MPLSART Sketchbook Project

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allison anne (they/them) is a Minneapolis-based collagist, mail artist, zinemaker, and graphic designer. Their practice of&nbsp;self-directed experimentation with many traditional and digital media&nbsp;is influenced by an education in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, where they received a Bachelor of Arts degree that also focused on Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. allison&rsquo;s myriad of interests and background create a personal perspective often expressed through recycled, found, and reclaimed materials. They are an active member of the <a href="http://www.iuoma.org/" target="_blank">International Union of Mail-Artists</a>&nbsp;and a founding member of <a href="https://twincitiescollagecollective.com/" target="_blank">Twin Cities Collage Collective</a>, a group which endeavors to expand access to and interest in collage in Minneapolis-Saint Paul and beyond. 
 
allison&rsquo;s focus on analog paper collage is a constantly evolving exploration of personal experiences through the reconstitution and rearranging of various printed media and ephemera. By recontexualizing images and materials, the artist creates complex, textural, and&nbsp;intuitive abstractions&nbsp;and configurations that consciously engage with themes of identity, physical self, and gender as they relate to the personal, the political, and the sociocultural. Prioritizing sustainability and that which is left behind, allison frequently works with rescued, found or recycled materials, using collage and correspondence art as ways to explore the intersections and interactions between context, materiality, and creativity.

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<div><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNjMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Structural Colour,&nbsp;paper collage, 8.5&quot;x11&quot;, 2020</div>

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<div>Blaine Garrett:&nbsp;How did you become interested in art? What were some of your early influences? 
 
allison anne: At the risk of sounding clich&eacute;, it&rsquo;s something I&rsquo;ve always been interested in. My mom has a significant arts background, having taught art classes before moving towards elementary education. I had a lot of exposure to various things through her college art history textbooks and the variety of materials found in my basement growing up. I also spent a lot of time at various museums with my dad while growing up, and started to form fairly strong opinions about various types of art early on. Most of those opinions have since evolved, but it is pretty neat to have vivid memories of seeing things like Claes Oldenburg soft sculptures at the Walker Art Center as a kid, and the opportunity to revisit those again throughout my life. I loved to draw and experiment with paper and recycled household materials to make different things as a young kid. I was fascinated by picture book illustration (Trina Schart Hyman and Leo &amp; Diane Dillon come to mind), cat illustrations by Louis Wain and Edward Gorey, that kind of thing. I wanted to illustrate books too, but in the end, that didn&rsquo;t really end up sticking with me.&nbsp;The earliest collages I can remember being interested in was the sleeve for The Smashing Pumpkins&rsquo; album &ldquo;Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness&rdquo; with it&rsquo;s surreal, detailed Victorian ephemera-based collages by John Craig, but I don&rsquo;t think I put much stock in collage as a medium overall until I was older.</div>

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As a founding member of the Twin Cities Collage Collective, could you tell us about the group and&nbsp;what they&#39;ve been up to? 
 
Twin Cities Collage Collective is a group of collage artists based in Minneapolis/St. Paul that formed in late 2018. Currently, we have eight members, and before the pandemic, were primarily focused on creating in-person opportunities for anyone interested in the medium of collage to experiment with it and connect with others. As our mission states, we strive to provide an inclusive, safe space to support one another and bring attention to collage as an art form. We aim to provide a forum to share ideas, techniques, and our work, and intend to be a positive force in the world of collage, its history, and cultivation. We took a bit of a hiatus during the pandemic, but are gearing up again. Recently, we started re-posting work from the global collage community on Instagram (use <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/twincitiescollagecollective/?hl=en" target="_blank">#twincitiescollagecollective</a> if you&rsquo;d like to participate) and have a few other announcements coming soon, such as a Discord server and a World Collage Day project. Check out <a href="https://www.instagram.com/twincitiescollagecollective/?hl=en" target="_blank">@twincitiescollagecollective</a> on Instagram or&nbsp; <a href="https://twincitiescollagecollective.com/" target="_blank">twincitiescollagecollective.com</a> to keep up with us.</div>

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<div><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzNzQwMDAy/full.jpg" />Ascend, paper collage, 8.5&quot;x11&quot;, 2020</div>

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Where do you source your materials from? 
 
All over the place, ha! Pre-pandemic, a lot of my material came from thrift stores, garage sales and other secondhand sources. I&rsquo;ve always enjoyed that kind of search for odd treasure. Something I love about collage is that it only gets better and better with community in every way imaginable. Sharing or trading materials with other artists via mail, swapping, and very thoughtful and generous donations from folks in the community. Folks will contact me about various books, paper, or ephemera that they are offloading to see if I want to take it, which is especially helpful as Twin Cities Collage Collective aims to provide collage material at our (pre-pandemic) meetups to address the potential barrier of collage material acquisition as a challenge to getting involved with the medium. We&rsquo;re currently working on some other ways to redistribute material into the community, so stay tuned. When I worked on my pieces for the sketchbook project, I used some materials that you had previously passed to me in the piece Drill 2. That&rsquo;s another element of collage that I love:&nbsp;the layering of experiences, of memory and community.

 
There&rsquo;s been a lot of attention on mail art during the pandemic. Why do you think that is?

Two main things come to mind. First, it prioritizes connection regardless of distance, and it thrives outside of institutions like galleries or museums. Mail art has always pushed back against that kind of structure, and is highly community-centric. There is also an intimacy or care present in correspondence and/or mail art that other manners of modern communication lack. There&rsquo;s an investment of time, of intention. And while there&rsquo;s plenty of exchanging with complete strangers in the mail art community, I&rsquo;ve always been struck by the extension of creativity and care present in it.&nbsp;

When I discovered mail art as a community and practice beyond making weird correspondence for friends, I was experiencing a lot of isolation resulting from an abusive relationship. Mail art felt expansive in expression and communication, something that was beyond the surveillance and control of my then-partner, and that experience solidified my personal feelings about the medium and community as a site of significant personal and creative connection. It&rsquo;s really great that others have found ways to get involved with it during the pandemic, and are using it to explore new ideas and connections outside more &lsquo;traditional&rsquo; venues for sharing artwork.&nbsp; &nbsp;

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5ODcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Mail art postcards: Compartment 2 (front) &amp; Compartment 3 (back)&nbsp;Walls, collage,&nbsp;d&eacute;collage,&nbsp;and vintage carbon transfer on recycled paperboard, approx 6&quot;x4&quot;, 2021

 
Collage has been gaining a lot of visibility these last few years. There are several collage artists in the sketchbook project. Do you see the medium becoming more accepted by the world of fine art?

This is an interesting question, and the short answer is yes, but there are so many layers to it. Historically, collage and photomontage have not been seen as an especially &quot;fine&quot;&nbsp;art, but it&rsquo;s dependent on the context of what&rsquo;s being discussed, and how fine art is being defined. Collage has certainly risen in visibility, and it does seem like there is a wider interest in it from galleries and publications these days. Collagists are good at creating their own spaces for their art, too. There&#39;s so much community, and various collage groups that exist all over the world. The medium lends itself well to self-publishing in zine and book format, and there are many publications that are exploring it, such as <a href="https://www.cutmeupmagazine.com/" target="_blank">Cut Me Up Magazine</a>, <a href="https://www.plastikcombmag.com/" target="_blank">Plastik Comb Magazine</a>, <a href="https://oltrecollage.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank">Oltre Collage Fanzine</a>, and <a href="http://kolajmagazine.com/content/" target="_blank">Kolaj Magazine</a>. Every February, there&rsquo;s a project from Edinburgh Collage Collective and the Scandinavian Collage Museum called <a href="http://kolajmagazine.com/content/content/collage-events/februllage-2020/">Februllage</a>. Artists from all over the world participate, and it really shows how vastly talented and welcoming the collage community is. Personally, whether the medium is accepted as a fine art or not isn&rsquo;t much of a concern, because the community and accessibility aspects are more of a priority. The arts are a powerful way to connect communities, to teach and learn, to prioritize and work towards social justice. Expanding awareness of collage as a medium and a means of connection are personal goals, as well as a driving factor behind Twin Cities College Collective.

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NzAwMDAx/full.jpg" />dream insert, paper collage, 8.5&quot;x11&quot;, 2020

 
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How did you get involved in the Sketchbook Project? Did it impact or otherwise fit into your pandemic art practice? 
 
My friend Stacey (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/stace_of_spades/" target="_blank">stace of spades</a>) who is also featured in the project, mentioned early on that she was working in a collaborative sketchbook organized by MPLSART.&nbsp;You reached out, and of course I wanted to get involved! The concept of a local creative project creating some nearness and interaction at a time of isolation within our local arts community was really exciting to me. In terms of how it fit into my overall pandemic art practice, artmaking has been my main focus in this period of isolation, especially after becoming unemployed. Finding ways to work collaboratively during a period where the vast majority of my time is spent alone has been really great. There&rsquo;s long been an element of that present in what I do because of my involvement with mail art and the general interest in collaboration that many collage artists share, but the opportunity to be involved with the sketchbook project has been a chance to meaningfully connect with many artists in a variety of mediums in the Twin Cities.

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NzMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Mouldered, paper collage, 8.5&quot;x11&quot;, 2020

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Once the pandemic is over and it&#39;s safe to venture out once again, what is something you are looking forward to? 
 
I&rsquo;ve really been missing opportunities to engage with art and other creative folks face-to-face. A lot of what Twin Cities Collage Collective has been up to the past few years has hinged on getting together &mdash; talking, making, exploring. Those types of connections are something I&rsquo;ve been missing, and am really looking forward to starting up again in the future. I miss that freedom of movement without the constant risk assessment &mdash;&nbsp;just walking around with a coffee, visiting museums and other arts spaces, looking, investigating, talking to folks.

 
How can people support you and your work? 
 
A great way to support my work is by following and interacting with it on social media, especially <a href="https://www.instagram.com/allisonannecollage/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>. It&rsquo;s the main place where new work is posted, and is the easiest place to find me. There&rsquo;s a really vibrant collage community on Instagram! If you are interested in purchasing my work, I have an online shop for original works and zines as well as a print shop. There&rsquo;s also an option to subscribe to exclusive zines and other items if getting some creative monthly snail mail captures your interest! Finally, keeping an eye on Twin Cities Collage Collective and connecting with us is a good way to get involved with the collage community both locally and globally.&nbsp;<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color:rgb(237, 22, 144); background-color:rgb(250, 250, 250); caret-color:rgb(237, 22, 144); color:rgb(237, 22, 144); font-family:roboto,helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:15.75px; letter-spacing:0.1686825007200241px">&diams;

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<img alt="" height="314" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzNTQwMDAx/full.jpg" width="314" /> 
allison anne. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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To learn more about the artist and their&nbsp;work, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://allisonanne.com/" target="_blank">allisonanne.com</a><a href="http://www.lorahlavsa.com/" target="_blank">,</a>&nbsp;or follow them on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/allisonannecollage/" target="_blank">@allisonannecollage</a>. Banner image:&nbsp;SPEAK EASY (detail),&nbsp;sketchbook paper collage, 2021
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The local collage artist discusses the state of the medium, sourcing materials, and community.

Sketchbook Artist Profile: Q&A with allison anne

MPLSART

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Unlike many of us who &mdash; perhaps by birth, marriage, or employment &mdash; came to live in the frigid plains of the Midwest, interdisciplinary artist and MCAD MFA graduate Roshan Ganu shares that she came here for the polar vortex. Not in spite of it. What&rsquo;s more, it&rsquo;s these thoughts on the insulation and reflection &mdash; literal and otherwise &mdash; ushered in by winter that frame both the monumental and miniature life and work of Roshan Ganu.

&ldquo;I love the winter,&rdquo; says Ganu proudly. &ldquo;For one, it always teaches me something new. There&rsquo;s something about the fresh snow, especially how it looks at night. The reflectivities&hellip; The way that any trace of light bounces off of it and brightens the street.&rdquo;

Looking back to just last year, during an artist residency that she undertook in rural Minnesota, Ganu recalls, &ldquo;There were times that you couldn&rsquo;t tell where the earth had ended and the sky began.&rdquo;

With a collection of work that scales the sides of buildings and captures entire sentiments in a stretch of cotton-sheathed streetlight, it&rsquo;s no surprise that someone of Ganu&rsquo;s imagination would come to such mythical epiphanies about a season that even the most veteran Minnesotans might come to resent every now and again.

Ganu&rsquo;s sculptural installations play with scale &mdash; some larger than life, others shrunk way down and incorporated into animations. Her&nbsp;love of cartooning lends the work a playful sense of humor, even as she&#39;s investigating very real themes of identity, immigration, and isolation.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzNTMwMDAx/full.jpg" />A recurring character in Ganu&#39;s work is Chappal, an animated cartoon slipper commonly worn in India, who has adventures here in Minnesota. Screenshot from 2-part video series made in conjunction with the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Thinking again about her time in the snowy, rural flatlands, Ganu remembers the isolation as what led her to internal reflection. When asked what being an artist means to her, Ganu admits she never thought that she was one. The idea of art was always outlined with rigidity.

&ldquo;It was always the Renaissance, the pristine human figure. That&rsquo;s not what my work is.&rdquo;

Growing up in the Indian state of&nbsp;Goa&nbsp;with her mother&nbsp;&mdash;a linguist&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;and her grandmother, who was a painter until the birth of her children, Ganu saw the work of her grandmother to still be art, albeit within the home: a love that often took the form of embroidery and crafts she made for her family. Art as service.

&ldquo;I saw art to be the act of creating a home, beautifying it,&quot; she says.&nbsp;&quot;Growing up with that idea of building home has really stuck with me.&quot;

Equally important for Ganu is the telling of a story. With an undergraduate degree in Journalism and a master&rsquo;s in French and Linguistics, Ganu shares that in her miniature works, &ldquo;It starts with a story &mdash; pulling from personal history &mdash; then juxtaposing it with a seemingly incontextual, &lsquo;I am here&rsquo;... Appropriating the space around me to create a sense of familiarity, always meeting the space halfway&rdquo;.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5NjUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Screenshot of East 25th Street, Minneapolis; papier-m&acirc;ch&eacute;&nbsp;&amp; mixed media animation; 2019.

Works like that of East 25th Street, Minneapolis operate as ample illustration. Moments become worlds within the sculpture&rsquo;s 24 x 10&rdquo; frame, and worlds become moments. Ganu describes East 25th as an experience in and of itself &ndash; a multi-media installation captured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G90BYrqdi4c" target="_blank">in this video performance</a> &ndash; laden with texture, scents, simmering lights, and even the sounds of her own voice.

&ldquo;I remember people coming out of it emotional, so I thought it&rsquo;s not just the size, it&rsquo;s the sensorial experience. My voice, the visual, the smell. If that&rsquo;s possible at this scale, what happens when I scale up? Will it hold?&rdquo;

Even her relatively large pieces, like The Banyan Tree standing at 6 feet tall, are still bound between the real and the fictional. And as is Ganu&rsquo;s artistic mandate, &ldquo;Wonder and amusement are kept at the center.&rdquo;

Her art, like that of many artists, starts inward. &ldquo;I view it as a strength that I am extremely vulnerable in my process. And it drives my process and dictates the final thing. Even after the thing is over, the living decisions are still translations of my feelings, that vulnerability.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s an illustration of the human condition &mdash; that if she is tender and puts that into the world for others to see and consume, then naturally there must be some universality to that vulnerability. For Ganu, that too is play.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NjkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Ganu&#39;s stage set for her upcoming collaboration with Ritika Ganguly&nbsp;at the Minnesota Opera, part of their MNiatures series: 8-10 minute collaborative&nbsp;operas pairing artists from different creative&nbsp;practices.

With projects on the way with the Minnesota&nbsp;Opera, the Artistry in Bloomington, and a solo show at the Duluth Art Institute, Ganu has no shortage of space for more worlds of miniature size and more tenderness. If she has to take a break, however, walking is her activity of choice.

&ldquo;I love walking,&quot; she says.&nbsp;&quot;Cities, towns, villages. It gives me a sense of place. I&rsquo;m doing that in my work, as well. This could be the research. And each city has such a discrete street language. Stickers, graffiti tags as mapping sources. I google and go from there. Investigating, mapping. When random people tell me about their day. The image of a cat drawn on a footpath.&rdquo;

Ganu makes clear that excitement drives her even in a packed schedule. That in light of the ways that the pandemic has forced her work to become virtual, it&rsquo;s also becoming giant. She&rsquo;s finding solace in a winter like no other &mdash; and rightfully so. Because when you work with concepts as huge and as utterly personal as Ganu does, you can find&nbsp;joy&nbsp;even&nbsp;from&nbsp;being in flux, comfortably. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NjgwMDAx/full.jpg" />The artist in her studio.&nbsp;

To see more of the artist&#39;s work, visit <a href="https://www.roshanganu.com" target="_blank">roshanganu.com</a>, or follow her on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/blingalingthoughts/" target="_blank">@blingalingthoughts</a>. All photos courtesy of the artist.

Ganu&#39;s&nbsp;collaboration&nbsp;with Ritika Ganguly&nbsp;and&nbsp;the Minnesota Opera, titled Xylem, premieres Friday, February 12th at <a href="https://mnopera.org/mniatures-tiny-operas-big-ideas/" target="_blank">mnopera.org</a>. The <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/unfurled-artistry" target="_blank">group show at Artistry</a>, titled&nbsp;Unfurled&nbsp;and&nbsp;curated by Christopher E. Harrison, will run February 26 - April 2. Ganu&#39;s DAI show is scheduled for the fall.

Mixing the large and the small, the real and the imagined, Roshan Ganu's artwork connects us to home by way of humor.

The Many Worlds of Roshan Ganu

Lora Hlavsa&nbsp;(she/her)&nbsp;is a Minneapolis based artist, illustrator, and designer. Her work is informed by intersectionality and inspired by femininity in its various forms. Raised by a Filipina mother and an American father in Minnesota and California, identity has been a core focus of Lora&rsquo;s work, and her bold and colorful pieces aim to convey a multidimensional world that reflects the many layers of the daily human experience. As one of the 68 contributing artists to <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/sketchbook/2020/artists" target="_blank">The 2020 MPLSART Sketchbook Project</a>, we wanted to learn more about her work and her practice.&nbsp;

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Blaine Garrett: How did you become interested in art? What were some of your early influences? 
 
Lora&nbsp;Hlavsa:&nbsp;I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home that fostered my creativity from a young age. I&#39;ve always joked that I am a &quot;professional dabbler,&quot; and I think it&#39;s because I was exposed to so many different creative practices growing up. I come from a family of creative people, all of whom practice in vastly different disciplines. Between both sides of my family, we have painters, writers, chefs, musicians, tailors, woodworkers, and scrapbookers &ndash; and that&#39;s just the last three generations.

While none of these practices may be capital &quot;A&quot; artistic mediums, I do think that being exposed to so many different areas of creativity growing up gave me the confidence to continue pursuing past childhood experimentation. Some of my fondest memories growing up are learning to draw with my parents, playing piano with my Grandma Evelyn, or learning to sew with my Lola Saling. That interdisciplinary nature of my creative upbringing has significantly impacted the pathways I&#39;ve chosen to take as an adult.&nbsp;

People find it surprising that I have a degree in Geography. When I was in school, I wanted to focus on art but lacked the confidence to commit to it full-time. Like many of my fellow Millennials, I had taken out a big chunk in student loans and was on scholarship, and couldn&#39;t afford to pursue something that I didn&#39;t feel sure I could make money with post-graduation. So I picked Geography, the perfect degree for someone with a myriad of interests because nearly any topic can be examined through a spatial lens. I loved my program but found myself continuing to gravitate towards art and wound up spending my senior year working on a senior honors thesis examining the community impact of murals in the Twin Cities. My fieldwork took me across Minneapolis and Saint Paul, documenting and mapping murals by local artists like Jimmy Longoria and Broken Crow. I suppose it was through this project that I started to understand the importance of art in Minneapolis &ndash; and that I could make myself a creative home here.

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUxNTMwMDAx/full.jpg" /> 
Jeepney, acrylic and acryla gouache on canvas, 24&quot;x36&quot;, 2021

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BG: Is there overlap between your design work and your artistic practice? 
 
LH:&nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe a little, but I generally regard them as two separate practices. I think of design as more &quot;creative problem-solving&quot; &ndash; your client comes to you with something that&#39;s plaguing them, and it&#39;s up to you to come up with a solution that satisfies all of their needs. You&#39;re bringing your skills to the table and using them to create something beautiful &ndash; but ultimately to your client&#39;s specifications. If you create something aesthetically pleasing&nbsp;but it doesn&#39;t solve your client&#39;s problem, you haven&#39;t really completed the task. Having an artistic perspective is essential to design, but having that strategic skill is an integral part of the process.

On the flip side, my personal practice is wholly my own &ndash; and thus a little more emotional and reactive than my design work. In my personal work, I tend to create pieces motivated by my own experience and the things that inspire me. Less thought is given to systems or problem-solving &ndash; it&#39;s more of an experiment, trial-and-error until I have a reaction to what&#39;s on the page.

Sometimes I need to turn that left-brain off and just focus on making. When I&#39;m designing, I spend a ton of time at the computer, staring at files, pushing pixel by pixel until something is just right. Painting gives me the chance to let loose a little, to step away from the screen and create something tangible that exists beyond my email.&nbsp;

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM1NzYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Cover Girls, Digital, 2020

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BG: Your paintings contain a lot of scenery and often feel like staged fashion photography. Is this by design? Is there a deeper symbolism? 
 
LH:&nbsp; I&#39;d never really thought about it that way, but I suppose you&#39;re right! As a kid, I was hell-bent on becoming a fashion designer. I come from a long line of tailors and sewists on both sides of my family, and growing up in the heyday of Project Runway and Teen Vogue, it was only natural that I felt the draw of the family trade. During my senior year of high school, I put on a fashion show with a couple of other girls for the school talent show and made three or four dresses that my friends modeled in the high school gym. At home, my closet door was plastered with images cut out from editorial spreads and print-outs of fashion illustrators that I really loved. While I abandoned the dream of becoming a fashion designer, I suppose my interest in fashion has remained. My day gig as an art director involves me creating visual concepts for photoshoots, and so I bring a little bit of that work home with me and into my practice as well.&nbsp;

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NzUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Quarantine Brunch&nbsp;Club, Digital, 2020

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BG: How have the events of the last year affected your work? 
 
LH:&nbsp; There is no denying that this year has challenged all of us in various ways, and I am no different. But while I&#39;ve experienced my share of personal challenges this year, I&#39;m grateful that my art practice has actually flourished in quarantine. I&#39;ve always considered myself an extrovert and usually spend a lot of time outside the house between work and social engagements. When COVID hit, all of that changed. I needed an outlet to occupy my newfound time at home, so I started devoting more energy to creating art. Having dedicated time and space to just making stuff was necessary to protect my mental health in the early days of quarantine.&nbsp;

I&#39;ve always gravitated to highlighting women of color in my work. My mom is Filipino and my dad is white, and throughout my life I&#39;ve found myself in predominantly white spaces, especially since I&#39;ve lived in Minnesota. Through my artwork, I hope to show a more vibrant and multidimensional world where women from all backgrounds are represented and celebrated as a direct contrast to some of the environments in which I grew up. In the aftermath of George Floyd and the uprising, I knew that representation was more important than ever, and so I&#39;ve continued to focus on creating work that puts women of color front and center.&nbsp;My work is about the quiet (and sometimes banal) everyday moments in women&#39;s lives, but uses color and composition to reflect the chaos and beauty of the feminine experience.

BG:&nbsp; I first became aware of you and your work through this year&#39;s C4W show at Gamut where you won the crowd favorite prize. How was that&nbsp;experience and how did it impact your practice?&nbsp; 
 
LH:&nbsp; Cassie at Gamut Gallery has been so supportive of me from the start &ndash; I probably would have procrastinated and missed the deadline to submit to C4W if she hadn&#39;t reached out to me personally. It was the very first time that I had participated in a show outside of school, and I was so excited to be featured in a gallery to begin with! When I won the crowd favorite prize, I was caught totally off-guard because it was already a huge honor to show with so many local artists that I deeply admire. The painting I&#39;d entered was titled Bisikleta, and felt kind of like a self-portrait: it depicts a woman on a bike, with American and Filipino flags mounted on the rear rack and surrounded by color and plants. To have won crowd favorite for something so personal to me was incredibly validating and, to be honest, helped me realize that I&#39;d found my artistic voice.

BG: What do you hope the audience takes away from your work?&nbsp; 
 
LH:&nbsp; My work on the surface is bright, colorful, and bold, and I hope that it brings viewers a little bit of joy at the very least. But I also want the audience to see that this vibrant world is far from simple and that each piece is telling complex stories with somewhat simplistic imagery. I like to think of my work as a modern-day I-Spy book; there are so many stories to be found in the tiny details, and there&rsquo;s always one more thing hidden amongst the chaos. But above all, I hope that my female-identifying audience sees themselves in my work, especially women of color. At the end of the day, I want my work to feel representative and inclusive. I want women to look at the images of a woman taking a bathroom selfie, or making a mess in the kitchen, or on the cover of a magazine, and see themselves and feel a sense of peace or comfort with a side of joy and humor.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3NjMwMDAx/full.jpg" /> 
The Bride,&nbsp;acryla&nbsp;gouache on wood panel, 8&quot;x8&quot;, 2020

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BG: Once the pandemic is over and it&#39;s safe to venture out once again, what is something you are really looking forward to? 
 
LH:&nbsp; Honestly, the first thing I&#39;d do is buy a ticket to First Ave&#39;s first in-person show. Doesn&#39;t even matter what it is &ndash; I just want to be in that room again, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow music lovers, drinking a beer, and listening to music as a community again. Before the pandemic, my fianc&eacute;&nbsp;and I were probably going to at least one show a week, sometimes at First Ave, sometimes at Turf, lots of times at Amsterdam, other times at hole-in-the-wall watering holes. Live music has been a constant in my life since I moved to Minneapolis and to have gone nearly a whole year without it seems unreal.

I&#39;d also be thrilled to be able to bring my parents to see my work in person at a gallery or a public show somewhere. My dad has always encouraged me to pursue art, even in the times when I didn&#39;t think it made sense. My mom has also been a huge influence on my work, and I&#39;m not sure she even realizes the extent of it. But my dad is immunocompromised, and my mom lives in California, so they haven&#39;t been able to make it to an in-person event due to the pandemic. It would mean so much to me to share this with them, so I&#39;m hoping that I can keep things going long enough to safely see my work out there in the wild.

 
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzNzMwMDAy/full.jpg" /> 
Pinay Pantry,&nbsp;risograph print on paper, 11&quot;x14&quot;, 2020

&nbsp;

BG: What&rsquo;s the best way people can support you and your art right now? 
 
LH:&nbsp; Well, I&#39;m really looking forward to reopening my online print shop in early February. I&#39;ve been working on some new prints and other products, which has been a fun yet challenging project to be juggling on top of a full-time gig.&nbsp; When I reopen, I&#39;m hoping that people a) buy stuff or b) share my work online so more people see it!

One project that I&#39;m really excited to release is actually an extension of my Pinay Pantry&nbsp;print. The original print came about as I was reminiscing about all of the Filipino treats and pantry items we had around when I was a kid. We&#39;d go to this Filipino supermarket 40 minutes away in Vallejo and pick up all the stuff we&#39;d need for a month. Here in Minnesota, that stuff is a little harder to come by, so I wanted to illustrate those items as a little reminder for myself. When I printed them, I didn&#39;t really expect that people would want to buy them, and I certainly didn&#39;t expect to sell out of them. So I started thinking that perhaps I could expand the project to other cuisines as well.

I can only speak to my own experience as a Filipina, so I enlisted a few friends to create a Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese version of the print. Each woman provided me with a list of everyday pantry items that they grew up with, and I illustrated them. Like the original Pinay Pantry&nbsp;print, half of the proceeds from the sale of these prints will go to a non-profit or mutual aid fun of each collaborator&#39;s choosing. The whole project is now called &quot;The People&#39;s Pantry,&quot; and I hope to continue to expand it by collaborating with others who have had a similar experience with food.

 
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3NTMwMDAx/full.jpg" /> 
The People&#39;s Pantry: Japanese,&nbsp;Digital, 2021

&nbsp;

BG: Thank you so much for your time and contributing your work to the 2020 MPLSART&nbsp;Sketchbook Project!&nbsp;I&rsquo;m really looking forward to seeing what you do next.&nbsp; 
 
LH:&nbsp; Thanks so much for having me! I&#39;m so grateful to be a part of the sketchbook project and looking forward to working with MPLSART more in the future.&nbsp;&diams; 
 
&nbsp;<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NzEwMDAx/full.jpg" /> 
Lora Hlavsa. Photo by <a href="http://www.voxlandphoto.com/" target="_blank">Hanna Voxlan</a>.

&nbsp;

To learn more about the artist and their&nbsp;work, visit <a href="http://www.lorahlavsa.com/" target="_blank">lorahlavsa.com,</a> or follow them on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lorahlavsa/" target="_blank">@lorahlavsa</a>. 
&nbsp;

The local artist, who participated in our 2020 Sketchbook Project, offers insight into her practice and aesthetics behind her work.

Sketchbook Artist Profile: Q&A with Lora Hlavsa

As we gear up to unveil&nbsp;MPLSART&#39;s 2020 Sketchbook Project&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;in which 68 local artists created original works in five traveling sketchbooks that will be auctioned off as well as collected and reprinted&nbsp;&mdash; we will be profiling some of the artists involved over the next several weeks to give you a taste for what&#39;s to come!

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ1NjMwMDAx/full.jpg" />God series, digital.

Ron Brown has been an artist all his life, working in painting, illustration, collage, digital art,&nbsp;comic books, and fashion, and says that he doesn&#39;t believe in being just one kind of artist because the world of art is limitless. Originally from Gary, Indiana, Brown moved here with his family&nbsp;to get away from the disparities in Gary and to be able to have a better art education. He&nbsp;had aspirations to go to&nbsp;Perpich&nbsp;Art High School, but due to transportation difficulties&nbsp;he became a freshman at Roosevelt instead, eventually attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before leaving to return to the Twin Cities&nbsp;at 19. His involvement with art has been in many community events, art performances, and anything that was Afrocentric to express his talents. He finds inspiration for art from the love of music, comic books, and the superhero Black Panther. &nbsp;

In Brown&rsquo;s art, he pursues the work of Afrofuturism because it expresses the beauty of Blackness and African diaspora culture. He speaks upon his Black culture and lived truth. &ldquo;My art is my sword and my tongue is my shield,&rdquo; he says. His paintings show bold lines, creating figures and facial features that represent the African diaspora in some way, literal shape, or form. And the paintings have warm and cool colors that come together collectively. Throughout his artwork, Brown has redrawn negative aspects of his past as a way for him to redraw his own reality. Many people imagine flying cars and the unknown future, but Brown&rsquo;s future is informed by his past, a reality revolved around the life of living in the projects and the struggles of being a Black man. In the world of visual arts, Black people&rsquo;s artwork doesn&rsquo;t get the recognition it deserves. Brown pushes back against this, creating art to make Black people feel proud of themselves and to feel seen. Because they have more potential than what the world credits them with. The challenges he experiences as an artist come from the fact that he&#39;s Black. Black people don&rsquo;t have safe spaces to freely express themselves culturally and artistically. Black communities are hurting from the many injustices that target Black souls deeper then we can imagine. This is why Afrocentric art is important in Brown&rsquo;s work. He believes that Black art must be celebrated so that we can see the many layers of Blackness in art and the many layers of Black existence. &diams;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNjIwMDAy/full.jpg" />

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNjMwMDAx/full.jpg" />

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5NjMwMDAx/full.jpg" />

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNjIwMDAx/full.jpg" />From top: The Umah, digital; Pop-up at Martin Patrick, bottle series &amp; acrylic on wood;&nbsp;The Naked Truth, digital.&nbsp;Portrait by <a href="https://www.jadepatrickphoto.com" target="_blank">Jade Patrick</a>, used with permission. Artwork courtesy of the artist.

To learn more about the artist and his work, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artofronbrown.com/" target="_blank">artofronbrown.com</a>, or follow him on Instagram at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/oppositional_gays/" target="_blank">@</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/afroanimeillustrator_ronbrown/" target="_blank">afroanimeillustrator_ronbrown</a>.

Banner image: Never Forgets (detail), acrylic on wood.

This profile was written as part of a new writing program developed in partnership with Juxtaposition Arts, in which our editor works directly with JXTA&nbsp;Apprentices to develop each piece.

One of 68 amazing artists in our 2020 Sketchbook Project, Afrofuturist Ron Brown works across media as the self-described "dopest Black artist in the Twin Cities"

Sketchbook Artist Profile: Ron Brown

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Russ White (he/him/his): First off, how are you? How has the pandemic affected you and your studio practice?

AK Garski (they/them/theirs):&nbsp;2020 provided me with many harsh lessons. As an artist I typically piece together multiple jobs to make ends meet. For the past five years my primary form of employment has been adjunct teaching;&nbsp;however adjuncts are contracted on a semesterly basis, and we do not have job security. I had no classes to teach in the spring of 2020 so when the pandemic hit in March, I was already in the middle of job hunting for seasonal work. Eventually, I was able to qualify for unemployment, which was a huge relief and an eye-opening experience. For the first time in my life, I was able to devote my full self to my artistic practice and I was not being asked to perform unpaid labor, which is always the case when I am adjunct teaching. I was also able to rest when my body was tired. Although I was &ldquo;unemployed&rdquo; I was working hard at something I am highly skilled at. I recognized with renewed clarity that maintaining a rigorous art practice is, in fact, hard work. If I pushed myself too hard, worked too many consecutive hours, I became less efficient in the studio. The only cure for depletion in creativity is rest. I began asking myself: what type of work qualifies as a valuable form of labor in the world today? I am still in the process of understanding and deconstructing a lifetime of toxic values that took hold in my life out of necessity due to capitalism. Americans are conditioned to admire people who succeed in their career at any cost, even at the expense of their physical, emotional, and spiritual health. I came to realize that a part of me thought of this kind of pedal to the metal, unsustainable career drive as an impressive mark of &ldquo;mental discipline.&rdquo; Unemployment taught me how I, someone who thought of themselves as an anti-capitalist, had accepted capitalist ideology on a deeply personal level. I defined my self-worth based on how much I could produce, with limited capacity for self-compassion and consideration of the societal conditions that make my life difficult as a person who is compelled to make art, who struggles with chronic health conditions, and who is also trans/non-binary. &nbsp;

Now that I am beginning to fully understand how maintaining a set of values that reinforce capitalism hurts me and my community, I am also beginning to establish new values. I am asking myself how I can continue to unlearn what needs unlearning while adapting my teaching strategies and artistic practice accordingly. &nbsp;

You are part of the new cohort of artists in residence at Second Shift Studio in Saint Paul. What has that meant for your practice? What are you working on there now? &nbsp;

Becoming a 2020/21 artist in residence at <a href="https://secondshiftstudiospace.org/" target="_blank">Second Shift Studio Space</a> has been truly transformational for my art practice. For 3 years I worked out of the second bedroom in my apartment, which is only 100 sq ft. Before that I set up a makeshift studio in my &ldquo;dining room&rdquo; (which was more of a glorified hallway in my one-bedroom apartment). &nbsp;I crammed everything I could into my second bedroom studio space: my flat file, drafting desk, two easels, and all of my supplies. I made it work, but I was always trying not to trip over myself, which made me quite anxious; I create technically detailed work with almost no margin for error from drips of water or paint. At Second Shift, my workspace has tripled in size,&nbsp;and I have access to a small storage space. I am able to spread out, I can hang multiple finished pieces and works in progress up in the same place, and experiment with different installation techniques. This has been particularly important as I expand upon a body of work titled <a href="http://akgarski.com/yes/no-text-portraits-of-consent" target="_blank">Yes, NO: Portraits of Consent</a>, a series of drawings and paintings of the words &ldquo;yes&rdquo; and &ldquo;no&rdquo; selected from literary and academic texts at pivotal moments in the narrative. This series consists of multiple, relatively small&nbsp;works on paper that utilize a variety of drawing and painting techniques.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNzgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Beyond Endurance, from The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde, oil on panel, 20&quot; diameter, 2020.

Often times, I am working observationally, as I study the printed word from the books I am referencing. Visual elements within the composition of each piece such as color, contrast, and emphasis vary in accordance with the context of the narrative and emotional tone of the text overall. I select each &ldquo;yes&rdquo; or &ldquo;no&rdquo; from texts that explore consent politics from multiple perspectives. Systemic violence, particularly violations of consent, are often viewed strictly through the confines of the gender binary. Therefore, I am specifically selecting books, essays, and articles by queer and trans authors as well as authors who are Black, indigenous, and people of color.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM5NjEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Do It Anyway, from Sissy by Jacob Tobia, graphite pencil on torn Arches watercolor paper, 2020.

I read each text closely. As I read, I am searching for moments in the narrative where a &ldquo;yes&rdquo; or a &ldquo;no&rdquo; profoundly impacts the story that is being told or the thesis of the piece of writing. A &ldquo;yes&rdquo; or &ldquo;no&rdquo; could be spoken through dialogue, expressed as internal thought, or utilized pragmatically in an academic essay. &nbsp;This project was supported by a 2019 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. Through the completion of this grant, I discovered that I would like this project to achieve a larger scale than I initially anticipated. I can envision a whole wall covered in at least 50 drawings. As someone who tends to work for long periods of time on a single painting, working more rapidly and at a smaller scale has pushed me to open up my practice in ways I never anticipated. It has forced me to let go of achieving &quot;perfection&quot;&nbsp;in every piece, which has been a frightening&nbsp;but liberating experience for me. &nbsp; &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NjkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Left: &ldquo;No, from Hunger by Roxane Gay, graphite on torn Arches watercolor paper, 2020 Right: No as No, from Hunger by Roxane Gay, sennelier ink and watercolor on torn Arches watercolor paper, 2020.

You&rsquo;ve developed an Anti-Racist Art Curriculum available for free online through your artist website and your Instagram account. Can you tell us more about it, how people are using it, and how putting it together has informed your own work as a white artist? &nbsp; 

I began working on the creation of the free, publicly accessible <a href="http://akgarski.com/micro-syllabus-1-white-privilege-in-art" target="_blank">anti-racist art &ldquo;micro-syllabi&rdquo;</a> back in July of 2020. This curriculum is a condensed and more user-friendly version of a traditional semester-long syllabus. It provides users with a curated selection of readings, explanations of key concepts within the readings, and critical thinking questions to guide them through the subject matter. The curriculum is an extension of my social practice artwork, responding to the growing need for anti-racist curriculum that draws direct connections between white privilege, the historical prevalence of racism, and visual culture. &nbsp;

For far too long, &ldquo;artistic liberty&rdquo; and &ldquo;creative freedom&rdquo; have been prioritized over understanding the impact of colonialism in art and developing the ability to recognize how inequities within our society impact our imagination and, therefore, influence the artistic process. The first micro syllabus confronts these issues head-on by tackling the following questions: How does racial bias impact our imaginations and the artistic process? How do white artists benefit from racial privilege? Do artists have the right to depict the stories of people outside of their racial group? These questions are specifically directed to white artists, as we are rarely asked to consider how white privilege shelters us from legitimate criticism from our BIPOC artistic peers and community members. Recently, we have seen a swell of white artists create work about Black pain, create images of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, take commissions to create public murals focusing on similar themes, with little consideration about whether or not such actions co-opt the pain of the Black community and, even worse, take up creative space that rightfully belongs to Black artists. Local artist Maiya Hartman wrote a piece about this that was featured on MNartists.org, called <a href="https://www.mnartists.org/article/black-experience-white-gaze" target="_blank">&ldquo;The Black Experience via The White Gaze.&rdquo;</a> &nbsp;

As a white artist and educator, creating this anti-racist art curriculum, I am very conscious of my own privilege. My background working in the field of equity and inclusion does not mean I am incapable of making mistakes or indirectly perpetuating white supremacy without realizing it. I believe we should all be skeptical of the underlying intentions of white folks working in diversity, equity, and inclusion particularly in regard to their income and whether or not they actively redistribute wealth to BIPOC communities. Because white supremacy is a system of domination created by white people to advance their global power, it is very easy for white folks to lean back into all the privileges that white supremacy affords us. At the same time, I also believe that white people have a responsibility to work to dismantle the system we created and continue to benefit from. Too often white people expect people of color to educate us about white supremacy, without understanding the problematic nature of such an emotionally exhausting request. It is my hope that my first micro-syllabus will help white artists take responsibility for our own education and start thinking critically about how white supremacy permeates everything we do, including the creative work we do in the studio. &nbsp; &nbsp;

In 2021, I&rsquo;ll be creating more syllabi that will not be targeted specifically towards white readers and will prioritize addressing the prevalence of white supremacy in art history while centralizing the artwork and critical theory of BIPOC artists and scholars. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about the curriculum from students, fellow educators, and local community members. Eventually I&rsquo;d like to put together an online course that utilizes the curriculum, but this is still very much in the idea stage for now. &nbsp;

Much of your work is about breaking down what you call our &ldquo;state of psychological duality that is encouraged by the gender binary.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s such a keen insight&mdash;how the social constructs around gender affect our thinking in so many other ways as well&mdash;and I&rsquo;d love for you to expand on that. What does a future with more nuanced understandings of our bodies and each other look like to you? &nbsp;

As person who is trans and non-binary, I consider it to be my life&rsquo;s work to understand just how deeply the gender binary has influenced my perception of myself and the world around me&mdash;gender identity and expression are really only the tip of the iceberg. So much within Western culture is measured within a false binary: logic vs. emotion, mind vs. body, light vs. dark, masculinity vs. femininity. These socially constructed divides prevent us from recognizing the validity of people and ways of thinking that defy categorization within a binary. Before I claimed my true self publicly and asked people to acknowledge me for the person I know myself to be (someone who is gender non-conforming, trans, non-binary, and gender fluid), I spent many years creating self-portraits. These drawings and paintings often contained two figures that assumed adversarial positions.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzNzEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Both Ends Burning; sennelier ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper; 72&rdquo; x 55,&rdquo; 2017.

This is perhaps best articulated in the largescale painting, Both Ends Burning, a piece that depicts two selves bound together by the same ACE&nbsp;bandage. ACE bandages are symbolic of early methods of breast binding. It&rsquo;s a queer symbol of gender non-conformity that not all cis-gender or straight folks recognize. ACE bandages are notoriously dangerous to bind with because they are not designed to move with your body. The more a person breathes, the more the bandage restricts and resists bodily movement. This can cause breathing problems, bruised ribs, and spinal issues. Nowadays we have much healthier methods of binding. The ACE bandage has become a metaphorical symbol in my work for the challenges of living openly as trans: the thing that frees you and gives you life can also restrict you, make you vulnerable. As a symbol it is neither good nor bad, it resists that kind of binary categorization. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5ODQwMDAx/full.jpg" />It&rsquo;s A Girl (detail); sennelier ink, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper; 144&rdquo; x 55,&rdquo; 2016.

During the time that I was making these self-portraits, I was still clinging to the gender and pronouns that I was assigned at birth, I was afraid to embrace myself fully as something entirely different. My artwork understood my desires better than I did. Once I came out publicly as non-binary and trans, self-portraiture became inadequate. I could not express the ways in which I was made to disassociate from the person that my childhood self wanted to be&mdash;the ways in which I had disconnected from my body in order to survive&mdash;through self-portraiture. So I began building a new visual language through a collection of objects. Each object is chosen for its functional purpose, symbolic meaning, and personal significance. I also gathered ephemera that had been cut or pulled from my body in the years prior to my transformation. I recontextualized these bodily fragments with other objects, giving them new meaning. These drawings/paintings created in colored pencil, gouache, and ink make up my newest and ongoing body of work, The Redacted Collection. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3NTIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Left: Redacted;&nbsp;sennelier ink, watercolor, gouache, graphite, and colored pencil on paper;&nbsp;4&rdquo; x 6,&rdquo; 2020. Right: Scraping Goodbye,&nbsp;colored pencil on paper, 4&rdquo; x 6,&rdquo; 2020.

I long for a future where a more nuanced understanding of our bodies allows us to be kind to ourselves and others from an early age. I do not want young children to have to go through the shame, isolation, and violence that is still so prevalent within our transphobic and racist society. I am trying to find ways to create this future through my art practice and through my social practice artwork like the <a href="http://akgarski.com/social-practice" target="_blank">Gender Re-Reveal Party</a>, a series of events that I have created in collaboration with LGBTQIA+ student groups to celebrate gender fluidity and rejoice in a wide range of gender expressions. &nbsp;

You contributed two pieces to the MPLSART Sketchbook Project. Do you normally keep a sketchbook going, and if so, what does that practice normally look like? Was it a different experience contributing to this Project? &nbsp;

I do not normally keep a sketchbook! I feel guilty admitting this but with my limited time, I would rather jump right into the process of creating more substantial drawings, paintings, or social practice projects. This is why, at first, I was very unsure of what my contribution would look like for the MPLSART Sketchbook Project. I decided to create two colored pencil drawings of my asthma inhalers, functional objects that play a crucial role in my life but seem almost exclusively utilitarian in their aesthetic design. I was thinking about the precariousness of my body as someone who lives with severe asthma and how vulnerable I have been feeling during the pandemic. I fell in love with capturing the structure of my favorite brand of rescue inhaler, Albuterol (Ventolin HFA, the blue one with the drop toggle cap). I have not addressed the struggles I have had with my health directly in my artwork. For a long time, I wanted to maintain distance between my chronic illnesses and my identity as an artist. This was largely due to internalized ableism and shame. My contributions in the MPLSART Sketchbook Project presented me with an opportunity to begin opening up about this topic and I foresee myself addressing this more directly in future work. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNzgwMDAy/full.jpg" />The artist&#39;s two contributions to the MPLSART 2020 Sketchbook Project.

To learn more about the artist and their work, visit <a href="http://akgarski.com" target="_blank">akgarski.com</a>, or follow them on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/oppositional_gays/" target="_blank">@oppositional_gays</a>.

The local artist, who participated in our 2020 Sketchbook Project, offers their insight on rest, consent, anti-racism, and the gender binary

Beyond the Binary: Q&A with AK Garski

&nbsp;

Bridget Kranz:&nbsp;There are so many ways to define the value of an artwork, what do you tell first-time buyers to look for? How does that change based on a person&rsquo;s motivation for collecting?

Douglas Flanders: When someone comes in having never purchased art before, we tell them to walk around, look at the art, and get a feel for what they like&nbsp;&mdash; then we focus in on that area, because we carry everything from the Old Masters to graffiti. We carry a lot of abstract work, and some people aren&rsquo;t sure what they mean when they say abstract. A contemporary landscape could be abstract to them &mdash; we try to figure out their definition of those words. We also try to establish what their intent is for the collection. Do they want it to be primarily an investment or decorative?

Some people who bought an $800 piece back in 1972, they&rsquo;re quite wealthy today, and people say, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s going to be the next big investment?&rdquo; We never know. We can only, based on our experience, make suggestions. No matter what happens value-wise, years from now we hope they&rsquo;ll have enjoyed living with the piece. If it&rsquo;s a work that has increased in value, that&rsquo;s a big bonus. &nbsp; &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI1MjkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Doug in New York City for an art fair, with &quot;Steve Flanders&quot; street sign (no relation, although&nbsp;Steve is his brother&#39;s name).

If someone comes in wanting an investment piece &ndash; or at least one that likely won&rsquo;t depreciate &ndash; what should they look for?

If an artist is getting good exposure through museum exhibitions &mdash; if they&rsquo;re being collected by museums and books are coming out on them &mdash; we say that their careers are going in a good direction...&nbsp;Not everything appreciates. Art goes up and down in price based on popularity. Artists who were popular but haven&rsquo;t had big exhibitions lately, their work might be worth less now than when they were younger.

In general, I also tell people to stay away from reproductions. They should buy an original piece, hand-painted, when possible. There are a lot of people who make a painting, photograph it, then make prints of it digitally. If people who are buying that realize what they&rsquo;ve purchased, that&rsquo;s one thing. On the other hand, we&rsquo;ve gotten calls from people to come and appraise their art collections, and when I get there&nbsp;I find out they&rsquo;re all reproductions. Those people have paid a lot of money, and a lot of what they paid for is the framing.

At the gallery, what goes into determining price? Who is involved in that conversation?

If the artist is alive, we might contact them and say, &ldquo;We have a client reselling this, what do you think?&rdquo; A lot of deceased artists have estates or foundations where people manage the work that is left, and we compare prices with them. It also depends on the condition &mdash; has it faded in the sun, is there damage? The better the condition, the more it will increase in value.

When we start with younger, local artists, we usually tell them to set lower prices and see what kind of response we get from the public. We can always raise the prices as time goes by &mdash; there have been very few artists where we&rsquo;ve ever lowered the prices. <a href="https://www.flandersart.com" target="_blank">Right now&nbsp;we have a show up </a>where everything is priced at $1,000 or less. In January, we might see how things sold and raise the gallery prices based on response.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5ODEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Two works available through the gallery.&nbsp;Left:&nbsp;Red Poppies by Marcel Dyf. Dyf was a French artist born 1899, known for his delicate impressionist still lifes and landscapes. Right:&nbsp;Summer Country Fields with a Barn Red by Joyce Weinstein. Weinstein is an American abstract painter. This series are all based on aerial images.

What role do auctions play in determining the financial value of a work?

People watch auctions a lot more than they used to. Auctions used to be for galleries and art dealers, but now many more people from the public are getting into it. Something that might normally go for $10,000 to $15,000 can easily go for $25,000 to $35,000 at auction because of the number of people. Auctions used to be considered wholesale;&nbsp;now things are selling at more and more of a retail price. I&rsquo;m currently bidding on some pieces where I had a wholesale level in mind, and it&rsquo;s gone way beyond that.

With original prints, there is frequently more than one on the market at a time &mdash; you can search online to see if a print is available at multiple places and do some shopping. What we do is make sure the condition of the piece is pristine, and then it will have top value...&nbsp;People have to ask about the condition, ask the dealer to take it out of the frame. When it&rsquo;s essentially the same piece and it&rsquo;s a different price, there&rsquo;s a reason.

What options are available for people looking to buy or sell a work in poor condition? &nbsp; &nbsp;

Sometimes you can buy a damaged piece and, depending on what the damage is, have it restored for a reasonable rate and end up owning a piece for a lot less money.

You have to find out if it&rsquo;s restorable and what restoration would cost. There are a lot of things, like cracking and holes in the canvas, that are permanent. It can be fixed so visually it looks perfect, but the hole is there and that can&rsquo;t be changed &mdash; it still alters the value of the piece. &nbsp; &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5ODAwMDAy/full.jpg" />The Gallery&#39;s second location, now open at 5025 S. France Ave. in Edina.

What appraisal services does the gallery offer? How often do you recommend that people get work reappraised?

We always put together a notebook with a certificate of authenticity and current market value on pieces that we sell, so people can list them with their insurance company. That&rsquo;s something we do as part of the purchase. Every few years, I would say to get it reappraised. If something goes up in value substantially, I&rsquo;ll call the buyer and tell them.

We were working with a woman whose husband worked for Boeing, and his territory was in Asia. She would go with him and bring back artwork. One of the artists had a show with us, and our most expensive piece was around $13,000. A couple of months later, one of his paintings sold at auction for $600,000. We contacted galleries in Asia to see what they were doing, and we reappraised the pieces we had sold. We have no idea when that&rsquo;s going to happen, but we do our best to let people know when it does.

What resources do you recommend for buyers wanting to research a specific artist?

Our archives are really good, and I often go to the Walker and Minneapolis Institute of Art libraries. We try to keep up with monographs on most of our artists. We just bought a beautiful new book on Hazel Belvo, and one on Doug Argue &mdash; a former Minnesota artist. We also get catalogues. There are not as many being made today as there used to be, but there are still galleries publishing catalogues. These usually include an essay by an art critic, illustrations of many of the pieces, and a biography of the artist at the back. &nbsp; &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5ODIwMDAx/full.jpg" /><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NjgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Top:&nbsp;Hazel Belvo&#39;s new book, A Matriarch of Art. Bottom: The gallery&#39;s current show, running through January 31st, of works all for sale for $1000 or less.

Douglas Flanders is the founder and owner of <a href="https://www.flandersart.com" target="_blank">Douglas Flanders &amp; Associates Fine Art Gallery + Consultants</a>, located at 818 W. Lake Street in Minneapolis. A second location is now open at 5025 S. France Avenue in Edina, complete with a library of art books and resources for buyers.

This is the second of two sponsored posts. Read more about the gallery&#39;s history in <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/11/four-decades-in-longtime-gallerist-branches-out" target="_blank">our first article here</a>.

All photos are courtesy of the gallery.

In a follow-up to our profile on Douglas Flanders & Associates, the gallerist discusses what to look for in an investment piece, how crowded auctions are impacting prices, and how restoration can factor into buying and selling.

Pricing & Value in the Fine Art Market: Q & A with Douglas Flanders

&nbsp;

The Bockley Gallery is a hidden gem tucked away near Lake of the Isles, encompassed by brawny trees and creative home architecture. The surroundings have a charm that matches the gallery, which typically exhibits work by artists in the gallery&rsquo;s roster. &nbsp;For this Fall Show, however, Bockley is giving us five artists brand new to the gallery: Leslie Barlow, Tom Jones, Jovan C. Speller, Jonathan Herrera Soto, and Jose Dominguez. This show features each artist&rsquo;s disparate artistic practice, combining their style, media, and aesthetic points of view to serve as an introduction to these artists&rsquo; practices and intentions. The gallery space itself has an open feel to it and a fluid flow, allowing you to really engage and focus on each piece at a time. It is quiet and peaceful, a way to kind of decompress and let the mind wander and be with the art.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NjcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Leslie Barlow;&nbsp;Grandmother and Child;&nbsp;oil, pastel, acrylic, quilted fabric on panel; 48 x 48&quot;; 2019

Leslie Barlow&rsquo;s piece, titled Grandmother and Child, is part of her larger series: A Familiar Portrait of Labor and Love. Each piece of work represents a form of labor and love Barlow experienced, conveyed through photos and experiences. Grandmother and Child is a mix of oil, pastel, acrylic, and quilted fabric on a wooden panel. Looking at this work, I feel the candidness of the photo, and the stillness of the expressions Leslie captures from both subjects is surreal. The baby blank stare from Child is a mini-Mona Lisa, with the eyes following you as you walk by. &nbsp;

Before I noticed the swimsuits, I felt the heat and humidity from looking at it. The brush strokes give a very smooth and melting texture to the work &ndash; combined with the out of water look, the painting is reminiscent&nbsp;of&nbsp;a warm breeze coming by when you&rsquo;re getting out of the water during a summer day. The panel background adds to the melted sensation with the large stretched-out wood pattern. The open background really draws you into the center of the painting, highlighting the stars of it all. Speaking of stars, on either side of Grandmother and Child are quilted diamonds of multi-colored fabric. The quilted fabric patterns are like the Swedish Barn Quilt trail in Chisago Lakes, and the fabric itself carries with it a very grandmotherly nostalgia, which rounds out the sentiment that is woven into this piece and some attribute to their grandmother &ndash; a sense of nurture. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NzcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Tom Jones, Elizah Leonard, digital photograph with beadwork, edition 2/5,&nbsp;40&nbsp;x 40&quot;, 2019

The next piece in the show is Tom Jones&rsquo;s Elizah Leonard, part of his Strong Unrelenting Spirits project. Jones&rsquo;s photographs examine identity and geographic place within the experience of American Indian communities. He is unapologetically Ho-Chunk and interested in the way that American Indian material culture is represented through popular culture. Strong Unrelenting Spirits is a series of portraits that are rooted in Ho-Chunk identity, fusing beaded designs that are traditionally used on clothing directly onto photographs. &nbsp;

In Elizah Leonard, a Ho-Chunk member is front and center &ndash; tall, proud, and confident. You can feel the solidarity in her by the posture and gaze alone. I noticed right away the sharpness of the photo; you can almost count the threads in the clothing. The beaded floral designs gently glide across the outline of the subject and give the look and feel of an aura surrounding them. The pitch-black background really makes the colors of the Ho-Chunk apparel burst out at you. Walking by the piece activates the beaded work to shimmer and in turn the subject, whom I assume to be Elizah, gets lifted off the photograph, almost holographic in nature. A lot about this is very thematic and cohesive &ndash; the floral &ldquo;aura&rdquo; pattern matching the floral pattern in the Ho-Chunk clothing, the colors on the vest matching the colors of the Ho-Chunk clothing and the diamond pattern on it, the beaded design on their stomach and the beaded orbs in the corner. It is all coordinated well. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NzcwMDAy/full.jpg" />

Jovan C. Speller, Some of us didn&rsquo;t make it, cut and layered archival photographs, 24 x 24&quot;, 2020

Continuing our verbal tour of the Bockley Gallery Fall Show leads us to two collages by Jovan C. Speller. Both are cut and layered photographs from a series of hers called Relics of Home, utilizing photography, text, installation, and sound to examine origin stories. &ldquo;This work is a journey of research and reconciliation,&rdquo; writes the artist. &ldquo;I look into the past, upon the histories of Black people in this country &ndash; I look into the gaping ambiguity of what is the beginning of Black identity. I attempt to conjure the &lsquo;who&rsquo; that we were before we were stolen, transported, sold, and exploited. At least, that&rsquo;s where I began. Swallowed by the missing and forgotten ancestors and traditions. Where I have arrived is a different place entirely.&rdquo; &nbsp;

My first experience with the photo collages is that they both exist in&nbsp;a very dream-like state, especially with the black and white collaged in &ndash; it gives the work a reality break that feels surreal in contrast to the normalcy of&nbsp;the photo&rsquo;s background and content. In person, the un-stenciled collaged layers are apparent and have a raw tone with the physical construction of the works. Both works, which were made specifically for this show, have a quiet country stillness to the photos, which is aided by the silent ambiance in the gallery. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI1MjgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Jonathan Herrera Soto,&nbsp;Sin Titulo / Untitled, 1 of 20&nbsp;unique collagraph prints on hand-made flax paper, 30 x 40&quot;, 2020

Next&nbsp;is the collagraph print Because I love you, because I will wait for you, every morning/Porque te Amo, Porque te Esperar&eacute;, Todas las Ma&ntilde;anas, from Jonathan Herrera Soto&rsquo;s series ironically titled Untitled/Sin Titulo. The clothing used in the series&nbsp;are either owned by the artist, given to him, or found abandoned outside, from locations poles apart in the United States. The Untitled/Sin T&iacute;tulo series provides an opportunity to remember and mourn the body, when there is no physical body left behind. The ambiguity of the clothing allows the viewer to create a world from their own experiences. &nbsp;

The general aesthetic of this piece is somber and caliginous; it reminded me of clothing you would see from a Titanic exhibit. The idea of Herrera Soto using real clothing he finds abandoned across the United States is ominous to say the least &ndash; the desolate articles have their own stories and experiences embedded into the fibers and stitches. When combined with the process Herrera Soto uses to create the work, the clothing becomes re-animated, but in a ghost-like fashion and feel. Another fun aspect to this piece is that I&rsquo;m not sure if this is from the 1900s, 1940s, or 1980s; it adds even more to the mystery. The title of the work is printed on the clothing in Old&nbsp;English font, adding more character and legend to this piece. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE3NjEwMDAx/full.jpg" />

Jose Dominguez,&nbsp;Farther Than My Father, acrylic and cut paper on masonite,&nbsp;48 x&nbsp;51 x 4&quot;, 2018

In a striking and clever change of pace, the exhibition&nbsp;transitions finally to Jose Dominguez&rsquo;s Farther Than My Father, from a larger series titled The Art of Avoiding PPL. The series includes multiple large-scale, mixed-media works along with smaller-scale drawings. Dominguez uses figuration, text, bright colors, and bold lines to capture the energy and tensions that underpin our relationships with our friends, family, and those that make up our communities. The artist confesses a love-hate relationship with people.

This piece is weirdly positive and positively weird with an eccentric feel and look to it. The colors are bright and vibrant, lunging towards you and drawing you in with its literal hands. The faces on the trees and moon-like objects placed around with the various expressions appear to look back at you with. A lot of things in this piece seem &ldquo;normal,&rdquo; but with the colors and patterns drawing you in more, all the fantastical details are soon realized: the hands in the middle that have a few too many fingers, the&nbsp;head emerging&nbsp;from the bush between the hands, the various lemon heads placed throughout, the ice cream sandwich face in the corner &ndash; it&rsquo;s an incredibly bizarre game of &ldquo;I Spy.&rdquo; Here Dominguez fuses the look of street art with the whimsical nature of Sesame Street, guiding your eyes along the board game squares and stairs up to the trees and the Sasquatch figure at the top. You can really feel Dominguez&rsquo;s zany and cartoonish lens of how he views the world &ndash; as a CandyLand fever dream. &nbsp; &nbsp;

The Fall Show at Bockley serves as an introduction to each of these artists. While their differences in style, media, and aesthetic points of view seems to be apparent, there is one huge thread tying these together: personal history. Each one of these pieces emphasizes their own familial and cultural background &ndash; whether that be outright like Tom Jones&rsquo; work celebrating Ho-Chunk culture or more subtly, as in Herrera Soto&rsquo;s work emphasizing&nbsp;those lost immigrating. Bockley&rsquo;s Fall Show runs through December 19th; to get a visual taste of these works in person please contact the gallery. With COVID (and Jack Frost) nipping at our noses and the urge to refrain from large gatherings, a stroll by through the gallery&nbsp;can be a great&nbsp;way to soothe the winter restlessness. &nbsp;

<a href="http://www.bockleygallery.com/index.html" target="_blank">Bockley Gallery</a> is located at 2123 W 21st St in Minneapolis, currently open by appointment only. Call 612-377-4669 or email <a href="mailto:information@bockleygallery.com">information@bockleygallery.com</a> to schedule your visit.

Banner image:&nbsp;Yeah, but where you from?&nbsp;(detail),&nbsp;cut and layered archival photographs, 24 x 24&quot;, 2020

This group exhibition, which closes December 19th, features Leslie Barlow, Jose Dominguez, Tom Jones, Jonathan Herrera Soto, and Jovan C. Speller

Personal histories: A look at Bockley Gallery's Fall Show

&nbsp;

Upon asking Shade Pratt what it was that spurred her dive into the life of art and design, the answer at first was pragmatic &mdash; and profound.

&ldquo;I know design isn&rsquo;t going anywhere&hellip; Everything around me, you, from the computer you&rsquo;re typing on to the bench you&rsquo;re sitting on &mdash; has been designed.&rdquo;

For Shade, though, the value of design in her life doesn&rsquo;t solely consist of its practical use-value. To create something you&rsquo;ve never seen before is always a regenerative act.

Born in Maryland and raised in Minnesota, Shade returned east to the University of Maryland where she graduated with a degree melding art, architecture, engineering, and sustainability. Since then, between her world travels as a professional soccer player, Minnesota has always been home &mdash; her most recent stay elongated by the pandemic. As a designer whose visual acumen spans from shoes to murals to illustrations, Pratt says that&nbsp;&ldquo;Art is a part of everything I do.&rdquo; The value in art&rsquo;s omnipresence is that it&rsquo;s freeing for the artist.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3NDkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Untitled, acrylic on canvas triptych, each 18&quot; x 36&quot;

In the past few months alone, that same ubiquity has moved Shade Pratt to hone new and long-shelved talents. She tells me she brings her camera everywhere, so when protests started in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, &ldquo;I was out there &mdash; camera in hand &mdash; trying to shed light for everyone who wasn&rsquo;t here [in Minneapolis] on what was really happening.&rdquo;

But, as can be the nature of protest, being on the frontlines took a toll. &ldquo;So I started to paint,&rdquo; she says. By way of bright, dynamic, large scale murals, Pratt tells me how she moved her voice into the visual language of paintings. To be clear, undertaking large&nbsp;scale murals in collaboration with local artists was still a labor, be it of love. They stood long hours under June suns, climbing up and down&nbsp;ladders, paintbrushes in hand. Folks started seeing Shade&rsquo;s work donning the sides of buildings across the city and commissions started coming in. She tells me, &ldquo;I really haven&rsquo;t put down a brush since.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NzUwMDAx/full.jpg" /><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NjUwMDAx/full.jpg" />The artist at work on her mural, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, at 605 Central Ave NE in Minneapolis.

The pieces that manifest are illustrative and for her, driven by nostalgia and abstraction &mdash; an emphasis placed on negative space. &ldquo;The problem can be knowing when to leave space,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;where to stop&rdquo;.

When I ask about her process and sources that inspire, Shade tells me, &ldquo;Inspiration can come from anywhere,&rdquo; explaining&nbsp;that any moment in a day, every scene within a scene can be the seed for creative thought. Zooming out, Pratt mentions being inspired by transportation, cosmetics, infrastructure, and music colliding with it all. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t just stay in your market.&rdquo;

The line isn&rsquo;t straight, and the field isn&rsquo;t level. She shares that since May, much of her practice takes place within her home. Sometimes pieces are wholly driven aesthetically, and like we all hesitate to admit, content can arrive within a work much, much later.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUxNDYwMDAx/full.jpg" />At home as much behind an easel as she is&nbsp;out on the pitch, the artist also has a successful career in professional soccer.

Equally significant to her artistic practice and underlying motivation is the fact that Shade Pratt also happens to be a successful professional footballer, usually playing the position of a winger&nbsp;or attacker&nbsp;for multiple teams spanning continents from North America to Asia. Though with the onset of COVID-19 around the world, her training and playing has been placed on a bit of a hold.

What&rsquo;s revealed itself as critical to any discipline of hers, especially that of art-making, is time management, organization, and getting used to not being in one place for long. So whether it be through mural-making for the public or footwear design internships&nbsp;for the likes of Adidas and New Balance, Shade isn&rsquo;t afraid of fluctuation or of shaking things up. With plans to work with an up-and-coming brewery on a new mural, partnering with local businesses expressing a positive message will always be important to her. She shares that, when it comes to the field, her goal is to inspire girls to pursue sports.

When it comes to art, her goal is to speak to the community, better yet the world.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNTUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Tumble, acrylic on canvas triptych, each&nbsp;40&quot; x 30&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNTkwMDAx/full.jpg" />

For more info and a full portfolio, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://shadepratt.com" target="_blank">shadepratt.com</a>&nbsp;or follow the artist on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/shadepratt/" target="_blank">@shadepratt</a>.

Banner image: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (detail), mural at 605 Central Ave NE&nbsp;in Minneapolis.&nbsp;All images are courtesy of the artist.

The 27-year-old professional soccer player and multidisciplinary artist/designer shares a bit about where she is and how she got there.

Shade Pratt Knows That Design Is What Makes the World Go 'Round

As a fixture in Minneapolis since 1972, it&rsquo;s inevitable that gallerist Doug Flanders has made his mark on the city &ndash; through people he has met and conversations he has been a part of, as much as the physical spaces he has occupied.

Representing local artists, as well as dealing in work from the estates of historic figures like Pablo Picasso, Flanders attracts clients from across the country and the world. But&nbsp;while a significant portion of his business comes from outside the state, Douglas Flanders &amp; Associates has continued to operate out of his hometown. Now, for the first time, the gallery is expanding its local brick-and-mortar operations to a second location in Edina.

With a collection that has grown from 150 pieces to over 15,000 during four decades in business, square footage was a major impetus in expanding from their current location near the intersection of Lake and Bryant. It was something that Flanders and Gallery Manager Jefferson Fee had been discussing for months, before a client proposed a property that she owned along France Avenue.

&ldquo;When she mentioned the space, I looked across the room at Doug and my eyes just lit up,&rdquo; recalls Fee. &ldquo;Doug has always maintained a location within one to three miles of downtown, but the reason we&rsquo;re excited about this space is that it&rsquo;s almost three times the square footage we have now.&rdquo;

Gallery staffers got to work this summer converting the interior, which formerly housed General Sports, and are now planning to open before the Thanksgiving holiday &mdash; although a fair number of shoppers have already wandered into the new space.

&ldquo;We had a couple who just moved here from Japan;&nbsp;they saw our sign in the window. They came over and bought two to three pieces already, and we&rsquo;re not even open yet,&rdquo; says Flanders. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s going to be a really good place to be.&rdquo;

Going forward, Fee hopes the other retail spaces and restaurants that populate the 50th &amp; France area will bring in more foot traffic. While the location on Lake Street will now become the gallery&rsquo;s primary venue for exhibitions, most of the inventory will be rehoused in Edina.

While Flanders frequently sells to museums, businesses, and even other galleries, residential buyers continue to be a significant part of the local market &mdash; and interior design showcases like the Parade of Homes Twin Cities are part of what has kept Flanders in Minneapolis over the years.

&ldquo;We really get to know people through that, who then come into the gallery and buy a piece or two,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;One year, one of the homes was sold to a doctor moving here from San Francisco and he bought all of the art that was in the house. That was a $200,000 sale back in the 1970s.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3NTYwMDAx/full.jpg" /><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ1NTUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Top: The new space on France Ave, still under construction earlier this summer. The gallery plans to open to the public officially this month. Bottom: Flanders in his element at an opening, circa 1980.

<h3>Starting small, selling to other galleries &nbsp;</h3>

While Flanders has had plenty of practice interior decorating over the years, his artistic eye was developed even at a young age by his grandmother. Many of his earliest memories are of accompanying her to museums, both at home and abroad. As Flanders recalls, she was a painter herself, who wore &ldquo;long, dark dresses and white gloves, carried a cane,&rdquo; and was able to share her own technical knowledge about the work they were viewing.

After dropping out of the University of Minnesota, Flanders began his professional career with gallerist and pop art specialist Denise Ren&eacute; in New York. In order to strike out on his own, he then decided to leave the crowded East Coast market and set up shop back home in Minnesota.

&ldquo;My basic inventory was my own art collection. The first show that we did was of Georgia O&rsquo;Keeffe paintings and watercolors, and we had busloads of visitors,&rdquo; he recalls. &ldquo;We had teachers bringing their fifth-graders, we had university students, we had groups of senior citizens.&rdquo;

Despite not selling a single piece during the show, he later took some of the works to auction and was able to reinvest that money in growing his collection. As he tried to feel out what local clients wanted, Flanders visited graduate programs and bought pieces from artists like Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, and Julian Schnabel. For work that didn&rsquo;t sell locally, he would go through rolls of film trying to get a few good pictures of his inventory to mail out.

A major source of income during these early years was other galleries in different parts of the country. Flanders would connect with fellow gallerists during art fairs, then promptly send them a letter and envelope full of slides as soon as he got home. Forty years later, he says these contacts are still some of his closest clients and friends. Additionally, a robust network of colleagues and former clients helps Flanders keep track of the work he sells and potentially facilitate future transactions.

&ldquo;A lot of pieces we sold back in the 1970s and 1980s &mdash; the people who bought that work are passing on, and a lot of it is coming back to resell,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;I just got a call from a woman I&rsquo;ve known for a long time down in Florida, looking for a Jim Dine sculpture we had about 20 years ago. She wanted to know if it was still available, so now I&rsquo;m contacting the owners to see if they want to sell.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NjcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Flanders&#39;s first gallery in Minneapolis in the early &#39;70s at 12th and Harmon Place, now the site of a&nbsp;Bucca&nbsp;di&nbsp;Beppo.

<h3>Library planned for new location</h3>

Even as their collection has grown, both Flanders and Fee say there is a story behind almost every piece at the gallery &mdash; and, despite many clients looking for an investment, Flanders says he wants clients to prioritize choosing a piece they&rsquo;ll enjoy living with. To this end, the other key feature of the new Edina location is a library.

&ldquo;We want to create a space for people to sit down, thumb through art books, and get ideas about what they&rsquo;re looking for &mdash; as well as learn about the various artists we represent,&rdquo; says Fee. &ldquo;First and foremost, we like to find out what people like &mdash; what captures your mind and your heart? Collecting doesn&rsquo;t have to mean five figures on a price tag. The value is the quality of the art, and what works for one person may not work for another,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go out of our way to find anything and everything&nbsp;for anyone&rsquo;s art desires.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNjMwMDAx/full.jpg" /><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM5NTcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Top: Douglas Flanders today, with a painting by James Leonard. Bottom: Jefferson Fee next to work by New York-based artist Joyce Weinstein.

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Douglas Flanders &amp; Associates Fine Arts Gallery + Consultants will be opening their second location this month, at 5025 France Ave S in Edina, and are still open at their existing space at 818 W Lake St in Minneapolis.

Check out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flandersart.com" target="_blank">flandersart.com</a>&nbsp;for more info, and please wear a mask if you intend to visit in person.

All photos are courtesy of the gallery.

EDITOR&#39;S NOTE: This article has been updated slightly since publication to reflect the evolving vision DF&amp;A has for their new space.
</div>

Douglas Flanders & Associates, long a fixture in Minneapolis, has big plans for their expansion to a second location in Edina

Four Decades In, Longtime Gallerist Branches Out

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<h1><a href="http://www.casketarts.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM5NTEwMDAx/card_large.png" /></a></h1>

<h1><a href="http://www.casketarts.com/" target="_blank">Open Casket 2020 Online</a></h1>

Online&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;Nov 5th - 8th

Join the historic Casket Arts Building artists for a weekend of amazing art and shopping. Shop for paintings, jewelry, ceramics, woodworking, printmaking, sculpture, drawings, photography, gifts, and more, as well as enjoy a series of live and prerecorded interviews, art demos, and interactive studio tours.

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<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/art-attack/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" height="472" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE3NTUwMDAx/full.jpg" width="900" /></a></h1>

<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/art-attack/" target="_blank">Art Attack 2020</a></h1>

Online&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;Nov 5th -&nbsp; 8th

The Northrup King Building&#39;s annual Fall studio crawl, Art Attack,&nbsp;is back&hellip; Online! Join over 350 artists and Galleries from Minnesota&#39;s largest studio complex for a virtual edition of the&nbsp;event. Buy artwork directly from artists from the comfort of your own home or in person during <a href="https://www.northrupkingbuilding.com/events/first-thursdays" target="_blank">extended First Thursday&#39;s hours Nov 5th</a>.

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<h1><a href="https://shop.interactcenter.org/" target="_blank">Interact Center&rsquo;s Great Big Holiday Sale 2020</a></h1>

Online &bull;&nbsp;Nov 16th - Dec 5th

Interact Center presents over 60 artists in their largest sale of the year. Make the holidays brighter for all with one of-a-kind items from Interact artists.&nbsp;Shop from your couch 24/7 during the sale&nbsp;for everything including jewelry, art, ornaments, scarfs, ceramics and holiday cards.&nbsp;

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<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/open-studios/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" height="472" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3NDUwMDAx/full.jpg" width="900" /></a></h1>

<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/open-studios/" target="_blank">Northeast MPLS&nbsp;Fall Open Studios</a></h1>

Nov 18th - Dec 31st&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;Online

Browse artwork for hundreds of&nbsp;NEMAA&nbsp;(Northeast Minneapolis Arts&nbsp;Association) member artists and galleries.&nbsp;

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<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzNDAwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a></h1>

<h1><a href="https://shop.nemaa.org/" target="_blank">NEMAA Holiday Shop</a></h1>

Nov 28th - Dec 31st&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;Online

Browse artwork for hundreds of NEMAA (Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association) member artists and galleries.&nbsp;

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<h1><a href="http://www.gamutgallerympls.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzNDAwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a></h1>

<h1><a href="http://www.gamutgallerympls.com/" target="_blank">9th Annual Raging Art On at Gamut Gallery</a></h1>

Gallery Hours&nbsp;Dec 1st - Dec 31st &bull; Online Dec 2nd - Jan 4th @ Gamut Gallery&nbsp;&nbsp;

The event that kicked off Gamut&rsquo;s inception is back for the 9th year in a row! A holiday sale in a gallery setting, Gamut Gallery provides a fun-filled, consumer-conscious alternative to chain stores and mass mall shopping with our annual shopping event Raging Art On. Raging Art On (RAO), our holiday pop-up shop will be open for 3 weeks, featuring over a dozen new artists and an additional handful of artists that have been with us from the very beginning.

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Coming Soon 
- Nemaa&nbsp;online shop 
- NE Studios 
<span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Gifts in the Gallery&quot;}" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:arial; font-size:10pt">- Gifts in the Gallery Artistry 
<span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Interact Center's Great Big Holiday Sale&quot;}" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:arial; font-size:10pt">- Cream of the Crop 
-&nbsp;<span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Humbug &amp; Hoopla Holiday Event&quot;}" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:arial; font-size:10pt">Humbug &amp; Hoopla Holiday Event 
-&nbsp;<span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Holiday Celebration of the Arts at the Anderson Center in Red Wing&quot;}" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:arial; font-size:10pt">Holiday Celebration of the Arts at the Anderson Center in Red Wing 
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Keep it in the community this year, give original and meaningful gifts made by local artists.

2020 Holiday Shopping Guide

EDIT: This article has been updated to include comments from developer William Boulay, as well as a postscript&nbsp;Editor&#39;s Note to expand on the issue of affordability in this development. The original title of this article has also been altered to avoid any confusion about editorial intent.&nbsp;

The City Council will be voting on whether to move forward with this proposal at <a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Calendar/all/monthly" target="_blank">their meeting</a> on Friday, November 13th at 9:30am. We recommend you reach out to your Council representative before then to weigh on this project. More info on <a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download/Agenda/914/2301%20California%20St%20NE.pdf/46927/1829/2301%20California%20St%20NE" target="_blank">the initial&nbsp;proposal can be found here</a>, and the latest from <a href="https://northeastminneapolisartsdistrict.org/fighting-city-hall-and-developers/" target="_blank">the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District can be found here.</a>

&nbsp;

A new production/mixed use development planned for the space next door to the artist studio-filled California Building in Northeast Minneapolis is facing opposition from some of the artists in the building, the California Building owners, as well as the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District (NE-AD), and the Bottineau Neighborhood Association (BNA).&nbsp;

The 160-unit building, located over two adjacent properties at 2301 California St. NE and 78 23rd Ave NE, will be made up of affordable housing units, in addition to production space on the first floor of the building. Three lengthy appeals by NE-AD, BNA, and the California Building owners outline many of the points of opposition to the project. The project applicant is William Boulay, of St. Paul-based LS Black Development, who is working with ESG Architects on the design.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Our greatest objection is that the project, if it goes forward as proposed, doesn&rsquo;t mitigate the uses properly,&rdquo; says Jennifer Young, co-owner of the California Building, which provides studio space to 85 artists and makers. According to Young, the California Building owners foresee potential conflicts between the industrial uses of the artists in the California building and the residential use of the people that will be moving into the new development. &ldquo;If they build it as proposed, they are building conflicts into the future,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;All of a sudden the residential users &mdash; the new tenants &mdash; are going to complain about noise, and those conflicts are going to be ongoing.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Currently, there are single family residential homeowners interspersed into the nearby area around the California Building and the proposed new development, but Young says the California Building owners talk to them on a one-on-one basis.

Part of the proposal for the project is a petition to rezone the two properties, including adding an IL Industrial Living Overlay District to the existing I1 Light Industrial District. That change would allow for residential dwelling units at the site and also seeks a permit to increase the height that would be allowed. Ultimately, according to the California Building appeal, the 2301 California St. development imposes a residential building into an industrial zone.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNzAwMDAx/full.jpg" />The initial&nbsp;rendering of the new development, submitted to the City for approval by LS Black Development and ESG Architecture &amp; Design,&nbsp;courtesy of <a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download/Agenda/914/2301%20California%20St%20NE.pdf/46927/1829/2301%20California%20St%20NE" target="_blank">an&nbsp;August 6th memorandum</a> from the CPED&nbsp;detailing the proposal.

But according to Mei-Ling Smith, a Senior City Planner for the City of Minneapolis, change coming to the neighborhood is inevitable. &ldquo;There used to be grain silos and storage tanks on this site for years and years and years,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;So it&#39;s definitely going to change from a strictly industrial site to one that has a mix of uses, and it has more residential. That&rsquo;s not something you can argue with.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The appeal written by the California Building owners asserts that the proposal &ldquo;misapplies the zoning code and the 2040 Comprehensive Plan in an inconsistent and illegal manner.&rdquo;&nbsp;

While the Minneapolis 2040 Plan has been passed, the zoning code has not been updated, Young says. In the California Building appeal, Young and her husband John Kremer wrote that the developer used provisions in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, but doesn&rsquo;t meet the current Zoning Code standards, including going over the allowed height of the building plan. Young says that even provisions of the 2040 plan aren&rsquo;t followed, like the requirement that a building of that size be split into two separate buildings.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Right now there is nothing written for the implementation plan that guides development on industrial land that also has a residential component,&rdquo; Young says. &ldquo;Until that code gets written, you have to follow existing code.&rdquo;&nbsp;

According to Smith, who wrote the city <a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download/Agenda/1194/RPT-PLAN11552-2301%2520California.pdf/48613/1980/2301%2520California%2520St%2520NE">report</a> on the project, a number of people have been upset about the rezoning component to the development. &ldquo;That&#39;s maybe a technical thing that people are still upset about, but one of the things that is being applied for is to add an overlay district to allow residential uses on an industrial site. That&rsquo;s going to be considered at the same meeting, but it can&#39;t be appealed.&rdquo;

According to Smith, the new 2040 Plan is causing some confusion. &ldquo;Our new comprehensive plan is adopted, but our zoning code is not all the way up to date yet,&rdquo; she says. However, the current ordinances aren&rsquo;t reflective of the future guidance. &ldquo;So there is a lot of confusion right now. So on a case by case basis, we&#39;re trying to be very calculated, we&#39;re trying to be consistent with how we&#39;re applying these new rules, and we&#39;re right now in the process of updating the actual ordinances to more closely reflect the built form. So there is a lot of confusion about that, which is totally understandable. And we&#39;re muddling through it as well.&rdquo;

Besides the California Building owners, artists that have their studio spaces in the building are also gravely concerned about the new development.&nbsp;

Madison Rubenstein, an artist in the California Building, says she thinks this isn&rsquo;t the right project for the lot. &ldquo;My concern is that this building is being put next door without any consideration for the artists or people across the street,&rdquo; she says.&ldquo;The parking will be right up against our loading dock. I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m going to have the same access and parking.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Another artist in the building, Hilary Greenstein, says she has concerns the developer has disregarded the community&rsquo;s desire for green space.&nbsp;

&ldquo;My research has found several instances of the developers exploiting industrial codes to cut corners and override the interests of artists and neighbors,&rdquo; Greenstein wrote in an email. &ldquo;They are ultimately seeking to profit off the history and culture of this diverse artistic community without listening to the community&#39;s needs.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Tim Kremer, Young&rsquo;s brother-in-law and a board member for the Bottineau Neighborhood Association, who lives in the neighborhood, says he is mostly concerned with the scale of the development. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t find other places in Minneapolis where the city would allow them to build a building that&rsquo;s a block and a half long,&rdquo; Kremer says. &ldquo;The building is so large that the houses directly across the street will not see the sun shine until noon on Christmas Day. The size of the building doesn&rsquo;t fit with the character of the neighborhood.&rdquo;

According to Kremer, BNA has talked about being committed to the goals of the 2040 plan, including its goals around affordable housing. &ldquo;We want more affordable housing, we just think this neighborhood doesn&rsquo;t need 6 stories,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;

Kremer says he likes living in the neighborhood because of all the artists, and he&rsquo;s concerned this new building, with only 1/3 of the first floor devoted to production space, will move the neighborhood away from the arts.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I like what the arts do,&rdquo; Kremer says. &ldquo;I like what it does to the neighborhood. Without that production space, it begins to degrade the character of the neighborhood.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNTMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Courtesy of&nbsp;<a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download/Agenda/914/2301%20California%20St%20NE.pdf/46927/1829/2301%20California%20St%20NE" target="_blank">an&nbsp;August 6th memorandum</a>&nbsp;from the CPED&nbsp;detailing the proposal.

According to Smith, a number of things changed in the development proposal after neighbors and artists gave testimony through the planning commission.&nbsp;

For example, the developers increased the amount of space devoted to production on the first floor, she says. &ldquo;So some of the things that are in the appeal statements were already addressed by the developer or will have to be addressed by the developer if they want to pull building permits, as the current condition stands,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;So I think it will be an improvement overall.&rdquo;&nbsp;

According to&nbsp;Boulay, the project for the development has adjusted in a number of ways based on feedback from neighbors. That includes&nbsp;increasing the amount of production space in the building from 11,600 square feet &nbsp;to about twice that, 23,000 square feet. They also&nbsp;added solar panels to the project, broadened the affordability of the project to be 40-80%&nbsp;area media income, and committed to spending $150,000 to local public art.&nbsp;Boulay&nbsp;also said the project will donate 5 to 10 thousand dollars on a greenhouse construction for the nearby California Street farm, and would add a bike path that would connect to the future&nbsp;Bottineau&nbsp;bike trail.&nbsp;In addition,&nbsp;Boulay&nbsp;said he hopes that artists themselves would live in the building. &ldquo;We anticipate that a good number of our residents will be artists or people that desire to live in Northeast so they can enjoy the arts. &nbsp;We also hope that our commitment to incorporate public art into our design will help to inspire our residents to engage in the arts.&quot;

According to Smith, what has been missed in much of the opposition to the project is that the development represents a large amount of affordable housing.&nbsp;

&ldquo;This year, we&#39;ve received kind of an unusual amount of affordable housing proposals, and that&#39;s something that&#39;s consistent with the city goals,&rdquo; Smith says. &ldquo;It&#39;s something that we have been using to justify an increase in height. That&#39;s just because it&#39;s one of the Comprehensive Plan goals. It&rsquo;s not the only thing that a project would have to accomplish in order to be approved, but it&#39;s one of the things we would be looking at.&rdquo;&nbsp;

According to Smith, the three lengthy appeals she received about the development, from the California Building and from BNA and NE-AD didn&rsquo;t talk about the affordable housing. &ldquo;They&#39;re talking about a lot of other issues,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I think maybe tiptoeing around it.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;100% of the housing will be affordable,&rdquo; says City Council member Steve Fletcher.&nbsp;

The average affordability of the development will be 60 percent Area Median Income, Fletcher says. &ldquo;What they&#39;re doing here is actually averaging out so there&#39;ll be some that are slightly above that standard, and then a bunch of housing at 40% AMI, which is actually the housing the city needs for people who are really struggling to find housing.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The next step in the process is a Business, Inspections, Zoning, and Housing committee meeting at 1:30pm on November 2nd, which is open to the public but held remotely due to the pandemic. To give input at the meeting, <a href="http://www2.minneapolismn.gov/meetings/onlinemeetings/attend-citycouncil-meeting">sign up at this link</a>.

Barring any delays, the final decision on the development will be made by the full City Council meeting taking place on November 13th.

&nbsp;

EDITOR&#39;S NOTE: After publication, artists Hilary Greenstein and Madison Rubenstein expressed disappointment that a deeper dive into&nbsp;the affordability of this development was&nbsp;not included.&nbsp;Greenstein, in their original interview, states, &quot;Affordable housing is a human right and is very badly needed in Minneapolis. But this is not it. It is not affordable&hellip; We are looking at rents of $1200-2000, which is not affordable to the majority of our neighbors. This project calling itself affordable while planning to charge that much is a gaslighting tactic to divert from their consistent steamrolling of community input.&rdquo;

Willy Boulay of LS Black Development provided us with a detailed rental structure for the development, the vast majority&nbsp;of which (119 out of 160 units) are projected to fall into this range, from $1200-2000 a month, in a range of different sized units&nbsp;reserved for tenants making 60-80% AMI. According to LS Black, there will be 41 units expected to fall under that range, costing $505-1087 for 1-bedroom units, $601-1066 for 2-bedroom units, and $692-961 for 3-bedrooms, all dependent on the tenants&#39; income. These AMI%&nbsp;rates&nbsp;are&nbsp;scheduled to be in place for 30 years due to a deed restriction on the property.

Again, we encourage you to reach out to your City Council representative before Friday, November 13th, to weigh in on this issue.

Banner illustration by Russ White, using photo from the <a href="https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download/Agenda/914/2301%20California%20St%20NE.pdf/46927/1829/2301%20California%20St%20NE" target="_blank">original project proposal</a>.

As the City Council considers a massive new development in Northeast, the artists and owners of the neighboring California Building push back to make sure it's a good fit for the Arts District.

The Fight for the Future of California Street

&nbsp;

It can be difficult to turn left into the parking lot of Wet Paint Artists&rsquo; Materials and Framing &mdash; but that shouldn&rsquo;t be a deterrent. Situated on a bustling corner of Grand Avenue in Saint Paul, surrounded by other independent businesses, the feeling of socially-distanced activity adds to the store&rsquo;s atmosphere.

In late summer, a back-to-school buzz pervades as staff members assemble kits for local high schools and Macalester College students pop in on last-minute supply runs. Although this kind of activity has increased, the store has been busy all season &mdash; with curbside pick-up through the spring and early summer, and the addition of in-store shopping in late July.

While Wet Paint has long been a supporter of area schools and arts organizations, it has taken on a more pressing role in the last few months. After the murder of George Floyd in late May, local artists have created hundreds of murals across town to protest ongoing police brutality, and the store has helped with guidance and financial support.

&ldquo;When someone comes to us saying, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m in this community. Here&rsquo;s what we intend to do and here&rsquo;s how you can help,&rsquo;&rdquo; says&nbsp;co-owner Scott Fares, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve been making sure they get what they need.&rdquo;

He describes&nbsp;a period of time when artists would show up regularly with a patron and a wall to paint. They would give Wet Paint a budget, and the store would start taking discounts and throwing in free items to make sure the project stayed within it.

&ldquo;I called Wet Paint the first week in June to secure materials for painting, and they gave us a bulk order discount plus some free materials like brushes and cups,&rdquo; says&nbsp;Leslie Barlow,&nbsp;one of the leading artists behind Creatives After Curfew. &ldquo;They were even able to get us materials the same day that I would call them &mdash; their local delivery option made things so much easier.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM1NTkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Located one block north of Stevens Square Park in Minneapolis, a recent mural by artists from the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/creativesaftercurfew/" target="_blank">Creatives After Curfew</a> collective was created using materials from Wet Paint. Photo by Bridget Kranz.

At the time, customers weren&rsquo;t allowed inside Wet Paint due to the COVID-19 lockdown, and Fares recalls making deals by talking over the phone &mdash; or yelling through the store window. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t business as usual, we were just getting things out there to people and figuring it out later.&quot;

Another challenge was keeping enough of the right materials in stock. With protests ongoing across much of the country, Fares noticed a run on everything from sidewalk chalk to mural and spray paint. Throughout the pandemic and the demonstrations, Wet Paint has tried to make its inventory responsive to the community&rsquo;s needs &mdash; both altering and building on the foundation of over 40 years in business.

From college store to art destination

Fares took over ownership three and a half years ago, along with business partner Darin Rinne. Despite their short tenure as owners, the pair&rsquo;s relationship with Wet Paint dates back over three decades. Rinne has worked there almost continuously since graduating from&nbsp;Macalester&nbsp;in the late 1980s, where he met Fares in the printmaking department.&nbsp;

Founded in 1976, Wet Paint initially operated out of an apartment above its current location, catering to students at the neighboring campus. Still, since its founding, the store has also attracted a large professional following from across the Twin Cities.

&ldquo;At one point, we had over 16 different lines of oil paints and none of them were student-grade stuff,&rdquo; says&nbsp;Fares. He credits&nbsp;the previous owner, Beth Bergman &mdash; who helmed the store for over 30 years &mdash; with setting up a successful foundation for the business.

&ldquo;She realized early on that we couldn&rsquo;t compete on price alone &mdash; we needed to have a real selection of high quality items and a specialization that you couldn&rsquo;t get any other place,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;The challenge for any independent art supply store is having enough selection to make it worth someone&rsquo;s while, and that&rsquo;s why Wet Paint has been able to survive and thrive.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM5NDQwMDAx/full.jpg" />Darin Rinne, left, and Scott Fares have owned Wet Paint Artists&rsquo; Materials and Framing for three and a half years,&nbsp;but their relationship with the store dates back three decades to when they were students at Macalester College. Photo by Bridget Kranz.

Forming deeper community connections

Personal connections with suppliers have also helped the store stay healthy over the years, as the owners are in regular contact with brush- and canvas-makers, working with them on inventory as well as community initiatives. As Fares notes, most manufacturers consist of only one or two people and are even smaller operations than Wet Paint.

These relationships also help when it comes to partnerships between Wet Paint and the Twin Cities community. Recently, a number of manufacturers donated supplies to make kits for youth in Urban Ventures, a nonprofit program based in South Minneapolis. Instead of just passing the materials along, Wet Paint sold them in-store, giving customers the chance to sponsor participants by buying a kit. They were then able to donate both the kits and the money to Urban Ventures.&nbsp;

For both the suppliers and the store itself, Fares says&nbsp;he also&nbsp;likes to find ways of giving back that go &ldquo;beyond just writing a check.&rdquo; This summer, that has taken the shape of helping stock and distribute materials for murals &mdash; including providing guidance on which brands or types of paint might work best in different scenarios.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNDUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Marketing manager Kristina Fjellman restocks a spray paint cabinet at the Grand Avenue store front. As local artists create murals to protest ongoing police brutality, artist-grade spray paint has been one of the store&rsquo;s most important items this summer. Photo by Bridget Kranz.

&quot;We rely on a strong arts community, so we support a strong arts community.&quot;

When planning for this year&rsquo;s second annual Chroma Zone Mural &amp; Art Festival, it quickly became clear to director Angela Casselton that it couldn&rsquo;t be an in-person event. Still, the group decided to use its funds to commission a handful of artworks in St. Paul&rsquo;s Creative Enterprise Zone, continuing the momentum after last year&rsquo;s twelve&nbsp;artist-led works.&nbsp;

Casselton reached out to Wet Paint about partnering on this year&rsquo;s murals, and the store is now involved in an advisory capacity &mdash; providing guidance on materials, as well as significant discounts.&nbsp;

&ldquo;The artists get to choose to work with Wet Paint. They go over there and establish a relationship,&rdquo; says&nbsp;Casselton. &ldquo;Next year, we hope it will be an even deeper partnership, where we can bring in representatives from paint brands and do product demonstrations for the community.&rdquo;

She also felt that bringing in Wet Paint as a partner added to the reputation of the festival, given the business&rsquo;s long history. For Fares and Rinne, it&rsquo;s a symbiotic relationship &mdash; the store supports the local arts community, which in turn produces more artists and projects to support the store.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We are part of the community of artists &mdash; hiring from the community of artists, generating new artists in the community,&rdquo; said Fares. &ldquo;We feel lucky to be in a town that supports the arts, and we need to be on both sides of that equation &mdash; so that artists are supported, and we&rsquo;re supported.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3NTAwMDAx/full.jpg" />A colorful mural by Jeffrey Nelson of Jephemera brightens up the back of the store, overlooking its parking lot off Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Photo courtesy of Wet Paint.

Wet Paint is located at 1684 Grand Avenue in Saint Paul, and online at <a href="https://wetpaintart.com" target="_blank">wetpaintart.com</a>. They are open 7 days a week from 10am-6pm, and don&#39;t forget to wear a mask!

Banner image: original photo courtesy of Wet Paint.&nbsp;

Wet Paint is a regular advertiser on MPLSART,&nbsp;but they did&nbsp;not sponsor this&nbsp;content.

The role one local art supply store (and longtime MPLSART supporter) has played during a summer of pandemic and protest

Beyond Writing a Check: Wet Paint steps up

If you happened to put your ear to the wind back in early April, you might have heard a strange, sad sound: the collective wailing of over 800 artists in Northeast Minneapolis. Art-A-Whirl &mdash; the annual open studio crawl that brings 40K+ people into the neighborhood for the Black Friday of local art events &mdash; had been cancelled.&nbsp;

But Anna Becker, the Executive Director of NEMAA, the nonprofit behind the art festival, had a plan: move the whole thing online. In the span of a mere month, Becker and local web developer Jeremy Burgeson created <a href="http://ArtAWhirl.org">ArtAWhirl.org</a>, a website that combines art retail, an interactive map, pre-recorded artist interviews and demos, musical performances, and the ability to order food from local NE restaurants. Since May, the website (which remains active and is still a great place to shop) has clocked over 35,000 visitors, a full 25% of whom were from outside Minnesota. And there have been over&nbsp;$44,000 in sales through the website &mdash; a figure that does not include&nbsp;sales made through individual artists&rsquo; existing shops that were linked to their profiles.

And now&nbsp;NEMAA&nbsp;is one week out from another online sales event, their annual 10x10 Member Fundraiser, which will feature hundreds of anonymous artworks for sale &mdash; all ten inches square or smaller, all only $35, launching September 26th at 5pm CDT. (<a href="https://nemaa.org/nemaa_10x10/" target="_blank">More info on that here.</a>)&nbsp;

Art-A-Whirl Online was, in the relative terms of this ill-fated year, a surprising&nbsp;success. And the lessons learned about online art sales will stay relevant certainly through the rest of the pandemic and likely beyond. Word on the street is that art sales are up, as a means to beautify the homes we&rsquo;re all stuck in, as well as an opportunity to support local makers in tough times.

We asked some of <a href="https://ArtAWhirl.org" target="_blank">ArtAWhirl.org</a>&#39;s&nbsp;top sellers to shed some light on their success with online sales, so that the rest of us might get our boats out into this rising tide.

<a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/philipo-dyauli/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzMzYwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a>

<h2>Philipo Dyauli</h2>

What strategies do you have for selling your work online?&nbsp;

<ul>
	<li>This year was the first time I sold artwork online, and it was an eye-opening experience. I have a lot of respect for artists that sell items through online platforms. One of the strategies that worked for me was providing a range of price points to accommodate a wider audience while still making a profit. This also makes it less intimidating for newcomers when the work is priced at various ranges.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Another helpful strategy was having enough inventory in the shop to ensure customers have a wide selection to choose from that are ready to purchase so they can get their order right away. With a platform like ArtAWhirl.org&nbsp;there can be a lot of competition, so once inventory runs out, updating in a timely manner is key.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>A final strategy is to promote the artwork heavily throughout your social media platforms. Be sure not to take any platform for granted. Social media adds an element of participation and allows you to connect with your audience. It also allows you to use your unique background as an artist so the customer can feel like a part of the artwork they are buying. For instance, if you plan on donating a portion of the proceeds to a local cause or if your artwork is highlighting local issues then let the audience know that in advance.</li>
</ul>

How has the Art-A-Whirl platform helped?&nbsp;

<ul>
	<li>The Art-A-Whirl platform centralized all orders and keeps track of number of sales on a monthly, weekly, or annual basis. The ability to export this information made the shipping process much easier.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Having tech support available was helpful when setting up my profile and registering for a Minnesota Tax ID.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Art-A-Whirl and NEMAA have large voices in this community and that helped bring art lovers to the website and my profile.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>The most helpful thing was the ability to upload all my artwork and information without having to create an entirely new shop through my website. I also appreciated that some of the fees for Art-A-Whirl are donated.</li>
</ul>

What do you do outside of just listing products that helps engage customers?

<ul>
	<li>Update Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and website/portfolio with recent artworks.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Include a clear and visible link in your profile and story that leads directly to your shop.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Keep the customers updated on shipping, inventory changes, and clearly communicate the pick-up hours/location.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

Do you have any advice for your fellow artists and makers trying to transition to selling online?

<ul>
	<li>It can seem intimidating and overwhelming at first but coming from a self-taught painter, I would highly recommend creating an online shop. The benefits are far greater. Personally, it was a great way to know my audience&rsquo;s preferences when it comes to sales, practicing&nbsp;customer service, and knowing how to price my artwork.</li>
</ul>

<a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/philipo-dyauli/" target="_blank">Art-A-Whirl profile</a> &bull; Website:&nbsp;<a href="https://philipodyauli.com" target="_blank">philipodyauli.com</a> &bull; IG:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/philipowashere/" target="_blank">@philipowashere</a> &bull; Northrup King Building, <a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/studio400" target="_blank">Studio 400</a>

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<h2><a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/stargirl-art-anna-anna-palmquist/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNjEwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a></h2>

<h2>Anna Palmquist &bull; Stargirl Art</h2>

When the pandemic happened, and it was time for online Art-A-Whirl, I was in the midst of a house renovation that was taking up all my attention. I&rsquo;d pretty much given up on my art business because of the pandemic. I was used to selling my work out of various studios in the Northrup King Building. Also, because of my in-person success, my website/web presence was in desperate need of updating. I never seemed to get around to it.

But&nbsp;since the online version of Art-A-Whirl was there, I thought I might as well set up my shop. I&rsquo;ll be honest with you: I threw something together quickly because I didn&rsquo;t have much time (house renovation), and I didn&rsquo;t really expect anything amazing to happen. I didn&rsquo;t even do any social media posts or marketing to let my very few followers know I had a new online shop.

To my shock and surprise, in about a week or so of online Art-a-Whirl, I sold the exact amount of watercolor Moons online that I did in-person at&nbsp;Art-A-Whirl in 2019 (even with a price increase for shipping). That success motivated me to get my online game together. Since then, I have redesigned my website and am planning a social media/marketing strategy to sell online. I&rsquo;m rolling this out in September/October. Without online Art-A-Whirl, I never would have learned that my Moons sell great online. I also like that a percentage of my sales go back to supporting NEMAA. Without this organization, my art business wouldn&rsquo;t be where it is today.&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m looking forward to a bright online future where my audience isn&rsquo;t just the Minneapolis/St. Paul area but anyone with internet access.&nbsp;My biggest advice for artists is to not be afraid to try something new to get your work seen. You might be surprised by what happens. And if it&rsquo;s a colossal fail, then at least you learned what doesn&rsquo;t work for you.

<a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/stargirl-art-anna-anna-palmquist/" target="_blank">Art-A-Whirl profile</a>&nbsp;&bull; Website:&nbsp;<a href="http://stargirlart.com/" target="_blank">stargirlart.com</a>&nbsp;&bull; IG:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/annastargirlart/" target="_blank">@annastargirlart</a>&nbsp;&bull; FB: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/annastargirlart" target="_blank">@annastargirlart</a>

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<h2><a href="http://www.everthinejewelry.com" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNjIwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a></h2>

<h2>Aisha Formanski &bull; Everthine Jewelry</h2>

In March when we figured out that the pandemic was going to impact gatherings, I knew I needed to rethink my business model immediately. I had been selling my work primarily at art fairs, and it was clear that these events were not going to continue in 2020. I signed up for a few online marketing courses and jumped in head first. I learned that I needed to start by spiffing up my website with better photography, and implement a strategy to improve my SEO (search engine optimization).

Next I tackled the question, how am I going to communicate with my clients without seeing them at events? I am posting to social media everyday. And&nbsp;I&#39;m sending out email newsletters twice a month. Showing up in your clients&#39; social media feeds&nbsp;and in their email inbox reminds them that you&#39;re here, that you&#39;re creating. People want to support artists and they&nbsp;are showing up for us.

In addition I&#39;m offering promotions like discounts, free shipping, freebies, and new product launches to create excitement for my clients to check back often. Customers are now welcome to shop at my studio by appointment. This has been great for the person looking for a last minute gift&nbsp;or someone&nbsp;would prefer to pick up their online order.

If you don&#39;t know where to start you can check out&nbsp;<a href="https://springboardforthearts.org/events/work-of-art-marketing/" target="_blank">Springboard for the Arts Work of Art: Marketing</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tccollective.kartra.com/page/masterclass-signup" target="_blank">Twin Cities Collective&#39;s Social Media Masterclass</a>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://jennakutcher.com/business" target="_blank">Jenna Kutcher&#39;s Online Courses</a>.

<a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/everthine-jewelry-aisha-formanski/" target="_blank">Art-A-Whirl profile</a>&nbsp;&bull; Website:&nbsp;<a href="https://everthinejewelry.com" target="_blank">everthinejewelry.com</a> &bull; IG: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/everthine_jewelry/" target="_blank">@everthine_jewelry</a>&nbsp;&bull; FB: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/everthinejewelry" target="_blank">@everthinejewelry</a>&nbsp;&bull; Casket Arts Building #202

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<h2><a href="https://emilygraykoehler.com" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNjIwMDAx/full.jpg" /></a></h2>

<h2>Emily Gray Koehler</h2>

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented all of us with unexpected challenges. For many of us in the art world we are asking old questions in a desperate search for new answers. How do I present my art to patrons online? How do I find patrons in the expanse of the internet? How do I encourage them to support me? Unfortunately, there are no magic solutions. It all comes down to hard work.

It may not be the same as attending gallery openings, presenting a portfolio to a curator, or a meet-up for a future commission, but as I sit in front of my computer developing my online presence, it may just be the most important labor I can perform for my art career in this unprecedented time.&nbsp;But, what does developing an online presence mean? For me, it means a multi-faceted approach using as many resources as I can effectively wield. I&#39;ve had an artist website for over a decade. It has evolved from a rudimentary portfolio page to what is now a central hub containing a shopping cart for art sales, information about me, my process, and my physical studio, email signup options, social media links, events and press, and more. It has taken a long time, a lot of work, some financial investment and trial and error to get to this point. The most important thing for any artist is to have a dedicated website. In addition to my website, I try to use as many resources as I can, all while directing them back to a single place: my website. As an example, I have a page set up on NEMAA&#39;s Art-A-Whirl site which I have linked to my website shop. During Art-A-Whirl and for many weeks after my site&#39;s analytics reported a significant uptick in activity and sales directed there from NEMAA! While I did not make as many sales as at past in-person Art-A-Whirls, the sales were significant and welcomed.

That brings up the issue of connection. Few of us have a budget to throw at traditional advertising, but we do have access to social media. While it does not solve everything, regularly posting and staying engaged with my two preferred social media platforms has kept me and my work in front of my patrons which is vital in this new digital, stay-at-home world. I create unique posts on my Facebook and Instagram pages multiple times a week. I reply promptly when followers comment and do my best to stay engaged in the wider arts community via social media. I also attempt to use as many diverse resources as possible. As an example, I was planning to participate in the Loring Park Art Festival this summer. When it was canceled due to the pandemic, the organizers began an aggressive social media campaign for its artists. All they asked of us was to send them content. The posts they made on my behalf&nbsp;not only resulted in new followers, but also sales. This would have been a lost opportunity had I not sent them the content they requested. In addition to social media, I maintain an email list to stay connected with my most engaged patrons. I send out monthly emails to my list containing images of works in progress, new works that are available for purchase, awards my work received in the past month, and any exhibitions or shows into which my work was juried.&nbsp;

Selling art online is never easy. Even the most dedicated collectors of my work would still prefer to buy in person. They want to walk up to a piece and see the texture of the hand-pulled print on paper, the vibrant oil-based palate unmanipulated by back-lit screens and pixel conversion, the scale of the print, the smell of the ink. However, we all know that is not possible right now. So, I stay engaged with them through all the virtual resources I have at my disposal, and I remain grateful and humbled by their support.

<a href="https://artawhirl.org/artists/emily-gray-koehler/" target="_blank">Art-A-Whirl profile</a>&nbsp;&bull; Website:&nbsp;<a href="https://emilygraykoehler.com" target="_blank">emilygraykoehler.com</a>&nbsp;&bull; IG: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/studioegk/" target="_blank">@studioegk</a>&nbsp;&bull; FB: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/studioegk" target="_blank">@studioegk</a> &bull; Thorp Building 1618 #137

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To experience the now everlasting&nbsp;Whirl, visit <a href="https://artawhirl.org" target="_blank">artawhirl.org</a>. <a href="https://nemaa.org/nemaa_10x10/" target="_blank">NEMAA 10x10</a> opens online September 26th at 5pm; you can also purchase&nbsp;<a href="https://nemaa.org/product/nemaa-10x10-special-preview-hour-ticket-2/" target="_blank">Preview Tickets</a>&nbsp;to get you in an hour early for first dibs on small works.

Banner image illustration by Russ White.

Four months after NEMAA took Art-A-Whirl online, several of its member artists share the lessons they've learned

Distance Earning: Tips for selling art during a global pandemic

Burn Something is a 7-panel multimedia installation located on the bustling corner of Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue that boasts the visual works of 7 POCI and Black nonbinary, femme, and trans artists. And it has been a long time in the making. The creative brainchild of Emerging Curator Institute fellows Adrienne Doyle and Gabby Coll,&nbsp;Burn Something&rsquo;s imagery is as poignant as the artist statements that line them. Below, Gabby and Adrienne offer insight into their method, mission, and trajectory as it relates to their latest undertaking.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNTMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Installation photo by Adrienne Doyle.

Cameron Downey: Where lies the power in centering the voices of Black and POCI femme, non-binary, and trans-identifying people at this moment in time, at this reckoning?&nbsp;

Gabby Coll: The need to prioritize Black and POCI femme, nonbinary, and trans voices isn&rsquo;t exclusive to the time. Burn Something Zine was founded in 2014 &mdash; almost 7 years ago. This curatorial project was started long before the uprisings of Summer 2020 began. Uplifting traditionally marginalized folks is always urgent. Dismantling white supremacy is always urgent. Now, the social context is serving as a more pronounced backdrop to this work.

So much of this exhibition seemed to manifest itself. There was something happening in the work that allowed for many elements of it to align in ways beyond our control. Take just the name: Burn Something Zine existed long before the uprisings, and now the exhibition that is bringing this work back to life is installed for the public to view on the same street where a few weeks prior, buildings were literally burned during protests against Minneapolis&rsquo;s violent police force.&nbsp;

Another example: during the beginning phases of curating this project, we struggled to find a venue, hesitant to show this work in a white-walled traditional gallery space. When we finally secured a gallery (Modus Locus) our intention was to make it feel intimate and cozy in ways galleries normally don&rsquo;t, in order to make it as accessible as possible.&nbsp;

Now, the exhibition is literally on display for anyone to see, on a prominent corner in Minneapolis &mdash; no white walls to be seen. The choice to install the pieces on boarded-up windows of the Family Partnerships building was one in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the overall ethos of this solution aligned well with our intentions and came to fruition pretty quickly &mdash; as if it were meant to be. I think all of this speaks to the timelessness of this essential work.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NTIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Justice Jones, Primary Self-Portrait, pen and acrylic on paper, 2019.

The phrase &ldquo;Burn Something&rdquo; is one that you&rsquo;ve coined and kept around since the start of your zine! How has your understanding of and tie to the connotations of this phrase changed over time? How do you see it changing in the future?

Adrienne Doyle: As a title, &ldquo;Burn Something&rdquo; is representative of the anger that myself and so many others have felt regarding the racist, intangible power structures of this world that cannot be decimated with the immediacy of a match. It is an invitation to ritual: burn that which you must let go and clear space for new growth. It is a social invitation to build relationships: let&rsquo;s kick it and put something in the air. &ldquo;Burn Something&rdquo; is my FUBU offering, exemplifying that BIPOC folks can and already have created solutions to what they feel is missing in their communities. In the context of the MN Uprising, the Burn Something exhibition connects all of the sentiments named above to the literal burning of our city in response to the death of George Floyd. It&rsquo;s been said that there is prescience in the name of this project, but I think the title is just a reflection. Racism has been burning communities of color in Minneapolis for generations.&nbsp;

We&rsquo;re building for the future, now. Curating this exhibition sparked the February 2020 founding of the Burn Something Collective, a group of 7 Black and POCI femme, nonbinary, and trans artists, including Gabby and I, Genevieve DeLeon and Zola Richardson (artists in the exhibition), Nancy Musinguzi and Mare Lodu (past Burn Something Zine contributors), and Lizy Bryant. As a group, we work at the intersection of curation, publishing, and mentorship to offer resources and support the agency of artists in our communities. There are a number of projects in the works for the next year. In a couple weeks we&rsquo;ll be releasing a call for submissions for a new public art installation. Follow the collective on Instagram (<a href="http://instagram.com/burnsomethingzine">@burnsomethingzine</a>) or visit our website (<a href="http://burnsomething.org">burnsomething.org</a>) for updates.&nbsp;

What did the selection process for the Burn Something exhibition look like, given that you had to choose just one image from what were entire issues of work?&nbsp;

AD: Aligned with the accessible, submission-based nature of Burn Something Zine, Gabby and I released a call for submissions for this exhibition in Fall 2019. To select work, we used our artist eligibility criteria (Twin-Cities based, BIPOC, clear tie to themes of the exhibition). Once we selected our artists and announced the exhibition in January 2020, Gabby and I did studio visits with each artist to build relationships, understand more about their respective practices, and work with them to finalize the selected work and decide collaboratively on their work&rsquo;s presentation in the exhibition. Four out of seven of the artists we selected for this exhibition had never shown work before.&nbsp;

GC: It was difficult to transition this exhibition to an outdoor installation. I was nervous to ask the artists to adjust their work and presentation, especially after we had worked so intentionally with them to curate the show around their vision and their own processes. But when we brought up the new format and installation idea, all of them were on board immediately. I am so grateful to all of them for being so flexible and accommodating, and for going along the ride with us with such grace. For this, and so much more, I am grateful to all of them. After that, it was actually quite easy to select the pieces; for many of them, we already had one piece in particular that we had energy and excitement around. It was a bummer to not be able to show all the works we selected from all of them, but in the end I think thematically, visually, aesthetically, all the pieces we selected work really well together and create quite a striking installation.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNjEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Zola Ellen, Untitled&nbsp;(detail), digital photograph, 2020.

Why this location? Why public art now, in this shape and form, when there&rsquo;s been so much &mdash; namely in the adorning of boarded up businesses during the uprisings in May?

GC: A lot of the answer to this question is mere necessity. When COVID shut everything down, we really struggled over what to do for several months. We didn&rsquo;t know if canceling outright or pushing back the exhibition to a later date would be best. Eventually we realized that the pandemic was not going to let up anytime soon, and gathering large groups of folks indoors was not going to be a possible or comfortable option for some time. When we started considering what that meant &mdash; Do we cancel? Do we push to 2021? Do we shift online? &mdash; George Floyd was murdered and the MN Uprising began. We were exhausted &mdash; spiritually, physically, emotionally. Everyone was.&nbsp;

When things had settled a little bit, Adrienne floated the idea of installing the exhibition as a public art installation/mural, and everything just kind of fell into place from there. We got in touch with Tricia Heuring from Studio 400 and Creatives After Curfew and they had a location available. It seemed to be the right fit; the location was right in the community that we want to be interacting with in this work. The work speaks to broader contextual events in a more subtle, oblique way - portraits of George Floyd are wonderful tributes and a symbol for the movement, but I think there are other ways to be in conversation and contribute. After that, it was just logistics, figuring out how to physically install the pieces, get high-res images of the artists&rsquo; work or photograph their work ourselves, writing <a href="https://issuu.com/burnsomething/docs/burn_something_exhibition_catalogue">the exhibition catalogue</a>, etc. (Shout-out to Arts District Image Works for printing such high quality prints in such a short time frame!).

Anything else you want to speak to? What&rsquo;s on your mind? What have you been listening to and watching? What has brought you peace?&nbsp;

AD: I really don&rsquo;t know how any of us are getting out of bed at all. Right now, I&rsquo;m experimenting with screenwriting to tell my stories and make an offering towards more inclusive media representation for folks that look like me. I&#39;ve been revisiting a lot of Frank Ocean&rsquo;s catalogue, watching apocalyptic TV series on Netflix, and thinking about Octavia Butler&rsquo;s Lilith&rsquo;s Brood, wondering what humans must look like to extraterrestrial lifeforms right now. An artist collective was an unfulfilled dream I had while I ran Burn Something Zine, and I&rsquo;m so energized by the founding of the Burn Something Collective and the work we have ahead of us. I have endless gratitude to the local and national contributors that submitted work to Burn Something Zine. Without y&rsquo;all, this project would still be a daydream!&nbsp;

GC: Not much brings me peace these days. I haven&rsquo;t slept soundly since March. Working on this exhibition and on building up the Burn Something Collective are some of the few things that bring me deep joy and calm. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such brilliant, thoughtful, creative people in this work. Working with Adrienne has been beyond a joy - I am always learning from her. I don&rsquo;t think she fully understands how much! I am forever grateful that she was open to the idea of working together to apply for the ECI in the first place. Lately I&rsquo;ve been watching a lot of Schitt&rsquo;s Creek, and teaching myself Tarot and astrology. The latter are very grounding in this time of immense uncertainty.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNTIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Photo by Adrienne Doyle.

Burn Something, a public art exhibition presented by the Emerging Curators Institute, is on view now at 1527 East Lake Street in Minneapolis. To learn more, visit <a href="http://burnsomething.org">burnsomething.org</a> or follow them on Instagram <a href="http://instagram.com/burnsomethingzine">@burnsomethingzine</a>.

Banner image: Kieran Myles Andr&eacute;s Tverbakk, missing (detail), digital print, 2019. All images courtesy of Burn Something Collective.

The curators of a new exhibition talk about how the show evolved from the pages of their zine to the streets of South Minneapolis

Burn Something (and Build Anew): An interview with Adrienne Doyle & Gabby Coll 

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<div style="background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 5px 10px;">This is the second in&nbsp;a series of articles encouraging you to help Juxtaposition Arts reach&nbsp;<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/donate/capital-campaign/" target="_blank">their fundraising goal</a>&nbsp;before the end of the year.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;hosted_button_id=MUHFVF2XGR9KJ&amp;source=url" target="_blank">Donate</a>&nbsp;today!</div>
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Exploring Minneapolis, it&rsquo;s impossible not to notice how our urban landscape has significantly changed over the last few months since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the MPD. While the nation watched how Minneapolis responded, community-based public art &mdash; from George Floyd&rsquo;s memorial site to vivid murals on the walls of businesses across the city&nbsp;&mdash; became a revolutionary statement of resilience and solidarity. Urban landscapes became a place of protest, of healing, of Black liberation, commissioned by the people against the city, against oppression. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

For 25 years, the youth-centered&nbsp;nonprofit <a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/">Juxtaposition Arts</a> (JXTA) has been at the heart of community-engaged urban art and community development. As their Capital and Legacy Campaign gains momentum, now, more than ever, it&rsquo;s crucial to fund and sustain their mission of visual art literacy and development programs. With roots in North Minneapolis, JXTALabs employ young artists in hands-on apprenticeships leveraging creative power to gain and harness the tools needed to emerge into the fields of urbanism and urban planning.&nbsp;

We caught up with JXTA alumni Adrienne Doyle and Alex Smith, as well as apprentice Kylia M. McCurn-Porter to explore the role JXTA plays in developing creativity and how it is working to challenge, empower, and springboard the careers of emerging young artists and expand the future of local art landscapes.

<h1><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNDAwMDAy/full.jpg" />Adrienne Doyle (she/they)</h1>

Juleana Enright: What is your role at JXTA Arts and how did you get involved?&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m the Institutional Giving Manager and a Teaching Artist/Lab Lead in JXTA&rsquo;s Tactical Lab (part of JXTALabs workforce development program). The Tactical Lab focuses on design-based community engagement around the city&rsquo;s built environment and youth-directed research projects around the systems that affect youth and Northside residents. &nbsp;

I got involved in JXTA through Step-Up as an 18-year-old. I was an apprentice in JXTA&rsquo;s pilot year of JXTALabs in 2010 and have been at the organization&nbsp;in various roles since then.&nbsp;

As an alumni of the program and a teaching artist, how would you describe the difference between JXTA classes and workshops from other artist-run spaces?&nbsp;

JXTA is a truly intergenerational workspace. In the JXTALabs program, Lab Leads and apprentices collaborate on client projects and projects for JXTA in a way that acclimates young people into professional creative processes (how to prepare for and lead client meetings, public speaking and facilitation of community spaces, engaging with constructive criticism, etc.) and supports their creative genius. As an alum, it&rsquo;s been a gift to see this program grow into what it&rsquo;s become and to be able to learn from and support youth apprentices in my role.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM5NDMwMDAx/full.jpg" />JXTA&#39;s 25th anniversary branding, which was developed in-house.

How has the rebranding and revamp of the art space helped refine JXTA&rsquo;s connection to the community?

JXTA has been located on the Northside, embedded geographically and socially within its community, for the entirety of its 25 years.&nbsp;

The refinement of our communications strategy and development of our 25th anniversary branding has provided us with a strong visual language to share stories about the depth of our work that people can connect to and get energized by. Our 25th anniversary branding was developed in-house by Lab Leads and apprentices in our Graphic Design JXTALab.&nbsp;

In addition to being a visual arts education center and youth workforce development program, JXTA is a community development organization, leveraging the Northside&rsquo;s cultural and social capital to create innovative use of public space along the West Broadway commercial corridor. The skateable art plaza is an example of this part of our work. In 2018, we learned that our buildings that stood on the Broadway and Emerson intersection and housed some of our programs were no longer viable. With this information, and with years of planning already completed, we launched Build JXTA, our Capital and Legacy Campaign to raise $14 million to build a new facility and to support two-years of programming in our new space. This campaign will set JXTA up with the operational and physical infrastructure it needs to thrive as a Black-led arts organization for another 25 years. We tore down the two buildings, and instead of leaving the site vacant, we designed and installed a skate plaza, one of the only formal and intergenerational outdoor recreation spaces along the stretch of West Broadway. Since its grand opening in June 2019, the plaza has seen nonstop activity and has become a gathering space for Northsiders and visitors, adding to our ability to connect with our community on a day-to-day basis and further offering our space as a resource to our neighbors.&nbsp;

This plaza is a part of the larger vision that the Capital and Legacy Campaign aims to achieve. JXTA is the only Black-founded and -led art and design organization in Minneapolis and has become a pillar in the Twin Cities&rsquo; creative economy. We are committed to social and economic justice and supporting the development and vision of our young people and our artists. Our Capital and Legacy Campaign is an effort to build on the momentum our work has created and ensure that JXTA continues to be a resource and connection point for our Northside, youth, and artist&nbsp;communities for the next 25 years.&nbsp;

As in-house grant writer, where do you see mutual aid and community sourced donations fitting into the sustainability of JXTA&rsquo;s future programming?&nbsp;

The amount of individual donations JXTA has received in the last three months is unprecedented for our organization and is a testament to the truth that abundance does exist in our communities. We are so thankful to our recurring and new donors, and are excited to share our work. Additionally, I think this moment is an opportunity for us as a society to reconsider our relationships with our resources and to what or with whom we make investments. I believe we should regularly be investing our financial and social capital into the self-determination of Black folks. We should be trusting them when they tell us what they need, and we should be ready and willing to support their work as an act of reparations. We should take what we learn from this social and political moment into our daily lives and into our future to ensure that Black-led organizations like JXTA and the young people and artists that work there can actualize their visions.

Why is having paid apprenticeships for youth and young adults an important element in JXTALabs and what do you witness it fostering in its participants?

Many youth apprentices have described JXTA as a college education without the student loans. We pay our youth apprentices because we believe in the value of their work, their professional and personal development, and their creative genius. Money is a motivator, along with marketable skill development and gaining in-depth experience in a specific craft. Apprentices understand the uniqueness of this program. It&rsquo;s common for apprentices who have been at JXTA for a number of years to truly understand what they&rsquo;ve gained through their training.&nbsp;

How have your experiences with JXTA influenced your perspective on art engagement and evolved your personal practice?&nbsp;

My 10-year tenure at JXTA has been my college-level education. In my personal practice, I am a writer, curator, and multidisciplinary artist. The JXTA community has been a sounding board and a testing ground for my work, challenging my understanding of what it means to make art in public space, to engage neighbors around hyper-local issues, and to accept and voice critique.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNDYwMDAy/full.jpg" />Alex Smith, at right, with Greta Kotz&nbsp;in the graphic&nbsp;design lab. Photo by Ryan Stopera.

<h1>Alex Gaiter Smith (he/him)&nbsp;</h1>

JE: What is your role at JXTA Arts and how did you get involved?

I am the lead teaching artist in the Textile/Screen Printing program, and assistant teaching artist in the Free Wall program. I started at JXTA as a student in 2001.

As an alumni, what have you learned from programming through JXTA and how has this translated into your personal practice?&nbsp;

What I learned at JXTA as a young person gave me the foundation that my practice would eventually stand on, and being at JXTA as an adult in a teaching role is constantly influencing my artistic practice. And vice-versa.

What would you tell young people&nbsp;interested in getting involved in JXTA&rsquo;s programs?&nbsp;

If you are serious about developing your creativity, JXTA is here for you. You don&rsquo;t have to know what kind of art you want to do, or where you want to go with your creativity. We are here to help you figure those things out. As long as you are motivated and willing to work hard, we are here to help you develop as an Artist/Creative Professional.

What significance does mural work and community engagement in public art hold in the political and in honoring Black and IPOC liberation?&nbsp;

Murals, public art, and art in general can create the visual landscape of a movement. We see that happening across the city and country right now.&nbsp;

How has JXTA&rsquo;s&nbsp;Capital and Legacy Campaign&nbsp;influenced how you see the role of donation-based funding for the local arts?

It&rsquo;s great to see so many donations coming from individuals. I believe that truly speaks to our values as an organization. It&rsquo;s really amazing to see the support regular people are showing for the work that we do.&nbsp;

How have the Visual Art&nbsp;Literacy Training programs and apprenticeships benefited the pathway of your art career?&nbsp;

The art classes I took as a high school student, as well as learning how to screenprint through apprenticing in a print shop, provided me with the knowledge I needed to start my path forward as an artist. Our goal at JXTA&nbsp;is to continue to provide that type of knowledge and support for generations to come.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NjAwMDAx/full.jpg" />Kylia M.&nbsp;McCurn-Porter, at right, with Abdul-Hafeez Nakumbe at FLOW 2019. Photo by Rich&eacute; Effinger.&nbsp;

<h1>Kylia M McCurn-Porter (she/her)</h1>

What is your role at JXTA Arts and how did you get involved?&nbsp;

My role at Juxtaposition Arts is Tactical and Textile lab apprentice. I&rsquo;m a Northsider, and I used to see the building on Broadway all the time and was interested in what I saw, but I never went inside. I got involved with JXTA by reaching out to them over email to learn more about what they did and how I could get involved. I took their VALT (Visual Art Literacy Training) class and got a job as an apprentice after that. That was winter 2016.

What drew you to the design-based community engagement and urban planning department of JXTA, Tactical services?

What I saw. I was amazed by the discussions we were having. Tactical has always felt inclusive like that because everyone&rsquo;s ideas are heard and contribute to the outcome of all the projects we do.&nbsp;

What does a typical day at the lab look like for you and how are classes tailored?&nbsp;

Before the pandemic, we always were engaging outside in the skate plaza and just occupying the space with vibes. If not that, we were sitting at tables in community meetings or at our own tables and having meetings and having active conversations, discussing the conversations we had, and documenting our findings. We always had a goal and stuck with it until we achieved that goal.&nbsp;

What changes have you felt or observed in the way the community views and responds to art and design in public spaces and mural work since the MPLS uprising and murder of George Floyd?&nbsp;

I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of people getting together and creating art to make a statement. It makes me happy to see art being respected in a way that is getting artists paid hopefully what they&#39;re worth. Hopefully surrounding communities see this as an opportunity to fund the artists that reside in their own communities and create jobs that surround and include artists of all academic backgrounds.&nbsp;

How have the conversations and experiences you&#39;ve had at JXTA translated into your day-to-day relationship with art and community?

They have definitely inspired my way of communicating. I first joined Juxtaposition as a high school student, and it felt unreal that I could use my art as a tool and a way of supporting myself.&nbsp; I feel like I am more forgiving and nicer to myself when it comes to my process. My community is more of my home than it has ever been. I didn&rsquo;t know much about where I lived because I&#39;ve lived in many different places in the Northside and Minneapolis. So&nbsp;I feel like I have unconditional love for how grounded and stationary JXTA&nbsp;has been for me personally. It is so awesome to me how we are all amazing artists here.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTkwMDAx/full.jpg" />JXTA&#39;s skateable plaza. Photo by Mississippi Watershed Management Organization.

<div><a href="https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=Q0sfpDk_ZpsJ7xZPLhS3IRh99n0TSL2uGozwVKlREj5ANENjBZ5gwcJrxhpNBnAo7xC3YW&amp;country.x=US&amp;locale.x=US" target="_blank">Donate today</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;JXTA&#39;s&nbsp;Capital and Legacy Campaign! And learn more about what they do at&nbsp;<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org" target="_blank">juxtapositionarts.org</a>.&nbsp;</div>

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<div>All images courtesy&nbsp;of Juxtaposition Arts. Banner photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ryan_stopera/" target="_blank">Ryan Stopera</a>&nbsp;of artwork extrapolated from the 25th anniversary design.</div>
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As Juxtaposition Arts continues their Capital and Legacy Campaign, we talk with alumni Adrienne Doyle and Alex Smith as well as current apprentice Kylia McCurn-Porter about what the Northside arts organization means to them.

JXTA For Generations: Why You Should Give

Scott Streble is a Minneapolis-based location photographer best known for his documentary photographs of people. Through more than thirty years honing his art, he is able to portray his subjects with beautiful realism, honesty, and the utmost dignity. His latest project, the Front Porch Portrait series, captures the&nbsp;the simple bliss of having your portrait taken - a moment to stand in the sun with your loved ones, to document joy within an otherwise tumultuous time. Our homes have all at once become our offices, our schoolrooms, our sanctuaries, our safe havens - symbols of the isolation, inequity, and resilience of this moment in history. It&rsquo;s complicated, like any family, and Scott is there to capture it. Scott is raising money on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottstreble/front-porch-portraits-staying-apart-together?ref=project_build" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a>&nbsp;to publish the series into a book. We interviewed Scott about the project to learn more. 
&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NDgwMDAx/full.jpg" />

What was the inspiration for the Porch Portrait series?

I was sitting on my sofa complaining about not having work due to Covid (I normally stay busy, shooting 5 assignments/week). My partner, Jessica, suggested I do these portraits. Doing Porch Portraits is not an original idea, but this sort of work was a great fit for me, so I started the next day. I want to show the positivity that people still possess in this uncertain time. It also gives people a chance to be part of something bigger, along with giving everyone a remembrance of this time. Lastly, it fulfills me creatively.

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As Covid-19 has many people not venturing far from their own neighborhoods, you were visiting many. Did you gain any insight into how different parts of the city were affected differently?&nbsp;

I was actually surprised at how similar things were within different neighborhoods. I think this is testament to the fact that all people are both resilient and hopeful. These photos gave them a chance to portray this. When I took photos in North Minneapolis, there were many who thanked me for including their neighborhood, as it is often overlooked.

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What draws you to Portraiture?&nbsp;

I like people as much as photography. Photography has given me permission or a license to meet interesting people and hang with them, even though it is often just a brief time. I&#39;ve photographed a wide range of people in a wide range of environments. Photography has allowed me to observe a huge range of life that would be hard to attain from anything else I can think of.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzNDkwMDAx/full.jpg" />

How many Porch Portraits did you take? How did people find out about the project?

I shot over 500, and there will be room for about 230 in the book. These are selected-based on the photo, desire to show a range of people, and neighborhoods. Initially, I placed an ad on Nextdoor and then used Facebook and reached out to community leaders. The project is now self-sustaining. I get about 10 requests per week.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNDQwMDAx/full.jpg" />

How do you feel your role as an artist has changed through your career?&nbsp;

Early on, I thought I could be the photographer for everyone, but realized what I am best at and happiest doing. I then look for clients who want that sort of work. I want us to both feel like we are a good fit for one another. I&#39;ve also learned that photography is a good vehicle to help people, and I look for ways to do that. As a result, almost all my work is for non-profit entities. From a technical standpoint, the equipment I use has been drastically pared down. Having a lot of gear can get in the way of the types of sensitive situations I work in. The current gear has become compact and quiet to use, making it a good match for what I do.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTgwMDAx/full.jpg" />

How did you approach the Porch Portrait Series differently from your regular practice?&nbsp;

The Series is much more casual as the photos are free to the people, and I need only spend a few minutes. Even on a paid assignment, I often feel the best photos happen early in the process in regard to expressions, but I&#39;ll continue on and shoot multiple variations, giving the client lots of options. There is zero pressure, which works great, as everything is relaxed. I will be carrying these experiences over to my commercial work.

<div> 
With so much art experienced online lately, what do you feel is the significance of physical photo book? 
Good Question: I do have a dedicated website of the work (<a href="https://www.mnporchportraits.com/" target="_blank">www.mnporchportraits.com</a>) Doing a book has a certain gravitas that online does not have. Holding the photos in your hand and seeing the quality can&#39;t be matched by looking at them on-screen.</div>

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For more information on the Porch Portrait series, <a href="https://www.mnporchportraits.com/" target="_blank">visit the official website</a>. To help make the Porch Portrait Book a reality, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottstreble/front-porch-portraits-staying-apart-together?ref=project_build" target="_blank">pre-order a copy before the Kickstarter ends August 20th</a>. You can also see more of&nbsp;Scott&#39;s work on his <a href="http://www.scottstreble.com/" target="_blank">website</a> and via his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/scottstreble/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.&nbsp; 
 
 
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Photographer Scott Streble reflects on portraiture, creating during a pandemic, and his latest project

Q&A with Scott Streble on the Front Porch Portrait Series

The Scene

&nbsp;

<div style="background:#eee;border:1px solid #ccc;padding:5px 10px;">This is the first in&nbsp;a series of articles encouraging you to help Juxtaposition Arts reach <a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/donate/capital-campaign/" target="_blank">their fundraising goal</a>&nbsp;before the end of the summer. <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;hosted_button_id=MUHFVF2XGR9KJ&amp;source=url" target="_blank">Donate</a> today!</div>

Juxtaposition Arts has big plans.&nbsp;And while&nbsp;Covid-19 and the civil unrest and collective grieving&nbsp;that followed George Floyd&rsquo;s murder caused the nonprofit to cancel their annual Move The Crowd fundraiser this year, JXTA&nbsp;is still moving forward with their&nbsp;ambitious capital campaign. The&nbsp;goal for this summer is&nbsp;$2 million&nbsp;from individual donors, part of a $14 million overall campaign to cement JXTA&rsquo;s place as a vital arts center in North Minneapolis. With the fundraiser, JXTA is making moves to create an extensive arts campus in North Minneapolis, one that will bring the work the organization has been doing in the community to the next level.&nbsp;

JXTA isn&rsquo;t just an arts education hub. The organization&rsquo;s model is about building up North Minneapolis&rsquo;s strength through the arts, with year-round learning opportunities for youth as well as its core JXTALabs program, where young people age 14-21 are paid a living wage as they build arts and design skills.

<h3>In the beginning</h3>

JXTA first came to be 25 years ago, when Roger and DeAnna Cummings, along with co-founder Peyton Russell, were teaching arts classes in different spaces around the city. They decided to form their own nonprofit in order to centralize the arts education programming they were offering, which included mentorship opportunities and training in mural painting and contemporary art.

In the 2000s, JXTA purchased three buildings at the intersection of Emerson Avenue and West Broadway in North Minneapolis, redeveloping the buildings as spaces for education but also re-imagining how art could build wealth by and for North Minneapolis communities. During those years, the organization shifted from just being about creating and teaching art to thinking about art as a tool in community development.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />A student taking a drawing class through JXTA&#39;s Visual Art Literacy Training (VALT) program. Photo by Rich&eacute;&nbsp;Effinger&nbsp;for Juxtaposition Arts.

&ldquo;I like being able to do art, and I like being able to do art in the community, but also, more importantly, I want to bring the community along so that they benefit not just from my art in general, they benefit from the financial opportunity,&rdquo; says Roger Cummings, JXTA&rsquo;s Chief Cultural Producer. According to Cummings, the vision for JXTA grew into something that was using art as a means to build capital in the community, where participants were gaining project management skills and had ownership in what was being created.&nbsp;

Cummings says the notion of using art as a way to build wealth came out of Intermedia Arts&rsquo; Institute for Community and Cultural Development, a program run by Bill Cleveland and Erik Takeshita. &ldquo;They showed examples of people&rsquo;s work from all over the country,&rdquo; says Cummings, including ways organizations were using social practice as well as using art to earn money.

Cummings calls it an Aha! moment. &ldquo;This could be something larger than what we are currently seeing,&rdquo; he remembers thinking. As part of the Institute, the JXTA leadership team studied what would work from other initiatives around the country.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We went to study and had a year to go visit all these places and really dig in to see what they were really about, and then what is our place in the whole mix,&rdquo; he says. The experience of being part of the cohort offered JXTA both the connections as well as the roadmap to take the organization&rsquo;s impact to the next level. &ldquo;That gave us the know-how, the credibility, the connections, to be able to bring this to fruition,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;

<h3>Artmaking as social enterprise</h3>

One big success was in 2004, when the organization began to re-imagine West Broadway as a corridor, which involved an exhibition that included models for what the corridor could look like. Staff from the Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development department attended the exhibition, which resulted in the city eventually unveiling the&nbsp;West Broadway Alive! Small Area Plan. &ldquo;I think that was a way that artists were beginning to be involved in the planning of communities in a more official, city-sponsored way,&rdquo; Cummings says.

Since 2010, JXTA has employed an apprenticeship model, where young people from the Twin Cities, prioritizing those from North Minneapolis, are offered paid positions as they learn art and design trades. The apprentices are paid an hourly wage as they work in areas of graphic design, contemporary art, screen-printing, environmental design, public art, and mural painting.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Photos: top row and bottom right by Justin Sengly for Juxtaposition Arts, bottom left by Rich&eacute;&nbsp;Effinger for Juxtaposition Arts.

Currently, JXTA is experiencing a leadership transition, as longtime CEO and co-founder DeAnna Cummings moves to her new position as Program Director of Arts for the McKnight Foundation.&nbsp;

According to Roger Cummings, JXTA is breaking up the Executive Director role into three separate positions: a Managing Director, a Financial Manager, and an Executive Assistant. The team, working with Cummings, are heading up the already underway capital campaign, part of a vision for JXTA&rsquo;s campus that goes back over a decade.&nbsp;

<h3>The Capital Campaign</h3>

This summer JXTA has secured over 1500&nbsp;new individual donors, many of whom had never donated to JXTA before, Cummings says. &ldquo;They were just random people that were just starting to donate twenty bucks, one hundred bucks, a thousand, and so that is great,&rdquo; Cummings said. &ldquo;We know our reach is getting out there.&rdquo;&nbsp;

So far, JXTA has raised $3.1 million over the past two years. Part of that money went into building a temporary skate park, as a way to have something both beautiful and functional that the community can enjoy during the construction phase of the project.&nbsp;And this month, they hope to build on that momentum.

&ldquo;We need another $400,000 to go and we&#39;ll get that $4 million mark,&nbsp;which would be huge,&rdquo; Cummings says. &ldquo;If we get this money before the end of August, we will start to break ground in the spring.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3NDcwMDAx/full.jpg" />

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNDgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Renderings of the plans for JXTA&#39;s expanded campus, including a new arts complex on Emerson Ave and renovations to two buildings on Broadway. Lizzo and Lil Wayne approve! Renderings by 4RM+ULA Architecture for Juxtaposition Arts.

If the fundraiser is successful, the new complex will be a three story building that is part of a larger campus. The new art center, which will be located on Emerson Avenue and include property previously owned by Urban Homeworks,&nbsp;will create room for JXTA&#39;s education programs, work labs, and an exhibition space, in addition to storage space, a new lobby, and administrative offices. The larger campus will include a mix of old and new, with some of the current JXTA buildings getting renovations, such as the building at 1108 Broadway, which will contain a new fabrication studio. JXTA plans to contract the&nbsp;demolition to a company employing people in the community, and the whole build has been planned with efficiency and sustainability in mind, from reusing materials to including solar panels, a green roof, and an innovative stormwater management system.&nbsp;Cummings says that having&nbsp;multiple buildings in addition to outdoor features like the skate park and a rooftop terrace&nbsp;will encourage people to flow between the different spaces.

&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s the special sauce within JXTA,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;being able to have specific disciplines in different places so that you can walk back and forth to these places just on one block.&rdquo;

<div><a href="https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=Q0sfpDk_ZpsJ7xZPLhS3IRh99n0TSL2uGozwVKlREj5ANENjBZ5gwcJrxhpNBnAo7xC3YW&amp;country.x=US&amp;locale.x=US" target="_blank">Donate today</a> to JXTA&#39;s Capital Campaign! And learn more about what they do at&nbsp;<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org" target="_blank">juxtapositionarts.org</a>. And stay tuned as we cover more details of JXTA&#39;s impact on students and the Northside in the coming weeks!</div>

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<div>All images courtesy of Juxtaposition Arts.</div>

As part of an ongoing capital campaign, Juxtaposition Arts is working to raise $2M from donors like you to expand their campus.

Building the Future of Minneapolis: JXTA Needs Your Help!

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NTcwMDAx/full.jpg" />The mural along Plymouth Avenue features the work sixteen different artists, organized by the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum &amp; Gallery. Photo by Georgia Fort,&nbsp;from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.maahmg.org" target="_blank">maahmg.org</a>.

<h3>What was your inspiration for your Black Lives Matter letter? What did it mean to you to be part of that group of 16 artists?&nbsp;</h3>

My inspiration came from thoughts about Black education. I based my letter &quot;E&quot; on the concept of &quot;Black Education Matters&quot; by highlighting books to symbolize education, an apple to symbolize complexities and knowledge, and African elders at the bottom to represent culture within Africa.

Participating in the Black Lives Matter mural felt like finally getting a chance to breathe a little. I was blessed to be a part of this experience and thank Tina Burnside and others from the Minnesota African&nbsp;American Heritage Museum for allowing me to contribute.

<h3>You&#39;ve been doing some other mural work&nbsp;over the past two months. How many have you painted so far? And how has working on large public murals changed your approach to painting in the studio?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>

I painted two murals. One with George Floyd&nbsp;and his daughter. The second of him in high school. Through painting these murals I was able&nbsp;to step outside my comfort zone.&nbsp;I&#39;ve&nbsp;never done any public art before, and enjoyed learning throughout this&nbsp;process of making&nbsp;with no strings attached.&nbsp;

Now I&#39;m back&nbsp;in the studio&nbsp;making new work,&nbsp;exploring everything&nbsp;I&#39;m feeling with a deeper sense of experimenting. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NTYwMDAy/full.jpg" />An example of Karpeh&#39;s previous studio work:&nbsp;American 9 to 5, oil and acrylic on canvas, 62 x 100&quot;, 2018.

<h3>You also recently coordinated a mural project for kids &mdash; can you tell us more about that?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>

The mural project was done with youth of color and immigrant backgrounds, titled &ldquo;Art Of The Times&rdquo; in response to the fight for social justice. We had 15 youth signed up to participate in painting murals on the looted CVS building near the Cub Foods in Uptown.&nbsp;

Participating youth were ages 7-18 and came from households of immigrant background.&nbsp;They all lived in the cities of Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, New Hope, and Crystal:&nbsp;areas with a high population of immigrant families and little to no creative outlets for youth to engage or experience. After the murals were completed we had a little showcase and invited their parents to attend. Some of the kids were recent graduates from Cooper High School taught by my friend/artist Claire, others were kids from my Liberian Youth Arts program. The project was amazing, and I am happy they got the opportunity to express themselves.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Karpeh, at left, with a group of young muralists and their work. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>, courtesy of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">Karpeh&#39;s Instagram</a>.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI1MTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>, courtesy of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">Karpeh&#39;s Instagram</a>.

What have you learned about yourself or about Minneapolis since the murder of George Floyd, especially through creating this artwork? &nbsp;

To be honest, I&#39;m slowly&nbsp;still processing everything.&nbsp;However, I think the&nbsp;most important&nbsp;thing I&rsquo;ve learned is the definition of community.&nbsp;Since the&nbsp;murder of George Floyd, I learned&nbsp;how to&nbsp;better value and observe&nbsp;the role I play in communities. Especially communities of color, I am learning how to show up, do the&nbsp;work, and ask questions later.&nbsp; When it comes to my art work, I&#39;ve learned the power of challenging and changing narratives in art. I now have a better understanding on art&#39;s ability&nbsp;to provoke, ask questions, answer questions, and&nbsp;explore answers&nbsp;that can be a formula for change. I am also learning how to&nbsp;use art to make a big impact on history&nbsp;during times like this,&nbsp;and how I must pay attention and create work encompassing much more than just my personal experiences&nbsp;alone.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNDcwMDAx/full.jpg" />The artist with one of her recent murals. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>.

To see more of Lissa Karpeh&#39;s&nbsp;work, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://lissakarpeh.com" target="_blank">her website</a> and follow her <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">on Instagram</a>. Also <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pbENgHGEo/" target="_blank">check out when we visited</a>&nbsp;for #StudioVisitSundays last February.&nbsp;She&nbsp;is also a&nbsp;member of&nbsp;<a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/studio400" target="_blank">Studio 400</a>&nbsp;in Northeast Minneapolis. All images courtesy of the artist unless otherwise noted.

Painter and muralist Lissa Karpeh, who created one of the letters in the recent BLACK LIVES MATTER street mural, reflects on her public work, her studio practice, and what the past two months have taught her.

On Murals & Meaning: Q&A with Lissa Karpeh

&nbsp;

Well&hellip; this is gonna make a lot of people mad...

This is going to be uncomfortable, VERY uncomfortable. But I&rsquo;m going to be nice to you and ease you into this subject, not because I care about your feelings, but because it took me a long time to construct this article, and I&rsquo;d like you to give it your time to reflect on what I have to say.&nbsp;

First, let&rsquo;s start by differentiating the definitions of &ldquo;race&rdquo; and &ldquo;color.&rdquo;

Race: A human classification of a distinct population that is often based on the geographic location of that population&#39;s ancestry and/or that population&rsquo;s hereditary phenotype.&nbsp;

Color: As it pertains to human skin, color is the specific shade and tone of one&rsquo;s epidermis&hellip; I&rsquo;ve always wanted to use that word.&nbsp;

Now it&rsquo;s important to remember that race is a social construct. This in no way diminishes its effects on the lives of human beings around the world. In fact, it makes it even more important as social constructs govern how fluidly we are (or are not) able to move through the world in the name of survival. These colors used as human classifications were treated as science and given a great deal of accolade when, in truth, they were just white supremacy coded as fact.&nbsp;

SIDE NOTE: Race is NOT the same as Ethnicity or Nationality. These three are completely different. Also, one&#39;s skin color doesn&rsquo;t not necessarily determine one&#39;s race. I know, it&rsquo;s confusing; blame white supremacy.

&nbsp;

<h2>BLACK</h2>

The racial group with the most label variations within the American English language, black people began the conversation regarding which labels were appropriate in the 1950s and 1960s. Civil rights leaders of the time wanted a term that represented their systemically opposing relationship to white people, while also disassociating them from slavery, discrimination, and concepts of second class citizenship. The term &lsquo;black&rsquo; is translated from the Spanish and Portuguese word &lsquo;negro,&rsquo; which was introduced around 1442. &lsquo;Negro&rsquo; is derived from the latin word &lsquo;niger,&rsquo; which is likely derived from the Proto-Indo European word &lsquo;nek&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;to be dark,&rdquo; a word likely derived from the word &lsquo;nok&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;night.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<h2>BROWN</h2>

German pseudoscientist Johann Friedrich Blumenback was the first on record to invent and widely use the term &lsquo;brown,&rsquo; the racial classification that includes the largest number of people. The word &lsquo;brown&rsquo; in regard to racial classification has often been used as a neutral term to describe a person of color who is not dark-skinned African or light-skinned East Asian, and its usage varies from culture to culture with no fixed definition. The term &lsquo;brown&rsquo; gained popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries and included people from Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Pattani, Sumatra, and Taiwan. Polynesians and Melanesians of Pacific Islands, as well as Papuans and Aborigines of Australia were also included. In 1775 the label &lsquo;light brown&rsquo; was created to include Southern Europeans, Sicilians, Abyssinians, the Spanish, Persians, Turks, and Laplanders. Tartars, Africans on the Mediterranean, and the Chinese were added to the &lsquo;brown&rsquo; label. More, and more, and MORE ethnic groups were added to this category until these theories were scientifically debunked. In the 20th and 21st centuries, &lsquo;brown&rsquo; is no longer considered a scientific racial classification and is thought to be biologically invalid (as if they aren&rsquo;t all invalid in a biological sense), and is mostly used for sociological and interpersonal purposes.

<h2>RED</h2>

Native Americans and European colonizers didn&rsquo;t often mention the color of each other&rsquo;s skins (at least from what surviving histories maintain), so the origins of color terminology used to describe Natives in English is arguably unclear. While skin color labels are thought to have entered everyday speech somewhere around the mid-18th century, it was as early as&nbsp; the 17th century that similar terms were used in anthropological literature. Despite it&rsquo;s flimsy roots, the term &lsquo;red&rsquo; is used derogatorily and regularly in association with many sports team mascots that depict Native imagery.&nbsp;

<h2>YELLOW</h2>

Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply the word &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; as a means to specifically label East Asians (who, prior to this, had actually been labeled &lsquo;white&rsquo; by Marco Polo). At first, Linnaeus used the Latin adjective &lsquo;fuscus,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;dark,&rdquo; to describe the skin color of Asians. But in the tenth edition of his 1758-1759 Systema Naturae, he enhanced his terminology with the latin word &lsquo;luridus,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;light yellow&rdquo; or &ldquo;pale.&rdquo; &lsquo;Luridus&#39; also means &ldquo;ghastly&rdquo; or &ldquo;horrifying.&rdquo; Unlike the other color terms, &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; is considered a largely outdated racial descriptor and is rarely used anymore.

SIDE NOTE: As I&rsquo;m writing this, I&rsquo;m realizing how it might be indicative of light skinned privilege that, of all the racialized color terms used to describe people of color, that &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; is the one that is more or less retired due to its offensiveness. But I&rsquo;m getting ahead of myself...

<h2>WHITE&nbsp;</h2>

&lsquo;White&rsquo; is rooted in the Old English &lsquo;hwit,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;bright, clear, radiant, and fair&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;morally pure.&rdquo; White, as it pertains to skin color, was first used in 1600, and in 1852 it was used for the first time in connection with white people specifically. The term &lsquo;white&rsquo; was used for the first time in 1868 in Dr. John H. Van Evrie&rsquo;s publication White Supremacy and Negro Subordination to reference both white people and their subjugation of non-white people.&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m really only giving you these definitions to broaden your thinking on the topic, but also to ease any confusion you might have regarding the history of the connections between race and color language. Because the awareness of these terms and their histories will make the task of following this article&#39;s weighted topic a bit easier.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h1>COLORISM</h1>

A discriminatory practice based on the color, shade, and tone of someone&rsquo;s skin, especially within the range of &ldquo;light to dark.&rdquo; The term is widely thought to have been coined by Alice Walker in an essay from her 1983 book titled In Search of Our Mothers&#39; Gardens.

Now, before we continue dissecting colorism, there is something you need to know that will affect how I&rsquo;m going to ask you to think going forward. And that is that whiteness (as it pertains to color, people, culture, and supremacy within the realm of race) is about PURITY&hellip; or rather the illusion of it. So much of how colorism functions has to do with how much proximity one&rsquo;s physical appearance aligns with the standards of whiteness, but being proximate to whiteness is not the same as being white.

And it never will be.&nbsp;

That being said, having white proximity comes with many privileges. People with lighter skin (especially if it is gained via white parentage) often see greater career success, social status, more relationship options, and more access to institutional space and resources than their dark skinned community members. For black people in the states, this has roots that go as far back as slavery, when lighter skinned slaves (who were the result of a slave master raping his female slaves) often got domestic positions working inside the master&rsquo;s home, whereas darker skinned slaves were forced to work outside. This was due to the fact that slave masters assumed that having darker skin meant you were more suited to hard labor, thereby perpetuating the idea that lightness (especially if attained via white parentage) is more delicate, fragile, intelligent, and worthy of protection. Granted, they were all still slaves owned by white people who would have happily killed or sold them on a whim. This is why it is also important to interrogate the fetishization of interracial relationships and the children who are a product of them. There is an ugly, painful history here, and no amount of biracial deification is going to erase that, it also puts a huge burden on biracial children to &ldquo;end racism&rdquo; by way of being born&hellip; like, WHAT?!?

SIDE NOTE: Hey white people reading this, just because you married, fucked, or have children with a person of color DOESN&rsquo;T MEAN YOU CAN&rsquo;T BE RACIST!!! It&rsquo;s 2020, get your shit together!

We expect this behavior from white culture, but what we still have yet to truly reckon with is how people of color have internalized these toxic ideas and turned them inward. See, the thing about white supremacy is that it has this way of infecting everything, from systems and institutions, to cultures, communities, and interpersonal relationships. That&rsquo;s what supremacy is; it&rsquo;s the dominant culture&hellip; and white supremacy IS a culture. For example, in the 20th century, many black churches, greek organizations, and nightclubs would instate the &lsquo;paper bag test&rsquo;, where members of these groups would literally HOLD A BROWN PAPER BAG UP TO SOMEONE&rsquo;S SKIN, and the lightness or darkness of their skin in comparison to that paper bag would determine their admittance to elite parts of black society. That is a learned behavior, and white supremacy teaches it even to this day.&nbsp;

Colorism&#39;s main goal is to distance people of color from blackness without allowing them to attain the power of whiteness, yet still encouraging them to strive for it. It&rsquo;s also a means to turn people of color against each other by creating resentment and competition for access to resources (because it&rsquo;s hard to start the uprising amidst infighting). Even if the people of color in questions aren&rsquo;t identified as black, colorism is a form of anti-blackness that can be found in every culture. White supremacy frames blackness as its opposite, and that brings us full circle back to the concept of &ldquo;binary thinking&rdquo; that has been the core of this entire series.&nbsp;

As I said before, white supremacy and whiteness in general is about purity. It doesn&rsquo;t give merit to halves and mixtures, it doesn&rsquo;t honor the nuances of racial identity unless it can market those nuances to propagate itself. This intentionally leaves no room to confront the dark histories of racial mixing and the continued realities of colorism as social capital that serves to protect and benefit white people. This puts all people of color in some precarious situations: if your skin is dark, then colorism marginalizes you; if your skin is light then colorism fetishizes and tokenizes you. Ultimately, white supremacy wins.&nbsp;

Every community is guilty of colorism. EVERY SINGLE ONE. People unspokenly use the paper bag test to determine admittance into friend groups. Lightness and darkness are used to denote masculinity and femininity when depicting women of color on TV and in movies and often determines the women who are considered worthy of romantic affection. And when white people seek to find a token to shield them from accusations of racism in the workplace, they bring in the lightest person of color they can find, knowing that most people aren&rsquo;t racially literate enough to question their true intentions. Colorism was invented so that white people could center themselves within the communities and narratives of people of color; they see themselves reflected in that lighter skin. It&rsquo;s another way for white people to make something about them, without taking responsibility for the damage it does to people of color. And while there are plenty of people of color who will lean into this for their own individual benefit, at the end of the day, they will never be white and will be discarded by the system as soon as they are no longer considered useful or if they step out of line.&nbsp;

So, what are the solutions? This can&rsquo;t be allowed to go on anymore, and it&rsquo;s a form of racism that often gets overlooked because it is just a tad too nuanced for anyone who doesn&rsquo;t know anything about it to wrap their heads around. The truly difficult part to overcome is that many people of color engage in colorism and are unwilling to let it go because it gives them power similar to white privilege. But nevertheless, what if it is something you want to combat within yourself and within your community? Listening to the experiences of people with darker skin is a good place to start, but some more proactive moves would be to take a hard look at the racial dynamics within your workplace and interpersonal relationships. If you notice colorism, call it out. If you are a person of color who discovers you are being used as a token for your skin color, call it out and refuse to participate in white supremacist systems that seek to use you and throw you away once they&rsquo;ve met their diversity quota. If you are being accused of colorism, take a good hard look around you and rebuild the systems in your life, not only to include darker skinned people but to make sure they are safe and comfortable in that environment. It makes no sense to integrate different kinds of people if a system of toxicity is still thriving when they get there. Remember, forms of marginalization, like colorism, affect the most vulnerable people within a community. Women, especially trans women, bear the brunt of colorism in every community of color. Lighter skin is associated with femininity, goodness, and beauty and is seen as something worthy of praise and protection. And as with all forms of binary thinking, the less privileged are met with violence, degradation, and hatred. Hell, if you want to see a contemporary example of this, watch Pose.

Colorism is one of the results of people literally &ldquo;not seeing color.&rdquo; And since we are now living in a time where we are contending with the consequences of a racist society, it is time to fully contend with this too. We have a lot of work to do, and if we go too fast without taking time to untangle ourselves from our own white supremacist conditioning, we will build a new world that looks very similar to the old one.

&nbsp;

This article is the fourth&nbsp;in a series. Check out the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-intro-to-color-theory">Intro to Color Theory</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-the-color-pink">The Color Pink</a>, &amp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/05/kaleidoscope-eyes-pride-flags-and-when-color-theory-falls-apart">Pride Flags and When Color Theory Falls Apart</a>.

Amina&nbsp;Harper is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Twin Cities. For more info and to see her work, visit<a href="https://aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper/" target="_blank">&nbsp;her website</a>&nbsp;or follow&nbsp;her on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amina.harper/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Banner image: Fred Wilson;&nbsp;Grey Area (Brown version); paint, plaster, &amp; wood; 20 x 84&quot;; 1993. Photo source: Brooklyn Museum.

In the fourth installment of her series on Color Theory, Harper unpacks the concepts of race, color, privilege, and how they have been weaponized.

Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Crazy Little Thing Called Colorism

According to one study, the average time a museum-goer spends looking at a painting is about fifteen seconds. Right now our city is covered in paintings &mdash; big, beautiful, tragic murals on the plywood windows of our commercial corridors &mdash; and, for the first time in decades, it feels like we&rsquo;re not looking away. Not yet, at least.&nbsp;

George Floyd returns our gaze in countless portraits across the city (and across the world): in minute detail, in colorful strokes and somber drips, in blocky stencils spray-painted one after the other. Each one is impactful, each one is galvanizing, each one is a reminder of the atrocity committed by the Minneapolis Police Department and the duty we have &mdash; as a city, as a country, as individuals &mdash; to meet that injustice and all those before it head on. It&rsquo;s a heavy burden to put on one man, but the burden is even heavier on us to get it right. Case in point: it turns out at least one of these murals &mdash; the most famous one in fact &mdash; is itself an act of colonization, for which the artists responsible <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CBJ7b_5nnC3/" target="_blank">are now apologizing</a>.&nbsp;

COVID-19 has had a compressing&nbsp;effect on time the past three months, flattening&nbsp;out our days until they seem to melt together. George Floyd&rsquo;s murder and the subsequent uprising has sharpened that flat surface to a razor&rsquo;s edge; time feels&nbsp;like a knife. It&rsquo;s now been over two weeks since 46 years of life were snuffed out in less than nine minutes. The fourteen days that followed were filled with marching, donating, organizing, burning, looting, sharing, posting, helping, shouting, crying. Sweeping up glass in the morning, and searching the bushes for gasoline at night.&nbsp;

And painting; lots of painting. Alongside the portraits of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter tags&nbsp;are dozens of names, an incomplete list of lives cut short by racist violence, painted onto the pavement of Chicago Avenue by Mari Mansfield and emblazoned across foamboard headstones in the makeshift cemetery nearby&nbsp;by Anna Barber and Connor Wright. They are striking works of public art, cathartic both for their makers and for the community. They help us to understand this moment, to contextualize our anger and grief and fear and shame. And they urge us to act. We three authors are already older than so many of those individuals ever had a chance to be, one of many privileges we&nbsp;must put to use in this fight.

This artwork has gone up fast too, alongside a whirlwind of institutional statements and official press conferences and social media posts. Alongside all that beauty and resilience and community, keeping pace, is something sinister and brutally familiar: a whitewashing that has already begun. You can see it along Lake Street, where the ACABs and Fuck12s have been painted over. We keep the pretty art and wash away the angry. The official memory is that the&nbsp;damage done is the work of agitators and outsiders and white supremacists, and while they are all to blame (none so much as the MPD), these explanations steal yet again, taking agency away from 400 years of legitimate rage. Time flattens out, like the map of a stolen continent.&nbsp;

Standing in the stillness of the cemetery, you can feel the earth moving, but it&rsquo;s hard to know which direction it&rsquo;s taking us. We like to tell ourselves that once you see something as momentous as this, that you can&rsquo;t unsee it. But we do it all the time. The excavators have started their work, razing the burnt out lots to the ground. Soon enough the plywood will come down, too, and the artwork with it. Work is being done to archive the murals in some way, just as work is being done to hold our government and our art orgs and ourselves&nbsp;accountable. It is work that will never finish.

If there ever were a time to slow down, to listen to Black voices, to follow Black leadership, and to help, it is now. We will do the same, to the best of our ability. 

We love art, and we love you, Minneapolis.

Yours,

Russ White, Blaine Garrett, &amp; Katie Garrett

MPLSART.COM&nbsp;

<h1> 
Support</h1>

Building a better future for everyone in the Twin Cities is a marathon not a sprint. Below is an incomplete list of publicly available links to resources and opportunities to help out; we are not affiliated with the organizations included on this list, except to be in awe of the work they all are doing.&nbsp;We will continue to update these resources. If you have addendums, please send them to calendar@mplsart.com.&nbsp;

<h2> 
Critical Health, Volunteering, and Drop Off Locations</h2>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://tcmap.org/" target="_blank">Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project</a>&nbsp;for volunteering opportunities and specific non-financial donation needs

	<ul>
		<li><a href="https://twin-cities-mutual-aid.org/" target="_blank">Twin Cities Mutual Aid Map</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KTBHcXuAUoa-ZevN1-Jq6LYpkmJWhwiJRBhLKRTU0AU/edit" target="_blank">Google Doc of Twin Cities Resources</a>&nbsp;- comprehensive list of donation, volunteer, outreach, and educational opportunities&nbsp;</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/testsites.html" target="_blank">Free COVID-19 Testing</a> for protestors, volunteers, etc - Appointment required</li>
	<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdAlOLU9hOKMjwX4W2sQKF69FAF3ow_fSPzjKC67_iyYDRLaQ/viewform" target="_blank">TC Queer and Trans Mutual Aid</a></li>
</ul>

&nbsp;

<h2>Visual Art Organizations</h2>

<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/donate/" target="_blank">JXTA</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://springboardforthearts.org/" target="_blank">Springboard for the Arts</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/studio400" target="_blank">Studio 400</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/support" target="_blank">Public Functionary</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://www.newrulesmn.com" target="_blank">New Rules</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Mural Resources</h2>

<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RnasTKwXZmQb4pwHpBve4ebZWc1tI2t_qUkeEgmbJwI/edit?fbclid=IwAR1iX6mgklgIt309VPC7Ig2okOqWR9BJOg77EmQfjFjlIu_YmN2Q35_p2uQ" target="_blank">Boards To Murals Resource List</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Pow1mBUaj7XDqKm8TdObzQCqFnfg1Yz/view" target="_blank">Radical Mural Making Manifesto for the Uprising</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Neighborhood and Business Organizations</h2>

<a href="https://www.lakestreetcouncil.org/" target="_blank">Lake Street Council</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://westbroadway.org/" target="_blank">West Broadway Business and Area Coalition</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://northsideachievement.org/" target="_blank">North Side Achievement Zone</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nacdi.org/" target="_blank">Native American Community Development Institute</a>&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h2>Specific Ongoing Fundraisers</h2>

<a href="https://www.sanctuaryhotel.org" target="_blank">Sanctuary Hotel</a> &bull;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://giving.onecause.com/public/02ad4737-2285-4ad2-91c6-95cd66b423bf/fundraisers/c60e5030-69ce-4853-8b11-4727da5054ad/donate" target="_blank">WBC/Northside Funders</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Aeh55g" target="_blank">St. Paul Chamber of Commerce</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Uf3tsf?fbclid=IwAR18Yb0dbYwRYA_N8-U0wJey4d-oTTzBnxREwtbmejKgM_KQk-H4Zd4Juwk" target="_blank">Frogtown and Rondo Rebuild Fund</a> 
<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/minnesota-poc-business-support" target="_blank">Du Nord Recovery Fund</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Pelucg" target="_blank">Holy Trinity Open Doors</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/4omQDAR0oUiUagTu0EG-Ig2">Black Visions Collective</a> &bull; <a href="http://www.blacktablearts.com" target="_blank">Black Table Arts</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter (National)</a>&nbsp;&bull; 
<a href="https://www.paypal.me/mnpocpride?fbclid=IwAR3PHu9hFD9vjcHSakae0muvnjscS0AHinr5Iopwu00nrOPFuWWKCOsd3As" target="_parent">MN People of Color Pride</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Food Pantries</h2>

<a href="https://cesmn.org/help/donate-now">CES</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://northpointhealth.org/donate">Northpoint Health</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://masjidannur.org/about-us/newsletterbulleting-donate/">Masjid An-Nur</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.joyceuptownfoodshelf.org/donors">Joyce Uptown</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://simpsonchurchmn.org/789905">Simpson Church</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.capiusa.org/">Center for Asians &amp; Pacific Islanders</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://aliveness.org/">Aliveness Project</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.clchurch.org/">Calvary Church</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.diw-mn.org/">Division of Indian Work</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.isuroon.org/">Somali Food Shelf</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Read</h2>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://www.mpd150.com/" target="_blank">MPD150</a>&nbsp;- A People&#39;s Project Evaluating Policing</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/" target="_blank">Black Visions Collective</a> -&nbsp;creating the conditions for long term success and transformation</li>
	<li><a href="https://lithub.com/letter-from-minneapolis-why-the-rebellion-had-to-begin-here/" target="_blank">Letter from Minneapolis: Why the Rebellion Had to Begin Here</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://www.rewire.org/are-you-experiencing-vicarious-trauma/" target="_blank">Are You Experiencing Vicarious Trauma</a> - Rewire</li>
	<li><a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@finance/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-223361.pdf" target="_blank">Minneapolis City Budget for 2020</a> (pdf)</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.change.org/p/city-of-minneapolis-declaration-racism-a-public-health-emergency-in-minneapolis?utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=custom_url&amp;recruited_by_id=479f79d0-9fa7-11ea-ae68-63e57f9d621f" target="_blank">Declaration: Racism is a Public Health Emergency in Minneapolis</a> - change.org&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

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Reflections and resources in response to the Minneapolis Uprising

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