Walker Blogs

mnartists.org

A Closer Look – “It Is What It Is!” comic by Todd Balthazor

Posted May 16, 2012 at 11:59 am — Filed under:

Related exhibition: The art noted above is part of the Walker’s ongoing exhibition, Lifelike, on view through May 27.

About the artist: Todd Balthazor is a satirical, often anthropomorphic illustrator, fine artist, muralist and children’s art instructor from St.Paul, MN, with a BFA in illustration from the College of Visual Arts (CVA).  He has done artist residencies at Jackson Elementary and the St. Paul University Club, and his work has been displayed in venues both locally and abroad, including: illustrations in the Altered Esthetics Gallery (Minneapolis), the Walker Art Center blog, and multiple Red Leaf Press publications (St. Paul); visual narratives at the Adugyama Art Exhibition (Ghana, Africa) and the Save the Children Nepal Project (Nepal, India); and murals at an orphanage in Jaurez, Mexico.  Samples of his work can be found at toddbalthazor.com and toddbalthazor.blogspot.com.

Balthazor also works as a guard at the Walker Art Center, and draws on his experiences behind the scenes at the museum in his weekly comic strip for mnartists.org, It Is What It Is.  (Click the image above to enlarge it.)

MAKING IT: Miguel Calderón – Color Bleed at the Rochester Art Center

Posted May 11, 2012 at 2:52 pm — Filed under:

There is a sign, specifically a Motel 6 sign, firmly planted in the Atrium of the Rochester Art Center.  The sign attempts to contain an eagle’s nest, which bulges from the bottom and spilling through the sides. This work is part of an a new solo exhibition by international artist Miguel Calderón titled Color Bleed which open this Saturday, May 12th. To create this piece, the artist along with team at the Art Center, worked with a local sign company to replicate the sign, build the nest and finally remove a glass panel in the atrium roof and hoist the piece into place.  A there it will sit, lofted between the second and third floor for the next year.

The relationship between artist, curator and preparator is an often hidden aspect in the production of an exhibition. Curators and preparators act as advisors, engineers, scavengers, liaisons, construction and demolition teams and in many other roles to realize the vision of the artist. The intent of the MAKING IT blog series is to provide some insight into how art work is created, including some of the behind the scenes mechanisms.

There is a mixture of hard work, excitement, exhaustion and ultimate satisfaction in helping produce an exhibition. Over the past year this exhibition has taken form through ongoing discussions with chief curator Kris Douglas and eventually preparator Phillip Ahnen and other installation support staff. Calderón’s developed several new works for the exhibition (including a site specific installation using a exterior wall at a school in Rochester) each containing its own set of challenges. Many of the simplest aspects of any installation are filled with complicated details, but the idea is that you never notice any of the supports which make the piece possible.

From early sketches to basement mock-ups to frequent cell phone installation shots it has been intriguing to witness the exhibition take form. Here are a few shots of the exhibition installation to give you a taste of what to expect.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnartists/sets/72157629679133420/show/

If you are interested in checking out the work yourself here is the information on the exhibition and opening in Rochester this weekend.  Look for more posts in the near future with further details on how other pieces in Color Bleed were created.

Miguel Calderón: Color Bleed

May 12 – August 26, 2012

Miguel Calderón (born Mexico City, 1971) is regarded as one of the most important artists of his generation. In 1994, he founded the independent gallery “La Panadería,” an initiative that contributed to the internationalization of a generation of Mexican emerging contemporary artists during the 1990s. Focusing primarily in photography, film and video, his practice centres on the observation of human interaction and takes advantage of what is at hand to create low budget videos and installations. For his exhibition at the Rochester Art Center, the artist will realize a number of major site-specific works (including an off-site installation), a new body of photographs, and an artists book. A key component of the project will be an artist residency, with Calderón working and making photographs with students, and giving a lecture to the public.

Various solo exhibitions include: a Bestseller, Panorámica, Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2009); La discípula del velocímetro, Prospectif Cinema, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris, France (2008); Anónimo Alemán, Vacío 9 Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2007); Miguel Calderón, kurimanzutto Gallery, Mexico City (2006); México vs. Brazil, 26 Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2004); Forcing the Forces of Nature, Andrea Rosen Gallery, NY, US (2003) and Gran dote, La Panadería, Mexico City (2001).

Group exhibitions include: Fetiches críticos: residuos de la economía general, Museo de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City (2012); Mexico: Expected/Unexpected, Maison Rouge, Paris, France (2008); Playback, Museé de Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2007); Viva México!, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland (2007); 7th International Photo Triennial Esslingen, Germany (2007); Escultura Social a New Generation of Art from Mexico City, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL, US (2007); Freakshow an Unnatural History, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, UK (2007); La era de la discrepancia, MUCA-UNAM, Mexico City (2007); Distor, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2006); 7TH Sharjah Biennial, UAE (2005); Yokohama 2005:International Triennal of Contemporary Art, Japan (2005); Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, ICP, NY, US (2003); Fantastic!, Mass MOCA, North Adams, MASS, US (2003); Ciudad de México: An Exhibition About The Exchange Rates of Bodies and Values, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, NY, US (2002)and Tele[Visions], Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria (2001).

In 2000, Calderón received the Macarthur Fellowship for film, video and new media, and in 1995 was an artist fellow of the Bancomer/Rockefeller Fellowship for the project “La Panadería, an Essay on Cultural Pollution.”

Also Showing: Jehra Patrick: Inescapable Support

Exhibition Opening Reception

Saturday, May 12 | 7 pm
$5 admission, free for art center members
Music by Black Lacquer
Cash bar by Sontes
Complimentary beer provided by August Schell Brewing

Making It lifts the curtain on art-making around the state with posts that go inside the process of making and showing work. You’ll find these visually-oriented little pieces on both the Education and Community Programs’ blog and here, on the mnartists.org blog, and they’ll include a broad-mash up across disciplines, with everything from staff dispatches from Arty Pants and Open Field to rehearsal notes and studio visits, maybe even a few DIY tutorials by and with Minnesota artists.

MAKING IT: _____________ is What We Made Together

Posted May 8, 2012 at 4:43 pm — Filed under:

This project makes us happy.  Last week the Walker Art Center hosted a reception for the American Association of Museums annual meeting.  As part of the activities, we invited our amazing friends Lunalux to create a poster for the Open Field.  The initial idea was to create a static poster, which could be distributed to attendees and our guests this summer.  After more discussion, we decided the poster could become a bit more open, collaborative and in the spirit of the field. Jenni and Morgan from Lunalux suggested a portable letterpress and allowing the public to “fill in the blank” to create their custom poster.  So that is what we did.  For four hours on a stormy Tuesday evening, dozens of attendees composed and printed their unique 1/1 edition. Each print was signed by the artist and printer, embossed with a special Walker Open Field stamp and then documented.

Check out what we made together.

Lunalux will return to the Open Field later this summer to host a special “pop-up” day celebrating the US Post Office and the lost art of letter writing.  Lunalux is also contributing and hosting the first Community Supported Art (CSA) pickup during the Northern Spark Festival on June 9th from 8pm -late…  Stop by their shop on Loring Park to make your own print that evening or just watch the process throughout the night.

VIEWFINDER: “Luminous Being – Satchel Paige” by Becky Billings

Posted at 11:54 am — Filed under:

A single ray of light illuminates a 35-year-old Satchel Paige playing pool in New York City in 1941.  He appears bright against the darkness of the pool hall; the light on him and the light within him attract the viewer. The low camera angle gives the viewer a feeling of bowing before this baseball legend.

This picture (which may be viewed here), “Baseball player Satchel Paige, playing a game of pool” taken by George Strock, appears in the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s exhibit, The Sports Show.  

Paige is dressed as a stereotype found in Negro Leagues literature. The new suit, the new shoes, the hat: he would have valued these items and purchased them for himself as soon as possible with his meager earnings from the Negro Leagues. They would have given him status within his community, and more importantly, inside his own head. But in 1941, he would have only been allowed in “colored” pool halls. Pool halls were typically places for gambling, and even though the viewer is unable to see Paige’s adversary, the viewer is aware Paige is winning because of his confident stance.

Pitchers reach their peak in their thirties.  In 1941, Paige would have been 35. The popularity of the Negro Leagues was also at its height, which is partly why the Major Leagues allowed Jackie Robinson to cross the color-line.  Across The Sports Show gallery another photograph portrays the white manager of the Montreal Royals congratulating Jackie Robinson in 1942.

Most people assume that when Robinson crossed over, the players in the Negro Leagues rejoiced.  The vast majority of Negro League players, however, no matter how good they were, would never make it to the MLB. 1943 was the last season for the Negro Leagues, and many players never had the chance to play the game of their dreams again. Paige didn’t play in the majors until he was 42, and he still remains the oldest rookie in the Major League. But, at 42, he was long past his prime.

In this picture Satchel Paige had to have known the Negro Leagues was nearing its end, but his iconic, immortal status remains.

 

About the author: Becky Billings is the Director of the Writing Center at Hennepin Technical College (HTC) in Eden Prairie as well as an adjunct philosophy instructor at HTC in Brooklyn Park.

_____________________________________________________

Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

VIEWFINDER: “Art Changes Everything” by Josh Cook

Posted May 3, 2012 at 6:46 am — Filed under:

"Art Changes Everything," Intermedia Arts. Photo by Author.

My wife set this picture as our computer desktop background about a year and a half ago, after we had walked past the Intermedia Arts building on a cold day in January. For some reason I never thought—never really thought—about what that phrase implies.

Does art change everything? In a recent Viewfinder post, Jay Orff, echoing W. H. Auden, mentions that “art makes nothing happen.” When you examine these words: “Art Changes Everything,” you think, “no, no it doesn’t.” Jaap Blonk’s sound poetry performance last month didn’t launch me from my seat, scoot me off to L.A., or make me chase down a Foley artist job. But it did stir something in me, and I did have conversations about it. The corollaries—and possibilities thereof—are endless.

Now, I understand Auden’s impulse to say that no, art itself doesn’t change anything; perceptible change occurs at the hand of human intervention. It goes along with the NRA’s obvious point: Guns don’t kill people… The hope isn’t that art brainwashes people, but that it cajoles, excites, arouses, and perhaps inspires the viewer to create, to find their voice, or to plumb the magnificent details of the mundane.

But how do we know that art makes nothing happen? Every second unravels with cause and effect. I walk in to a cafe to buy a cookie, the girl behind the counter answers the phone, making me wait an extra fifteen seconds. I leave, but just as I crack the door, a biker on the sidewalk whizzes past. If I had exited earlier, maybe he would’ve hit me. Maybe not, though. Maybe he would’ve simply weaved around me. But if that were the case, I might’ve become consumed with a momentary hatred for reckless cycling. I might have then ranted to my wife about it. She, depending on the countless events, people, snippets of conversation she encountered during her day, might have then combusted (I exaggerate).

The point is: the possibilities are endless. And yet, at the end of the day, I agree with Auden. No, art doesn’t change anything. It makes nothing happen. But each moment changes the next. Each thought we have and step we take and conversation we engage usher us into the next moment, the next mood. And if we take enough time to truly engage art— to see it, hear it, let its trances and expositions ruminate – then we might compile enough of these moments so that when we see something like, “art changes everything,” we know somehow, someway, it’s true.

 

 About the author: Josh Cook has an MFA in fiction from Pacific University. His work has been featured in Guitar World Magazine and The Iowa Review, and is forthcoming from Sic Semper Serpent. He lives in Minneapolis.

_____________________________________________________

Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

Admiration – “It Is What It Is!” comic by Todd Balthazor

Posted May 2, 2012 at 11:37 am — Filed under:

Related exhibition: The art noted above is part of the Walker’s ongoing exhibition, Lifelike, on view through May 27.

About the artist: Todd Balthazor is a satirical, often anthropomorphic illustrator, fine artist, muralist and children’s art instructor from St.Paul, MN, with a BFA in illustration from the College of Visual Arts (CVA).  He has done artist residencies at Jackson Elementary and the St. Paul University Club, and his work has been displayed in venues both locally and abroad, including: illustrations in the Altered Esthetics Gallery (Minneapolis), the Walker Art Center blog, and multiple Red Leaf Press publications (St. Paul); visual narratives at the Adugyama Art Exhibition (Ghana, Africa) and the Save the Children Nepal Project (Nepal, India); and murals at an orphanage in Jaurez, Mexico.  Samples of his work can be found at toddbalthazor.com and toddbalthazor.blogspot.com.

Balthazor also works as a guard at the Walker Art Center, and draws on his experiences behind the scenes at the museum in his weekly comic strip for mnartists.org, It Is What It Is.  (Click the image above to enlarge it.)

@analogtweet: You Write it, We Tweet It

Posted April 29, 2012 at 12:42 am — Filed under:

The First Analog Tweet by Lunalux's Jenni Undis

@analogtweet

You Write it, We Tweet it.

The American Association of Museums Annual Meeting and Museum Expo opens today in Minneapolis. With this national gathering of thousands of museum professionals in our backyard celebrating by officially launching the Analog Tweet project at AAM.  The inspiration for this simple activity is mixing the tactile intimacy of the handwritten notes with the immediacy of social media. The intent is for people to share thoughtful messages through “slow tweets” which leave behind a physical object after they are sent into cyberspace.

Here is how it works: We partnered with local print shop Lunalux to create  telegram-like letterpressed cards. Each card contains metered spaces  for the 128 characters (140 minus the #analogtweet hashtag).   You are invited to compose your message, remove the perforated receipt, and we will tweet the message and include a picture of the physical card.  It is actually hard to compose a tweet without the ability to have characters auto counted and writing it in one draft…don’t worry we have scratch paper!

The tweets are visible at @analogtweet and on the Open Field Facebook Page.  Please follow us to see all the compositions over the course of this week and summer.  The analog tweet table is located at the hospitality lounge across from the Dunn Brothers Coffee Shop during the AAM conference from noon to 4pm each day. We will also be providing other AAM related activities during conference including Drawing Club Coloring Book sessions, Open Field Button Making and Museum Bingo. If you are not attending conference analog tweet will settle into their permanent home on the Walker Open Field all summer as a daily amenity.

MAKING IT: Andy Ducett and how you fill 12,000 square feet in six months.

Posted April 26, 2012 at 9:28 pm — Filed under:
The intent of the new MAKING IT series within the mnartist.org blog is to highlight the hidden aspects of artistic production.  This is everything from shots of working spaces to stratgies for mixing the perfect palette…all interesting aspects of artists work that are rarely discussed or revealed. With this idea of access to an extended process, I asked Minneapolis multimedia artist Andy Ducett for permission to document the progress of his upcoming solo exhibition at the Soap Factory.  Andy generously agreed to open his studio to share the “behind the scenes” view of his artistic production.  From planning, models, design decisions, sourcing materials, sourcing labor, fundraising, installation to opening night we will track the hidden work necessary for a success exhibition.  Andy will walk us through the progress in his own voice in an effort to not only see the work accumulate, but to gain understanding of the decisions that are made along the route.Here is Andy:

I’ve been asked to write in order to give a peek into my practice and share all of the processes, byproducts, successes, failures, left turns, right turns, u-turns and other minutia that is associated with an art practice is exciting.  We usually only see the results.  It’s like my car, or video chatting, or air travel…I have no idea how most of it works, I just know (or hope, rather) that it does whatever it’s supposed to do.

It just so happens that I am less than five months away from an a large solo exhibition at The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, a show that I’ve been planning and working towards for a little over 2 years.  The scope and nature of the exhibition is very similar to my regular artistic practice, while expanding on some of my ongoing ideas and visual strategies.  However, for this exhibition I plan to use new elements,  such as video and performance which has never appeared in my work previously.   One of the biggest challenges is taking advantage of the massive 12,000 square feet of  gallery space in The Soap Factory, and to make it into one cohesive installation.

The exhibition opens the 8th of September, and over the course of the next few months, I will be making regular posts about my progress. I am also working with local artist and videographer Eric Melser to film parts of my processes which I will share in future posts.

Also check out Andy Ducett’s MN Original segment for more insight on how to source thrift stores

Making It lifts the curtain on art-making around the state with posts that go inside the process of making and showing work. You’ll find these visually-oriented little pieces on both the Education and Community Programs’ blog and here, on the mnartists.org blog, and they’ll include a broad-mash up across disciplines, with everything from staff dispatches from Arty Pants and Open Field to rehearsal notes and studio visits, maybe even a few DIY tutorials by and with Minnesota artists.

Viewfinder: “KEEP SMILING at M&J Auto” by Ira Brooker

Posted at 7:24 am — Filed under:

"KEEP SMILING" by Brian Sobaski at M& J Auto, Saint Paul, 2002. Photo by author.

Sometimes practicality and creativity go hand in hand. In 2002, the Delaney brothers, owners of M&J Auto Repair in Saint Paul, were looking to drum up more business. The problem was that their garage didn’t look enough like a garage; the telltale roll-up doors faced the parking lot in the rear, so passing motorists on Prior Avenue saw only a nondescript brick wall. Their novel solution was to recruit local artist and old high school classmate Brian Sobaski (known around the Twin Cities for his unique straw sculptures) to turn the shop’s west wall into something impossible to ignore.

Sobaski found his inspiration in a selection of automotive ads from the 1930s. “It’s kind of their style,” he says, “it’s an old school repair shop – not a lot of computers, very analog.” He proceeded to emblazon the building with a row of one-story black-and-white cartoon panels spotlighting some of the motoring mishaps that M&J specializes in repairing. Ten years later, the blown-out tires and ailing engines of yesteryear still loom large over Prior Avenue.

Wall paintings at M&J Auto by Brian Sobaski, 2002. Photo by author.

Sobaski proudly notes that although the Delaneys invested in anti-graffiti sealant for his paintings, it’s rarely been put to the test: “I think it’s kind of a show of respect from the taggers.”

The ads glow with a friendly liveliness not often seen in modern advertising, especially in my largely industrial pocket of Midway. Their kinetic energy, crisp monochrome and clean geometric design are unmistakably retro, but there’s also a timelessness to them that draws me in every time I pass by. Our eyes aren’t trained to expect art in that environment, let alone see it on a business as traditionally utilitarian as an auto shop, and that makes it all the more arresting.

M&J Auto signage by Brian Sobaski, 2002. Photo by author.

Curiously enough, the image Sobaski identifies as “everybody’s favorite” is the only one that isn’t car-related: a mugshot of a grinning black dog sporting the slogan “KEEP SMILING.” It’s an order that I, for one, can’t help but obey.’

About the author: Ira Brooker is a writer and editor based in Saint Paul. He blathers about pop culture at A Talent for Idleness and also maintains an archive at irabrooker.com.

_____________________________________________________

Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

mnartists.marketplace: Spring 2012 Featured Artists

Posted April 23, 2012 at 2:00 pm — Filed under:

Drawing Club: A Collaborative Coloring Book, page by Hot Sundae

Drawing Club: A Collaborative Coloring Book

The second edition of artist-designed objects for mnartists.marketplace, Drawing Club: A Collaborative Coloring Book, follows in step with the first edition of specialty pint glasses released last fall.  We sent out a call to Minnesota artists for submissions, juried the entries, and are using the selected designs on a limited edition release of a specialty object. This time around, however, instead of printing the selected designs on pint glasses, we’ve taken a page from mnartists.org’s Drawing Club and printed the designs in a high-end coloring book that invites its user to collaborate with the featured artists! Starting Saturday April 28th, the coloring books will be available in the Walker Shop and online for $10.

For those of you hearing about this for the first time, mnartists.marketplace is a mini-store within the Walker Shop devoted to the presentation and sales of local art, artistic wares, and art inspired objects.  In addition to offering a curated rotating selection of local artist-made wares, mnartists.marketplace invites artists to submit designs for a twice-annual juried call, providing an opportunity for artists of all disciplines to produce a limited edition of designed objects to be sold exclusively at the Walker Shop and promoted through mnaritsts.org and the Walker Art Center.

Drawing Club: A Collaborative Coloring Book, page by Kristina Estell

In an effort to take this season’s mnartists.marketplace limited edition coloring book to the next level, inspiration has been drawn from mnartists.org’s Drawing Club at Walker Open Field. At Drawing Club artists and the public add to the pool of collectively created artworks. Drawing Club: A Collaborative Coloring Book, invites its user to collaborate with the selected artists: rip out a page, color it, hang it on a wall, photograph it and share with the larger community by uploading the image to the Drawing Club facebook page: www.facebook.com/openfielddrawingclub. There you’ll be able to view, contribute, and comment on all the uploaded works and therefore participate in this shared practice and social experience of art-making, collaboration, and play.

After countless long grueling hours sifting through over 200 submissions from over 65 artists, the jury made the difficult decision of selecting the perfect 15 pages for inclusion in the coloring book. In the spirit of sharing and collaboration, take the time to read on and get to know a little more about the featured artists whose work you and/or your children may be defacing enhancing in the near future:

Saman Bemel-Benrud is an artist, designer, and comic maker. He recently had an apocalyptic dream involving earthquakes, tornadoes, and giant panthers. In order to prevent the end of the world, he had to collect all the stars and bring them back to his castle. The dream ended well, with pixel victory fireworks exploding against the night sky.
trashmoon.com

Emily Bennett Beck is a painter who explores themes of celebrity and fantasy. Her work deals with the expressions of (sincere and insincere) sympathy and reverie toward characters and public figures, which she translates in coloring book form for this project. As ‘participants’ color her page, they are able to revel safely in moments of inner turmoil and romantic drama without leaving the safety of their own identities. Emily’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, and she currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin- Stout.
www.emilybennettbeck.com

Cornelius Coons began his career in Los Angeles, graduating from the California Institute of the Arts with a degree in Graphic Design, before finding his way to the Midwest. Most recently, he worked as an Art Director for Schematic (now Possible Worldwide) and Peterson Milla Hooks, where he led multi-platform national campaigns for clients such as Target, Microsoft, Kmart and Gap.
graay.co

Brandon Cramm’s work accepts acute misinterpretations within his research, which he strives to prolong through the production of work. His process allows for one form of understanding to stand in the place of and communicate something about, or supplement the needs of the other. This might be best illustrated by a literal mistranslation where someone confuses something that is not physical for something that is.
mnartists.org/brandon_cramm 
www.cargocollective.com/brandoncramm

Kristina Estell received a B.F.A. in sculpture with distinction from Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana and received her M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 2004. Estell was awarded a full scholarship from the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle and received McKnight Foundation Grant fellowships in 2007 and 2011. Estell has exhibited her work internationally and has attended artist residencies within and outside of the USA. In 2010, Estell was selected by artist Dan Graham to receive a full fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany for a 10-month visual arts residency.
www.kristinaestell.com

Hot Sundae is a Minneapolis-based collective consisting of Amelia Irwin and Nicole Killian. Both have MFA’s from Cranbrook Academy of Art and their work is weird and fun and represents a sad-faced ying-yang.
www.hot-sundae.com

HOT TEA is a Minneapolis-based artist collective. The two words hot and tea or more specifically the phrase “HOT TEA” was chosen to highlight the relationship between the two words. These two words compliment each other both physically and grammatically. Without one or the other you wouldn’t have a phrase that evokes a sense of comfort, warmth and relaxation.  The project is a comment on all relationships good and bad and the things that lie between them. Like the phrase itself Hot and Tea are two totally different words brought together to represent something new, which reflect on the media and surfaces that the project makes use of.

Karen Kvitek is a lover of old books, birds, vegetables, flat rocks, friends, animals, and anything odd. She has a BFA in graphic design and a day job behind a cash register. She’s rarely without pen and paper, especially enjoying a good fine-tipped pen that’s nowhere near running out of ink. Fine-tipped pens and found images are her favorite things to work with and she thinks drawings make great gifts.
www.karenohbuddy.blogspot.com

Max Mose is an independent cartoonist and illustrator based out of St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2011, he received his MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies, which is located in dreamy, picturesque, slightly dilapidated White River Junction, Vermont. His self-published comics work has often been described as “deliberately weird.”
www.maxmose.wordpress.com
www.secretacres.com/store/

Terrence Payne is a Minneapolis based artist whose work has been shown at museums, galleries and universities throughout the United States. His work is also found in private collections all over the globe.   He has found a really strong and creative community in Minnesota with a supportive audience and ambitious, talented artists. Building upon this community, he has also been the gallery director of the Minneapolis Arts Collective, Rosalux Gallery, since 2002, helping other artists further their own careers.
www.terrencepayne.com

Casey Seijas’s drawing was inspired by his inner 10-year-old, back when he’d spend afternoons witnessing glorious battles between good vs. evil, and wonder from the backseat of car rides, “What do those colorful maze-words say?” that he’d see under bridges and behind shopping centers. He has art crushes on the Dadaists, Andy Warhol, J.C. Leyendecker, Jenny Saville, Neo Rauch, Banksy, CASE2, ELET, Anibal Padrino, Katsuhiro Otomo, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Eduardo Risso, Aaron Draplin, Charles Anderson, his uncle Jaff, the crew over at Aesthetic Apparatus, whoever painted the card art on old G.I. Joe action figure packaging, and the dude who did the art for Iron Maiden’s t-shirts. He is also known as FCV*CASE*MCT and Tootsie Cornrolls.
caseyseijas.com

Angela Sprunger was born in India, grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in Minneapolis. She a drawer, painter, printmaker, and sewer. Her recent work is about nostalgia. Her current drawing and print series is about being cautious of the desire to surrender to nostalgia’s persuasion that the past is better than the future. Conversely, she indulges and perpetuates nostalgia through fabric work, creating child-centered sewn objects like totes and stuffed animals.
angelasprunger.com

For Melissa Stang, drawing is the bedrock of her artistic practice.  She’s also very flexible in that she is capable of numerous, vastly different visual styles and generally works on several different projects simultaneously. She’s come to describe herself as a drawing-based, mixed-media object maker who is also a reasonably knowledgeable amateur naturalist.
melissastang.com

Peter Steineck is a maker of things and a current 4th year Graphic Design student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Pending a 2012 graduation, Peter hopes to become an attentive, participating member in the conversation of design. He enjoys movies, comics, letters, and subversive comedy. He does not enjoy jellyfish, little sleep, and people like Andy Rooney. RIP old man.
cargocollective.com/petersteineck

Lex Thompson’s work focuses on manifestations of hope and failure in the American landscape.  Photographs I Wish I’d Made, No. 1 (Scarlett Macaw) is from his series Mahalo, exploring the Hawaiian Islands.  The project is primarily composed of photographs, supplemented with images from television and cinema that shaped his expectations of Hawaii.  As a counterweight to these media images, he made the drawings – “Photographs I Wish I’d Made” – as records of photographs he failed to make.  These renderings, filtered through memory and nostalgia, give just as sublimated a vision of the actual scene as the photographs from television.
www.lexthompson.com

 

We can’t wait to see what you all will do with your artist-designed coloring book pages, so don’t be shy and be sure to share images of your collaborative coloring online at: www.facebook.com/openfielddrawingclub

For more updates and information about mnartsits.marketplace follow @mnartistsdotorg on Twitter and like the Walker Shop and mnartstist.org on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/walkershop and http://www.facebook.com/mnartists.org

About the Walker Shop
The Walker Shop supports the mission of the Walker Art Center through the sale of merchandise from around the globe. It offers a unique assortment of award-winning contemporary home and office accessories; artisan jewelry; books about multidisciplinary contemporary art, design, and culture; creative toys; and exclusive Walker products. All proceeds support the Walker’s artistic and educational programs.

Walker Shop Hours
Tuesday-Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm
Open Late Thursday, 11 am – 9 pm
Closed Monday
612.375.7633
mnartists.marketplace Walker Shop Online: http://shop.walkerart.org/collections/mnartists-marketplace

About mnartists.org
The mission of mnartists.org is to improve the lives of Minnesota artists and provide access to and engagement with Minnesota’s arts culture.

mnartists.org is a joint project of the Walker Art Center and McKnight Foundation.

Next