladyslipper is “a group of four instrumentalists plus mezzo-soprano Sahar Hassan, who is its director. They typically don't perform as a quintet but in combinations of those instruments, or instruments and voice and sometimes they also have guest performers.”

The next Ladyslipper performance will include music of Gabriel Fauré and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, as well as a premiere of a new piece by Minnesota composer Carol Barnett. The event will take place June 12 at MetroNOME Brewery in St. Paul.

Ellen Mueller is an artist based in Minneapolis. She recommends “Im/perfect Slumbers,” on view in the window galleries and skyway entrance of the Minnesota Museum of American Art through August 20.

“You can be walking down the street, and you will get the privilege of passing by several very cool artworks,” Mueller says. She especially likes the work of Peng Wu, “who has some really great vinyl installations.” Mueller also recommends Rachel Breen's recycled textiles and fiber creations and Katya Oicherman’s work.

According to Mueller, the theme of the show is sleep, and especially disrupted sleep, “which everybody can connect to.”

Jenny Fogarty lives in Le Center, Minn. and attended an exhibition of photographs by Edward S. Curtis, who was raised partially in Le Sueur County and whose work often focused on Native American subjects.

“I went to go see the exhibit, not really expecting much. And I walked in and I was floored,” Fogarty explains.

She was especially struck by an early 20th century photograph of Nez Percé tribal leader Chief Joseph. “I did a drawing (of him) when I was in college,” she says. According to Fogarty, Curtis’s images offer rich details from their subject’s life, including “the arts, from the boats to the baskets … it's just a very awesome exhibit.”

The exhibit will be on display through the rest of the year at 48 N Park Ave in Le Center, Minn.

Full Circle Theater is doing a production called “Antigonick,” which is based on Sophocles' (spelled Sophokles in this production) “Antigone.” Twin Cities theatermaker, improviser and writer Shanan Custer says she is excited that the translation is “new and fresh.” 

Custer is also a fan of Meskwaki actor Oogie_Push, who stars in the title role of Antigone. “I'm just excited for what looks like a lot of movement and a lot of really beautiful storytelling,” Custer says.

The play runs through June 4 at the Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis.

Kate Lawson, a former arts administrator and current arts enthusiast living in Minneapolis, is excited for Art-A-Whirl, the sprawling northeast Minneapolis open studio art tour that begins Friday. 

In particular, she wants to point people to Hossle Woodworks. Founder Justin Hossle creates mid-century modern furniture and home decor. “The clean lines and natural finishes of his pieces really let the beauty of the woods stand out,” she said. “And it's a really fun experience to get to see how the pieces are put together in his workshop.”

Hossle Woodworks will offer demonstrations and classes throughout the weekend.

Sarah McGrill is an art consultant and educator in Minneapolis. She is a fan of visual artist Tammy Ortegon, who she says “has been a force in south Minneapolis, as she's owned her own gallery for 20 years and realized that she had never had a solo exhibition.” 

To remedy this, Ortegon is offering a retrospective of her work in her own space, called the ColorWheel Gallery. The exhibit is called “30years Reflect Back/30years Inspired Forward,” and, according to McGrill, “it's just an experience to walk in and see the inspiration that she has in her shop to support local and regional artists.”

The exhibit begins Saturday.

Shannon Twohy is a curator and fiber artist from Minneapolis. She recommends “Living on the Edge,” presented by the North Shore Artists League.

“As an artist myself, I think events that are pro-artists are so important,” she says. “I also love that the artwork and the exhibition are featuring the beauty of the North Shore.”

The exhibition runs Friday through July 9 at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wis.

Sarah Schultz is a freelance curator and writer in Minneapolis.

“I am really excited to see this body of work,” she says of the exhibition “Paysage Français: mémoire et fantasme” by Minneapolis artist Ilene Krug Mojsilov, which brings together decades of the artist’s work.

Schultz explains the show title translated into English is “French landscape: memory and fantasy.” She says Mojsilov’s work is inspired by time the artist spent in France.

“It's a rich assortment of work. It's both abstract, has elements of realism. [It] is a series of drawings and pastels and also large paintings. It's really beautiful and evocative,” Schultz said.

“Paysage Français” is on display at Alliance Française in Minneapolis through June 10.

South Minneapolis resident Davis Brinker took time away from cat sitting to recommend the play “West Point Players,” produced by Spiral Theater at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown Minneapolis.

The comedy tells about a troupe of aspiring Army thespians who put on a show to raise money for their military academy.

“It's a company that I think is really dedicated to just creating like, silly, unserious, very approachable work,” Brinker said. “I think sometimes the theater can feel sometimes a little bit stuffy and a little bit like taking itself very seriously. And this feels very, very antithetical to that.”

“West Point Players” runs through May 14.

Courtney Mault lives in Minneapolis but loves traveling to northern Minnesota where her family is from.

Mault recommends a Duluth exhibit by artist Lori Franklin and describes the Minnesota nature-inspired art as “prismatic.”

“A fox will have a big, bright pink splash of orange or pink on it, or a bear will have an image of a flower on it. So, very, very nature influenced but also … heightening that sense of the natural world,” Mault said.

Lori Franklin's exhibit “Hidden Realms” opens Friday at Siiviis Gallery in Duluth.

Patricia Anderson of Rochester is a choral director who teaches voice. She is excited about a forthcoming concert by Resounding Voices Chorus, “a wonderful organization that is part of a growing worldwide movement to improve the lives of people living with some sort of dementia and with their support partners through musical participation.”

She explains that artistic director Suzy Johnson ”gets a wonderful mix of music … and then she arranges them so that they really fit very well with the people that are singing in the choir.”

The concert is called “Rain or Shine” and will take place May 14 at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in Rochester.

Louise Robinson of Minneapolis has a career managing professional dance companies in Minnesota.

“I grew up in Winona in the 60s and never imagined finding a connection with the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam,” she says. “But years ago, my paths crossed with Ranee Ramaswamy, artistic director of Ragamala Dance here locally, and I have been captivated by the form ever since.” 

Saturday the Fitzgerald Theater will host Ragamala’s Dance Company’s “guru” (as they describe her on their website), Indian dancer and choreographer Alarmel Valli.

“Miss Valli’s style of Bharatanatyam is particularly emotional in its intentions and fluid in its movement style,” Robinson says. “Her performances are captivating, and that's not easy to command a stage for an entire evening as a solo performance. But that's her forte.”

South Minneapolis playwright and poet William Nour recommends “Returning to Haifa” by Pangea World Theater. This is a U.S. premiere of a play based on a novella by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani.

The play tells of a Palestinian couple who return to Haifa after the 1967 war to find the baby they left behind in 1948. They find a Jewish family of Holocaust survivors living in their old home.

“It's my reality,” Nour says. “I came here when I was 16. Basically, because there were no opportunities for Arabs in Israel, like as second-class citizens. So it's very poignant for me and it's just — I cried when I saw it for the first time.”

 “Returning to Haifa” plays through May 6 at the Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis.

Eric Heukeshoven is the director of Worship, Music and Arts for Central Lutheran Church in Winona, Minn. He says he’s “really excited” to attend “Portraits,” the spring concert for the Winona Symphony.

The piece that he's most looking forward to is called “Peanuts Gallery.” American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich wrote it, inspired by the characters of the comic strip “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz. “I grew up with ‘Peanuts,’” Heukeshoven says, “and it's for piano and orchestra and it's just delightful.”

The performance is Saturday at Wesley United Methodist Church in Winona.

Holly Harrison is a freelance writer and a creative located in south Minneapolis, and she recently attended a performance of “Othello: The Remix” by Minneapolis Musical Theatre.

“Unlike most tributes to Shakespeare, this one kind of tosses out all of the 17th-century dialogue,” Harrison says, “and rebuilds it as a hip-hop musical. Instead of taking place among Venetian military and political figures, it follows a hop-hop crew that’s going on tour.”

Harrison adds that “you really get to know your fellow audience members a little bit by seeing which references really crack them up and which ones slip past them.” 

“Othello: The Remix” plays through May 7 at Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis.

Daniel Doktori and his wife moved to Minneapolis and found painter Evan Abrahamson's work at local art fairs. 

“We kept running into Evan and his booth and his work. And we really fell in love with it,” Doktori says.

“His work is oil on canvas. And it combines this kind of really impressive skill in terms of rendering lifelike images of both landscapes and people with this kind of blurring technique that results in a kind of a haunting or like a dream-like type image and we think it's really quite wonderful.”

The show at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis runs through May 28.

Merritt Olsen recently moved to Minnesota from the West Coast and recommends the Rochester Civic Theatre’s production of “The Miracle Worker” on stage through Sunday.

Olsen recommends the play not only because it's a “wonderful, timeless play,” but also because there's an exhibit called “Child in a Strange Country” that accompanies it.

“This exhibit highlights the Innovations in Education for the blind and the low-vision,” Olsen explains. “It outlines an alphabet of touch that opened the door for learning in the fields of geography, biology, chemistry, physics, you name it. And Helen Keller's curiosity and lifelong commitment to furthering the learning of others influenced these educational efforts. So it's a wonderful marriage of the play and the exhibit.”

The exhibit is open through April 29.

Jere Lantz is a longtime music conductor in the Twin Cities and Rochester. He is excited about the debut of a new musical organization, The Classical Music Project.  

“It's put together by a bunch of professional musicians who feel that music from the Classical period is not as focused on by the public as it used to be,” he says.

The Classical Music Project debuts this weekend with two musical pieces: Beethoven's Sonata for Orchestra No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30, and No. 2b Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58.

The Beethoven sonata will be conducted by Yaniv Segal, with an arrangement by composers Garrett Schumann and Segal. 

The second part of the program, Piano Concerto No. 4, is performed by Nachito Herrera, who also is known for his Afro-Cuban jazz virtuosity, playing at the Dakota in Minneapolis, among other venues. 

The Classical Music Project will perform at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis on Sunday.

Correction (April 20, 2023): In an earlier version of this story, an artist’s name was misspelled. This has been corrected.

Nancy Crocker of Minneapolis recommends the musical “How to Avoid Burnout in 73 Minutes: A Minimally Invasive Musical Procedure.” 

“I saw this show in its initial run. This is a wonderful, life-affirming show,” Crocker said.

The show was created by Dr. Stuart Bloom, who also performs. It depicts his journey from a comedian in New York to an oncologist in Minnesota. The show is built around a simple premise: Bloom reads from a questionnaire designed to determine if someone is experiencing burnout at their job.

“And of course, doctors – and especially oncologists – have one of the highest burnout rates of any profession,” Crocker explains. “And so he goes through this questionnaire, one question at a time, but his answers are always in the form of a song.”

The musical is at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis from April 19-23. 

John Orbison of Minneapolis is an amateur musician. He recommends the season finale of the Bakken Ensemble at Antonello Hall at MacPhail Center for Music.

“All of the composers on the program are people that I'm not very familiar with … They delve into music that you might not hear anywhere else, featuring some of the finest musicians in the world that we're so blessed to have here in Minnesota.”

The season finale is Sunday.

Stillwater-born Patrick Hicks is the writer in residence at Augustana University. He’s looking forward to a pair of readings by author Christopher Vondracek, who will be reading from his latest book, “Dancing With Welk: Music, Memory, and Prairie Troubadours.”

“This book engages with Lawrence Welk, that cheesy and inescapably popular television bandleader of the 1960s and ’70s,” Hicks said, but also describes the book as “a funny and poignant coming of age story.” 

Vondracek will read at Fair Trade Books in Red Wing and Paperback and Pieces in Winona on Saturday.