&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

MPLSART

With a new space now carved out for emerging artists in the Midtown Exchange Building, it has been up to&nbsp;Ahnali&nbsp;Tran to figure out how to fill it.

A senior at&nbsp;Perpich&nbsp;Arts High School in Minneapolis, Tran has spent the last four years thinking strategically about getting paintings off the wall &mdash; for example, by hanging work from the ceiling and asking visitors to circle it.&nbsp; However, an upcoming exhibition at the Creating Change Gallery will be her first time developing and promoting a solo show.&nbsp;

For the project, Tran has partnered with Ryan&nbsp;Stopera, one of four teaching artists working as mentors during the gallery&rsquo;s pilot year. Located in the John and Denise Graves Foundation office, the space was started by the nonprofit earlier this year with the goal of supporting young artists&rsquo; development. The opening of Tran&rsquo;s exhibition on May 8 will also be viewers&rsquo; first introduction to the gallery itself.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will take place virtually, with Tran bringing guests on a walkthrough of the physical space and answering questions via&nbsp;livestream. As she prepares to graduate from Perpich, Tran noted that the show at Creating Change is also a kind of culmination of her last four years of work &mdash; drawing largely on a portfolio entitled&nbsp;Healing the Halves &amp; Quarters.

For Tran, the &ldquo;healing&rdquo; in the collection&rsquo;s title comes from both the process of making art and the ideas she explores through her media &mdash; notably her experience of being mixed race and Southeast Asian American.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Putting things down through art is very powerful to me, especially the idea of creating a homeland away from homeland,&rdquo; said Tran, noting that this exploration has also led her to install work in a more physical way. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the idea of being mixed and not having a place that feels quite right.&rdquo;

She added that her work has also been a way to delve into intergenerational trauma, which she said she&#39;s seen manifest through language and cultural barriers within families. For people who came to the United States from Southeast Asia, Tran noted that a lot of this inherited trauma stems from the violence of the Vietnam War.

&ldquo;I grew up in a very assimilated family,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of untapped post-immigration trauma that can only be recognized through the progression of time. My grandparents have only recently begun to really open up about their own struggles with immigration.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ1MzcwMDAx/full.jpg" />In the Mirror this Morning, oil on mirror

<h3>Demanding a physical presence</h3>

Favoring two-dimensional media &mdash; including oil, acrylic and ink &mdash; Tran attempts to get creative with the surfaces that she uses and the way that she hangs finished pieces. With work that explores the creation of a new homeland, she has also focused on carving out physical space for her art on display. Painting often on plexiglass, she then hangs it from the ceiling as opposed to mounting it on a wall.&nbsp;

&quot;It demands a physical presence in a gallery,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the idea that, &lsquo;I need to avoid this hanging piece of glass.&rsquo; It captures the air inside the glass and around it, and there is a very literal feeling.&rdquo;

The thick plastic is also an interesting barrier &mdash; it can divide a room, while still leaving everything in view. Although it&rsquo;s transparent, plexiglass is thicker than traditional drawing surfaces. In one piece from the collection called&nbsp;In the Mirror this Morning, there&rsquo;s an almost complete portrait drawn in blocks of color with a few key pieces missing and the eyes two distinctly different styles &mdash; one heavily shaded, one drawn with as seemingly few lines as possible. Mouth, forehead, earlobes and heart are filled in by whatever happens to be on the other side of the plexiglass surface; the piece is automatically shaped by whatever room it&rsquo;s in.

<h3>Creating change in context&nbsp;</h3>

As with the portrait, the show itself is inevitably formed by its context. While the foundation made the decision to continue funding the gallery&rsquo;s pilot exhibition, and while Stopera and Tran opted to move forward with a virtual opening, COVID-19 played a large part in shaping some of Tran&rsquo;s newest works, which will also be included in the exhibition.

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m currently working on a piece with a tarot card theme &mdash; this one is around the Six of Pentacles,&rdquo; explained Tran. &ldquo;The card itself reads on themes such as charity and wealth &hellip; [the piece] captures the idea of wealth during the pandemic and who&rsquo;s getting treatment, whose lives are worth more than others.&rdquo;

Stopera added that a surge in anti-Asian racism fueled by the virus has been a factor in his regular discussions with Tran and the direction some of the work for the show has taken. Having recently produced a book centered on Asian-American stories, he said he was able to share some of his past work with Tran and use it as a conversation starter.

&ldquo;Having that shared experience, especially in the current context, has been really helpful,&rdquo; said Stopera, while noting that the work in the show is all Tran&rsquo;s. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t pushed too much, I&rsquo;ve just opened up those ideas and affirmed those things, so that she can work on what speaks to her.&rdquo;

<h3><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNTEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Ch&uacute;c mừng năm mới, watercolor on paper.</h3>

<h3>Intergenerational collaboration</h3>

Even after the duration of Tran&rsquo;s three-month exhibition at Creating Change, Stopera added that he hopes to be able to collaborate with his current mentee in the future. With Tran likely headed off to pursue a post-secondary art degree and Stopera continuing his work as a professional photographer, filmmaker, and educator in the Twin Cities, he noted that future collaborations could be an interesting way to work together across age and medium.&nbsp;

&ldquo;You just don&rsquo;t see as much intergenerational collaboration now, and I think it&rsquo;s important to have more spaces like that. I&rsquo;m learning from her and I think older folks don&rsquo;t always see what they can learn from people younger than them,&rdquo; added Stopera. &ldquo;This whole time, I&rsquo;ve had my eyes open to that.&rdquo;

Now, Stopera and Tran are also learning together while preparing for the virtual opening. Tran will give a tour of the space and host a question-and-answer via Facebook Live on Friday night, before looking ahead to the summer. In addition to wanting to do another virtual walk-through and artist talk during the show&rsquo;s run, Stopera said he hopes that by the end of the exhibition, there may even be the possibility to have individuals walk through the show in-person.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNDUwMDAx/full.jpg" />The entrance to the&nbsp;Creating Change Gallery at&nbsp;the John and Denise Graves Foundation office in the Midtown Exchange. Photo by Ryan Stopera.

<h3>&lsquo;Almost more observed&rsquo;</h3>

In the meantime, the camera is adding one more dimension to the space of Tran&rsquo;s work. As a slight silver lining, she hoped that people would be able to see her pieces with greater clarity and focus from home &mdash; rather than in the midst of an opening &mdash; as she walks them through the new place she&rsquo;s created and communicates some of the physicality of the work.

&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an ability to have an ongoing and designated dialogue about the work and the space,&rdquo; Tran added. &ldquo;In a way, it seems like the work is almost more observed &mdash; since it has to be through a different lens.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The opening will take place on Friday, May 8, from 7&nbsp;to 8&nbsp;p.m. A livestream can be found on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jdgravesfdn/" target="_blank">John and Denise Graves Foundation Facebook page</a>. More information on Creating Change can be found on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jdgravesfoundation.org/convening" target="_blank">foundation website</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/creating_change_gallery/?hl=en" target="_blank">@creating_change_gallery</a>&nbsp;on Instagram.

More information on Tran&rsquo;s art can be found on her&nbsp;<a href="https://tranahnali.wixsite.com/arts" target="_blank">website</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/tranworks/?hl=en" target="_blank">@tranworks</a>&nbsp;on Instagram. All images courtesy of the artist.

An upcoming livestream of the Perpich Arts student's solo exhibition at the Creating Change Gallery will highlight her work and the space.

Off The Wall: Ahnali Tran at Creating Change Gallery

Curiosity Studio co-founders Ashley Mary and Lauren Callis&nbsp;refer to their artistic partnership as a &ldquo;love story.&rdquo;

Ashley, a painter and graphic designer, had been working out of her studio on the second floor of the Northrup King Building for a few years when Lauren and her business, An Upcycled Closet, moved into a nearby space in the summer of 2018. While making the rounds to meet her new neighbors, Lauren knocked on Ashley&rsquo;s door and the pair soon connected over a shared interest in how creativity and wellness overlap.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We got to talking about my background in art therapy, and at the time Ashley was finishing her master&#39;s degree and creating curriculum around the foundational blocks of Curiosity Studio,&rdquo; explained Lauren. &ldquo;She was seeing what it looks like to create some sort of learning environment for adults that promoted play.&rdquo;

Ashley added that, as a graduate student in the Minneapolis College of Art &amp; Design&rsquo;s graphic design program, her thesis had centered around this concept. After connecting with Lauren, who came from a clinical art therapy background prior to starting An Upcycled Closet, she noted that the idea for a play-centric workshop model became far more complex.

Outside of discussions for a new joint venture, Ashley would also frequently seek Lauren out for help on murals. It was over one such project at the nearby Dogwood Coffee that the pair began making plans in earnest. Curiosity Studio was becoming a reality: a place where anyone &mdash; friends, strangers, clients, and customers;&nbsp;artists and non-artists alike&nbsp;&mdash; could come to play in the world of art-making.

Over this past summer, Curiosity Studio had its soft launch and, in the fall, the business hosted a number of corporate retreats along with a test of an eight-week course out of what is now Ashley and Lauren&rsquo;s joint studio space in Northrup King.&nbsp;

Starting this winter, the duo is ready to roll out their curriculum in full &mdash; a series of eight-week workshops, group retreats, and other experiences that they note are tailored to try and answer a recurring question: How can art-making be a part of your personal&nbsp;wellness?

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NDMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Ashley Mary (left) and Lauren Callis Erickson. Photo by <a href="http://www.grahamtolbert.com" target="_blank">Graham Tolbert</a>.

<h3>&quot;How do you get started?&quot;</h3>

Outside of Curiosity Studio, Lauren&rsquo;s business An Upcycled Closet sells secondhand goods and offers classes on mending, sewing, and sustainable clothing practices. Ashley works frequently on commissions for murals and paintings, as well as product design in partnership with other businesses. These connections to clients and communities gave the two a network to tap when first building up their new business.

Most importantly, both artists were already established as creators. The central question they sought to answer with Curiosity Studio was one they were getting asked all the time by their peers, who looked to them as experts in the field.

&ldquo;Because of the spaces we work in, we&rsquo;ve had lots of people initiate their conversations on creativity with us,&quot; Ashley explained.&nbsp;&quot;Time and again, we&rsquo;re getting the same sentiment:&nbsp;&lsquo;How do I get started?&rsquo;&rdquo;

During the fall, Ashley, Lauren, and their group of rotating instructors worked primarily on retreats and corporate group events &mdash; which included both on-site experiences and instances where a group would come in and work with Curiosity Studio at its homebase in Northrup King.

Starting in 2020, Lauren explained, the business is going to be rolling out more of its bread-and-butter two month workshops, which are open to anyone who wants to enroll.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM3MjkwMDAx/full.jpg" />A Curiosity Studio participant getting messy in the making. Photo courtesy of Curiosity Studio.

<h3>Centering classes around a topic</h3>

While the exact structure and curriculum is still being adjusted as Curiosity Studio continues its first year in business, the current model includes 8-week courses, one-day workshops, and one-off events. The longer&nbsp;courses&nbsp;meet once a week&nbsp;and are centered around a theme, with two-week chunks focused on different&nbsp;topics within that theme.

&ldquo;The theme can be a number of things. It could be a word, like &lsquo;delight,&rsquo; or it could be about slowing down or perfectionism or play,&rdquo; explained Lauren. &ldquo;That is then informing what tools and what skill sets we use in our artist&rsquo;s toolbox for what practical things we&rsquo;ll be teaching.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Each two-week period will also have its own instructor, which the co-founders said they hoped would provide an array of perspectives for participants. Unlike a traditional art class, Lauren added that participants might not always leave with what they consider a finished product. The focus for Curiosity Studio, she said, was more on the process.&nbsp;

Coming from an art therapy background, she noted that she was particularly interested in the role that practicing creativity could play in overall health and wellness.&nbsp;

&ldquo;All of this&nbsp;is based on the fact that art is inherently therapeutic,&quot; says Lauren.&nbsp;&quot;You&rsquo;re moving, there&rsquo;s a lot of body awareness, there&rsquo;s a lot of higher-level thinking that has to happen in our frontal lobe.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzMTgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Another participant works with paper, pipe cleaners, fabric, and doo-dads to dress up a potato. Photo courtesy of Curiosity Studio.

<h3>&quot;We&rsquo;re giving people permission&quot;</h3>

In a recent workshop at athletic clothing store Lululemon, the studio brought massive sheets of paper and asked participants to paint with their whole bodies, at one point even&nbsp;holding brushes between&nbsp;their elbows. Tempera colors were put into bowls not palettes, and organizers made sure the space was big enough for people to really move around.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re breaking down some of the barriers people have to utilizing art and really anything for the first time,&rdquo; said Lauren. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to figure out how it&rsquo;s something they can give some space to in their daily lives.&rdquo;

With many of the planned activities, Ashley and Lauren said participants will ideally be able to replicate them at home &mdash; again comparing keeping up with a creative practice to working out or getting enough sleep.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It is sort of a muscle and mechanism. If it&#39;s left untouched, it gets a little rusty,&rdquo; said Lauren. &ldquo;A lot of the programming we offer, it&rsquo;s some confidence-building. We&rsquo;re giving people permission for something that they already can do in their own spaces.&rdquo;

To that end, the studio is also planning to offer classes at a range of price points &mdash; from eight-week workshops that can run a few hundred dollars to one-off events or First Thursday open studio sessions every month at Northrup King. They&rsquo;ll also continue to work with organizations on retreats or other group events either on- or off-site.

For any experience, Ashley and Lauren also emphasized that they hope participants not only get unstuck creatively, but also form connections with others in the community &mdash; perhaps meeting in the studio building the same way the co-founders did a couple years back.&nbsp;

&ldquo;People want a way to make friends,&rdquo; added Lauren. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re making sure we&rsquo;re doing this in a community setting, making sure that we&rsquo;re honoring the relationships that are being built in this space as just as valuable as the art that&rsquo;s being made.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNDAwMDAy/full.jpg" />Lauren Callis Erickson (left) and Ashley Mary. Photo by <a href="http://www.grahamtolbert.com" target="_blank">Graham Tolbert</a>.

For updates on Curiosity Studio and information on upcoming events, visit <a href="https://curiositystudioclass.com" target="_blank">curiositystudioclass.com</a>&nbsp;or follow along on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/curiositystudio_/" target="_blank">@curiositystudio_</a>.

Banner image by <a href="http://www.grahamtolbert.com" target="_blank">Graham Tolbert</a>.&nbsp;All images courtesy of Curiosity Studio.

After a chance meeting, two local artists teamed up to help unblock other people's creativity

Cultivating 'Curiosity'

&nbsp;

At the opening for Groundswell,&nbsp;artist Luke Lyons invited the audience to hold his ceramic pieces, cupping them in&nbsp;hand&nbsp;or turning them over to explore the dynamic glazes hidden on the reverse.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I wish I had a sign,&rdquo; he laughed. The group exhibition, up through the end of the month at Artspace Jackson Flats, includes multiple, food-safe pieces for sale by Lyons, in addition to two galleries worth of work by his peers from&nbsp;the Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. &nbsp;

Technically licensed as a day program for adults with disabilities, Interact blurs the lines between staff and client artists as everyone creates alongside one another out of the nonprofit&rsquo;s studio space in St. Paul.&nbsp;

Derek Meier, Services Coordinator with the Center&rsquo;s visual arts department, says continuing to challenge that divide is one of his main priorities moving forward at Interact. While the current show in Northeast has been a way to exhibit out in the community, Meier added that he wanted to continue to push the envelope as far as where and how Interact artists&rsquo; work is shown.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Venues, as much as you might think they might be open to any and all aesthetics and backgrounds, they can be very narrow in the scope of who they showcase,&rdquo; he explained.&nbsp;

&quot;We want to start showing work alongside community artists, and we have an upcoming show that&rsquo;s staff artists&rsquo; work alongside client artists&rsquo; work for viewers to see them&nbsp;at the same level &mdash; because they really are.&rdquo;

In the performing arts half of Interact, which hosts roughly 35 actors, staff teaching artists act alongside clients in various productions, which Meier noted can sometimes come as a shock to audience members who think they know what a performer with disabilities may look or sound like.&nbsp;

&ldquo;A lot of the viewers walk away with this feeling of not necessarily knowing who is who. Some disabilities are really visible and some aren&rsquo;t, and we house all and any,&rdquo; he noted. &ldquo;It blurs that line and that&rsquo;s really important.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzMjIwMDAy/full.jpg" />Zach Mohs,&nbsp;Self Portrait, 2019. Image courtesy of <a href="http://interactcenter.org" target="_blank">interactcenter.org</a>.

Perceived notions

The organization&rsquo;s mission statement to create &ldquo;art that challenges perceptions of disability&rdquo; has carried over to its client artists as well. Longtime Interact painter W.S. Norton said he has also had moments of seeing a work up on the wall and being shocked to find out which of his peers it belonged to.&nbsp;

&ldquo;When I came, I had judgments about other people&rsquo;s art and one day, three or four years into coming here, we had a gallery show and I walked in and there were these absolutely gorgeous watercolors. I asked somebody who had done them &hellip; and it was somebody that had a very difficult time with communication,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;She created all these absolutely gorgeous pieces, and it just kind of stripped away any preconceived notions I had of what it took to make beautiful art.

&quot;If you put [artwork] in a gallery and nobody had any idea that it was by somebody with whatever type of disability, it would be fun to see their misconceptions, looking and adoring the art and then finding out who made it,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I think people would be pretty surprised.&rdquo;

The multitudes contained within any one person, and especially within a collective of over 70 practicing visual artists, create a lot of unknowns &mdash; something staff members say can be uncomfortable to people not used to being around others who may have a different form of disability than&nbsp;what they have experienced.&nbsp;

&ldquo;If [people] don&rsquo;t know someone or don&rsquo;t have experience being around people with disabilities, they don&rsquo;t know what to expect. It&rsquo;s unknown, and I think it can feel intimidating,&rdquo; said Presley Martin, a visual arts instructor at Interact. &ldquo;Art is a way in, for people to get to know people and break down those barriers of any preconceived notions of who these people are.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxMjQwMDAx/full.jpg" />John Riddle, Elliptical Illusion, 30x40&quot;. Image courtesy of <a href="http://interactcenter.org" target="_blank">interactcenter.org</a>.

&quot;No, you&rsquo;re an artist&quot;

Art has also been a way for many clients at Interact to find a job that feels enjoyable and purposeful. Norton described himself as &ldquo;unattached&rdquo; before joining the center eight years back.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I worked and I was okay or good at what I did,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;This is the first time that I feel like I&rsquo;m doing a job, but I&rsquo;m eager to come in.&rdquo;

Norton added that, at the beginning, he would miss half the days he was supposed to come in, or sit for an hour at a time doing nothing. Eventually, he said encouragement from the other artists at Interact &mdash; both staff and peers &mdash; coupled with the skills training he received, gave him permission to explore and even to make mistakes. Now, Norton said he has no qualms identifying as an artist, and sees his purpose as &ldquo;to explore and to perceive&rdquo; because of his unique point of view.&nbsp;

Lyons also noted that he had a hard time calling himself an artist during his first few years at Interact.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I used to tell people after I got out of the hospital, &lsquo;I go to an adult day program where they provide stuff for us to make art.&rsquo; Interact was like, &lsquo;No, you&rsquo;re an artist.&rsquo; It took me forever to accept that,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;Now, when people ask me, &lsquo;What do you do?&rsquo;&nbsp; I say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m an artist. I work out of the Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts.&rsquo;&rdquo;

In addition to spending the majority of their days in the studio, Interact artists also take trips to local museums and galleries, develop a web presence, apply for shows and grants, and work to plan and curate events.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM1MjQwMDAx/full.jpg" />Work from a number of Interact artists is on view through the end of the month at Artspace Jackson Flats in Northeast Minneapolis. Going forward, Services Coordinator Derek Meier says the goal is to have more shows that display participant artists&#39; work alongside staff and community creatives. Photo by&nbsp;the author.

Autonomy and inclusion

Joli Grostephan-Brancato, Visual Arts Department Manager, said she and her staff try to give clients as much freedom as possible within the limits of Interact&rsquo;s licensing. One of the ways in which the center has tried to do this is by paying clients for any work they do that goes above and beyond their artistic practice.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had artists that attend the program teach workshops. They share a skill with their peers, and are often teaching staff how to do that skill,&rdquo; said Grostephan-Brancato. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost like they&rsquo;re performing the role of staff. We get paid when we do that stuff, so we want to pay the artists for doing that stuff.&rdquo;

Working around adults with disabilities day-in, day-out for 10 years, Grostephan-Brancato said it can still be jarring when seeing how Interact artists sometimes get treated outside of the center. She emphasized the &ldquo;radical inclusion&rdquo; that is one of the nonprofit&rsquo;s core values and said that, for her, it meant, &ldquo;not treating people differently, not talking down to people, not using the baby voice &hellip; realizing that we&rsquo;re all adults, and we all deserve the same amount of respect.&rdquo;

Again, she added that strangers can be well-intentioned, but oftentimes haven&rsquo;t had the relationships with people with disabilities that can cut away some of their misconceptions.

What&rsquo;s next?

With a number of shows on the horizon &mdash; including one in March at the Quarter Gallery at the University of Minnesota &mdash; Meier said he&rsquo;s feeling better and better about the opportunities for showing Interact work in a broader context going forward.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Between this year and the upcoming one, I see a lot of reason to be more and more optimistic about where we&rsquo;re able to show, how often we&rsquo;re able to show, the quality of lighting,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;I feel like it&rsquo;s inevitable, the more people that are able to see the work, the more people will recognize it has equal value &hellip; the artists demand that stage.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

Groundswell,&nbsp;which consists entirely of work by client artists at Interact, will be up through the end of the month at Artspace Jackson Flats, located at 901 181/2 Ave. NE in Minneapolis.&nbsp;

Interact will also be hosting its Great Big Holiday Sale this Saturday, Nov. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1860 Minnehaha Ave. W. in St. Paul.

Banner image: Carl Clark,&nbsp;Canyon Sunset (detail), 18x24&quot;. Image courtesy of <a href="http://interactcenter.org" target="_blank">interactcenter.org</a>.

&nbsp;

<h1>Staff and Client Artist Profiles</h1>

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5MjUwMDAx/full.jpg" />

Joli Grostephan-Brancato.&nbsp;Man-Made Minerals (Cluster),&nbsp;2018.&nbsp;Wood, glass, acrylic, ink, resin, organic materials.

<h2>Joli Grostephan-Brancato</h2>

Visual Arts Department Manager.&nbsp;Primary medium: Sculpture&nbsp;

Why do you think Interact staff tend to stay with the center such a long time?&nbsp;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really cool to be able to come to work and work with other artists and also work on your own art and bounce ideas back and forth between the attending artists and the staff artists &hellip; We&rsquo;re in the studio together, we sit together, we eat lunch together.&rdquo;

What does Interact&rsquo;s value of &lsquo;radical inclusion&rsquo; mean to you?

&ldquo;For the visual arts studio, I think it means giving everybody an opportunity to do what they want to do within their artistic career without limiting them because of their disability.&rdquo;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3MTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Presley Martin.&nbsp;98% Air, 2016.&nbsp;Found polystyrene foam and wood.

<h2>Presley Martin</h2>

Visual Arts instructor.&nbsp;Primary medium: Sculpture&nbsp;

How long have you been involved with Interact?&nbsp;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been a full-time instructor for three years, but I initially came as a volunteer five years ago &hellip; That&rsquo;s sort of the normal way that staff comes here. They start as a volunteer, then they maybe are a substitute for a while and then they come on full-time.&rdquo;&nbsp;

What is one of the main ideas you&rsquo;re exploring in your work?

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m interested in things that are viewed as worthless &hellip; there are trees that are non-native, that people just want to get rid of. I&rsquo;m interested in working with those materials.&rdquo;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5MjYwMDAx/full.jpg" />W.S. Norton at Groundswell.&nbsp;Photo by the author.

<h2>W.S. Norton</h2>

Client artist.&nbsp;Primary medium: Oil on canvas

What have you enjoyed most about your time with Interact?&nbsp;

&ldquo;I feel like I have a place and I feel like I have a purpose. Matisse and Van Gogh have nothing to worry about, I&rsquo;m not going to push them out of the pantheon of art, but I&rsquo;m happy with what I can do now and I didn&rsquo;t have that before &hellip;

&ldquo;To me, Interact is more than just disabled people making arts and crafts. It&rsquo;s human beings exploring life. It&rsquo;s pretty terrific.&rdquo;

What do you feel is your purpose as an artist?&nbsp;

&ldquo;To explore and to perceive. I see things so differently now. I did this painting of a lone pine tree, because I was on the bus and I just happened to turn and see this pine tree with a white sky behind it and it just hit me. When I came back, I just had to start painting that.&rdquo;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzMjMwMDAx/full.jpg" />Andie Kiley at work in the studio. Photo by the author.

<h2>Andie Kiley</h2>

Client artist.&nbsp;Primary medium: Watercolor

What is one of the main ideas you&rsquo;re exploring in your own work?

&ldquo;I just let my fingers do the painting &hellip; I write down four colors that will go into it, and I follow that for the most part. Sometimes, I have five or six colors in it, but mainly just four&hellip;

&ldquo;Originally I started off in performing arts. It was just a question of curiosity &mdash; I tried painting and I&rsquo;ve liked it ever since.&rdquo;

Why do you write down the colors that you use?

&ldquo;At times, I think to myself, &lsquo;Why did you do this? Why did you do that? This could have been better than that.&rsquo; So I&rsquo;m clear, I always express what I do.&rdquo;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzMjIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Zack Mohs at Groundswell. Photo by the author.

<h2>Zack Mohs</h2>

Client artist.&nbsp;Primary medium: Drawing

What are some of the inspirations behind your work?

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s inspired by graffiti and tattoo art. [For example,] I found an image of a line drawing of a tattoo-style rose and then started drawing it with my eyes closed, just to get a rough, abstract outline. Then I cleaned it up when I was done with the rest of it.&rdquo;

Why do you sometimes start drawings with your eyes closed?&nbsp;

&ldquo;I know I could reproduce the image pretty well, but I don&rsquo;t like to. I&rsquo;d rather have it different, in a way&hellip;

&ldquo;Knowing that there&rsquo;s no judgment here has inspired me to do pretty much whatever I want with my art. I was told right away, &lsquo;Use anything you want to use, and if you need help along the way, someone will help you.&rsquo;&rdquo;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ1MTIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Luke Lyons at Groundswell. Photo by the author.

<h2>Luke Lyons</h2>

Client artist.&nbsp;Primary medium: Clay&nbsp;

What process do you use to create your forms?&nbsp;

&ldquo;Because of my physical disabilities, I can&rsquo;t use the wheel because the wheel turns the wrong way. Our wheel is old, and we can&rsquo;t reverse directions &hellip; I can&rsquo;t roll out coils, because these hands don&rsquo;t play nice. So, these are all bump molds. They&rsquo;re from forms that we made with the prior instructor, so basically I roll out a sheet and then drape it over.&rdquo;&nbsp;

How do you define being an artist?&nbsp;

&ldquo;Making beautiful stuff that other people like. It really pleases me that other people look at it and have the same feeling that I do when I&rsquo;m making it. Because, I don&rsquo;t care how crude it is, I like my work. Every artist should.&rdquo;

This St. Paul center for artists with disabilities seeks to expand the ways in which professional creatives "interact" with each other and the community

Side By Side: Ability and art at the Interact Center

The Scene

When designing one-hour river cruises for colleagues, acquaintances, and friends, a few local artists latched on to the same quotation&nbsp;about the peacefulness of moving water.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s by a journalist named Hal Boyle,&quot; says artist Torey Erin.&nbsp;&quot;He said, &lsquo;What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn&rsquo;t have any doubt. It is sure to get where it&rsquo;s going and it doesn&rsquo;t want to go anywhere else.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Erin was one of four creatives invited by local artist Alyssa Baguss to design and facilitate hour-long boat rides aboard the Minneapolis Water Taxi as part of a new, open-ended art initiative called the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/openwaterprojectmn/" target="_blank">Open Water Project</a>. Baguss rented out the taxi &mdash; a solar-powered charter boat&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;and gave the cruise directors complete authority over how to create an audience and who to invite.

Outside of the ship&rsquo;s six-passenger maximum and the ride&rsquo;s duration, there were virtually no parameters for the expeditions, which took place from mid- to late September.

&ldquo;You should be relaxing and having fun; it should be an experiment. It&rsquo;s okay to play and fail,&rdquo; Baguss says of her goals for the series. She hoped the Open Water Project would fill a void in the world of grant funding, which tends to focus on more product-based work.&nbsp;

&ldquo;There are these really great grants, but you really have to identify exactly what you&rsquo;re doing right now and fulfill that promise in the future,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Great things happen that nobody ever sees, and those are some of the most exciting things to me right now. What are people making that isn&rsquo;t for a show, that isn&rsquo;t for an audience?&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5MTkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Participants on Torey Erin&rsquo;s cruise settle into their surroundings and relax as the sun sets, before discussing the camera-less photographs they made as homework for the event. Erin, far right, sits next to Open Water Project director Alyssa Baguss. Across from them, participant Peng Wu takes in Erin&rsquo;s cruise before directing his own less than a week later. Photo by Seth Dahlseid.

In choosing which four artists to invite, Baguss looked for people whose art she admired and who would be able to connect to and give feedback on the project. The majority of those who led cruises were already making work that would lend itself well to Open Water.

Peng Wu is a self-described social practice artist, who often engages the community through discussion-based work. During the ride, he invited everyone to share stories of rivers that had been meaningful in their lives.

&ldquo;The majority of Asian civilizations originated from or by rivers. That&#39;s how human civilizations developed,&rdquo; says Wu. &ldquo;[This piece] aimed to raise people&rsquo;s awareness of how much we have in common.&rdquo;

In addition to discussing river-related memories, Wu also used the natural world as a backdrop for a 10-minute sunset practice. With the boat&rsquo;s motor turned off, participants reflected on the river in silence. While some of Wu&rsquo;s work involves a physical product, when creating on the Mississippi, he relied on the power and characteristics of the physical backdrop.&nbsp;

&ldquo;In creating a structure, you enter it and you feel differently. Your activity inside is influenced by this space you&rsquo;ve created, by the materials you use,&rdquo; Wu says, of previous installation work. &ldquo;With the Open Water Project, I think you already have a very powerful environment.&rdquo;

Ellen Mueller, Director of the MFA program at the Minneapolis College of Art &amp; Design, also chose to take advantage of the river&rsquo;s natural setting in planning her cruise.&nbsp;

&ldquo;The idea of using the boat&rsquo;s natural relaxing environment to its greatest potential made a lot of sense to me,&quot; Mueller says. She explains her project as&nbsp;&quot;holding a brief discussion about leisure as resistance, which is an area of academic scholarship that&rsquo;s well researched and written about quite a lot, and then practicing being leisurely on the boat.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3MDIwMDAy/full.jpg" />Ellen Mueller, center, holds up a zine she created on the topic of leisure as resistance. After introducing an overview of the subject, Mueller led the group in a discussion. Photo courtesy of Ellen Mueller.

Mueller brought along a documentarian on her cruise, whose sole job was to take photos that could then assist her in applying to future grants and residencies. For Mueller, there are ways in which artists can and cannot escape a product-oriented system, although she&rsquo;s recently noticed a slight change in the valuation of social practice work among funding institutions.

Erin went one step further and recorded audio&nbsp;as well, so that she could retain more information on the event going forward. Prior to the night of the cruise, she had asked participants to expose a photogram on light sensitive paper, then describe the undeveloped image to fellow passengers on the water taxi.&nbsp;

While her initial intent was to develop the pictures in Mississippi River water, Erin says she&rsquo;s now leaning toward keeping the pages blank.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I think the idea of the the ephemeral or having this sort of happening and not necessarily having an object outcome feels important,&rdquo; says Erin. &ldquo;As each artist was describing their photo in detail, each one of us on the cruise had a different idea created in our minds based on our own personal experiences or perceptions.&rdquo;

Similar to looking at a painting, every boater on each of the four cruises is sure to have a slightly different interaction with and recollection of their time on the taxi. For many, the experience will live on only in memory, something Wu says may have impacted the way participants processed their interactions on board the ship.

&ldquo;I loved the fact that the artwork itself was a transitional and ephemeral moment. I think that made the experience more beautiful,&rdquo; says Wu. &ldquo;You paid attention to the story you told and to the stories other people told.&rdquo;

The fourth artist, Ruthann Godollei, chose to send her participants home with a more tangible reminder of their journey. As a printmaking professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Godollei played to her medium&rsquo;s strength.&nbsp;

For her project, which was also intensely place-based, Godollei made stencils of native flora and fauna from along the riverbanks. She then collected samples of different colors of mud that participants could use to make stenciled prints on paper.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3MDIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Participants Bonnie L. Gray and Keith Christensen apply Mississippi mud to their stencils, which outline native flora and fauna, on Ruthann Godollei&rsquo;s cruise. Photo by Ruthann Godollei.

&ldquo;Prints are one way you can keep something and still give it away, and everybody gets the same thing really. It&rsquo;s got this generous aspect to it that I think is one of its virtues as&nbsp;a medium,&rdquo; she explains.&nbsp;

In its essence, Open Water also strove to be generous, especially with its artists; Baguss rented out the taxi for each of the cruises, making the event free to those on board.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s certainly not as democratic as a museum, and I&rsquo;m okay with that because my focus was really on the artist,&rdquo; says Baguss. &ldquo;Maybe down the road these projects will lead to other things that are more accessible. I&rsquo;m seeing, if I just focus on the artist, how does that then affect the audience later on?&rdquo;

Still, Baguss said next year she may try to bring in people from other professions. &ldquo;Maybe it&rsquo;s not an artist at all. How would that change things?&rdquo;

Another aspect of next summer&rsquo;s programming that Baguss is grappling with is funding. She hopes to expand on this year&#39;s schedule, organizing&nbsp;eight to twelve&nbsp;rides throughout next summer.

&ldquo;I want to continue this next year and think about, &lsquo;What is the bare minimum I need to continue this sort of work?&rsquo; So that it can happen but that it isn&rsquo;t shaped by the constraints of a funding source,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to try and be honest and ask for what I really want.&rdquo;

In addition to not requiring a tangible product, Open Water also seeks to create intimate experiences as opposed to reaching as large of an audience as possible.&nbsp;

&ldquo;When we work small, sometimes that isn&rsquo;t valued as much as working big,&rdquo; says Baguss. &ldquo;These small connections are so valuable because they ripple out. I hope this helps artists&rsquo; practices, or helps people think about the way they make their work.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzMDQwMDAx/full.jpg" />A quote on the tranquility of moving water by Hal Boyle resonated with Erin, Wu, and Baguss, who all took inspiration from it when crafting their cruise and interacting with participants. Photo by Peng Wu.

For more info and documentation, follow <a href="https://www.instagram.com/openwaterprojectmn/" target="_blank">Open Water Project</a> on Instagram; to see more of Alyssa Baguss&#39;s work, visit <a href="http://cargocollective.com/alyssabaguss" target="_blank">her website</a>.

How public space and moving water shaped creativity in Alyssa Baguss's Open Water Project

Working Small & Staying Open on the Mighty Mississippi

For the final iteration of its Collab&nbsp;residency program, Soo Visual Arts Center hosts Rosy Simas and Heid Erdrich. During the entire month of May, the two have worked in the gallery side by side, advising each other and mapping out a unique space as they install their own multimedia works, which ultimately flow into and dialogue with each other.

&nbsp;&ldquo;Collaboratively, we&rsquo;ve decided how to use the space, how to use the time,&rdquo; says Erdrich, noting that collaboration hasn&rsquo;t necessarily meant physically creating pieces together. &ldquo;We work beside each other and talk and have similar obsessions, and they give me ideas.&rdquo;

&ldquo;In one way or another we work together all the time,&rdquo; adds Simas.&nbsp;

The two have made work simultaneously in the same community for years, as Native&nbsp;women artists in the Twin Cities. Erdrich is Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain, and Simas is Haudenosaunee. Both are based in Minneapolis. Since 2013, they&rsquo;ve actively attended each other&rsquo;s rehearsals, gallery openings, and performances, providing feedback and conversation on various projects.&nbsp;When Erdrich was the gallery director at All My Relations, Simas, who works primarily in&nbsp;performance and film, shared thoughts on how to install works intentionally, in a way that animated the entire space. When Simas was in rehearsal for her piece &ldquo;We Wait in the Darkness,&rdquo; Erdrich attended and shared her thoughts. Working in a variety of media has blurred&nbsp;the lines between different studio practices, allowing&nbsp;the two to&nbsp;develop&nbsp;a more holistic approach to art.

&ldquo;Half of it, for me, working in other disciplines came out of necessity. Making costumes and making set pieces,&rdquo; says Simas. &ldquo;A lot of people who work in the field of dance do a lot of their own things.&rdquo;

She also sees dance as a visual art, especially in the staging and presentation. Similarly, Erdrich, who comes from a literary and text art background, sees poetry as a performance.&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a presentation,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And it has visual aspects to it on the page, as well. Those are the two things that really interest me, and that&rsquo;s why I started making visual work with poetry.&rdquo;

Now, Erdrich has moved further into installation to give people a glimpse of her process; both Simas and Erdrich agree that viewers often want to know the context of their work.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I feel like giving audiences different ways to enter one&rsquo;s work and what one&rsquo;s trying to get at actually builds better relationships with the audience,&rdquo; says Simas. &ldquo;Richer or deeper or more understanding [relationships].&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM2OTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />A detail of The Process Office,&nbsp;presenting&nbsp;a glimpse into Heid Erdrich&#39;s&nbsp;workspace.

To this effect, both artists have attempted to install in a way that invites the viewer to look at their work from multiple angles. In one enclave of the gallery, visitors will be able to step into Erdrich&rsquo;s &ldquo;office,&rdquo; complete with furniture and objects from her workspace and poems hung on the wall.&nbsp;

&ldquo;This is supposed to look like my brain and my business when I&rsquo;m working,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;These are things I keep around me to work. And then there&rsquo;s text everywhere.&rdquo;

Some of the texts displayed are erasures, where she has taken a page of text and blurred out all of the words except for a chosen few in a very visual process, creating a new literary work of her own.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI5MDEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Text art by&nbsp;Heid&nbsp;Erdrich, displayed as part of her office installation.

Next to Erdrich&rsquo;s office is a video installation by Simas, showing excerpts from different films she has made.

&ldquo;All of the films are mapped for this space in particular,&rdquo; says Simas. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re projected through bent masks, a mask being like a shape.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The footage is shown in a traditional rectangular shape, as well as a series of more non-traditional flat and curved shapes. Sometimes&nbsp;it wraps around itself to form a figure that almost feels three dimensional, even while laying flat on the screen.&nbsp;

In Oka-lusa,&nbsp;meaning &ldquo;black water,&rdquo; barely moving images of tall grass and shallow water cast repetitive, soothing sounds into the gallery, into Erdrich&rsquo;s office&nbsp;and across&nbsp;the rest of the show.

As Simas plays around with the projection, Erdrich flips through encyclopedias and arranges another piece in a different part of the gallery. Often, they&rsquo;ll offer suggestions to each other as they move around.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It would be nice if you had more of a shadow,&rdquo; Simas says, gesturing to the wall at the back of Erdrich&rsquo;s office.

&ldquo;No, I like that shadow a lot,&rdquo; Erdrich replies, reexamining the wall.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I should put the Skins&nbsp;film in the films,&rdquo; Simas muses.

&ldquo;Maybe we could put it out here?&rdquo; asks Erdrich, gesturing to the gallery&rsquo;s entryway.&nbsp;

In discussing the idea of collaboration, Erdrich recalls photos she&rsquo;s found of her mother&rsquo;s side of the family: a group of women standing side by side, clearly having just done something together.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I think, maybe, collaboration for Native women is not always, &lsquo;Oh, we built this thing together,&rsquo;&rdquo; Erdrich says. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s often, &lsquo;We supported each other; we were alongside each other.&rsquo;

&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I liked the idea of skew lines for the title,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re lines that appear to meet but don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Throughout the month of May, ending in a reception on May 25, visitors to the gallery will get to see this work taking place, as the artists dialogue with one another and exemplify a more inclusive definition of collaboration, cognizant of the ways in which artists collaborate with each other on a daily basis through viewing and discussing work and ideas.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE4OTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Two Row&nbsp;by Rosy&nbsp;Simas, takes its name from the Two Row Treaty between the&nbsp;Haudenosaunee&nbsp;and Dutch governments; the piece takes its purple and white rows from the wampum belt that was made to represent the agreement.&nbsp;

Skew Lines will be in process and able to be viewed during gallery hours from May 4 through May 25, with <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/skew-lines">a closing reception</a> on Saturday, May 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibition hours have been extended into the following week and will be on view Sunday, May 26, 11-4;&nbsp;Wednesday, May 29, 11-5; and Thursday &amp; Friday, the 30th &amp; 31st,&nbsp;11-7.&nbsp;More info at <a href="http://soovac.org" target="_blank">soovac.org</a>.

Banner image: Video installation by Rosy&nbsp;Simas, which&nbsp;loops over 100 minutes of footage;&nbsp;Simas&nbsp;encourages viewers to come and sit with it on a less crowded day in the gallery. All photos by the author.

<div>&nbsp;</div>

"Skew Lines" comes to a close this week, showing the product of a monthlong collaboration between two artists working in text, film, and installation.

Parallel Practice: Heid Erdrich and Rosy Simas in residency at SooVAC

Cooped up in a trailer at the North Dakota State Fairground, artist Lauren Roche spent three weeks waiting for work. It hadn&rsquo;t been a good harvest, meaning fewer jobs processing sugar beets than Roche and friend Tynan Kerr had anticipated.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Every day, we&rsquo;d go out, get groceries, and make food,&rdquo; recalls Roche. &ldquo;Then&nbsp;get a bunch of tequila and go back to the trailer and draw together.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Although Roche had been drawing since she could hold a pen, it wasn&rsquo;t until these three weeks in 2012 that she began to share her work publicly, with the support of fellow artist and close friend Kerr.

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure a lot of people that make art have that weird moment of &lsquo;when do I show people? Or, why?&rsquo;&rdquo; explains Roche. &ldquo;I applied for the Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship that same year, only a few months later, and got it.&rdquo; Soon after receiving the grant, she appeared in first a group and then a solo show at Bockley Gallery, who now represents her.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjM0ODUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Meridian Handler;&nbsp;acrylic, gouache, watercolor, and ink;&nbsp;2019.

One of the most immediately noticeable things about her paintings is the cohesive world she&rsquo;s built. Within vibrantly colored, abstracted and cropped interiors, she places a cast of female figures interacting with themselves, each other, and their environment in a way that feels staged yet ambiguous.&nbsp;

The locations and undefined actions mirror Roche&rsquo;s own confusion and confliction when it comes to her body. As a child, her ability to dissociate from her surroundings served as an effective coping mechanism during periods of physical and emotional abuse. Now, it&rsquo;s left Roche with a complicated relationship to her physicality, one that comes out in her painting.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll draw these women and they&rsquo;ll be interacting with each other or with something in the painting in this way where I don&rsquo;t realize what it means until afterwards,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;Then, I&rsquo;ll see these crazy metaphors or symbolism that starts to make me understand what it means in a deeper way for me and the people around me.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMyODQwMDAx/full.jpg" />Quiet Host;&nbsp;acrylic, gouache, watercolor, and ink;&nbsp;2019.

While the presence of women relates to her history of dissociation and body dysmorphic disorder, the many animals in her paintings stem from a negative religious experience in her teens.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I was in this church that told me that I had demons inside me and they tried to cast out the demons. I got really overcome with this fear,&rdquo; says Roche. &ldquo;I felt like I had to draw it out to exorcise it out of my mind. And then those demons kind of transferred into animals that were either giving or receiving different energy or life force from people.&rdquo;

Processing her phobia through painting, Roche&rsquo;s animals took on vastly different qualities &mdash; not all are demonic; many seem to be giving or supportive. The woman and the &ldquo;other,&rdquo; in this case an animal, connect with each other in a world apart.&nbsp;

Dissociating from her environment had become less frequent, until she was placed on bed rest almost two months ago following a severe back injury. Now, she is again face-to-face with a debilitating physical situation.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Being stuck in bed, unable to have any sort of physical intimacy with anyone and with myself because I&rsquo;m detaching from my body makes me think really visually,&rdquo; says Roche. &ldquo;Those are the things that make me feel visually creative.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE2ODcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Pen &amp; ink drawings made while the artist is on bed rest. Images courtesy of the artist&#39;s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/roach_coache/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Having recently received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters &amp; Sculptors Grant, Roche hopes having more time to work on her art can be the silver lining to her injury. Like many artists, she has had to work a slew of other jobs in order to make a living, often leaving less time than desired for her painting career.&nbsp;

Propped up in bed, letting her connection to and separation from her physical pain express itself through her ritualistic figures, Roche hopes that others will see themselves in her intensely personal work.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to be in your body. It&rsquo;s really confusing. And I know that lots of people feel that way,&rdquo; says Roche. &ldquo;After I make a painting, I feel supported by it. I hope that someone else would feel understood in some way, too.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE0OTIwMDAx/full.jpg" />Lauren and Daffy.&nbsp;

Lauren Roche is represented by Bockley Gallery. To see more of her work, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bockleygallery.com/artist_roche/" target="_blank">bockleygallery.com</a>.

Banner image:&nbsp;Reclining Woman Holding A Vessel;&nbsp;acrylic, gouache, watercolor, and ink;&nbsp;2019. All images courtesy of the artist.

The prolific painter draws on intuition and experience to explore what it means to have a body. 

Foreign, but familiar: Lauren Roche turns dissociation into surreal artwork

It&rsquo;s 2:30 p.m. in the Jordan neighborhood of North Minneapolis. Children sprint home from school, backpacks trailing in the wind. A bus driver takes a sharp corner, narrowly missing a median labeled &ldquo;Jordan Block Club Beautification Project, 1993.&rdquo; Signs line 26th&nbsp;Avenue North: &ldquo;Jordan Area Community Garden,&rdquo; &ldquo;Youth Farm.&rdquo; Up on the boulevard, next to a repaved sidewalk, is a bikeway added as part of the street&rsquo;s 2017 renovation.&nbsp;

A few recent additions have just been installed along the new path: three sculptures designed by prominent&nbsp;local artists with strong ties to the community. Back in 2015, the city&rsquo;s Public Art Advisory Council selected&nbsp;the 26th Avenue North&nbsp;renovation to have an accompanying public art project&nbsp;because of&nbsp;the relative lack of public art on the Northside.&nbsp;Eight semifinalists were chosen to attend a two-day, paid workshop where they developed design concepts. Then&nbsp;a selection panel comprised of community members, city staff, and other key stakeholders selected three artists&mdash;<a href="https://www.christopheraarond.com" target="_blank">Christopheraaron Deanes</a>, <a href="https://www.harrisonartstudio.net" target="_blank">Christopher E.&nbsp;Harrison</a>, and <a href="http://www.artsonchicago.org/portfolio/esther-osayande/" target="_blank">Esther Osayande</a>, all members of the <a href="https://rohocollective.org" target="_blank">ROHO Collective</a>&mdash;to bring their designs to life.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We selected artists that were &hellip; pretty established as artists but maybe new to doing sculptural work,&rdquo; explained Mary Altman, Public Art Administrator for the City of Minneapolis. &ldquo;We actually created a series of workshops for them to participate in, [with] an expert for them to talk to prior to the development of their design to help build their capacity.&rdquo;

One of the main goals for the final sculptures was that they would be places for residents to gather, building on the deep history of community organizing on the Northside. All three artists chosen had spent considerable time in North Minneapolis and were familiar with, as Osayande put it, &ldquo;the dynamics of the community.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTQ4OTAwMDI/full.jpg" />

The bikeway begins where 26th&nbsp;Ave&nbsp;N&nbsp;leaves Theodore Wirth Regional Park, heading east, turning from the wide, tree-lined parkway into row after row of clapboard houses and ultimately reaching an industrial park on the Mississippi. At the bikeway&rsquo;s entrance stands Christopher Harrison&rsquo;s Aqurbane,&nbsp;an archway that symbolizes a union between natural and man-made elements.&nbsp;

Harrison&rsquo;s paintings and sculptural works often take their form from microorganisms and biomorphic shapes. Aqurbane&nbsp;is adorned with similar figures, hand-painted by Harrison with a dioxide patina that will morph and wear over time, heightening the industrial aspect of the work. He hopes the archway is something that people in the community will use in their daily lives, as well as something they will revisit through the years.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTU5NzAwMDE/full.jpg" />Harrison&#39;s&nbsp;Aqurbane&nbsp;archway at the entrance to the 26th&nbsp;Ave N bikeway. Photo by the author.

&ldquo;Hopefully it can be a little place where people can meet up,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Somebody can say &lsquo;Hey, meet me where that sculpture is!&rsquo; and then ride the rest of the bikeway.&rdquo;

He also hopes that the naturally inspired shapes on the archway can serve as a guide for residents to look more closely at the environment.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I used organic shapes and the whole idea of science &hellip; little animals and plants and flora and fauna, trying to make that into something that people can actually physically experience when they&rsquo;re out there,&rdquo; Harrison said. &ldquo;Hopefully it&rsquo;ll give them cues to look a little closer at things when they&rsquo;re outside and to really enjoy nature.&rdquo;

Further east along the bike path, outside of Nellie Stone Johnson Community School, stands the Big Book,&nbsp;Deanes&rsquo;s&nbsp;sculpture depicting two hands holding an open book, with a story enameled on its pages.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTQ5MDAwMDE/full.jpg" />Big Book, next to Nellie Stone Johnson Community School. Photo by author.

&ldquo;I actually went into the school, and I worked with the fifth graders,&rdquo; said Deanes, a longtime educator and Assistant Principal at Perpich Arts High School. &ldquo;The kids actually helped me develop the identities and characters.&rdquo;

Deanes aims to promote a lens of empathy and community through his work; he hopes that the story, which centers on bullying, will be an opportunity for social-emotional learning.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I consider my art in the community as a ministry of love,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;It is meant to drive a conversation about connections and disconnections of people. How do we connect with one another? How do we disconnect with one another? And why do we connect and disconnect?&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMzAyMjAwMDE/full.jpg" />Deanes&nbsp;hand-painting&nbsp;Big Book.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjgyMTAwMDE/full.jpg" />Pouring the concrete base for Big Book.

He envisions students walking home from school and stopping to read the story with their parents: &ldquo;Not only does it help push the desire to have reading material at home and to do more reading, it opens up a space for reading, it opens up a conversation on bullying.&rdquo;

A block east of the Big Book&nbsp;stands the third and final piece in the Assemble Project, Osayande&rsquo;s Purple Raindrop&nbsp;located in Fairview Park. &nbsp;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the exact neighborhood that Prince grew up in,&rdquo; Osayande explained. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s in the community that he was in.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTA5NDAwMDE/full.jpg" />Purple Raindrop at 26th&nbsp;Ave N &amp; Lyndale. Photo by the author.

Doubling as a park bench, Osayande hopes that Purple Raindrop&nbsp;will be a gathering place for the community, a place that will become a lasting part of residents&rsquo; everyday lives as well as a memorial. Having been to many events in Prince&rsquo;s honor, she is happy to be able to install a more permanent tribute.

&ldquo;It is going to be there every day. You can go home and come back tomorrow. To me, it&rsquo;s just a stronger, a more powerful, way of keeping his memory alive,&rdquo; she explained.

The source of the idea for Purple Raindrop&nbsp;verges on divine intervention. It was in the spring of 2016, shortly after Prince passed away. Osayande was waiting to take the bus home from the Assemble Project workshop and, while standing at the corner of 7th and Hennepin Ave. downtown, she heard First Avenue begin playing &ldquo;Purple Rain.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;The cars started honking and playing &lsquo;Purple Rain&rsquo; on the radio,&rdquo; Osayande recalled. &ldquo;I just thought &lsquo;Wow, is that a sign or what?&rsquo; All I saw in my head were these purple raindrops.&rdquo;&nbsp;

All three artists hope the Assemble Project will be a point of pride for Northside residents. It&rsquo;s a way to call attention to the incredible amount of talent in the community, as well as a show of recognition on the city&rsquo;s part towards an area that has been consistently underserved. In Osayande&rsquo;s words: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about them having something. And they deserve that.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Harrison described the sculptures as &ldquo;something that the neighborhood can own, the community can own.&rdquo;

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like David and Goliath,&rdquo; Osayande explained. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got a few committed people in your neighborhood trying to keep hope alive and then you have the giant media and other communities trying to put it down. It&rsquo;s just always been that struggle and so these art projects are really designed to uplift and bring a positive light to the community.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Deanes shared a similar view: &ldquo;I think about revitalizing perceptions of people of color. Far too often we&rsquo;re thought of as less than.&rdquo;

Soon, as spring comes and residents are again able to spend more time outside and gather in parks, these three sculptures will be there as unique meeting places, points of interest and opportunities for dialogue. Those same students running with backpacks home might linger with family members in front of the Big Book,&nbsp;meet friends for a bike ride under Aqurbane,&nbsp;or listen to Prince while perched on Purple Raindrop.&nbsp;In a few years, hopefully they will be adding monuments of their own.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The three sculptures that make up Assemble are on permanent display along the 26th Avenue North corridor. To learn more about the project, visit <a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/dca/WCMSP-174037" target="_blank">minneapolis.gov</a>. All photos courtesy the artists unless otherwise noted.

Three new sculptures by local artists highlight nature, nurture, people, and Prince.

Pride in the North Side: New public art projects unveiled along 26th Ave N

Coming into her studio in the early afternoon, artist Emily Donovan begins inspecting a series of what look like large PVC pipes. One by one, she extracts rolls of dyed paper from the tubes and unfurls them on her desk, revealing fluid landscapes of taupe, burnt sienna, and light blue. Figures can be made out in some of the works; birds and people blend in and move with their surroundings.

&ldquo;This is the first thing I do when I come in here,&rdquo; Donovan explains as she continues to inspect the works in progress. &ldquo;I have to see what they look like and how much dye gets picked up.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan1.jpg" /> <img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan2.jpg" /> Top: Dyed papers drying. Below: Donovan&rsquo;s dyeing tubes

&nbsp;

Each tube is filled halfway with a different color, almost all natural dyes. Most of them are of a brown varietal, some reddish and some blue. Donovan&rsquo;s style could be compared to watercolor due to the ethereal atmosphere that it creates. Or to batik, due to the crinkled lines that form as she uses wax to block certain areas during the dyeing process.

When Donovan first began dyeing paper, she was using primarily commercial dyes. It was the search for a good, true black that pushed her to explore natural sources: &ldquo;This is pomegranate and iron, and that makes this wicked black,&rdquo; she explains as she holds up a small jar of what looks like ink.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan3.jpg" /> Color Theory (Swan); natural dye on paper with logwood, dahlia, and indigo; 40 x 30&rdquo;

&nbsp;

Even now, working primarily with natural dyes, Donovan still occasionally misses the vibrancy and range of commercial pigments and will occasionally incorporate them into her work. Ironically, green has been the hardest color to produce using natural materials.

&ldquo;I can over-dye with color theory, go yellow to blue and go over it,&rdquo; Donovan explained. &ldquo;But I still haven&rsquo;t found a good source of vibrant green.&rdquo;

Since the color of a plant rarely ends up being the color of its dye, oddly enough lilacs make one of the best natural greens.

When working with certain plants, Donovan will let their color or their environment shape the composition of the final piece: &ldquo;I think it starts sometimes with the color of the actual dye.&rdquo;

On annual trips to Minnesota&rsquo;s North Shore, Donovan gathers lupine &mdash; a flowering plant &mdash; with her husband. When she uses lupine in her own work, it is almost always to represent waterscapes that are reminiscent of the plant&rsquo;s native environment. In this way, something as impermanent as lupine growing by the roadside becomes a permanent record of its surroundings. Currently, Donovan is getting ready to sell her father&rsquo;s land. She has been using the alder from the property to create maps of the area.

In addition to her landscapes, Donovan does more figurative series. Recently she has been working with birds. One client has commissioned her to do a series of herons, and in her spare time she likes to represent the geese that she meets on her walks around Como Lake. Her work is as inspired by the seasons as it is by place. In the winter, she describes the geese as frozen &ldquo;wallflowers&rdquo; and depicts them coyly milling about in an icy world that blends lake and sky.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan4.jpg" /> Canadian Goose; natural dye on paper with oak gall, indigo, and iron; 30 x 20&rdquo;

&nbsp;

With the arrival of spring, Donovan began work on a series of trees in bloom, incorporating brighter, warmer colors into her work. For this series, she used stencils to block out the dye, so that she could in effect create a variable edition of prints, drawing on her printmaking background. In addition to having studied printmaking at the University of Minnesota, her father manufactured printing presses.

For the most part, Donovan collects her materials herself. She also accepts donations from neighbors. In 2015, she received a grant that allowed her to experiment with a myriad of different plants, branching out from the tried and true dye recipes that she had been using. It was for this project that she began reaching out to growers in her community, seeking out surpluses.

&ldquo;A lot of people in Minnesota are traditionally growing a lot of the same things, because we&rsquo;re in a certain zone,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;d just walk around and find enough people that were growing the same thing and then drop a card in their mailbox and explain to them what the grant was about and ask if they&rsquo;d like to participate and donate materials.&rdquo;

A teacher who lived nearby dropped off a burlap sack of Canadian Thistle on Donovan&rsquo;s doorstep. Bonnie Blodgett, gardening columnist for the Pioneer Press, donated berries from her garden. Having personal connections to the people donating materials brought added meaning to Donovan&rsquo;s work.

The ethereal but nostalgic landscapes that Donovan&rsquo;s process creates have appealed to businesses as well as individual clients. Intelligent Nutrients, an organic health and beauty company founded by Aveda creator Horst Rechelbacher, commissioned Donovan to create a series for their storefront at the Mall of America. The works were called Continuum and drew heavily from the textural elements of a batik-like dyeing process.

&ldquo;They were all about the sort of crackled little nuances about art and life. It&rsquo;s not all perfect, and those are the things that make things interesting and pretty,&rdquo; Donovan explained. &ldquo;Wrinkles are good.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan5.jpg" /> One of the artist&rsquo;s recent collaborations with Area Environments.

&nbsp;

Recently, Donovan began partnering with Area Environments, a local company that collaborates with artists to turn their work into large-scale wall coverings. Donovan recently found one of her works transformed into wallpaper at a restaurant in Indiana.

&ldquo;The fun thing about it is that they use the colors in everything,&rdquo; Donovan explained. &ldquo;In the menu, in all the furniture.&rdquo;

As we finish talking, Donovan continues to remove works from their tubes and lay them out or hang them to dry. Everything in the studio seems to be moving: Donovan as she switches from piece to piece, wiping off excess dye and examining her new layer of color; the pieces themselves as they curl and uncurl slightly on their hooks; and the images they contain as new layers of dye build up and move across the surface.

In each piece, you can see darker lines that mark the edges of each layer of dye. Donovan explains that pigments tend to gather at the top of the canister and leave this darker contour when she removes the paper. It&rsquo;s what she calls the &ldquo;living mark,&rdquo; tracking the progress of the dye as it moves across and claims the paper. Every plant dye leaves a record of its path behind; the viewer is free to follow the plant&rsquo;s history in both the subject matter that Donovan conveys and in the physical marks that the plant creates.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/donovan6.jpg" /> Flight, natural and commercial dye on paper, 24 x 36&rdquo;

&nbsp;

Donovan&rsquo;s studio (Northrup King Building # 256) is open to the public on the first Thursday of every month. To view more of her work, visit <a href="http://emaluna.com">emaluna.com</a>.

&nbsp;

Images courtesy of the author and the artist&rsquo;s website. Banner image: Grist; fern, marigold, dahlia, madder root, and indigo dye on paper; 22 x 30&rdquo;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The Northeast artist opens her studio and shares her story of foraged wild flowers, homemade dyes, and corporate commissions.

Permanent Marker: Artist Emily Donovan Uses Plant Dyes to Commemorate the Natural World

&ldquo;Florence is like an icon around here,&rdquo; Jo Ann Hendricks explains.

Hendricks first came to Minneapolis as Executive Director of NEMAA in 2004&nbsp;and has been coming to Florence Hill&rsquo;s figure study drawing group in the California Building ever since. On a recent Sunday, as a model takes center stage and begins with a series of five-minute poses, Hendricks lays out a section of newspaper and scribbles furiously with markers. As the session continues&nbsp;and the model works her way up to ten-minute and then twenty-minute poses, Hendricks switches to nicer stock.

Many of the twenty to thirty artists in the room are equipped with only sketchbooks and a pen. Some have brought entire toolkits; the man in front of me draws with watercolor pencils and then floods his drawing pad with a large paintbrush.&nbsp; &nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence1.jpg" /> Ilya Kravchik&rsquo;s figure studies at Hill&rsquo;s co-op. Photo by the author.

At the beginning of the session, Hill made a few announcements before taking up her spot at one side of the room. She let people know that there were oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies and that one member&rsquo;s dog was completely blind and may need help staying by its owner.

She&rsquo;s been running this group for 43 years. It happens every Sunday at her studio on the first floor of the California Building without fail, holidays included. The cost is $8.00 per person, which covers the expense of having a live model. There&rsquo;s no instruction, no lesson, just encouragement and communal learning.

Hill presides over the group with a calm and caring presence. At the end of the session, she walks around the room and holds up members&rsquo; drawings, praising everyone&rsquo;s efforts. Artists greet her as she comes by. The mutual respect and admiration between Hill and these attendees is part of what keeps people coming back week-to-week.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence2.jpg" /> Scott Espersen adding finishing touches to his drawing at Hill&rsquo;s co-op. Photo by the author.

Before sitting in on her drawing group, Hill and I met at her home in Powderhorn to discuss her own artistic practice.

&ldquo;Have you ever seen moonlight?&rdquo; she asks, as we sit in her garden. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s magic. It drifts just like perfume. Settles in.&rdquo;

The plants curl around us and reach to fill the empty spaces between our chairs. Hill explains that she was always visually oriented and was an artist long before she began taking formal painting classes after the birth of her second child. Moonlight drifting in through her window at night is just one strong memory of her youth on a farm in northern Minnesota.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence3.jpg" /> Florence Hill, Brittany, acrylic on baltic birch panel

In her own paintings, Hill gravitates toward such quiet moments, when nature is at work. She depicts evening light dyeing the landscape purple, afternoon sun casting patterns across a bed, and a grove of trees backlit by an orange sunset.

&ldquo;Just little tiny places that you find, where the light is perfect,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;Where nature is making art with light.&rdquo;

Hill has been making things since she was a child, but didn&rsquo;t fully begin her artistic career until having two children of her own: &ldquo;I think that was a blessing of having the time with the kids, which was really inspiring.&rdquo;

She would draw with them at the kitchen table, or give them paintbrushes and water and send them outside to paint on the sidewalk. She also began taking formal art classes at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts and the University of Minnesota. After having her last child in 1965, she was admitted into the Walker Biennial in 1968.

&ldquo;How I did that, I&rsquo;m not sure,&rdquo; she jokes.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence4.jpg" /> Florence Hill, Sunlit Bed, acrylic on baltic&nbsp;birch panel

As soon as her children were out of the house, she began making annual trips to Brittany, a region in Northwestern France. With a few artist friends, she rented the same farmhouse in the countryside and spent a month each year painting the light coming in from the sea. &ldquo;The first year I was there in 1992,&rdquo; she recalls, &ldquo;the headlines of the newspaper in the town of about 15,000 people read: &lsquo;Two Americans in Town.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Conspicuous introduction aside, Hill quickly made a community for herself in her home away from home. She met a gallery owner who showed her work, and was soon getting commissions from the locals. The chocolatier asked her to paint his chocolate shop; the baker asked her to paint his bakery. Everyone loved to see their lives commemorated in her work: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s from my field, that&rsquo;s from my town, those are my cows, this is my tractor.&rdquo;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence5.jpg" /> Hill&rsquo;s plein air easel in Brittany

Back home in Minneapolis, Hill&rsquo;s projects in Powderhorn have inspired residents to take a similar pride in their neighborhood. The alley that runs behind her block is full of &ldquo;art tokens,&rdquo; small paintings that hang from garages and backyard fences,&nbsp;displaying messages like &ldquo;Hope is Like a Seed&rdquo; and &ldquo;Eres Precioso.&rdquo; Many of these have been made at community events hosted in the Artstop Garden, a communal space next to Hill&rsquo;s house. She bought the lot 28 years ago and worked with the neighborhood to transform it into a garden that hosts art activities with funding from Pillsbury United Communities.

Often, the kids who come to paint need some encouragement. Hill helps them to think about their favorite colors, asks them questions about the things they like, and eventually they ask for a paintbrush and some paints. Being one of seven children on a farm, Hill has always been good with kids: &ldquo;We were eight and a half miles from town, so it was necessary to have your own peer group.&rdquo;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence6.jpg" /> ArtStop Garden and some of the community-painted &ldquo;art tokens&rdquo;

After 45 years of living in Powderhorn, 43 years of hosting her figure drawing group in Northeast, and 25 years of visiting Brittany, Hill has many strong peer groups. Although she thinks of herself as a private painter, she calls herself a social animal&nbsp;and recognizes the power that art has had on her personal life. Not only has it been a way to engage with and document the world around her, it has built communities. The spaces that Hill has helped create have allowed others to access art&rsquo;s healing power.

&ldquo;I do believe art heals. When you are actually making art, you are in another place,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m still walking and talking and interested in everything. It heals.&rdquo;

&ldquo;My personal life, it&rsquo;s exactly where I want it to be,&rdquo; she adds.

On Sunday, as 5 pm rolls around and the artists begin to pack up, Hill makes the rounds and says goodbye to everyone who came. I catch up with her as people leave, and she proudly goes around and shows me the work that they&rsquo;ve done.

In our conversation at her home, she described painting as &ldquo;a battle with the surface.&rdquo; Looking at everyone&rsquo;s work, you can see how some have vigorously attacked it with active marks, hundreds of lines like bird&rsquo;s nests. Others have been gentler with the surface, marked it with only a few crucial curves, or smoothed charcoal over it in delicate swatches. Hill&rsquo;s drawing group is practice for their individual battles with the surface, for their private lives as artists. It&rsquo;s also a good excuse to socialize, as well as an example of the benefits of making art within a community. The cookies don&rsquo;t hurt either.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/florence7.jpg" /> Florence Hill, Powderhorn Rain Storm, acrylic on baltic&nbsp;birch panel

Florence Hill&rsquo;s figure drawing group meets every Sunday from 2-5 pm in her Studio 103 in the California Building in Northeast Minneapolis. Her studio is open to the public on the second Saturday of every month from 11am to 4 pm and on Sundays before the drawing group. Her work can also be seen in the Fine Arts Center at this year&rsquo;s Minnesota State Fair. 

All photos courtesy of Florence Hill except where noted.

Longtime Minneapolis artist Florence Hill builds community everywhere she goes, from her Northeast drawing co-op to the fields of France.

Making Art With Light: A profile of Florence Hill

&ldquo;Do you know the characters&rsquo; names?&rdquo; Jackson asks. &ldquo;There are a lot. There&rsquo;s Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, Hopper.&rdquo;

We are on the topic of the television show Stranger Things. At the age of 14, Jackson Duin is a pop culture expert. He is also a painter, and it&rsquo;s becoming clear that the two go hand in hand. As we talk, Jackson shares some of his recent work.

&ldquo;I have one called January Embers. Have you seen that one?&rdquo; he asks before going to grab it from his room.

&ldquo;That one he took specifically from a book,&rdquo; his father, Nathan Duin, explains.

&ldquo;Did you tell her what book it&rsquo;s from, Dad?&rdquo;

Jackson brings out a small, fiery red painting. Ridges of acrylic reach off the canvas, forming a small mountain range. He took the title from a love poem written by one of the children in Stephen King&rsquo;s novel It.

&ldquo;Let me introduce the characters to you,&rdquo; he offers, and then recites, with encyclopedic accuracy, the full names of all the primary characters. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s over 1,100 pages long. It&rsquo;s also been made into a miniseries from 1990, and a movie from last September.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Jackson1.jpg" /> Jackson Duin, Invisible Threads, acrylic on canvas

Jackson&rsquo;s paintings are abstract and textural. He makes no sketch beforehand and rarely has a fixed idea of what he wants the finished piece to look like. However, it&rsquo;s evident that there&rsquo;s a high level of thought, creativity, and artistic intuition present. Indirectly, he draws constantly from things that have resonated with him: the intense red of January Embers seems to come from the character Beverly Marsh&rsquo;s red hair; the titles of other paintings come from songs he enjoys. But, at the end of the day, his textural style of abstraction is distinctly his own.

A distinctive style and a clear voice are qualities that are important to both Jackson and Nathan when viewing art, which is something they do often. They&rsquo;ve been frequenting galleries and museums together since Jackson was a toddler.

&ldquo;He took to it immediately,&rdquo; Nathan recalls. &ldquo;It was almost like a party trick where I would be holding him at family gatherings, and he would pull out his Nuk when he saw art and say &lsquo;art.&rsquo; Then he would put the Nuk back in. He recognized something as art when he was pre-memory.&rdquo;

By the age of four, he had memorized the layout of the Walker Art Center, no small task for most adults. When his grandparents came to visit in 2011, he led them on a complete tour of Absentee Landlord, curated by John Waters. He was seven.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Jackson2.jpg" /> Jackson Duin, Pink Dream, acrylic on canvas

Nathan recalls the moment he formed his own relationship with visual art. It was in college, when he saw Number 1 (Lavender Mist) by Jackson Pollock, his son&rsquo;s namesake.

&ldquo;[Art] was always interesting. But when I saw Lavender Mist at college, then it became profoundly interesting,&rdquo; Nathan explains. &ldquo;Then I would seek it out.&rdquo;

A few years ago, Nathan and Jackson began documenting their gallery visits on Facebook, posting pictures of art that stood out to them. In 2016, they created the Instagram account <a href="http://www.instagram.com/artworldexploration" target="_blank">@artworldexploration</a>.

&ldquo;It made sense to put them all in the same place,&rdquo; Nathan says. &ldquo;The people that follow @artworldexploration might then find out about things they hadn&rsquo;t previously known about, which is essentially the point. Try to let people know about shows we&rsquo;ve seen that we really like.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Jackson3.jpg" /> A sampling of the Duins&rsquo; Instagram feed, showcasing work they&rsquo;ve seen in the Twin Cities

When viewing work at galleries, the two don&rsquo;t often try to articulate their reasons for liking something or not, although they do tend to gravitate towards the same things. Both have spent countless hours studying art, making art, and talking to artists; they go by feel, using past experiences as a reference when viewing new pieces. The most important thing to them is that the work feels distinct and fully formed.

On the whole, Nathan believes the art on display in the Twin Cities is of a very high quality. He credits this to the fact that there is still limited gallery space; while this can make it hard for some talented artists to get their work on view, it also helps ensure a high standard.

&ldquo;There are an unusual number of galleries, I think, per capita,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;But there still aren&rsquo;t enough spaces for everybody to show.&nbsp; So when somebody does get into the show and we really like it, we want other people to know about it and go see it.&rdquo;

Typically, it&rsquo;s Jackson who ends up deciding which works they feature on their Instagram. When he forms a connection to an artwork, he spends time with it, and Nathan snaps a photo.

&ldquo;I either notice that he&rsquo;s pausing on something for an extended period of time,&rdquo; Nathan says, &ldquo;or he&rsquo;ll say &lsquo;I want a picture of this one.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Sometimes on these visits, Jackson will draw direct inspiration for his own work. After seeing a piece by abstract painter Carmen Herrera, featured in Adios Utopia at the Walker, he did a series of paintings replicating her clean lines and flat swatches of color, blocking out areas of the canvas with masking tape as he worked.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Jackson4.jpg" /> The younger Duin with work by Carmen Herrera at Adios Utopia

This kind of tactile process fits in with Jackson&rsquo;s other work. Often, he will drag a squeegee or a ruler across his canvas, blurring the paint. Sometimes, he will dip a string in paint and press it onto his work. His experimental and physical techniques have led to lot of &ldquo;happy accidents.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Every once in a while he&rsquo;ll discover something almost accidentally, and he likes how it looks,&rdquo; Nathan observes. &ldquo;And if he doesn&rsquo;t like how it looks, he paints over it. The cool thing about that is sometimes those have been the ones he likes the best, because you can see other things peeking through.&rdquo;

When it comes to colors, Jackson always gravitates towards the bright ones. &ldquo;I think bright is better than dark, you know?&rdquo; This summer, he will have his own opening at Frameworks Gallery in St. Paul, showing alongside painter Susan Solomon.

Before we end our conversation, Jackson finishes describing as much of It as he can without spoiling the plot. He then recommends a couple of television shows, particularly The Loud House. Although the majority of the conversation has been focused on art, he is compelled to mention these interests, as well. As his father explains, Jackson doesn&rsquo;t make categorical distinctions about what he likes and doesn&rsquo;t like, whether looking at art or consuming other media.

&ldquo;He has no boundaries whatsoever with art, literature, music,&rdquo; Nathan says. &ldquo;He likes Wham! every bit as much as he likes Mot&ouml;rhead.&rdquo; This makes for interesting experiences in the galleries and a diverse range of influences on Jackson&rsquo;s paintings. The young man&rsquo;s myriad interests mix and culminate in a wonderful artistic accomplishment&mdash;the distinctive style that he brings to his paintings.

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Jackson5.jpg" /> Nathan and Jackson Duin

Nathan and Jackson can be found on Instagram as <a href="https://www.instagram.com/artworldexploration/" target="_blank">@artworldexploration</a>. Jackson&rsquo;s paintings can be found at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jacksond2004/">@jacksond2004</a>, and his artist interviews can be found at <a href="http://jacksond2004.blogspot.com" target="_blank">jacksond2004.blogspot.com</a>. Jackson&rsquo;s show with Susan Solomon <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/another-shade-of-summer">Another Shade of Summer at </a><a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/another-shade-of-summer" target="_blank">Frameworks Gallery</a> opens July 28th, with a reception from 7-9 p.m.

All photos courtesy Nathan Duin.

Teenage painter Jackson Duin and his father catalogue their @artworldexploration throughout the Twin Cities and beyond.

Containing Multitudes: Stephen King, Jackson Pollock, and the Making of a Young Artist

From her brightly decorated studio in Saint Paul, Lisa Troutman plies her trade as an illustrator and graphic recorder. A relatively young and growing field, graphic recording consists of visually representing the content of events through large-format drawings, often done live. Troutman attends everything from business meetings to keynote lectures and communicates what is taking place through a combination of imagery and text, which she lays out carefully to capture the flow of complex ideas.

Troutman made the switch to illustration, and ultimately to graphic recording, after a career in product design research. Illustration appealed to her because it meant working on shorter projects for a diverse range of clients. The ability to visually capture information quickly, along with her research experience, eased the transition.

&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to sit in an office, clicking and typing forever on these massive projects with seven year timelines,&rdquo; Troutman explained. &ldquo;I want to work fast. I want to work live. I want to work with people, and I want every day to be different.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/drawnwell1.jpg" /> Visual agenda for the Talk Climate Institute, March 2018

&nbsp;

Through her work as an illustrator and graphic recorder, she can continuously immerse herself in new ideas: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m always trying on different industries, and I get to live and walk in someone else&rsquo;s shoes.&rdquo;

A friend introduced Troutman to graphic recording while she was working as a freelance illustrator in Minneapolis. Although she was excited by the work, it took time for her to realize that it was a possible career. Her first graphic recording projects were for very little money and were often done for friends or acquaintances. Eventually, she created Drawn Well LLC, her one-woman creative firm specializing in graphic recording and other forms of illustration.

&ldquo;Even when I started doing this, I didn&rsquo;t realize there was a community here of people with whom I could hang out and share ideas,&rdquo; Troutman explained. After connecting locally with colleagues in the industry, Troutman was better able to find and refer work to others.

&ldquo;Everybody wants you to succeed,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;We know we can all learn from each other and that, at some point, we&rsquo;re going to get work from somebody else and give work to somebody.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/drawnwell2.jpg" /> Graphic recording of Statewide Health Improvement Program annual meeting, 2017

&nbsp;

For Troutman, creating a graphic record involves preparation. Before the event, she meets with the facilitator to draft a road map and brainstorm possible visual metaphors. She then prepares her paper with a title and relevant details. Troutman believes this initial planning leads to a more thoughtful and unified piece.

&ldquo;Before I realized graphic recording was a discipline with real research behind it, I thought it was important to show up with a blank piece of paper and make the whole thing a performance,&rdquo; Troutman explained. &ldquo;What I&rsquo;ve realized is that your piece can have more impact, and you can be less stressed, if you come in and you&rsquo;ve already thought about a visual metaphor that you want the whole thing to hang from.&rdquo;

While at the event, Troutman records live in front of attendees. Both the act of visually recording and the finished document can help visual learners in the audience.

&ldquo;It makes dense information more palatable, which is amazing because 65% of the population are visual learners,&rdquo; Troutman explained. &ldquo;It can enable people to experience better recall, deeper engagement.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/drawnwell3.jpg" /> Graphic recording of a presentation on Art Licensing by Lindsay Nohl and Springboard for the Arts, 2017

&nbsp;

After she attends the event and creates the record, Troutman documents her drawing through a series of photographs, which she then stiches together and edits on her computer. While some graphic recorders choose not to edit their drawings after the fact, Troutman sees this as a way to make the finished document stronger, but only allows herself roughly three hours of editing time.

She recently drew over eighty miniature portraits of party attendees at the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. She joked that she had to edit a few after the fact because, &ldquo;when you&rsquo;re doing eighty portraits in a three hour session, some of them are better than others.&rdquo;

When seeking out clients, Troutman places a large emphasis on social justice. She enjoys working with companies and organizations that share her values and has been able to establish a strong network in the Twin Cities.

&ldquo;The work begets work,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;By working with mission-aligned organizations, I&rsquo;m often exposed to people who are working in social justice, environmental justice, and equity of every stripe. Those narratives are really important to me. With graphic recording, I try to focus on those organizations. It&rsquo;s helpful that they generally know one another.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/drawnwell4.jpg" /> Detail of graphic recording of Pollen Midwest presentation on self-care, 2017

&nbsp;

In addition to working as a graphic recorder, Troutman is also an avid creator of Sketchnotes. Sketchnotes, like graphic records, are visual representations of a meeting or lecture. In contrast, they are generally completely improvised and done on a much smaller scale. Troutman was first exposed to the concept while getting her degree in Industrial Design, as a way to effectively take notes in a visual field. Now she generally does it on her own time. Attending social justice-oriented events and lectures, she visually records what is said, and then disseminates her Sketchnote as a means of furthering the event&rsquo;s reach.

&ldquo;I want that work to live on as long as possible and go as far as it should,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I make it very clear to anyone who is interested that they can have a high-resolution copy for whatever purpose and share it with whomever.&rdquo;

Troutman works towards greater representation by incorporating diverse figures into her graphic records and illustrations. While working with corporate clients as a freelance illustrator, she realized that the characters she sketched often shaped the actors selected for a commercial, or the people represented in a graphic. For example, if she was instructed to draw a couple in their mid-twenties, she had leeway to make them interracial or gay and have that interpretation carry over into the final product.

&ldquo;More often than not, I see those decisions that I&rsquo;m making on the page translate to whatever the media is, whether it&rsquo;s photo or illustration,&rdquo; Troutman said.&nbsp;

<h2>&ldquo;Illustrators are powerful. They just have to choose to use that power.&rdquo;</h2>

Troutman continues to make an effort to represent diversity in her graphic records and Sketchnotes: &ldquo;Anybody who works with Drawn Well doesn&rsquo;t get to escape that. I&rsquo;m going to bring in a diverse cast of characters, everybody from wheelchair-bound characters to different ethnicities. I&rsquo;m Latina, and I don&rsquo;t see myself represented very often.&rdquo;

This past year, Troutman led a Sketchnote workshop at Design Camp, a conference in Northern Minnesota, and hopes to provide additional workshops in the future. She plans to tailor them to different experience levels, for everybody from those just learning how to draw to creative professionals.

Troutman is excited by the growing potential of both graphic recording and Sketchnoting to disseminate important information. Going forward, she hopes to see greater diversity in the graphic recording profession.

&ldquo;I would like diverse faces doing the capturing because they will hear it differently, and they will draw it differently,&rdquo; she explained, adding &ldquo;that is a necessary change that we all need to make.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/drawnwell5.jpg" /> Lisa Troutman. Photo by Shannon Svensrud, <a href="http://instagram.com/storiedlifepictures" target="_blank">@storiedlifepictures</a>.

&nbsp;

More examples of Troutman&rsquo;s work, as well as pricing and contact information, can be found at <a href="http://drawnwell.com" target="_blank">drawnwell.com</a>. She also posts regularly on Instagram as <a href="http://instagram.com/drawnwell" target="_blank">@drawnwell</a>.

Through her live-drawing practice, Lisa Troutman blends illustration and performance and proves what an artist’s eye can bring to the board room.

On the Record: Lisa Troutman’s Life as a Graphic Recorder

Gamut Gallery&rsquo;s intimate space is the perfect fit for Soft Boundaries, a show themed around the idea of vulnerability and strengthened by the community of artists assembled by curator Juleana Enright. The works in the show are effortlessly cohesive; they are in conversation with each other, even as they cover topics ranging from the vulnerability of trans bodies to the displacement of the Palestinian people.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz1.jpg" /> Blair Moore, Aissatou, photography

Upon entering, visitors are immediately invited to touch a mannequin that has been mounted on gatorboard and covered in sequins. Gold sequins flip up to reveal gray backsides as you choose to run your hand over either the figure&rsquo;s body or the canvas. This piece by Laurie Borggreve, entitled Do Not Touch, sets the tone for the show. Soft Boundaries raises questions about the curating of bodies and people, along with consent and vulnerability on both a personal and political scale.

Passing Borggreve&rsquo;s work and entering the main gallery, it feels like you are walking into someone&rsquo;s living room. It is clear that the same driving force pulled these works into fruition and placed them in dialogue with one another. This cohesion is due in no small part to the fact that Juleana found most of the participating artists through existing friendships and mutual acquaintances.

&ldquo;I know [these artists] so personally, and know their work and really have a lot of faith and confidence in what they&rsquo;re doing,&rdquo; Juleana said.

Soft Boundaries is the debut show for nineteen-year old photographer Blair Moore, whose work Juleana stumbled across online.

&ldquo;I just found her on Instagram,&rdquo; Juleana said. &ldquo;And I was like &lsquo;I love your stuff.&rsquo; And she&rsquo;s a friend of my friend Dom.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz2.jpg" /> Dom Laba, SFT, photography

Artist Dom Laba&rsquo;s photography hangs adjacent to Moore&rsquo;s. Both Moore&rsquo;s Wild Child series and Laba&rsquo;s SFT series portray the experiences of marginalized youth through highly staged photographs, but aesthetically they couldn&rsquo;t be more different.

Moore&rsquo;s works are primarily portraits inspired by vintage glamour shots. Neon lights reflect off metallic streamers as black youth pose with flowers, ready for their close-ups. On the other hand, Laba&rsquo;s photos feel less staged at first glance; they are set outside in nondescript locations. However, each image is carefully curated through clothing and props. In Juleana&rsquo;s words, Laba&rsquo;s photographs reflect the &ldquo;endless possible editorial moments that exist in space and time.&rdquo;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz3.jpg" /> Mikki Coleman, Don&rsquo;t Touch Me, collage

The idea of curating oneself and one&rsquo;s environment as an act of vulnerable creation runs throughout the show. Artist Mikki Coleman&rsquo;s hand-cut collages showcase the ability of people who face gender discrimination to actively shape their own identity, even in the face of external oppression. Through dismantling and reassembling photos of bodies, Coleman expresses gender dysphoria as an act of creating something new and beautiful.

When asked what criteria they were looking for in a show about something as broad as vulnerability, Juleana referenced the conversations they had had with each artist before inviting them to be in the show. All of the artists shared a desire to &ldquo;use softness as a protective force, as a way to heal themselves and to heal others.&rdquo; These artists express vulnerability through the content of their art, but also seek to affirm it and redefine it, turning it into something potentially powerful while acknowledging the external forces of violence and manipulation.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz4.jpg" /> Lamia Abukhadra, Missing, mixed media print

The scale of vulnerability addressed in the works ranges from the personal to the political, and blurs the distinction between the two. Palestinian-American artist Lamia Abukhadra&rsquo;s prints call attention to the situation in Palestine by expressing the vulnerability of the Palestinian people. Her series Missing depicts Jaffa orange juice cartons with a missing persons notice on the side. Instead of one person, the whole Palestinian culture is absent as a result of exclusion and opportunistic appropriation by Israeli entities.

Perhaps in part because many of the artists are younger, a kind of &ldquo;Instagram aesthetic&rdquo; flows through many of the works in the show. Multimedia artist shhhhame uses millennial pink and an almost&nbsp;na&iuml;ve style to paint dogs, bottles of Hennessy, and people who have had an impact on her life, even if it was an overwhelmingly negative one. Many of her works are in a square format. Instagram handles are included on all of the artist labels.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz5.jpg" /> Nadia Honary, Hashtag Life&rsquo;s Good, installation view

In keeping with the theme of Soft Boundaries, the vulnerability inherent to posting on social media is represented in the work of Nadia Honary. Honary has strewn Polaroids on a podium, many face down, waiting to be flipped over and gone through by visitors. Behind the podium is a TV monitor playing a video of a masked figure carrying out various tasks on a computer. Different posts and photos appear on the screen, interspersed with shots of the masked subject; they are seeing the content without anyone seeing them.

One of Juleana&rsquo;s goals for the show was to create a space for the queer community, for people of color, and for other marginalized artists whose work is most often shown as a token in largely white, cisgender spaces.

&ldquo;I feel like it&rsquo;s ours,&rdquo; Juleana said of the show. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like we have to go into a space and exist in it. This space is for us, and the people that come in can consume what&rsquo;s going on, but we don&rsquo;t have to go in and occupy something.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz6.jpg" /> Blair Moore, Wild Child photo series; shhhhame, plush couch; installation view

Juleana hopes people will come in and get to know these artists more. One great opportunity to do so is at an upcoming performance on Thursday, May 3rd. In addition to being able to view the work in a communal setting, patrons will be able to see responsive performance art pieces. Cassie Garner, Gamut&rsquo;s gallery director, frames this performance night as a sort of happening.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Part of Gamut&rsquo;s very beginning was art in the happening,&rdquo; Garner said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not here, you&rsquo;re missing out on an experience.&rdquo;

Garner promises &ldquo;full captivation of the room&rdquo; by A M O D E L, a duo consisting of performance artists Sonja Elise Johanson and Cole Mealey. Johanson has performed at the gallery in the past, using her silent theatrics to engage audiences with the space and with each other.&nbsp;

&ldquo;They have this ability to take over the room,&rdquo; Garner said. &ldquo;They really draw attention silently.&rdquo;

Juleana adds that during one of their last performances, &ldquo;Sonja made us all cry.&rdquo;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/Kranz7.jpg" /> Marcel Michelle-Mobama

The night will also feature burlesque-inspired performance artist Marcel Michelle-Mobama, whose style is very different from that of Johanson. Juleana says that in Michelle-Mobama&rsquo;s case, &ldquo;Everyone is looking because it&rsquo;s dynamic and it&rsquo;s fantastic.&rdquo; Juleana adds that for this performance, &ldquo;Marcel wants to be more stripped down.&rdquo; Viewers can expect to see a side of Michelle-Mobama that they haven&rsquo;t before.

Recently added to the line-up is local spoken word poet Katie Robinson. Juleana and Garner expect this diverse cast of performers to help the audience engage with the show in new and different ways. Doors will open for the performance, which is 18-plus, at 7 p.m. The show will run until about 9 p.m., and will be followed with a DJ set by Soft Boundaries artist Dom Laba.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/soft-boundaries">Soft Boundaries</a> is on view through May 18th. Gamut Gallery is open Thursday through Saturday, from 1 - 7 pm or by appointment.

Curator Juleana Enright brings fresh takes on bodies, borders, and beauty to Gamut Gallery.

Written by Bridget KranzWebsite

Working Small & Staying Open on the Mighty ...

Parallel Practice: Heid Erdrich and Rosy Si...

Foreign, but familiar: Lauren Roche turns d...

Pride in the North Side: New public art pro...

Permanent Marker: Artist Emily Donovan Uses...

Making Art With Light: A profile of Florenc...

Containing Multitudes: Stephen King, Jackso...

On the Record: Lisa Troutman’s Life as a Gr...

Soft Boundaries at Gamut Gallery finds comm...

Community Spotlight

We can't do it without you.