by Lawrence Sutin   December 19, 2006 People complain a lot about the president, but they forget how much easier he makes things for writers composing essays of outrage against his policies. Because Bush the Second has made it clear that he doesn�t like to read�his wife Laura has often told the joke that the two of them met and fell in love against all odds, as she was working in a library at the…

by Alex Starace   December 8, 2006It all started innocently enough: I was having an ice cream at Sebastian Joe�s. The shop, like many coffee and ice cream places, hangs a rotating display of local (and oftentimes tacky and semi-professional) artists on its walls. I looked up and this time the art was his � Scott Seekins�s. This was too much: I had a sneaking suspicion that either I was stalking him or…

by Aaron Lundstrom   November 19, 2006 It takes a designer to create and build an instrument. It takes an artist to make it sing. And it takes a skillful light-heartedness to make a banjo out of a bedpan. I have never used a bedpan in the usual way. But after meeting Frank Stoyka in Minnesota�s Lake of the Woods, I have played power-chords on a stainless steel beauty of a bedpanjo. Frank is retired and…

by Britt Aamodt   November 14, 2006 Three years ago the idea of turning the Minnesota State Arts Board�s Artists Registry into a premier resource for public artists would have seemed presumptuous, or at best, a case of misdirected enthusiasm, as the MSAB struggled to contend with a 32 percent budget cut. Staff members lost jobs. Programs scaled down and reorganized. Grant monies shrank. The arts were…

by Susan Clayton   October 13, 2006 In Minnesota, we never like to think of ourselves as fly-over country, but, in terms of hot markets for studio art glass, we kind of are. Vital communities of glass artists and collectors thrive on both coasts while here in Minnesota clay is the thing. However, there is a group of local glass artists who are out to change that. This weekend, for the third consecutive…

by Thomas O’Sullivan   October 9, 2006 The Minnesota State Fair�s 95th Annual Fine Arts Exhibition was judged twice. The official judging took place on July 31, when eight jurors selected 349 artworks for the show. The second judging began in earnest at the exhibit preview three weeks later, as visitors to the exhibit weighed in with their own opinions about the show and those who chose it. The…

by Jaime Kleiman   October 3, 2006 The 2nd annual Ameriprise Financial Ivey Awards, held in downtown Minneapolis� State Theatre on Monday, September 25, produced some surprises, including two prizes for the Children�s Theatre Company�s a play told in the format of a silent film. Actor Dean Holt won for �channeling the spirit� of the silent screen legend Buster Keaton, and playwright Barry Kornhauser was…

by Sol Nte   September 19, 2006 This DIY guide covers the production of soft vinyl figures. A soft vinyl figure is a hollow toy figure made of soft PVC. The simplest everyday example of this type of figure is a rubber duck. Soft vinyl figures normally have fairly simple details, they are produced by a process called rotocasting. Rotocast figures are made by putting a small quantity of plastic into a…

by mnartists.org   September 4, 2006 Dallan Kimberling, Roseville (Prismacolor pencil) Dallan Kimberling�s fine drawing of the Temperance River on the North Shore won first place in the Drawings category of this year�s Fair; his interest in the natural beauty of the state is still fresh: �I�ve been in Minnesota for five years now; I get such a kick out of the beauty of the place… . The light is so…