Art Hounds

Megan Arney Johnston, an independent curator and contemporary art enthusiast based in Stillwater, recommends a trip to Winona to see Water Stories: New Work by Anne Labovitz at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. Johnston says Labovitz, who is based in St. Paul, goes to the “next level,” involving large-scale paintings and an even larger scale installation that evoke the essence and the importance of water.

At the entrance, visitors see Labovitz’s large scrolls responding to the Winona area and landscape. Subsequent rooms reveal a series of large abstract paintings, each a different hue,  and using layers of paint to create landscapes Johnston calls “atmospheric” and “sublime.”

In the next room, there is a room-sized installation of painted Tyvek house wrap. You walk inside and listen to the sounds of Lake Superior at sunset. Capping off the exhibition is a chance for visitors to write their own water stories in little watercolor books and hang them as part of the display.

Labovitz “really has it all in the art in this exhibition: installation, painting, site-specific work and social engagement,” Johnston said.

The exhibit runs through Jan. 22.

The Minnesota Marine Art Museum’s focus on our relationship to water means that it also has a connection to our next Art Hound’s recommendation, as a sponsor of a Winona-based podcast.

Visual artist Anne George of Winona has been listening to the podcast “Back Channel Radio.” The first season dives into the oral history of the boathouse community of Wolf Spider Island, also known as Lower Latsch Island, which is moored in a backwater of the Mississippi River.

The podcast is narrated by Gina Favano, who lives in a Wolf Spider Island boathouse. As she delves into local history, past media coverage, and personal interviews, she offers an insider look into this unique community. George says the podcast is “compelling” and “fills in the blanks” even for people who are familiar with the boathouses.

The season has six episodes, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Minneapolis-based art enthusiast Robert Borman recommends the musical comedy “Church Basement Ladies: Plowin’ Through.” The long-running show features the same four ladies, working at a church in a small Minnesota town as weddings, funerals and the stuff of life pass through. The ninth installment brings us to the year 1975, with its polyester pantsuits, music and (the church basement ladies’) slapstick humor.

“It’s hilarious. It’s witty. It has a heart. It’s just a great show,” Borman said.

“Church Basement Ladies: Plowin’ Through” runs through Feb. 15 at the Black Box Theater inside Burnsville’s Ames Center. 

Raul Gomez, longtime publisher of the High Plains Reader in Fargo recalls rushing to put the paper to bed by midnight so they could drive over to Ralphs’ Corner Bar in Moorhead to cap off the week.

Ralph’s was a fixture of the music scene in northwest Minnesota, drawing big names from the punk and indie music scene. The bar was demolished in 2005.

Gomez says he was pleased with the way the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County paid homage to the venue in its Ralph’s Corner Bar exhibit at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead.

Each of the four rooms in the exhibit “captures different styles and vibes of Ralph’s.” One of the exhibit’s four rooms looks like the bar itself, complete with wood paneling, booths, and a wall that looks like a pool table. Other rooms record memories of patrons and pay homage to its musical history, including instruments, band memorabilia and posters. The exhibit is on view through June 25.

Musician Sarah Larsson can’t wait to get on the dance floor at the Minneapolis Afrobeats Dance Party Saturday at the Cedar Cultural Center, featuring some of her favorite local DJs and artists.

Fanaka Nation, an Afropop/Afrotrap artist, is hosting. DJ Fawzi, whom Larsson calls the “go-to greatest Somali woman DJ in town,” will do a set, along with DJ K-Little and a live performance from singer/songwriter Carolyne Naomi, who recently released a new EP. Larsson loves the energy of these performers.

This is an all-ages event. Doors open at 7 p.m. for an 8 p.m. show.

If you’re looking for unusual musical theater productions this holiday, Minneapolis actor Anissa Lubbers recommends “Striking 12,” a musical inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Little Match Girl.”

Set on a cold, contemporary New Year’s Eve, an overworked businessman plans to hunker down alone at home when he encounters a woman selling holiday lights who is determined to spark some holiday joy.

Lubbers enjoys that the band providing the music, GrooveLily, also interacts with the performers on stage.

“Striking 12” runs through Dec. 18 at the Gremlin Theatre in St. Paul. The show was staged by Minneapolis Musical Theatre, which specializes in rare musicals.

Ashley Hanson wants you to know about an exhibit that celebrates rural Minnesota artists and stories. Hanson, executive director of the nonprofit Department of Public of Transformation in Granite Falls, recommends “Field Notes: 7 Truths about the Rural,” which draws together the work of seven artists of various disciplines. They explore subjects that make up our rural places, including small-town newspapers, post offices, mining and extractive economies, relationship to the land, and more.

Laura Youngbird of the Minnesota Chippewa, Grand Portage Band uses mixed media to investigate “issues of identity as they relate to family members’ forced enrollment in boarding schools.” Installation artist Matthew Fluharty of Winona looks at the ways rural communities are presented in national print media compared with local newspapers. Abstract painters Andrew Nordin and Lisa Bergh of New London look outward to architecture and inward to our emotional landscapes.

Hanson highlights the timing of this exhibit makes it powerful as it celebrates the complexities of rural life at a time when political coverage focused on voting blocs can oversimplify rural life. The exhibit runs at Form+Content Gallery in Minneapolis through Dec. 23.

Theater maker Ryan Paul North of St. Anthony Village is looking forward to seeing Spiked! at Granada Theater in Minneapolis. A co-production of Table Salt Productions and Rock What You Got, this classic holiday variety show promises music, improv and sketch comedy, along with a great line-up of guests that vary from show to show.

It’s family friendly, with a run time of three hours. North is looking forward to a chance to sit back, relax with a drink, and laugh.

“Spiked!” runs Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Dec. 3 and 4 at 2 p.m. and Dec. 6 and 13 at 7:30 p.m. Dining options are available before the show for additional cost.

Nicole Watson, director of the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University, wants to shine a light on a Twin Cities-area art exhibit that she found utterly thought-provoking. “Surface Tension” at Bethel University’s Olson Gallery features the work of four female photographers, Sophia Chai, Paula McCartney, Christine Nguyen and Letha Wilson. Chai is from Rochester and McCarthy is based in the Twin Cities.

Each artist pushes their work beyond the bounds of a printed photograph. Sometimes these changes are 3-dimensional, like McCartney’s ceramic geometric shapes that play on the light and shadow in her photographs. “The longer you look at them the more surprises that surface,” Watson said. In Nguyen’s work, light and time change the appearance of her unprocessed photographic paper.

The exhibit is open to the public and on view through Dec. 16.

St. Paul poet and artist Hawona Sullivan Janzen was deeply moved by the multimedia exhibition “Beneath the Stripes, Under the Stars,” curated by Fawzia Khan. Ten female artists explore American identity.

All of the artists “have lived a life that requires some navigation between American culture and at least one other culture,” says Sullivan Janzen, “and the work that they have produced in response to this is wide ranging. It’s technically, visually and intellectually some of the most complicated work I've seen in a recent show exploring these topics.”

Sullivan Janzen was particularly struck by a beautiful bedsheet by Khan, whose intricate embroidery explores “what it means to be a woman and a sexual being coming from Pakistan and living in America.”

The show runs through Dec. 11 at the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, with an artist discussion Dec. 7, 6:30 p.m. via Zoom.

Chris Schellinger, director of the Avon Hills Folk School, appreciates the intersection of art and environmentalism that’s happening at the Whitney Gallery in St. Cloud. Their juried art show “Trail Mix” features over 50 works — drawings and paintings, textile and sculpture — by local artists celebrating the beauty of nature and the work to fight climate change.

The show runs through Dec. 10, with additional works on view at the Good Earth Food Co-op Gallery through Jan. 1.

Schellinger notes that this show is a great chance to see the Whit before it closes Dec. 12. The gallery is also hosting a line-up of “Last Call” shows and events on that closing date.

Printmaker and quilter Laura Brown of Grand Marais recommends checking out an upcoming solo show by artist and art therapist Lauren Callis. Entitled “Careful May Fall Apart,” the show uses watercolor, quilting, and writing to process the death of her beloved grandmother and other life events.

Callis created a zine with selected writings, so visitors can view the show and read about the “real-time” experiences that inspired the pieces, creating the feel of an interactive memoir.

“She’s really bringing in the value of using art as a tool for processing emotion and understanding experiences that happen to all of us,” Brown said.

“Careful, May Fall Apart” is showing at the Pink Slip Gallery in Minneapolis, with an artist opening Friday, Nov. 18 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The exhibit is open by appointment Nov. 19 through 25.

Arts and culture enthusiast Tommy Sar of St. Paul recommends checking out the screening of a new documentary centering women and nonbinary people in Taiko drumming. Filmed in Minnesota and Japan, “Finding Her Beat” makes its state premiere this weekend during the Sound Unseen film festival.

For centuries, only men were allowed to take part in the traditional Japanese art form of Taiko drumming. That has changed in recent years. Sar remembers when performers gathered at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul several years ago, which is featured in the film. Sar called the documentary of the performers’ Taiko journeys “moving and powerful,” with high-energy performances.

The first showing of the film on Friday has sold out, but there is a second showing Sunday at 8:15 p.m. at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. Virtual tickets are also available.

Amateur guitarist Chuck House of St. Paul plans to attend the next concert in the Minnesota Guitar Society’s new Jazz and Fingerstyle Guitar Concert series. The concert on Tuesday features two talented local guitar duos playing hot club jazz.

At 6 p.m. the Red Hot Django Peppers duo Ryan Picone and Jose Betanzos show off the intricate fingerwork and swinging rhythms of late Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt. Famous for his improvisations, Reinhardt didn’t write his compositions down. Instead this Twin Cities duo will play a mix of original arrangements and tunes adopted from recordings by Reinhardt and his fans.

From 7 to 9 p.m., guitarists Pavel Jany and Dean Harrington take the stage with a variety of styles including swing.

The event is free, but seating is limited at MetroNOME Brewery in St. Paul.

As an artist in southwestern Minnesota, Lucy Tokheim of Dawson has seen the ripple effect first-hand of the long career of Franz Allbert Richter in nearby Clarkfield. Richter, who recently turned 80, worked closely with Minnesota poets Robert Bly and Bill Holm, creating drawings from many of Bly’s books during the Seventies Press period.

A collection of Franz Allbert Richter’s pencil drawings and clay folk figures, titled “A Life in Art,” is at Madison Mercantile, which has a gallery space, in Madison, Minn. The show’s opening is Thursday at 7 p.m., when Pioneer PBS will interview fans of Richter’s work for a “Postcards” episode to air next year. The work will be on view through the month of November.

Tokheim notes that many of Richter’s drawings from the 1970s and 80s were completed at a time when good art photography was scarce, making it difficult to preserve copies of original drawings. She says this gathering of even a portion of Richter’s work is a great opportunity.

Mark Ceilley of St. Paul has picture books on the mind, as a debut author himself. On a recent trip through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Ceilley discovered Picture Book Parade.

The series features one picture book by a Minnesota author every two months through next August. Individual pages are blown up on panels so that visitors may feel they are stepping into the story.

The book for this month and next is “In Search of the Gingerbread Man” by Timi Bliss, followed in 2023 by Peter Pearson’s “How to Eat an Airplane,” Molly Beth Griffen’s “Ten Beautiful Things,” Cheryl Minnema’s book “Johnny’s Pheasant” and Bao Phi’s “A Different Pond.”  

The exhibit is located between gates C18 and C19 at Terminal 1.

Wendy Knox of Frank Theatre stopped at Prove Collective in Duluth to see Carolyn Sue Olson’s work. Olson created a series of brightly colored oil pastel portraits of essential workers, beginning with the stay-at-home order in March 2020 and continuing through July 2021.

The portraits have been on display in various locations around the state, but this is the first time all 100 have been exhibited together. Olson has put the complete series in a book, which is available through her website. The show runs until Nov. 18.

Knox found encountering the entire collection a powerful experience. “You forget certain things that have happened” over the course of the pandemic, Knox said, “it is a little stroll down a not-pleasant memory lane, but it is really informative to see” what we’ve been through.

Breanne Tepler, lead singer/songwriter of Breanne Marie and the Front Porch Sinners, loves the art and music scene in Duluth. This Thursday evening, she’s heading to Wussow’s Concert Cafe, which she calls “the heart and soul of the Duluth music scene,” for a concert and artist’s opening reception.

The artist is Annmarie Geniusz, a “wickedly talented” Duluth-based artist who creates joyful, whimsical creative works, from illustrations and murals to stained glass creations. Geniusz will be the November featured artist at Wussow’s, and the artist’s reception will feature local ska band, Woodblind, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Tepler also says to check out the mural Geniusz painted next door Wussow’s, at Zenith Bookstore.

Musician Woody Stulberg looks forward to wearing his Halloween costume to Cabarave: MadHaus III this weekend.

He says the event by RatHaus Productions as an “immersive nightclub experience with a theater twist.” Pop-up live performances include aerial silks, fire dancing, live music and performance painting, which take place around — and above — the audience.

Stulberg describes the atmosphere as “sensual” but also welcoming to all. Halloween costumes and audience participation are encouraged.

The shows take place this Friday and Saturday evening at Brother Justus Whiskey Company in Minneapolis. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the shows start at 8 p.m.

Greg Krausert of Austin, Minn. is also planning on wearing a Halloween costume this Saturday night when he attends a cabaret performance at the Austin Country Club by local drag performer Roxie Manacoochi.

Backed by a DJ, Manacoochi sings a range of styles from Cole Porter to Madonna to contemporary fare. She was named first runner up to Miss Gay Iowa USofA and is preparing to compete again this January.

“It’s unbelievable fun,” says Krausert of the show, recalling Manacoochi’s September performance, which kept the audience laughing and singing far beyond the scheduled run time. Saturday’s cabaret show starts at 7:30 p.m. 

Twin Cities filmmaker Peter Groynom is looking forward to attending the Twin Cities Film Fest, which continues with a full lineup of showings tonight, Friday and Saturday. 

The films play at the ShowPlace ICON Theatre in St Louis Park, and Groynom says this centralized location makes it easy to see multiple shows and also have a chance to connect with other filmmakers and enthusiasts.

The year’s festival has drawn about 70 films by local, national and international filmmakers. The films are also accessible to stream through the festival website.

Groynom appreciates how the festival spotlights diverse programming. On his watch list: a series of dramatic shorts called “American Tales” Friday at 2:30; a block of comedic shorts called “The Joke’s on Us” Saturday at 12:30 — both with filmmaker Q&As afterward; and a Saturday afternoon documentary, “Jimmy in Saigon,” which explores the life, romance and death of a queer veteran in Vietnam. Find the schedule here.

Actor Heather Meyer of Eden Prairie has a goal to watch all 11 productions in the Twin Cities Horror Festival. Advertised as “the longest-running horror theater festival in the country,” the event pays homage to the horror genre from psychological thrillers to true crime, spooky cabaret, and scream-inducing plays replete with stage blood.

Meyer says each show in the line-up is rated for language, violence and blood, so you can pick the brand of horror that works for you.

The festival runs Thursday through Oct. 30 at the Crane Theater in Minneapolis. Masks are required except when eating, drinking or performing on stage.

Minneapolis actor Cathleen Fuller calls concerts by the Minnesota Bach Ensemble “balm for the soul.” She enjoyed watching their concerts online when venues were closed amid the pandemic, and she’s excited to see them return to live performances as they launch their 10th anniversary season, beginning this Saturday.

As the name implies, the ensemble focuses on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and other baroque contemporaries. This performance includes Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” and G. F. Handel’s “Water Music,” along with works by Rameau and Purcell, featuring soprano, tenor and baritone soloists.

Concerts are Saturday at 3 p.m., Monday at 7 p.m. at Antonello Hall at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis.

Actor Leslie Vincent loves the podcast “This Queer Book Saved My Life.” She appreciates that each episode focuses on one book from the LBGTQ+ cannon that profoundly affected one reader. The podcast leans into the power of reading and sharing stories.

Host J.P. Der Boghossian and producer Jim Pounds are based in the Twin Cities, and while guests are national and occasionally international, the most recent episode delves into local history.

Recorded live at Lush Lounge and Theater in Minneapolis, the episode is about a memoir, “The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s,” by Ricardo J. Brown, and a reader who found that book at the perfect time in his life.

The second season dropped Oct. 4, with new episodes each Tuesday.

Correction: A previous headline misstated the type of art featured in the Twin Cities Horror Festival. The above headline is correct.

Karen Mary Davalos, professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, suggests a visit to see Dougie Padilla and Xavier Tavera’s new work at Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing. Titled “Frontera Liminal,” the show investigates borders both physical and spiritual.

Padilla’s series of screen prints forge a connection with his great-grandmother, whom he never met. Among his images are ghost prints, the second, third, or more pulls on the same inked plate of a printing press, that produce ethereal remnants of the original image. Even the hanging of the images is ghostly, said Davalos. The images hang free from the ceiling, allowing them to move in the breeze and adding a sculptural element to 2-D images.

Tavera is a photographer who has been traveling to the Mexican border for more than six years. He’s interested in the intersection of Catholic and Indigenous spiritual practices, creating images that Davalos calls “charged and emotionally compelling.”

The exhibit runs through Nov 5. and is capped with an artist talk and closing reception at 1 p.m. that afternoon.

Beverly Roberts of Homewood Studios appreciates the intricate felted creations of Susan J. Sperl. Sperl’s latest exhibit, entitled “Voices from the Water,” showcases her detailed, colorful sea creatures with such enticing names as warty frogfish, leafy sea dragon, wolf eel, Tasmanian sawshark. Many of these creatures face challenges due to plastics and pollution in their ocean environments.

Bringing these ideas closer to home are the cartoons about local water conservation and clean-up efforts, created by Winter Crenshaw and Donte Beck, students at Plymouth Youth Center’s Arts and Tech High School. Together, the exhibit is part inspiration and wonder, part encouragement to protect our water, from Minneapolis storm drains to ocean depths.

The show runs through Nov. 20 at the Westminster Gallery, located within Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.  There’s an artist reception Sunday from 2 - 4:30 p.m.

Ilene Krug Mojsilov has long admired the work of sculptor and painter Dodie Logue and she highly recommends a visit to see her show “Color Thoughts” on display at One Division Art in Buffalo, Minn.

Mojsilov recalled visiting Logue’s studio this summer and looking out through the open barn doors at the restored prairie in full bloom. The prairie’s color and texture infuses Logue’s abstract paintings, whose grids and dots always deserve a closer look. Mojsilov explains Logue’s work celebrates “the unexpected poetry of hard and soft…the interactions between color and texture.”

The exhibit runs through Oct. 22. The gallery is open Friday 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturdays 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Rita Walaszek Arndt, White Earth Nation, recommends “Kindred Spirits: Three Indigenous Artists Who Speak Through Beads” at the Gordon Parks Gallery on the Metro State University campus in St. Paul.

Curated by professor and gallery director Erica Rasmussen, the exhibit features three artists, from Minnesota and Wisconsin; Walter Super LaBatte, member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, Sarah McRae, member of the Red Lake Nation, and Douglas Limón, member of the Oneida Nation. The art displayed includes traditional clothing, paintings, wall art and wearables.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 20.

Painter and scientist Suhaila Ihsanullah attended the opening night of the two exhibits currently running at Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis, and suggests others check it out.

“[The opening] was very impressive, and I think that’s why I wanted other people to go and see it,” Ihsanullah said.

The two exhibits are “Night Shadows” and “Thinking Outside,” featuring the works of Michael Kareken and Jean Gumpper, respectively. Kareken’s medium is drawings and paintings. Gumpper works in woodcut prints.

Both exhibits close Oct.15.

Former owner of the Grand Hand gallery Ann Ruhr Pifer is excited for the upcoming American Craft Made market in St. Paul. The event, formerly known as the American Craft Council show, was last held in 2019.

Sponsored by the Minnesota-based nonprofit American Craft Council, the event brings artisans from across the country to showcase and sell their work.

Ruhr Pifer also says this year will feature more emerging artists and Minnesota artists than in past years. “It’s like a new version of an old favorite.”

The American Craft Made show is Friday through Sunday at RiverCentre.