Art Hounds recommend art by museum staffers, mental health professionals and prisoners

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Artists at work 

Diane Richard of St. Paul worked for 21 years at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), and she wants people to know about “Artists at Work: the Mia Staff Art Show.”

It’s tucked away in the community commons area just past the cafe and the family center (pro tip: you can bring your lunch with you to the exhibit!) The show runs through April 13. 

Diane explains: You might never have thought about it, but the people who work in museums are often artists themselves — and good ones, too. They work as security guards, and they create public programs, hang art on the walls, help you figure out where you’re going, and sell you stuff in the shop.

And they work in everything from oil painting to watercolor and prints, ceramic sculpture to embroidery, video and collage. There’s even a tarot card created from crop seeds.  

One work waves from the wall: the menacing loon flag was security guard Rob McBroom official entry into the state’s flag contest.  As I strolled around, Cara O’Connell's portrait of Myrna drew me over. It’s from O’Connell’s series on caregivers. Myrna is a beatific presence under a halo of robins.

For me, the showstopper was Adam White’s “It Came with the Room.” White’s triptych collage is layered with thousands of cartoon bubbles filled with intriguing messages, many about the hellhound Cerebus. You could spend hours in front of it searching for meaning. 

Overall, the show gives insight into the mostly unseen hands responsible for MIA’s daily operations. What comes through is their passion for art.

— Diane Richard

The art of mental health 

Carla Mansoni is the director of arts and cultural Engagement at CLUES, one of the largest and oldest Latin organizations in Minnesota. She wants people to know about “The Art of Mental Health,” a group show of art created by people who work in the mental health field, curated by Kasia Chojan-Cymerman and Thrace Soryn.

The exhibit at the Vine Arts Center in Minneapolis opens this Saturday, Feb. 22, with an artist reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. featuring a performance by psychologist/musician Mindy Benowitz. The show runs on Saturdays through March. There is a performance by bluegrass Americana trio Echo Trail on March 15.  

Carla says: The idea is to focus on the mental health professionals who also use art to heal themselves. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the diversity of art forms and how art and culture also heals the healer, elevating the humanity of those working in mental health spaces.

 — Carla Mansoni

SEEN

Jennifer Bowen, founder and director of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, was deeply moved by the exhibit “SEEN” currently on display at the Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

Curated by Emily Baxter of We Are All Criminals, this show is half a decade in the making. Seven artists partnered with seven incarcerated artists to create installations. The show runs through May 18, with a panel conversation planned for Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. 

Some installations respond to incarcerated life, such as work by Sarith Peou and Carl Flink, which reflect the steps of traditional Cambodian dance Peou used to keep himself active and healthy while on COVID lockdown in his cell.  

Jennifer says: There’s another exhibit of a poet named Brian, who’s got a massive chandelier of bird cages hanging from the ceiling with some of his poetry being read and voiced over by himself and other folks that he lives with. And I think the title of the poem is “We Can’t Hear Ourselves Sing,” and it’s about the kind of chaos and cacophony of life inside a prison.

It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the exhibit. And it literally took my breath away, the way that it speaks metaphorically not just to the pain that incarceration causes, but to the kind of human need to still find beauty in the midst of that pain. 

But then there are other artists who chose to think about what the future would look like, or what healing might look like. There’s an artist named Ronald who has a garden reminiscent of the garden his grandfather grew when he was in Detroit that’s meant to be this kind of healing look forward. It’s a really heavy but beautiful exhibit.  

And one thing this exhibit does is offers the community, not only a chance to listen on phones to the artists’ voices and to see interviews, but it also gives the public a chance to write notes to them that will go back to them. 

— Jennifer Bowen