Art Hounds

Lynnea Iverson Schmitz of Grand Rapids, Minn., treated her middle school choir students to the Itasca Orchestra and Strings Program’s new recording of the classic musical story “Peter and the Wolf,” based on the work by Sergei Prokofiev.

“It was nice, I think, for my kids to see that COVID can’t stop music,” said Iverson Schmitz.

It’s a message for everyone, and so is the performance.

In the video-on-demand, Itasca Strings director Pedro Oviedo introduces the story’s cast. Each character, animal or human, is represented by its own instrument playing a different theme. With the help of narrator Steve Jaeger of the Grand Rapids Players, the musicians tell the story of Peter and the animals’ encounters with the wolf.

The 37-minute performance is available on the Reif Center for the Performing Arts website through March 31.

When painter Marlon Davidson moved to Bemidji, Minn., in 1987, one of the first artists he met was Marley Kaul.

The egg tempera painter has been “a very big influence in my life,” Davidson said. 

Egg tempera is an ancient form of painting that builds luminous color through repeated application, and Davidson calls Kaul a master of the difficult form.

Kaul’s bright paintings on 12-by-12 panels are loaded with story and metaphor. Davidson also appreciates Kaul’s books. The two most recent “strikingly beautiful books” are a collaboration with poet Taiju Geri Wilimek.

Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art. If there’s a Minnesota artist or show you’d like to talk about, let us know! Follow this link to learn more.

Minneapolis singer/songwriter Taylor Johnson, aka Proper’T, gives a shoutout to an illustrator whose work is both prolific and diverse. Ocean Jurney, aka Chanci, draws, paints, makes collages and writes comics.

“One thing I love about [Chanci] is their vulnerability,” said Johnson. “It’s really a journal of how they’re experiencing life,” with poetry and sayings incorporated within colorful line drawings. Chanci, who identifies as a queer white artist, often uses their art to call for racial equity and social justice issues.

Johnson describes how he first experienced Chanci’s ability as a sketch artist.

Several years ago, they were together at a brunch when a fire broke out across the street.

Johnson and several others rushed to help.

Situation resolved, they returned to find that Chanci had sketched and written about the scene, in all of its intensity.

Ashley Hanson, executive director of the Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led organization based in Granite Falls, Minn., recommends a performance by New London, Minn., artist Bethany Lacktorin called “The Gift.”

It’s an interactive, COVID-19-safe arts experience for an audience of one or two that’s part of Lacktorin’s “Art by Appointment” series, which encourages people to make an appointment for art the same way they would for other self-care.

“There’s a lot of special magic in arriving and experiencing it,” Hanson said. She described the 45-minute performance as a form of call-and-response. The performer and audience communicate through objects and create a story.

The show is touring rural Minnesota towns. Hanson’s organization hosted the show at the Yes! House last week. It next travels to the Hutchinson Center for the Arts on March 27 and 28.

Tickets are limited. While you’re in Hutchinson, Hanson also recommends checking out the exhibit by Thomas Pultzier, “Bewildered Herd,” which runs through April 9.

Paul Melchert is a pediatric hospitalist from Stillwater, Minn., who loves art.

Recently, he enjoyed the “No Holds Barred” show at the Argyle Zebra Gallery in St Paul’s Lowertown.

The show features 85 local and regional artists with a variety of styles.

Work by familiar names hangs near pieces by emerging artists.

“It’s kind of a rebirth in letting people know that they’re still here,” says Melchert, who admires how the gallery has adapted to COVID-19. To replicate the feeling of a traditional opening, he reports that “each individual artist has been given a voucher to host five of their friends or family, kind of one household, for a one hour event with beverages and snacks to make them feel special and supported.”

Landscape painter Joshua Cunningham was delighted to see Hannah C. Heyer’s show “Wanderings'' at the Frameworks Gallery in St. Paul. Heyer is a self-taught artist from Nodine, Minn. Cunningham describes Heyer’s subject matter as “that rolling country that the last ice age didn’t get to.”

Her oil and watercolors, some painted outdoors year-round, are inspired the land her family has farmed for generations.

“There’s a real intent in trying to share the specificity of that light, that day, that season, in that painting,” says Cunningham.

The show is up through March 27 online and in-person. 

St. Paul singer-songwriter Shahidi always keeps an eye out for events put on by M.A.C. House in Minneapolis. M.A.C. stands for Mastering the Art of Communication, and it’s a Black-owned artist collective that coordinates arts and community service events.

“I think it’s just a pillar for the arts community,” says Shahidi. “For artists to have a space to share their arts, especially inside the Black community … it’s a space for young artists as well to connect and share their art.”

On Saturday, M.A.C House is putting on The Gifted Variety Showcase at the Underground Music Café in Minneapolis. The show runs 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Masks are required, and attendance is limited to 25 percent building capacity in accordance with the state’s COVID-19 guidelines.

Dancer Kelli Miles is looking forward to the premier of “Give Ear,” a contemporary dance film about listening and what it would mean to listen a lot more. The production is a collaboration between dance choreographer Berit Ahlgren and theater-maker Nathan Keepers.

The show was scheduled to be performed last March. Miles says the production got to its final dress rehearsal before theaters were closed due to the pandemic. Over the past year, the show has been expanded and reimagined to respond to this summer’s social justice movement, the election, and COVID-19.

The show premieres March 19 through the Cowles Center for Dance website, with a live Q&A to follow. The video will be available on-demand through the weekend.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of performance spaces going dark under the coronavirus pandemic, Art Hounds this week recommend three different spaces — two virtual, one physical — where performers, songwriters and visual artists can come together.

Christopher David Hanson, a singer-songwriter in Babbitt, Minn., first encountered Minneapolis singer-songwriter Sarah Morris as he assembled his weekly radio show. Hanson’s program for WELY features all Minnesota musicians. An avid supporter of Minnesota’s musical scene, Morris invited him to join the Singer Songwriter Songwriting Challenge group on Facebook. The group offers a songwriting prompt once a week in the summer and every other week in the winter. Members share their new music and offer encouragement and feedback.

Hanson said the challenge of writing songs from regular prompts has transformed his writing practice and connected him with a community of fellow songwriters across the state. He singles out Morris, calling her a  prolific and talented songwriter, and active member of the songwriting challenge group who give valuable creative feedback. For more of her work, he recommends watching the performances Morris films from her #biggreenbathroom.

Artist Katherine Story-Sutter of St. Louis Park looks forward to the grand opening Thursday of Walrus in Minneapolis’ Camden neighborhood. The new gallery is a space to buy and sell local art as well as vintage pieces. Story-Sutter loves the physical space inside an industrial building that looks like a castle — with high beamed ceilings and chandeliers.

“When I first walked in, I was stunned by the variety of art on the walls already,” said Story-Sutter. They are excited to volunteer in a space that celebrates local artists, Story-Sutter among them.

Walrus was founded by Michelle Courtright of Fig + Farro restaurant. Ten percent of net profits go to Juxtaposition Arts, a youth-staffed center in north Minneapolis.

Like other performers, Minneapolis-based singer-actor Ann Michels misses being on stage. In the absence of live theater, she appreciates the ongoing “Meet the Artist” series from the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Every two weeks, there’s a new conversation with actors and theater-makers who have connections to Ordway productions, past and planned. The artists are nationally known; the hosts are local. Ordway artistic director Rod Kaats co-hosts the conversations with a rotating cast of Minnesota theater artists. The free conversations each stream on one night.

The conversation Tuesday features Brittney Mack, who played Anne of Cleves in “Six,” co-hosted by Twin Cities actor China Brickey. The conversation on March 23 features Tamara Tunie from the Ordway’s 2019 production of “42nd Street,” co-hosted by Twin Cities actor and community organizer T. Mychael Rambo.

Dana Sikkila runs the 410 Project, a “community art space” in Mankato, and she loves talking about the creative work happening in south-central Minnesota. High on that list is multi-disciplinary artist Dinah Langsjoen who lives in North Mankato.

Langsjoen’s art uses watercolor, acrylic paint, pastels, ink and more.

“Dinah’s work always has a really strong sense of playfulness,” Sikkila said.

Much of Langsjoen’s recent work is abstract, and Sikkila loves the creative passion that radiates from each detailed piece.

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Photographer Anne Field also studies drawing. She says watching the process of Twin Cities artist Shawn McNulty inspires her to take more risks.

“I don’t think anyone ever told him to tape a pallet knife to his foot, throw a canvas on the floor, put some paint on a canvas, and then go after it,” Field said.

She loves the energy and mystery of his abstract landscapes, adding, “he puts a lot of beauty and courage into the world.”

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Stand-up comic Rebecca Wilson recommends a fellow Twin Cities comedian and magician David Harris, who has a new special “Recalculating” available through the Dry Bar Comedy website. Harris began performing magic in bars at 15, and his special includes both comedy and magic.

Dry Bar showcases clean, family-friendly comedy. Wilson saw a show in-person before the pandemic and called Harris one of the best crowd-workers in the Twin Cities comedy business.

“It’s never mean,” says Wilson, but Harris was able to “hone in on a person, draw out conversation, and then make something funny almost out of thin air.

As a manager of the Prairie Island Campground in Winona, Minn., Jamie Schell often directs guests to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in town. The museum’s current photography exhibition, entitled Tony Duran: California, departs from the museum’s water-inspired artwork, but there’s another connection. Tony Duran is a Winona native who has forged a career photographing celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Sharon Stone and Beyoncé. The exhibit includes those portraits and dozens of others.

“I started thinking of Tony as an old-time mariner,” Schell said, reflecting on the exhibit’s landing at the Marine Art Museum. “They would go out into the world, see all these amazing, unbelievable things, then come home and probably have a hard time actually explaining them to folks.”

Duran dedicated the exhibit, which runs through April 25, to his mother, who lives in town.

Photographer Sarah Sampedro appreciates both the backstory and the artistic goals of Melissa Borman’s photography exhibit “A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter.” Sampedro said that several years ago, Borman suffered an injury that limited her mobility for a year. Stuck inside, the photographer perused images of outdoor spaces, only to note how often female bodies were treated as objects or passive scenery in landscape photography.

After recovering, Borman invited friends to join her for outside photography sessions. Each person chose what they would wear, where they would be, and how they would interact with the natural world around them. In some photos, the person’s face is hidden, allowing Sampedro and other viewers to imagine themselves into the photo. In others, the person’s expression is an important part of the viewing experience.

Borman’s show is viewable at the Niche Gallery at Century College in White Bear Lake through March 9.

Minneapolis artist Jodi Reeb appreciates the photography exhibit of Steve Ozone’s work, “No Claim: Assimilation, Adaptation, and Integration,” at TractorWorks in Minneapolis. The photographs are of flowers and vegetables against a black background. Ozone is of Chinese and Japanese descent, and grew up in a predominantly white suburban town. His photographs of the Chinese vegetables, familiar in his boyhood home, explore the sense of difference he felt growing up.

Reeb calls the still life photographs “very simple and beautiful,” adding “against this black background, so you almost have a sense of reverence and special-ness coming through.”

The exhibit runs through April 21.

Plein air artist Naomi Tiry Salgado of Woodbury, Minn., is looking forward to Northrup King Nights this Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. The former seed warehouse-turned-studio building in the Northeast Minneapolis arts district opens up on a weekend only a few times a year.

More than 70 artist studios will be open, offering a chance to peruse a wide variety of artwork, including painting, ceramics, glass, and more. Masks are required, and individual studios have occupancy limits due to COVID-19, but Tiry Salgado said the hallways allow social distancing. Not all studios will be open, so check ahead of time with the artists you plan to visit.

Tiry Salgado wasn’t the only Art Hound to suggest this event. While you’re there, painter Greg Lecker of Minneapolis also recommends the Social Justice Exhibit, Gallery No. 322, featuring the work of seven artists.

Writer and recent Hamline MFA graduate Mark Teats is planning to attend the University of Minnesota, Morris’ Prairie Gate Literary Festival, which begins with a panel discussion, “Paths to Publishing,” on Thursday at 7 p.m.

This annual literary festival is usually in the fall. The pandemic has led to a shift in dates and format. Three events will take place over the next three months on Zoom. On March 11, three fantasy/science fiction authors hold court, and there’s an evening of poetry on April 9.

The Woven exhibit at Artistry in Bloomington is exactly the kind of exhibit textile sculptor Carolyn Halliday of Minneapolis loves to see in person, so she can appreciate the intricate textures of each piece both up close and at a distance.

The exhibit combines the work of three Minnesota artists. Teresa Audet is a sculptor with a background in furniture design who combines wooden pieces, such as chairs with fiber elements. Martha Bird uses traditional basket weaving techniques to create loose, airy pieces. Amy Usdin fills the spaces of old fishing nets and other found items with intricate knots and twists “that seem like they’re telling some secret story about the previous life of these objects,” said Halliday.

She notes that all three artists say repetitive techniques of tying and weaving help them psychologically after major life stressors. The event runs through Feb. 19.

Art and travel-lover Sue Thompson of La Cucina in Victoria, Minn., returns to the oil paintings of Ashley Dull to enjoy her handling of light on trees. “Her paintings are layered, layered, layered with lots of oil paint and so colorful. The leaves on the ground in her fall colors look as if you could step on the leaves and hear the crunch,” Thompson says.

Thompson particularly loves Dull’s painting “A Path Forward,” where two paths through a sun-lit birch forest come together as one. The painting took Dull 10 years to complete, as she paused after her children were born.

“She’s amazing at capturing the light,” Thompson said.

Vasiliki Papanikolopoulos founded Coimatan to celebrate local independent businesses. At Gallery 360 in Minneapolis, she discovered the mixed media art of Neysa Winterer.

What Papanikolopoulos first thought to be brush strokes in Winterer’s art turned out to be carefully torn pieces of paper. Winterer uses those bits of paper to mimic the impressionist brush strokes of Vincent van Gogh as well as to create her own landscapes and miniature scenes of homes.

Karl Sundquist of Virginia, Minn., who plays in the bands Big Waves and Bonfires and Pocket Knife, took an early listen to the newest album by Rich Mattson and the North Stars, and likes what he hears.

The album “Skylights” is more widely available on Friday. In lieu of a release party, the band will hold an “interactive video celebration” on YouTube that includes several homemade song videos.

Mattson is based on the Iron Range, where he runs the Sparta Sound recording studio in addition to playing his own music. His band has “an unbelievable, rich, good rock sound,” Sundquist said.

Betsy Byers teaches painting and print-making at Gustavus Adolphus College, but she drove from her home in St. Peter, Minn., to see Rachel Breen’s show “The Shapes We Take” at Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis.

The large, multimedia work contemplates mass-produced clothing and the issues raised in their manufacture. Hand-sewn collage elements, colored pencil drawings and fragments of fabric scraps from a Bangladesh garment factory work together — not just to create striking images — but to draw attention to negative space.

“As I spent more time in the gallery,” says Byers, “I kept thinking of my own clothes and imagining where those shapes might have been cut from.”

As a painter, Byers felt a connection to the work. “There were all of the elements that you look for in a good painting,” such as color, texture, pattern and high contrast.

“The Shapes We Take” runs in-person and online through Feb. 14. The SooVAC gallery is closed to in-person visits on Jan. 30 and 31.

Caroline Alkire appreciates the Kohlman and Pryor Gallery’s cheerful response to the winter blahs. The northeast Minneapolis gallery exhibition “The Color Series, Part 4: Orange” includes paintings and sculpture by seven Minnesota artists. The styles vary, but they are united by color.

“It’s really great to be able to enter a nice, warm space in the winter time,” says Alkire. “Coming into the gallery and seeing all of these orange pieces, it lifts your heart a little bit and makes you feel a little warm.”

The show runs through April 3, with an artist reception at 7 p.m. on Feb. 13.

Daniel Oyinloye of DanSan Creatives in Duluth, Minn., loves the work of Moira Villiard. She’s a visual artist and community organizer who grew up on the Fond du Lac Reservation in northeastern Minnesota and now hails from Duluth. That’s where you will find her brightly colored murals at  Gichi-Ode’ Akiing park and on the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus.

In Lincoln Park, Villiard’s team and artist Michelle Defoe of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe have covered a 60-foot wall with dragonflies, ricing and other images. The work is called “Aanjibimaadiziwag Manidoonsag” which means “The Small Spirits are Changing Form” in the Anishinaabe language.

Oyinloye says “color, light and flow” describe Villiard’s work. He says her community focus draws others into the process of creation.

Photographer and drawing student Anne Field is excited about the Arts North 26: International Juried Exhibition at Hopkins Center for the Arts. The show drew more than 700 entries from around the United States as well as six countries, and 168 are on display in Hopkins, Minn.

Two-thirds of the gallery pieces — painting, sculpture and other visual art — are by Minnesotans.

It’s the first year that the Hopkins Center, southwest of downtown Minneapolis, has administered the show.

Due to the pandemic, visitors may view the exhibition in-person or online. Field said the virtual tour of the exhibition was thoughtfully filmed, allowing you to pause in front of any of the pieces to enjoy, just as you would in real life.

Since artist Alexis Polen moved to Hugo, Minn., a year and a half ago, she connects with Minnesota artists by following them on Instagram. She recommends the postings of Save the Boards to Memorialize the Movement.

The project is led by Kenda Zellner-Smith and Leesa Kelly, who, along with other volunteers, gather and preserve art that responds to the police killing of George Floyd. This art, painted on the plywood that covered windows in the cities during the unrest, expresses grief, rage, hope and healing. The collection consists of more than 600 panels and needs cataloguing and conserving.

Polen has been struck by the work to track down and transport art, as well as raise money to fund the project. She admires “the transparency of these women on social media [who are] taking their passion and their cause and building it into an actual movement in real time. There’s something amazing and brave about the ability to not only follow a dream but to put it out there for people to see.”

Ellen Mueller, director of the MFA program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, says you should visit the Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minn., north of Stillwater. The outdoor venue features “more sculptures than you could see in a day if you wanted to,” says Mueller. “You can run into giant works that are much larger than a human. You can have very site-specific works that you walk through, into, and between.” Some sculptures clearly represent something in the real world, others are abstract.

Mueller highly recommends a visit to the free community ice rink. Next to it, there’s a new installation by New York artist Jason Peters. By day, it looks like a series of white buckets, but by night it lights up and changes colors. The rink remains open daily through February, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., weather permitting.

Correction (Jan. 21, 2021): An earlier version of this post misspelled Alexis Polen's name. The story has been updated.