Michael McGraw - Photographer

Name:  Michael McGraw

City/State: Mpls, MN

Email: mcgrawphoto at gmail.com

Website:  michaelmcgraw.info, mcgrawphoto.smugmug.com

Bio~ 

I have been a photographer since the early nineties when I started out as a wedding photographer.  That worked out pretty well for me for about 12 years, but it was exhausting work and when wedding work no longer made me happy, I stopped completely and rented a studio in the Northrup King Building in the NE Mpls Arts District. I've been there since about 2005 and currently share a studio with painter Megan Bell Honigman.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

Right now I am working on something completely different from past years. Until recently, I had been working on abstract nature images --  close-cropped shots of tree branches or weeds, using a shallow focus to draw the viewer into the details of the subject so that the images become more about patterns and shapes than the source subject. Crabapple trees were my favorite subject.

Now, I am working on a project where the subjects are mannequins in storefront windows. Portraits, mainly headshots. Most of the mannequins in store windows do not have heads, or, if they do, they have heads that are head-shaped, but not meant to fool you into thinking that they are life-like. Mannequins with wigs and human-ish features are rare, at least in the twin cities.  There are about five or six places in the metro area that have the life-like mannequins I am looking for. Thank you Via's Vintage, Ragstock, and Lickity Split for putting some effort into your window displays!

I recently took a trip to London where they seriously put a lot of effort into lifelike mannequins and window displays. What was most interesting to me about the differences between London displays and Minneapolis displays was the difference in how hi-end the stores were.  Here, the stores that use lifelike mannequins are Ragstock and American Apparel, in London it was Chanel and Versace.

With my local subjects, since I go back to the same few places every week, weirdly, each mannequin becomes like a friend.  From how they are styled they seem to have unique personalities and I've come to imagine whole lives and back stories for them.  Sad stories. From their blank expressions, I imagine that they have "settled" for work in the window displays, that they have run out of other options. I imagine that since they never acknowledge me they are trying to keep their distance from everyone. So I try to respect that and always show them in the most flattering way possible. 

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

That's hard to say. I'm mainly self taught, so I haven't had a lot of those feedback opportunties I would have had in school, but if I was giving advice to someone else it would be to create work that resonates most truly with yourself, regardless of trends or what other people tell you. Now this might not translate into sales or exhibit opportunities, but at least your art will represent the real you. Then, I would recommend that you learn the business and marketing side of art.  This is something I haven't really figured out, but there are certainly a lot of people making a living making art so you might want to ask them. 

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

I sell my work mainly through my studio (Northrup King #274) where people can see framed work on the walls and meet with me and ask questions.  Most of my sales are commissions where people want a certain image but in custom size. Art-Attack and Art-a-Whirl and the Fall and Spring open audio events in NE Mpls where thousands of people come out to see and buy local art.

I use my website, Facebook (Me), and my blog to get my new work seen. You can email me for custom prints. 

www.facebook.com/michaelmcgrawphotography

www.mcgrawphoto.smugmug.com

www.michaelmcgraw.info

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy? 

I run the Local Artist Interviews website (yes, this website), which has been an amazing opportunity to connect with artists I love and artists I might never have known about. This is just a short list, but I really like the work of…

Gina Louise 

James Dankert

Shuji Usui

Lindsy Halleckson

Joe Aschebrock

Pamela Valfer

Robyn Hendrix

Maren Kloppmann

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

SooVac Gallery, Walker Art Center and the MAEP Gallery at the MIA.  These are my usual first stops.  Having to answer this question reminds my that I need to get out more.  There are so many galleries in town.  Maybe today I'll get to Circa Gallery and Gallery 360. I haven't been to Instinct Gallery yet, so we'd go there, too.

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise? 

I mainly follow links through Facebook and Tumblr

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?

I am showing in January 2014 at Altered Esthetics in NE Mpls for "Remasterpiece". I have  photograph of the Mona Lisa that I found in the window of a Robbinsdale second hand shop. The window reflects car headlights which make a brand new set of nostrils for her.  I can't wait to see what else is going to be in this show.  The opening is Friday, 1/3 and the show runs through 1/30/14.

Mona Lisa of Robbinsdale

Altered Esthetics Gallery Profile

Website

Kristen Arden - Sculptor

Bindings Series #1

Kristen Arden

Name:  Kristen Arden  

City/State:  Minneapolis, MN

Email:  kristen@kristenardenstudio.com

Website:  www.kristenardenstudio.com

MNartist.org profile: Arden, Kristen

Facebook page:  Kristen Arden

Twitter: @kardenstudio

Bio~ 

I graduated with a BA in Painting and Drawing and spent my 20’s working in various art-related jobs, including completing a Master’s Degree in Art History with the thought I could teach and do art on the side.  When it became clear I had to choose between Art History and Art I returned to art-making after I moved out to San Francisco. I fell in love with building, sculpture, and working with metal (both casting and fabricating) while taking classes at CCAC and working.  In mid-2003 I moved to Minneapolis from San Francisco and started working out of my Northrup King Building studio.  I currently work full-time doing custom commercial and residential work and have work in corporate and private collections including with Loram, the Westin, and United Health Group.

Bindings Series #2

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I work in series.  I come up with an idea or premise, start to work it over in my head and then work it out through sculptures, both wall and free-standing pieces.  I rework it as many times as I feel the idea or series can remain fresh.

I’ve recently begun working on some new series, and am continuing work on others. The most recent series I’ve been working on are my Architectonic Series that are installations based on architectural styles, and what I’m calling my Botanic Series, first inspired while thinking about Carl Linnaeus’ drawings and approach to the ‘natural world’.  I’ve also started thinking about symbolism, but am still working some of that out.  In both these series I’m abstracting, enlarging, and then reassembling snapshots of either a design or plant as an installation.  Both new series have a relationship to my past work, but are more sculptural in nature than my Earthworks Series, in particular.

Nothing in Progression Lies on its Original Path

How did you decide to become an artist?

I grew up drawing and spent hours looking through my Dad’s collection of art books.  I found them endlessly fascinating and still remember those books vividly.  It was pretty exciting and eye-opening to me as a kid, looking at all those paintings and thinking about the artists that created them. I think I’ve always felt compelled by art, and always wanted to create, draw, build, whatever.  I was also endlessly fascinated by my Dad’s shop and would watch him work in it.  It wasn’t til after college that I realized you could put the two together.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

Probably the best piece of advice I’ve gotten was from a teacher who remarked how important taking time out while you’re working on a piece to think about what you’re doing and why is just as, if not more, important than how determined and tenacious you are in your work.  It may seem obvious but it really resonated with me.

Natural History Museum Project: Map and Boat

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

I found having a good website was critical for getting my work out there and found by people (www.kristenardenstudio.com).  I think it’s also important to do a lot of day-to-day things that may not seem significant but at the end of a year add up to a lot of proverbial ground covered.

Botanic Series #1

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Maren Kloppmann  www.marenkloppmann.com

Eleanor McGough  www.mnartists.org/Eleanor_McGough

Jennifer Davis  www.jenniferdavisart.com

Danny Saathoff  www.dannysaathoff.com

Shannyn Joy Potter  www.shannynjoypotter.com

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

When I get the chance I love going to any of the bigger museums – the MIA (www.artsmia.org), the Walker (www.walkerart.org), and the Weisman (www.weisman.umn.edu).  The sculpture park at the Walker is always fun, as is Franconia Sculpture Park (www.franconia.org).  And of course some local galleries too when I get the opportunity to go to an opening, like Gallery 360 (www.gallery360mpls.com).

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise? 

I actually see a lot of interesting art and artists pop up through Facebook and perusing online papers like the Huffington Post. 

Architectonic Series #1

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

I have some new work up at Gallery 360 for a show featuring another artist, Natasha D’Schommer (www.natashadschommer.com), that opened in March.   I recently installed a larger-scale window installation at a business storefront in mid-March, and am working on some new pieces that I’ll show during Art A Whirl (May 17-19, 2013)  in the Northrup King Building and then move to a gallery. In addition I have some commission work I’m working on, and continue thinking about where I want to go with my work next.

Kristen Arden

Maren Kloppmann - Ceramics

 Moon Circle

Maren Kloppmann

Circa Gallery Featured Artist

Maren Kloppman

www.circagallery.org

Circa Gallery LAI Profile

Name:  Maren Kloppmann

City/State:  Minneapolis MN

Email:  marenk@earthlink.net

Website: http://marenkloppmann.com/

MNArtists Profile:  http://www.mnartists.org/Maren_Kloppmann

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/marenkloppmann

Twitter: @MKloppCeramics

Bio~

Born in Veerssen, Germany, Maren Kloppmann lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she is a full- time studio artist.  Ms. Kloppmann received her Journeyman Diploma from the Keramik Handwerkskammer, Germany (1984), attended the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri (B.F.A. Ceramics 1993), and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (M.F.A. Ceramics 1996).  She has been the recipient of several grants including three McKnight Fellowships for Ceramic Artists, the Artist Fellowship and the Career Opportunity Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Jerome Artist Project Grant. Ms. Kloppmann has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is in numerous private and museum collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Weisman Art Museum, the Arizona Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Crocker Art Museum and the Mudgee Arts Council in NSW, Australia.

She is a self-described Modernist creating forms and surfaces that express contemporary designs. Her repertoire includes vessel sculptures, modular wall installations and functional tableware made of porcelain. 

Shield Circle

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I am currently preparing an exhibition at Circa Gallery where I will share the gallery space with the painter Ellen Richman. My focus has been on modular wall pieces based on panels and pillow-like shapes made from porcelain. Inspired to incorporate the shadows these forms cast, I conceptualize the work by making sculptural space visible and think of the shapes becoming my tool to draw shadows. While some forms are volumes and derivative of the vessel, their interior space is invisible. This adds to my ideas of expressing space as enclosures (interior) and as negative space (exterior). In addition I am using the assemblages like shaped canvases to convey two-dimensional space either literally through a horizon or abstractly through colorfields.

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?

Conceptually I think of my work to refer to a place between archetype and architecture. I hope for viewers to engage with my work on an intuitive level.

Wall Pillows Colorfield

Archetypes are shapes existing in nature (and culture), while architecture identifies our places of existence (and interaction). Both are engrained in our subconscious and we relate to them through our body. My objective is to create visually pleasing objects and to establish accessibility and instinctive receptivity from my audience. In general, artists convey perceptions outside the realm we call “reality”. I ultimately hope to enhance perception of space by creating definitions of spatial qualities based on my sensibilities.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

A most poignant moment was for me when I learned about the power of boundaries. Though restrictive at first glance, boundaries are parameters that open up to endless possibilities.

Studio

Tell me about your workspace and your creative process.

My studio is “a dream come true”. It is my cathedral, my sanctuary. My goal has always been to be a studio artist and to have the infrastructure in place to create my work. My workshop is located in the NE Minneapolis Arts District and I have created a hybrid of production studio and front gallery open to the public 5 days a week. With high ceilings, columns and large windows the space is reminiscent of a modern loft, a layout of spacious architecture, which has greatly influenced my aesthetic. “Space” being the underlying concept of my work, the structure of my studio has become a source of ideas and a place to implement them.

My creative process is very much linked to my technical approach. Though I spend a fair amount of time drawing and sketching, many ideas and possibilities become evident to me while constructing the pieces and moving the clay. My work is constructed with soft porcelain slabs, which are draped over molds to create the initial shape. Once slabs are jointed to create a volume I begin to add and subtract; it is a process of construction and de-construction. I also make miniatures to work out formal concerns before figuring out techniques. When a piece gets technically too complicated I know I need to back off. The simplicity of process is my gage for creating formal simplicity.

Showroom

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Chris Larson  http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2010/12/chris-larson/

Emily Johnson  http://catalystdance.com/

Alec Soth  http://alecsoth.com/photography/

Harriet Bart  http://www.harrietbart.com/

Locus Architecture  http://www.locusarchitecture.com/

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see? 

Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden  http://www.walkerart.org/

James Turell’s Sky Pesher

Midway Contemporary Art   http://www.midwayart.org/

Rochester Art Center  http://www.rochesterartcenter.org/

Minneapolis Institute of Arts   http://www.artsmia.org/

Circa Gallery  http://www.circagallery.org/

Weinstein Gallery  http://www.weinstein-gallery.com/

The Space of the Guthrie Theater  http://www.guthrietheater.org/

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

State-of-the-arts blog  
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/

MNArtists   
http://www.mnartists.org/eventList.do

Art in America  
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/

Horizontal Stack (black and yellow)

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

While I will continue making functional tableware, my intent is to increasingly focus on wall pieces. I plan to shift the scale of the pillow elements and add to my repertoire of wall shapes for installations.

My exhibit with Ellen Richman at Circa Callery opens on 3/9/12 and runs through 4/14/12.  There is an opening reception on Friday 3/9 from 5-8 PM.

210 North 1st St

Mpls, MN 55401

www.circagallery.org

Maren Kloppmann

Ellen Richman - Painter

Orange Crush 

Ellen Richman

Circa Gallery Featured Artist

Ellen Richman

3/9/12 - 4/14/12
Circa Gallery LAI Profile

Name: Ellen Richman
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: richmanellen@hotmail.com
Website: www.ellenrichman.com
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?action=list&rid=4275
Facebook Page

Bio~ 

Ellen Richman, B.F.A University of Minnesota.  Ellen’s paintings have been exhibited, published and collected locally, nationally and internationally.  She exhibits frequently and teaches at Minnetonka Center for the Arts.  She is represented at CIRCA Gallery in Minneapolis and Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago.  

Ease in Light

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

My paintings are oil on canvas.  I paint in many thin layers and focus on formal aspects such as color, contrast and composition.  I believe that much of what is exciting in the work is looking at what the paint does when I express myself.  A rhythm and tempo develope and the painting builds up on the layers before it.  It is an exploration in abstraction, very much like life itself.  The result is rich and organic.  It interests me how this effects mood, emotion and the subconscious.   I have been influenced by many abstract painters such as Richard Diebenkorn, Edward Dugmore, Luc LeBon, Robert Motherwell and Joan Mitchel, to name a few.   What I am excited about in this new body of work is that it is very expressive, and compositionally strong. 

In past work I have taken the same formalism and produced highly geometric images.  I enjoyed how the eye moved around the canvas, but the organic expressive layering and emotional resonance is what is exciting me now.

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?

In flux

What I love about abstraction is that it is universal, in that it is a unique experience for each person.   Everybody has his own mind and vision, and takes that to the work.  The paintings do not dictate but provide the viewer with a mood and emotion or elicit feelings and associations of something more personal for them.  I would hope that my audience would find beauty and enjoyment in the looking.




What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
To value my own work.

Pink Lucinda

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.


I have a home studio.  I like it very much because I don’t waste time getting myself together and driving across town.  I can wake up and start working right away or have breakfast looking at my work from the day before.  I spend a lot of time looking at the work deciding and thinking about what to do next in terms of color or how to get the eye to move around the canvas.  When I have decided on a “plan” it usually changes while I am working.  The actual painting has an improvisational manner, but I would say that the entire process is a “full brained” experience.  The left brain does the looking and calculating and the right brain reacts and creates new harmonies in the working.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

One of my favorite Minnesota abstract painters is Barbara Kreft www.circagallery.org.  Her work is highly detailed abstraction in oil.  James Wrayge also makes beautiful abstract work.  www.jameswrayge.com

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

I most always go to the openings at Circa Gallery www.circagallery.org and the Burnet Art Gallery at Chambers www.lemeridienchambers.com/art.  Other galleries I recommend are Highpoint Center for Printmaking www.highpointprintmaking.org/ Franklin Art Works www.franklinartworks.org and Weinstein Gallery www.weinstein-gallery.com/ In addition the Minnetonka Center for the Arts www.minnetonkaarts.org, the MIA www.artsmia.org/ the Walker Art Center www.walkerart.org and the Weisman Art Museum www.weisman.umn.edu/  

So Many Secrets

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

If I find an artist I like I tend to look at the galleries that represent them.  That will lead me to another artist that I am not familiar with and so on.  For example, I really like Melinda Stickney-Gibson’s paintings.  She shows at Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago where I also am represented.  www.melindastickneygibson.com . I saw that she was at Littlejohn Contemporary, so I looked at their website to see which other artists were represented there.  www.littlejohncontemporary.com

Other galleries that I have found that I enjoy looking at are: AMERINGER-McENERY-YOHE www.amy-nyc.com, STEPHEN HALLER GALLERY www.stephenhallergallery.com, Elizabeth Harris Gallery www.elizabethharrisgallery.com (which I found because I saw Thornton Willis’s work in Art in America. www.thorntonwillis.com and Howard Scott Gallery which I was told about through CIRCA.  www.howardscottgallery.com.  But there are so many galleries.  I think my best advise is if you see an artist who’s work you like in a magazine or on line see where they are represented and start there.  

Do you have any exhibits to promote?

In the very near future I have a exhibition at CIRCA GALLERY where I will be showing my new paintings along with ceramic artist Maren  Kloppmann.  There will be an opening party on Friday March 9, 2012 from 5-8pm.  It is open to the public.  The exhibition runs through April 14th.  www.circagallery.org

Ellen Richman