Minnesota Sounds and Voices

Minnesota artist Charles Beck celebrates 90 with strong artistic vision
Nature is often the subject of Minnesotan Charles Beck's art. Beck, a master woodcut artist, draws on the natural environment in prints that capture his modern views of the surrounding landscape -- with its wooded hills and lakes, and nearby flat farm fields of the Red River valley. Beck is being honored this weekend as he celebrates his 90th birthday.
Minnesota Sounds & Voices: Dean McFarlane, last in a line of stone carvers
Dean McFarlane is a 10th-generation master stone carver. His great-grandfather started the Minneapolis-based family stone carving company in 1916. But the line ends with McFarlane: There are no family members waiting in the wings to become master stone carvers.
Jon Drew's 126-year-old letterpress: Minnesota Sounds and Voices
There is an alternative to mass-produced holiday greeting cards: Those that are printed, one at a time, on a 126-year old letterpress. And this year, Jon Drew is making the cards as a labor of love, for the widow of the high school teacher who taught him the craft.
Lutefisk and pickled herring: The Olsen Fish Company keeps tradition alive
It seems as though nearly every ethnic group has an exotic fish specialty, and Scandinavian Americans claim two: lutefisk and pickled herring. On assembly lines at the Olsen Fish Company in Minneapolis they cater to both, packing thousands of pounds of preserved fish into jars and boxes every year.
Paul Severson finds his calling with Project Haiti: Minnesota Sounds and Voices
When Minnesota surgeon Paul Severson first visited Haiti more than 20 years ago, the health care needs of that Caribbean nation went beyond anything he had ever seen. Severson founded Minnesota-based Project Haiti in response.