More than a year after it was stolen from St. Paul’s Phalen Regional Park, a statue of Olympic gold medal gymnast Suni Lee was recovered by police Friday from a home in the city.

The bronze bust was found by officers conducting a search warrant on the city’s east side, following a shots-fired call. One person was in custody Friday in connection with the theft.

“Our city honored a great American, Minnesotan, and Saint Paulite, with a statue to celebrate her incredible achievements in multiple Olympic Games. Last year, disrespectful and shameless thieves decided to desecrate this tribute by stealing the statue from our community. I am happy to report that the statue of Suni Lee has been recovered thanks to our officers’ diligent response,” St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said in a news release Friday.

The police department said plans are underway to reinstall the statue at Phalen Regional Park “in the near future.” It was originally unveiled there in 2023. It was reported missing on July 31, 2025.

According to St. Paul police, the series of events leading to its recovery started with a shots-fired call on the 900 block of Forest Street just after 12:30 a.m. Friday.

Officers found spent rifle casings outside of the building, conducted a sweep to make sure no one was injured, and then obtained a search warrant for the home. They found firearms, ammunition — and the bronze bust, intact.

Authorities said a man was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property, in connection to the statue theft. No one was arrested in connection with the gunfire.

The theft of the Suni Lee bust was the second statue theft in St. Paul in 2024. A statue of author F. Scott Fitzgerald was stolen in February 2024 and cut into pieces. A suspect in that case was arrested after allegedly trying to sell those pieces to a metal recycler.

If you’ve been near a boat landing in Minnesota this summer, you’ve probably seen dire warnings about zebra mussels. The Department of Natural Resources says about five percent of Minnesota’s more than 11,000 lakes are infested with the fingernail-sized mollusk, and they are always trying to limit spread.

That word — infested — hints at what the DNR thinks of invasive zebra mussel. It’s the language of contamination, infection and ruin. In her new book, “Undesirable: Invasive Species, Humans, and Where We All Belong,” science writer Amy Crawford examines how we came to see certain plants and animals as invading and marauding. She writes that, in his age of anxiety, “stories about invasive species tap into widely held feelings about environmental loss.”

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Undesirable: Invasive Species, Humans, and Where We All Belong

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This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Kerri Miller talks with Crawford about invasion biology and the hard questions that surround it: What’s considered native to an ecosystem? What do we do when our own damage of a habitat gives way to new plants, insects and animals? And is it time to reconsider our attempts to control these environments?

Guest:

• Amy Crawford is a Michigan-based freelance journalist. Her new book is, “Undesirable: Invasive Species, Humans, and Where We All Belong.”

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

The Lynx, “Heated Rivalry,” the cost of gas, the Artemis mission, “Frog and Toad,” climate change, corn dogs, the surveillance state, Tilt-a-Whirl, quinoa: a mixture of hot topics and state fair staples served as common inspiration for submissions in the crop art and fine arts exhibitions.

The most prevalent trend, however, was artwork inspired by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge in operations this past winter and how Minnesotans responded.

“Humans look to art to process experience, both collective and personal, the full spectrum from joy to trauma,” said fine arts superintendent Jim Taylor. He was speaking to a crowd at the Fine Arts preview Aug. 25. “We celebrate that here. There is a broad survey of what's on the hearts and minds of Minnesota artists today. I'm very proud to be a part of this and to support human expression.”

Early on, crop art superintendent Marta Shore recognized that artists would be responding to ICE.

“Of course, of course, Operation Metro Surge,” Shore said, nodding.

Shore said many crop artists came to her during the surge and said, “Marta, you have to let us swear this year, with everything that’s happened.”

Profanity is against the fair’s extensive crop art rules, so Shore said no. But on Jan. 23, the day many Minnesotans participated in a general strike, Shore decided to make a piece that showed one way artists could bend that rule to express themselves.

Her seed mosaic shows a duck and ice emoji; below, it says, “c’mon autocorrect.”

"Here's how you say what you want to say while still meeting the rules,” she said.

Crop artists used all sorts of word play and resistance imagery in the record-breaking 594 submissions this year (143 more pieces than 2025, which itself was a record-breaking year).

Art at the State Fair

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The rebel loon is everywhere, such as longtime crop artist Gayle Deutsch’s yellow-and-black piece “Leave Minnesota Aloon” based on the original artwork Andi Fink made for protest buttons.

There are depictions of whistles, which Minnesotans used to alert neighbors to the presence of immigration agents, as well as portraits of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the boy from Columbia Heights who received national attention after agents detained him while he wore a blue bunny hat, and Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents.

There are a few crop art pieces (and fine art pieces) depicting MPR News journalist Sam Stroozas, who ran out of her home in a robe and slippers — in the middle of winter — to document a car crash involving federal agents. A photo of Stroozas at that moment taken by a Minnesota Star Tribune photographer went viral.

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Artists also fused ICE and art history. Artist Jennifer Nelson recreated Pablo Picasso’s 1937 antiwar painting “Guernica” using a loon, an “ICE OUT” protest sign, a fallen Alex Pretti and Conejo Ramos.

“I thought there was a fitting parallel between these incidents about the high price paid by ordinary people when aggressive regimes try out new tactics of war,” Jennifer Nelson said in an artist statement. “As well as a fitting juxtaposition of the darkness of living such an experience and the light we shone through it in our own resistance and care for one another.”

First-time crop artist Bethany Nagan of Inver Grove Heights recreated the 1830 painting “Liberty Leading the People,” by Eugène Delacroix. Here, Nagan swapped Lady Liberty for a loon holding a Minnesota flag, and guns for signs.

“A painting about one of the French Revolutions, and it really rang like an echo to me,” Nagan said. “I changed all of the weapons into protest signs because I think that is the tool that we use.”

There were so many crop artworks about Operation Metro Surge this year that the manager of cropart.com created a special resistance collection on the site.

Crop art at the State Fair has a strong tradition of responding to politics, current events and resistance themes. That’s less true of the Fine Arts Competition, which this year accepted 343 pieces out of 3,185 submissions. The juried show is typically more apolitical, with artists finding inspiration in a broader array of topics. That changed this year. While there is still an abundance of classic landscapes, portraits and abstracted works, there were artworks of all mediums responding to Operation Metro Surge and the resistance movement.

“Cities of Strength,” a large-format collage by White Bear Lake artist Kristi Abbott, won the Minnesota State Fair Foundation Friends of the Fair Award. The piece features the architecture and landscapes of Minneapolis and St. Paul with a crowd at the capitol holding a cluster of protest signs that say "Resistance," “Are you OK?” and “Alex.”

Fine Arts Competition

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The dynamic painting “Red Sun Rising” by Minneapolis artist Meg Koenitzer features everything from the tipi prayer camp at the Whipple Federal Building and the protesters who dressed up as handmaidens to Renee Good’s van and, of course, a rebel loon.

“Signs of Refusal” is a photo compilation by Minneapolis photographer Drew Arrieta that features, in a grid, 117 photos of stop signs in Minneapolis. Each one is altered by a sticker or paint to say, “Stop Ice.” The artwork won two awards: The Metropolitan State University Gordon Parks Gallery Photography Award and the Minnesota Museum of American Art Award. The latter means it will enter the St. Paul museum’s permanent collection.

“Operation Metro Surge is so deeply entrenched and within everyone's spirit in Minnesota,” said Arrieta, who traveled on foot and by bike to capture as many of these signs as he could. “We're still continuing to move through that, and art is a really beautiful way to do that.”

A party in Minneapolis next week will bring the underground music scene to one of the city's best-known music institutions.

Local DJ collective Pivot takes over First Avenue’s 7th Street Entry on Friday, September 4 for a night of music made for dancing.

Think techno, house, electro and everything in between, said Oriana, a Pivot DJ also known as Ori the Ghost. “The idea was to just create a night of intermixing of people and sounds.”

Pivot’s nine DJs have been hosting parties in homes and warehouses throughout the city for years, playing music until the very early hours of the morning.

But if you're not part of the Minneapolis dance music scene, you might not know it exists.

“We tend to throw pretty intense parties for a non-partygoer to appreciate, which is staying out until 4 a.m. or 6 a.m.,” said Willy, another DJ who goes by XMinus1. “That makes a lot of people gasp.”

The two say Pivot is drawn together more by a shared ethos than any one type of sound. While Oriana plans a techno set with what she calls “Latin flair,” each DJ has their own specialty. Their music stretches across and beyond genre.

“Like my favorite techno is usually techno that people argue whether or not it's techno,” Oriana said. “That's pretty fun to me.”

At their upcoming show, DJs will spin sets side-by-side, back-to-back, in a “versus” style. And while EDM and other dance music parties have gone viral on TikTok with big lights and spectacle, Willy says that’s not Pivot’s style.

Regulars know to expect both intensity and comfort. Pivot is a queer DJ collective and works to create a space where people can feel safe.

“And as a consequence, we have these kinds of transient spaces that exist in which people can come together and be themselves and have a lot of fun,” Willy said.

Sometimes people just want a dark space and good music.

MN Shortlist is the MPR News weekly roundup of arts and culture recommendations. This week’s picks include a new Prince album party, a ceramics extravaganza, the Millstream Art Festival in St. Joseph, remembering Dolly Parton through film and more.

‘TIMELESS’ Global Album Release Party at Paisley Park in Chanhassen — Aug. 28

Prince spent his career bending genres, rewriting the rules of pop stardom and making sure the world knew exactly where Minneapolis was. The new collection “TIMELESS” features music from across five decades of his career.

Celebrate its release inside Paisley Park with a panel discussion of the stories behind the music, then dance into the night with longtime Prince DJ Dudley D.

Parking is limited, so organizers recommend planning ahead or carpooling. The party starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $30. (Annie Russell)

American Pottery Festival at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis — Aug. 28-30

The Northern Clay Center hosts its biggest event of the year — the free American Pottery Festival, now in its 28th year. The weekend welcomes ceramic artists and clay enthusiasts from around the country, as well as artist talks, studio demos and workshops. Hundreds of pieces of pottery will be on view. Visiting artists include KyoungHwa Oh of Colorado, Celia Feldberg of Philadelphia and Marissa Childers of Oklahoma. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Art of the Game’ mural celebration in Ball Club — Aug. 29

Arts and culture collective Fire in the Village will celebrate what the group says is the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s first mural on a basketball court at the Ball Club Community Center on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. It features the imagery of two medicine wheels – a circular symbol that represents interconnectedness – as well as a turtle and a bald eagle.

Leech Lake citizen Annie Humphrey, who co-founded Fire in the Village, painted the artwork. According to a release, she worked with youth in the community who play basketball at the court.

The community will celebrate with a family-style basketball tournament during the day followed by an evening concert and fashion show. (Chandra Colvin)

Millstream Arts Festival in St. Joseph — Aug. 30

Downtown St. Joseph becomes one big open-air gallery for the 45th Millstream Arts Festival. The free celebration features 60 juried artists, live demonstrations, local authors, music, street performances and hands-on activities for kids. Organizer Alicia Peters says attendees can expect everything from metalwork to woodturning to basket weaving. “We don’t charge for any activities at the festival,” Peters said. “We want people to buy the art. We are there for the artists, so the community can see how amazing the area is.” The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. (Emily Bright)

‘9 to 5’ at the Twin Cities Liberation Center in Minneapolis — Aug. 30

“Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life,” Dolly Parton once said. Wise words from Saint Dolly, which could also be applied to the 1980 film Parton starred in with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. To honor the passing of the country star, the Twin Cities Liberation Center is hosting a memorial screening of the feminist labor comedy at 4 p.m. Sunday at 301 Cedar Ave.; $5 suggested donation. (Alex V. Cipolle)

Midnight screening of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ at Parkway Theater in Minneapolis — Aug. 29

If you’re also grieving the death of Tim Curry, another pop culture icon who entertained the world and challenged norms for generations, The Parkway in Minneapolis hosts its next midnight screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with a live shadow cast Aug. 29. Tickets are $10-$15. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World’ at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona — Through Feb. 14, 2027

If you suffer from thalassophobia (the fear of deep bodies of water) or megalohydrothalassophobia (the fear of large, submerged objects or creatures in bodies of water), you might want to avoid this new exhibition by Sauk City, Wisconsin-based artist Geo Rutherford. The artist-educator and TikTok creator went viral for Spooky Lake Month, an annual October video series where Rutherford talks about what lurks in the deep of the Great Lakes and beyond. The Minnesota Marine Art Museum exhibition features original illustrations from her 2024 nonfiction book, “Spooky Lakes,” and the forthcoming “Spooky Rivers,” due out Sept. 15.

“Spooky waters or spooky lakes are not really about ghosts or ghouls or anything haunted,” Rutherford told MPR News. “It's actually more about disasters, nature being spooky all by herself and humans interacting with nature, like diving or shipwrecks.”

Rutherford will also display sculptures, collages and collections of curious objects she found on the shores of Lake Michigan. She will give a museum talk on Oct. 3. (Alex V. Cipolle)

Derek Francis’ debut children’s book is a kid-friendly introduction to an often-overlooked moment in Minnesota’s history: when Minneapolis in 1971 paired a majority black school and majority white school for integration.

“This is history in Minnesota that, growing up, I did not learn about,” Francis said.

“I learned about Ruby Bridges and how that looked in New Orleans but never had a chance to learn about that first integrated bus ride between Hale and Field Elementary,” he said.

“Our First Bus Ride,” is something Francis hopes will make the Hale-Field school pairing better known, better understood and more easily accessible.

The story is short, with colorful illustrations of Molly Johnson and Monica Lash, two 7-year-olds who were friends and part of the integration project. Readers gain insight into the former students’ relationship — roller skating, playing with puppies and getting ready for their first day of school. The story follows the friends as they learn about their school’s plans for the pairing, witness vehement opposition to integration in their city, and share bus rides and class time at their new school.

Francis hopes the book will be a relatable way for students to learn about Minnesota history.

“Humanity across race or across identity is something that I think is important for children to see … and learn that there was a time, unfortunately, where people did not go to schools together based on their race, and what that process was like to change those things so that things can be fair,” Francis said.

This is not the first time Francis has introduced students to this aspect of Minnesota’s history. He worked as a school counselor at North High in Minneapolis and is currently the culturally responsive instructional lead for Brightworks, a nonprofit school cooperative.

He collaborated with Monica Lash and Molly Johnson to produce a documentary on the Minneapolis’ 1971 integration efforts. He also got their support for the book as well as help from Mike Andrews, who worked at Field School from 1971-1989, and illustrator Ashley Finch.

“Just like in other parts of our country, Minnesota had segregated spaces, including communities, neighborhoods, housing, red-lining, restaurants that people of color in the community knew they could not go to,” Francis said. “This is an opportunity to learn about this history and understand that these events did happen in Minnesota.”

The book is one Francis hopes will give people a gentle way to start important conversations.

“(I want) to create a space for people who it may be hard to talk about race,” Francis said. “I know and understand (in) this day and age where (for) some people, books about race are uncomfortable. This is done in a way for people to learn. It’s to let the guard down to talk about our background.”

The book was published in January 2026.

Derek Francis will be reading from his book at an event in Duluth at Zenith Bookstore on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A record 594 crop art pieces were submitted to the Minnesota State Fair this year, up from last year’s record 451.

On day one the lines to see the works remained tangled outside of the Agriculture Horticulture Building, a tradition that is sure to continue the next 12 days.

The pieces focused on topics like the federal immigration-enforcement surge last winter, Minnesota Lynx players and the debut of the smash-hit TV show “Heated Rivalry” last November.

Every seed used must be from a Minnesota-grown crop. In 2027, quinoa will be banned from the competition because Minnesota farmers don’t grow the seed. Crop artists told MPR News it will be a big loss. In 2023 the fair banned yellow mustard seed after many artists had already started their entries. The ban was later reversed.

The competition has exploded in recent years according to crop art superintendent Marta Shore, but there is only so much space to display the pieces in the building.

“If someone would like to donate $10 million to build us a crop art building, we would love it,” Shore said.

On Minnesota Now, we play local music every day. And when we broadcast from the State Fair, that music is live.

Sophie Hiroko is from from Duluth and has been making a pretty big name for herself in the Minnesota music scene. She won the 2025 Palomino grant from the Duluth band Trampled by Turtles, she released an EP, she was picked as one of First Avenue's best new bands of 2025, and she recently headlined at the 7th St. Entry.

Now, she shared with MPR News that she has secured studio space to record her first studio album.

Hiroko joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about her music career and play two songs.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

The first day of the Minnesota State Fair brings a chance to see thousands of creative works made by Minnesotans — including quilts that showcase remarkable skill, artistry and imagination.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with two quilters about what goes into making a quilt, how quilting has evolved and the community and personal stories that can be stitched into every finished piece.

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Guests:

• Brenda Lyseng is a quilter and board member of Minnesota Quilter’s, Inc., a statewide quilting organization. She was the director of the organization’s annual quilt show for five years until retiring from that role in 2024. Before that she was a biology professor and dean with the Minnesota State colleges and universities system.

• Wally Wallestad started quilting four years ago and is a member of the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.

Angela’s guests shared these resources for beginner quilters:

• Melanie Ham’s Beginner Quilting Tutorial Videos

• Minnesota Quilters Facebook Group

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

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.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Austin ArtWorks Festival brings visual art, music, books and film downtown

Gretchen Ramlo has been involved with the Austin ArtWorks Festival since the beginning, but lately she has stepped back and is looking forward simply to attending this year. The free annual festival takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29.

The festival includes more than 80 juried artists working in a variety of artistic media as well as a stage with live music. This year’s author’s tent includes authors writing romance, crime and thrillers, and Austin history.

The festival kicks off Friday at 4 p.m. with a talk by mystery writer William Kent Krueger. Ramlo says she is looking forward to that event as well as a film screening of the documentary “The Life & Art of Eric Anfinson.”

Artists respond to Operation Metro Surge in Northeast Minneapolis exhibition

Tricia Heuring is artistic director of Public Functionary in Northeast Minneapolis. She’s excited about a group show taking place in her neighborhood at a nontraditional space: findfurnish on Central Avenue. Titled “The Radical Act of Having Each Other’s Back,” the exhibit features the work of 26 artists created during and since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements' Operation Metro Surge. There is an opening reception Thursday, Aug. 27 from 6 to 9 p.m., and the exhibition remains on view through Sept. 20.

At the center of the exhibit, four graffiti writers have created their own black-and-white version of Picasso’s painting “Guernica,” his response to the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. Heuring says this version, and the show, allows artists to reclaim the narrative following the height of ICE enforcement activity during Operation Metro Surge. Visitors can add magnetic pieces to the Guernica mural as a way of interacting with the story it is telling.

“I really hope this is the first of many, many shows by artists processing what's been happening in our cities and and in our country. And I really hope that it inspires more artists to start opening up about the narratives that they want to share, so that we can continue just resisting and talking about the things that are happening.”

Dede Decker transforms latch hook into contemporary fine art

Jes Reyes is an artist and arts administrator in St. Paul. She wants people to know about Dede Decker’s latch hook exhibit at Fresh Eye Gallery in Minneapolis, which runs through Sept. 27.

Reyes says: “I'm drawn to artists who embrace intuitive making, blur the boundaries between craft and fine art and create work that is both joyful and deeply personal. As a fiber artist myself, I feel a particular connection to Dede's practice. I'm fascinated by the way she transforms latch hook — a medium many people associate with craft kits — into contemporary fine art through her own original designs. Dede's work also resonates with my own belief that fiber belongs firmly within contemporary art.”

(Correction Aug., 27, 2026): A previous version of this story contained a misspelling of Jes Reyes. It has been corrected.

Hundreds of eager bakers form a snaking line that runs up and down the streets surrounding the Minnesota State Fair creative activities building. They carry coolers, cake boxes and pie dishes. Some hands are full wheeling wagons or clutching their aluminum-wrapped submissions like newborn babies.

It’s Saturday and the baked goods submission process has just opened. This year, it was a record turnout with 4,135 submissions, up by 30 percent from 2025.

Among the participants lined up is Jill Stanton of Minneapolis who waits with a tote bag of Tupperware of her cookie entries. In her nearly decade of submitting cookies, she has landed a single fourth place ribbon.

“We’re all here for the joy of it,” Stanton said. “If you ask anybody in line, I don’t think anyone here is gonna say like ‘I’m here for the ribbons.’”

For Stanton, she’s got six entries — all cookies. They’re her “wheelhouse,” she said. For years, she’s hosted a bake-a-thon weekend with her friends during the holidays where they bake all day and into the early morning.

Those weekends became a training ground, with built-in taste-testers and ample ingredients, but rarely, as they crank out dozens of cookies, do they consider the same criteria the fair judge’s use. For example, a baker only enters four cookies per batch and their appearance has to match.

“I swear, I probably spent more than an hour just looking,” she said. “They have to look good and they have to look consistent.”

Like any competitor with a superstitious ritual, Stanton has one of her own.

“I’ve never needed it, but I bring two containers of each cookie in case I’m standing in line or I'm walking over there and something happens and I break a cookie.”

Farther down the line, Katie Kelly carries her culinary masterpiece: banana bread. It’s her third year entering a baked good and each time, she changes it up, experimenting with a different category and recipe.

“I did put a little cardamom in. Don’t tell anyone,” she joked to her friend Anne Collingwood, who she bumped into while lining up.

Kelly’s joined in line by her 2-year-old daughter Louise and a friend who’s wrangling her. She jokes it’s her civic duty to participate in the fair.

“I love to like encourage anyone to do just anything. You can submit anything,” she giggles.

Collingwood carries four tightly wrapped submissions in a hamper. It’s a transportation method she adopted after a horror story they watched in real time last year when a woman dropped her entry while walking to the line.

“It was a cautionary tale for me because I didn't have anything like this last year,” she said. “I gotta have the stuff contained. The bread underneath here is inside of a shoebox, inside of a bag.”

They spent Friday and Saturday baking. It’s a system they say works for them, while others mix cookie dough and freeze it.

“There’s calculation there. I love that,” Kelly said. “I feel like we operate on a different, we have like a millennial approach. It’s just like vibes and chaos.”

Both Collingwood and Kelly have a tradition to make their way through the Creative Activities Building during the fair, filling their phone’s camera rolls with ideas for next year.

“I just love being able to be a part of my favorite thing on the earth, the fair,” Collingwood said.

For Kelly, it’s important to pass on that State Fair love to her daughter. Three years ago, she learned after she dropped off her baked goods, that she was pregnant.

“I felt really sick, and I thought it was because I had been like eating too many cookies,” she said. “I had to make my husband eat the rest of the cookies to test them, and then I went and got a pregnancy test after I dropped off my baked goods. So she’s been to the State Fair like four or five times, in and out of utero.”

Baked goods aren’t the only submissions

The nickname for Paul Chouinard's State Fair maple syrup tells a different part of the story.

“With all of our friends knowing about the syrup, they were all excited for me, and they were sure I was going to win a ribbon,” he said. “When I came home empty-handed, we all jokingly called it the loser syrup.”

This year, Chouinard is up against over 150 other maple syrup competitors.

Chouinard began making maple syrup during the COVID pandemic. During that time, he could monitor the sugaring process while working from his home in the aptly named suburb of Maple Grove.

It’s hard to believe with the thick August foliage, that just months ago a network of tubing, 5-gallon pails and spiles hung from trunks and littered the forest floor. In early spring, he spends weeks collecting sap from about half their trees and boiling the nearly 100 gallons down.

One of his biggest challenges is boiling it down throughout the day after returning to work, but Chouinard, who is an engineer by trade and has always enjoyed tinkering, quickly got to work.

“I came up with a pump. So the pump will actually top off the sap as it boils down, and so it can run now essentially and tend to itself for periods of time,” he said.

He’s even made his own boiling system that alerts to temperature fluctuations. After years of modifying his set-up, what keeps him coming back is bigger than any possibility of a ribbon.

“It’s community too, right? You go there and you kind of appreciate how much time and effort people pour into these entries and the pride that they take in them,” he said.

Fine arts and craft submissions scheme for an entry point

K Daphnae Koop has tried submitting a fine arts entry for over 25 years, but has been rejected each time.

“There’s been years when it’s been really disappointing, but quite honestly, once I started approaching 20 [entries], I started getting kind of proud of it, like ‘my perfect record,’” Koop said.

Koop, who’s based in the Northrop King Building in northeast Minneapolis, has been an artist for over 50 years. She works with almost entirely recycled mixed media on carved wood, often with shattered glass and other materials inlaid into the surface.

“There have been years where I really felt like, ‘Oh, this piece — they're going to love it’ and have been very surprised at my rejections,” she said. “And there have been years where I've thought, ‘oh, this one's a little bit iffy.’”

She admits her work is unusual and may not translate as impactfully in a photograph – which is how they submit now — compared to in person.

“It mostly baffles me because sometimes I go to the State Fair and I think ‘that got in and mine didn't?’” she said.

As for handcraft submissions, Stanton also submits pieces. This year, one of her submissions was a Rebel Loon design made from pull tabs and meat raffle tickets she’s gathered for months with the help of friends and a local bar.

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Her entries are for the “other” category. Often she doesn’t see anything like her designs.

Last year, she won a fourth-place ribbon for an 8x11 blue ribbon fashioned from copies of previous submission rate sheets.

“There was comment on one of my rate sheets that said ‘interesting.’ And I was like, ‘That is so Minnesotan.’ So I put that in the center circle of the blue ribbon, and guess what was on my rate sheet for that handcraft? ‘Interesting.’” she said.

“That was kind of perfect, right? That it that the ‘interesting’ got an ‘interesting. I had labeled it ‘my biggest achievement in nine years of creative activities competition.’”

As people around the world remember Dolly Parton, Minnesotans are sharing their own memories of the country music legend, who died Tuesday at 80.

One of those memories begins on a St. Paul stage in 2018, when Parton came to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts for the premiere of "Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol," her musical reimagining of the Charles Dickens classic.

“I really felt inspired, and I really did draw a lot from my childhood and my upbringing,” said Parton in a 2018 interview with MPR News. “The thing we hope to put forth was about charity, hope, joy and redemption. All those wonderful things that we want to capture, all those emotions.”

Parton visited the Ordway for rehearsals and the pre-performance, interacting with fans and the cast members in the holiday musical.

“It was magic,” said Ruthie Baker, who was playing the lead role of Parton in the Christmas Carol performance. Baker is an actor, singer, mother and real estate agent in Lakeville. MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with Baker about meeting one of country music's biggest stars.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

How did you land this role, and what drew you to Dolly Parton's music?

Well, I've always loved Dolly's music. I mean, who hasn't? I was born in the early 80s, and so I was a child of "Here You Come Again" and "Islands In The Stream.” I remember dancing around my living room when I was little, so Dolly's music has always been a part of my story and a part of the journey, and it's always brought me a lot of joy and comfort.

For this particular production, it was just a staged reading of “Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol.” And for those people who don't know, a reading is where actors stand at music stands and read the script aloud. It sounds boring — it's actually very exciting to see a new work be produced, and they were having auditions at the Ordway.

I sang a [The] Chicks song, then I sang a song from a musical called “Bright Star,” and they gave me the script, and they said, “Can you learn this? Just take a look at it; come back in a couple minutes.” I came in and gave my best charming self. They must have liked it.

You wrote a social media post in which you talked about meeting Dolly Parton. What's that story, and how did it happen?

We didn't know if she was going to actually come to see the show or not. It was a variable that was up in the air, and we got the word that she was going to be there. And I just thought, “This will be fun,” you know? Maybe she'll sit in the audience, and she'll just be there.

So Dolly came to our rehearsals — like, no pressure, but lots of pressure — but she was so lovely and so kind. She pulls in on her big gold bus and gets out in her sky-high wig and really teeny, tiny shoes that are, you know, a six-inch heel, and says hello to all of us backstage and was so kind and so lovely.

She greeted all of us by name, and when I first met her, I said, “Hi, my name's Ruthie Baker, and I'm playing the part that you played in Dollywood when you created this.” Because she was a hologram in the “Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol.” So she said, “Oh, you don't look like a hologram.” And I said, “Oh my gosh, this lady's so funny.”

The rehearsal continued; she was out in the audience watching, and we were on a five. I hear from the back of the very dark theater, “Ruthie Baker, Ruthie Baker,” and I just thought, “Oh my gosh, this is it; the pearly gates are opening — I'm having a stroke. Take me home, Lord. This is it.” Like, Dolly Parton's calling my name.

She came toddling down the aisle in her little heels and said, “I have someone here who knows you,” and I went, “Who knows me?” And sure enough, our babysitter comes trotting up behind Dolly, and I'm just thinking, “Oh no, did I forget to pay her? Like, why is she here?” Dolly said, “You two know each other; this is my manager's niece.”

Wild, right? So our babysitter is Dolly's manager's niece, and so that's the Minnesota connection there. She was so gracious and just as charming in real life as you would imagine.

What changed in your life from meeting and and talking with this superstar?

I think it just validated even more that she wanted us to all give our gift. She wanted us to shine as brightly as we could on that stage, and that was kind of her little pep talk before the show.

She just said, “You all just go out there and have fun and give your gift and enjoy singing this music. I wrote it to be enjoyed. I wrote it so that people could connect and resonate with the spirit of the holiday season.”

Your connection with Parton stems a bit further back than the 2018 musical at the Ordway. You had a role in ‘9 to 5: The Musical.’

Sure did. I played the Doralee [Rhodes] track, which is the secretary that says she's not going to put up with the boss's antics anymore, and that was really fun. I lived in New York City at the time — before I moved home to Minnesota — and I was auditioning out there and landed this part at the Tent Theater in Springfield, Mo. at Missouri State University.

They hired professional actors to come in and work alongside the college kids, but it was every bit as professional a production as I've ever been in, and that was a lovely experience. People responded so positively to the show, to my role, to the songs.

What do you want people to know about Dolly Parton having had this experience to actually meet her?

From what I was able to gather, in the very very short time we had together, was that she was so generous with herself, with her words. She truly spoke from her heart. Sometimes a lot of filter, but it was always from a genuine, kind place.

She wanted to spread joy, and I think that that is the ultimate message in her music. I think it's the message in her the way that she lived her life, with creating the Imagination Library, with funding certain vaccines that saved all of us a couple years ago, and, just generally, she put her money where her mouth was.

She chose to spread joy very quietly, without a lot of pomp and circumstance.

Tim Curry, a character actor who created a gallery of delicious, very loony villains for stage and screen, including Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and the smug concierge in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” has died. He was 80.

Curry, who suffered a stroke in 2012 that put him in a wheelchair, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, according to his longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz. No cause was disclosed.

Known for his arch humor, a putty-like face and gift with voices, Curry earned three Tony nominations — for “Spamalot,” “My Favorite Year” and “Amadeus” — and an Emmy nod in 1994.

“I like playing the more curious corners of the human mind and human behavior, partly because they’re a tad more interesting,” Curry told The Associated Press in 1993.

Curry burst onto the scene as the Transylvanian Frank-N-Furter in the sci-fi, cross-dressing rock musical “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which premiered in 1973 at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went with it to Broadway and then starred in the 1975 cult-classic movie alongside Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf and Susan Sarandon.

The show was ahead of its time in terms of its representation of LGBTQ+ characters and has entered the pop culture lexicon for its many iconic and memorable scenes, including the song “The Time Warp,” which has been covered by handfuls of artists, and the often-quoted phrase, “Dammit, Janet!” The show was twice revived on Broadway, most recently in 2026 with Luke Evans playing Frank-N-Furter.

Tim Curry's take on Frank-N-Furter

Curry's Frank-N-Furter had a posh British accent, but that almost wasn’t the case. He said he tried German and American accents but pivoted after he heard a British woman on a bus talking with her friend.

“I met a woman on a bus who said, ‘Do you have a house in town or a house in the country’ and I thought, ‘That’s the voice!’” he told LA Magazine in 2015.

For many years after the film’s premiere, the British-born actor declined to discuss it. He didn’t participate in activities promoting the film, which morphed into an interactive event at midnight shows. But he later warmed again to the project and embraced it at public events. Asked by LA Magazine how he viewed “Rocky Horror,” he responded: “With a sort of bemused tolerance. It’s neither a blessing nor a curse. I was lucky to get it.”

Curry’s Broadway career included starring in Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” in 1975-76, playing Mozart opposite Ian McKellen’s Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” and King Arthur in the 2005 production of “Spamalot.” The New York Times said his “stalwart, plummy-voiced Arthur wears a smile as inflexible as armor.”

His screen credits included starring as the child-killing monster in the 1990 miniseries version of Stephen King’s horror novel “It” and the double-dealing Cardinal Richelieu in 1993’s “The Three Musketeers” with Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and Chris O’Donnell.

In his 2025 memoir, “Vagabond,” Curry warned readers that while there were scraps of his nature in his characters, he was none of them. “The distinctions between who I really am and who I've pretended to be as an actor have proven to be a source of great disappointment to some audiences. It has not caused me much personal distress beyond the periodic necessity to deter stalkers,” he wrote.

Tim Curry's life and career began in England

Born in Cheshire, England, Curry was the son of a Navy chaplain and a school secretary. He was 12 when his father died and his mother subsequently went to work. Young Tim learned to cook his own breakfast, resulting in a lifelong passion for cooking, and sharpened his humor muscles.

“My father was a Methodist chaplain in the Navy, and we moved pretty much every 18 months,” he said. “So I had to make my mark in new schools and new playgrounds pretty quickly. And a sense of humor is the best way to do that. I was always a kind of mimic, one of those awful, relentless children, I should think.”

Acting did not occur to him until his middle teens, when he attended a school for the sons of Methodist ministers.

“I was lucky that it was a liberal kind of school; many of them in England are rather Dickensian,” he recalled to the AP. “There was a lot of theater, and I sang, too; I had been singing in church from the age of 7. I had enormous opportunities to express myself in that way. I just got hooked, really.”

His training continued in 1965 when he entered the University of Birmingham, at that time one of three English universities with a drama department. “I took an academic course, which I largely ignored, I’m afraid, and just acted all the time,” he said.

He then went down to London and talked his way into his first job, “Hair,” in the West End. Curry went on to the more formalized theater of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, where he was enlisted for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Tim Curry's other roles

He went on to futilely try to stop Macaulay Culkin's Kevin McCallister from taking advantage of New York’s swanky Plaza Hotel in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” Curry also was Wadsworth, the unhinged butler with a secret past, in the also quotable “Clue.” He played a wealthy philanthropist in 1995's “Congo” and opposite Carol Burnett in the movie “Annie.”

“Hollywood tends to use European actors, especially English ones, as villains because they prefer heroes to be Americans. I think we come with a certain amount of style, which is hard for American actors to acquire,” he told the AP in 1997. “They have to choose early on between New York and the theater vs. Hollywood and television and movies. In England there is still regional theater, where you can be assured work for several years doing all kinds of things.”

In later years, Curry lent his baritone voice to many voice-acting roles in children’s TV series, including “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “The Wild Thornberrys” and “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.”

After a yearslong break from live-action roles, he played a plague doctor-masked man in a wheelchair in 2024's “Stream,” something the film's director Michael Leavy called a dream come true.

Curry, who never married and had no children, was deeply private about his personal life. But he wrote in his memoir that he was convinced to tell his story thanks to so many moving encounters with fans.

“The notion that my experiences might resonate helps me persevere — if they strike a chord with only one teenager, alone with a book in his room, as I so often was; or that young woman reading this on an interminably long bus ride; or that older queen, hopefully still in his fishnets, who saw ‘Rocky Horror’ upstairs at the Royal Court; or that middle-aged mother who organizes ‘Clue’ watching parties and refuses entry to anybody out of costume; or that buttoned-up bank clerk who relishes musicals; or that woman who kicked me out of the Waverly for being myself,” he wrote.

Chaz Millionaire, the longtime Twin Cities radio DJ and community voice whose real name was Charles Dillon, has died at 61.

For more than four decades, Millionaire shared music, conversation and local culture with Minneapolis, including through his work at KMOJ, “The People’s Station.”

His daughter, musician Marz Lovejoy, remembers her father as a passionate advocate for local artists and a person who made people feel seen and welcome.

“He always loved music,” Lovejoy said, recalling that her father began DJing at age 14. “He was so committed.”

Lovejoy, says he eventually became a familiar voice on KMOJ, where his shows brought music, conversation and community together.

Millionaire used his radio shows to spotlight local musicians, filmmakers and other artists, documenting many of those conversations on cassette tapes. His generosity also extended beyond the airwaves, Lovejoy said, recalling how he would stop to talk with people who needed help and treat them with dignity.

He also worked with young people in media, photography and music – a part of his legacy his family hopes to continue through the Chaz Vision Media Legacy Fund.

In a statement shared on its website, KMOJ reflected on Millionaire’s lasting impact, writing, “For 40+ remarkable years, Chaz dedicated his voice, time, talent, and heart to 89.9 KMOJ—The People’s Station. He did more than play music; he created memories, preserved our culture, and kept the soulful sounds of jazz flowing through our homes, our community, and our hearts.”

Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died. She was 80 years old.

Known for her curvy physique, massive blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits that served her self-deprecating wit, she was among the most beloved personalities in music and beyond — the rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.

She wrote hundreds of songs, including classics like “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You,” that totaled more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams. Parton, who plucked bejeweled banjos, guitar and dulcimers with her long fingernails during performances, was a generous philanthropist and successful businesswoman whose projects included a theme park in the Smoky Mountain foothills near her birthplace.

Her career was forever influenced by her upbringing as one of 12 children born into what she called a “dirt poor” Tennessee family. She started her education nonprofit, Imagination Library, to send free books to children in Tennessee because her father, who quit school to work on the farm, struggled to learn to read.

Parton's first musical performances were in church, where her grandfather was a preacher. By age 10, she was learning guitar and singing on local television shows. At 13, she appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where Johnny Cash introduced her as “a little girl here from up in East Tennessee.”

With a suitcase of songs, she followed her uncle, Bill Owens, also a songwriter, to Nashville after graduating high school in 1964. Fred Foster, who produced Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and more, saw her potential and got her songs cut by other artists, as well as recording and releasing Parton singing her own material. By the mid-1970s, Parton was a Nashville queen.

A key collaboration with Porter Wagoner

Parton's partnership with Porter Wagoner, a pencil-thin pompadoured star with flashy rhinestone outfits, was key to her career. She honed her acting skills on his syndicated TV show and he advocated for her to get a record deal at RCA. Their first duet, “The Last Thing On My Mind,” was released in 1967, the same year she started her own publishing company.

While their duets were often big radio hits, Parton's solo singles didn’t chart as high at first. With Wagoner as a co-producer, she began to adjust her country warble to a more polished, pop-leaning style.

She got her first No. 1 solo single with “Joshua,” and reached the Top 5 with the ballad “Coat of Many Colors,” about how her mother sewed together scraps of clothes to make a coat Parton wore “so proudly” even as her peers mocked her for being poor. The song, with its Biblical references and ode to maternal love, was later made into a children’s book and a TV movie.

In 1973, she had the hit that made her career — “Jolene,” a country music standard with its steady, churning rhythm and Parton's repeated delivery of the title as she pleads for the woman not to steal her man.

The song topped the country charts, crossing over to pop and later being released internationally, opening up new audiences for Parton. “Jolene” is one of her most covered compositions, including by Miley Cyrus (Parton’s goddaughter), Olivia Newton-John and The White Stripes.

She left Wagoner’s show in 1974, amid reports of squabbling between the two, although they continued to record together and Wagoner stayed her producer for years after that. But the relationship turned litigious when Wagoner sued her in 1979 for millions in management fees and royalties.

A pop crossover star

She followed “Jolene” with a huge hit in 1974, “I Will Always Love You,” an ode and farewell to Wagoner that helped her win the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year back-to-back in 1975 and 1976. She famously turned down Elvis Presley, who wanted to record it, because she would not share publishing rights.

Decades later, Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” became a smash for the soundtrack of her 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” and broke sales records. Houston won a Grammy for her performance in 1994, presented to her by Parton.

“Here You Come Again,” a pop crossover hit and one of the few she didn’t write, further established Parton as a multi-genre entertainer and brought her first Grammy Award in 1979.

“A lot of people thought I had totally lost my mind,” she told The Associated Press in 1979 of changing her singing style. “But I had no fear of change. I expected success, but I was braced for failure. I didn’t care if people thought I was wrong. In my own heart, I knew I was doing the right thing.”

Parton's other crossover hits included the title song from “9 to 5,” the 1980 comedy starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin; and her duet with longtime friend Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream,” written by brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. In 1987, she collaborated with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on the million-selling “Trio” album.

Down home charm

For millions of fans, she was simply “Dolly,” a mixture of Southern charm, humor and glamour. But she was also considered a feminist role model for holding the reins of her own career, writing her own songs, owning her content and looking after her finances in an entertainment world dominated by men.

Parton was open to making fun of herself; when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1989 she told the writers that her only restrictions were she wouldn’t curse and she wouldn’t make fun of Jesus. She regularly joked about her breasts or her dumb blonde appearance, but with a wink that she was the one controlling the laughs. In the memoir “My Life So Far,” Fonda remembered Parton's way with a wisecrack, “usually high raunch,” and a laugh that was “somewhere between a girl's giggle, an explosive shriek, and a cascade of little bells."

After her gown split down the front when she won CMA's entertainer of the year in 1978, Parton quipped: “My Daddy said that's what I got for putting 50 pounds of mud in a five-pound bag.”

Throughout her career, she embraced her glamorous style, often wearing custom curve-hugging rhinestone dresses and bodysuits even if they drew tsk-tsks from others in the industry. Her look was always a part of her larger musical business plan.

“I knew my songs were good even if I had been ugly as sin,” she told the AP in 2014. “So I thought, ‘Well, I would have probably chose to look this way even if I had been a waitress.’ I mean, this is my look. I mean, I like a lot of makeup. I like a lot of hair. I like flashy clothes. I like to show it off. But that’s just who I am.”

She married Carl Dean, an asphalt paving contractor, in the mid-1960s; they were together until his death in 2025 at the age of 82. Though rarely seen in public, he was an influence on her career. She told NPR that she wrote “Jolene” about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.

‘9 to 5’ to Hollywood and Broadway

In her first major film role, Parton played alongside Fonda and Tomlin as office workers who rebel against their tyrannical boss in “9 to 5.” Critic Roger Ebert called her a “natural-born movie star” and the title song earned her two Grammy Awards and a ranking of 78 on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movie songs. Starring roles in the “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” and “Steel Magnolias” followed.

"I never thought of myself as a movie star," she told AP’s Bob Thomas in 1979. "I knew I'd be a star, but as a singer or as a writer of songs or books or poetry. I wanted to be a famous performer and wear flashy clothes, but singing in movies was not one of my ambitions. My family lived in the mountains and we didn't see movies.”

Her love affair with TV and film continued for decades, with appearances alongside Cyrus on “Hannah Montana” and adaptions of her music for Christmas specials, films and streaming series. She also became an author, her books ranging from the memoir “Dolly” to a bestselling novel co-authored by James Patterson, “Run, Rose, Run,"

The stage adaptation “9 to 5: The Musical” debuted in 2009, and “DOLLY: A True Original Musical” had been set to open in December 2026.

United States of Dolly

Beyond her music, Parton’s most lasting legacy might be her generosity and broad appeal.

When a deadly wildfire swept through the Smokies in 2016, she held an all-star telethon and set up a foundation that sent monthly checks to residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

She opened up her Dollywood theme park in East Tennessee, a major economic driver in Appalachia that draws tourists from around the country, and established the Dollywood Foundation. She wrote books and memoirs, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and was given a lifetime achievement award by the Recording Academy. She was selected for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2025.

With 55 Grammy nominations and 10 wins, Parton is the third-most nominated woman in Grammy history, only behind Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.

Parton spanned social and political divides, through multiple generations of fans, urban and rural and in between. In tumultuous election years, it wasn't uncommon to see “Dolly for President” shirts. But she was strict in not voicing her own political beliefs, often turning aside questions about presidents, candidates, policies and other controversies.

“I don’t do politics," Parton told host Jad Abumrad on his hit podcast “Dolly Parton's America."

"I have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion about everything, but I learned years ago to keep your mouth shut about things.”

When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation sent out a ballot in 2022 with her name on it, though she said she felt she hadn't earned it, the voters answered with a “Hello, Dolly." Parton showed up to the induction ceremony, performed and then put out a rock album.

Trips to Minnesota

Parton was no stranger to Minnesota over the years — including performances at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in 1969, 1970, 1978 and 1993.

Her other Minnesota concerts included shows at Target Center in Minneapolis in 1990, and Grand Casino Hinckley in 2016.

And in 2018, a new take on “A Christmas Carol” — featuring music written by Parton — premiered at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

Ahead of opening night, Parton told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer that she was excited to be there and hoping for a full house.

“I know we’re going to get a chance to meet people. I’ll probably go out on stage on the premiere night and welcome everybody and tell them about how it all, you know — all came about,” she said, her trademark warmth and wit on display. Then, she said, she was looking forward to getting a chance “to sit there and enjoy it and watch it with the rest of them.”

1969: That’s the first year Minneapolis artist Bob Schmitt entered an artwork into the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Competition. Schmitt has entered dozens of times since and has never been accepted.

Schmitt is in good company. The Fine Arts Competition, which opens Aug. 27, is one of the most competitive juried art shows in the state. In 2026, the fair received more than 3,185 submissions and only accepted 340. That’s an acceptance rate of less than 10 percent (down from last year when the rate was about 12 percent).

Schmitt has advice for newcomers to the rejected community.

“It's that piece that's been rejected — it's not your skill, it's not your desire, it's not your intention, it's not your ambition, it's not who you are that's been rejected,” Schmitt said.

The rejected community is thriving. Posting your State Fair rejection letter to social media has become a rite of passage. Schmitt, like hundreds of other artists, is showing his rejected artwork elsewhere. Two galleries have turned State Fair rejection into annual exhibitions of their own.

The Burl Community Art Gallery in Lowertown, St. Paul is hosting its sixth annual “Rejected” show, now through Sept. 26.

In Edina, the Douglas Flanders & Associates gallery is hosting its third annual “Minnesota State Fair Reject Show” Aug. 29-Oct. 10.

“The word is getting out,” said Beth Stoneberg, codirector of the Burl gallery. In 2025, the small gallery featured about 75 artworks; this year 99 are on view.

Art rejected from the State Fair Fine Arts Competition

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Stoneberg said the gallery keeps doing the show because rejection is rough.

“There is a certain amount of emotion and anxiety and analysis. So much of an artist's value is sometimes tied up in particular shows,” Stoneberg said.

Along with the Burl holiday show, “Rejected” is the gallery's most-visited exhibition of the year.

At Douglas Flanders & Associates, executive director Syril McNally said the “Reject Show” has become the most-attended exhibition of the year.

People “love to see what was rejected,” McNally said. “This is their way of getting behind the scenes and supporting local artists.” The show will feature more than 250 artworks.

On Aug. 21, Minneapolis artist Cora Park dropped off her rejected painting at Douglas Flanders & Associates. The artwork features Park and her cousin as children at the State Fair, painted from an old photo.

“My process is reflecting on childhood memories and processing what I remember and what I don't remember, and trying to bring more positivity back into those memories,” Park said.

This is the first time Park has entered a rejected show.

“Art should be accessible. Showing your art should be accessible, and I just think that's really cool that they do this,” Park said.

For Schmitt, the Douglas Flanders & Associates show is also the first time he’s entered a rejected artwork. His submission, “I Wasn’t Expecting Snow,” uses a Chinese technique called “one-stroke” painting, done with a large brush loaded with different layers of paint. Schmitt has been studying and teaching Chinese painting techniques for more than 20 years.

“I enter what is my best, which is what you do at the State Fair,” Schmitt said.

He’s been attending the Fine Arts Competition exhibition since 1960.

“I love the State Fair art show,” Schmitt said. “For me, it's the people's show.”

When Schmitt posted his rejection letter to Facebook, he received a flood of condolences and affirmations.

“‘Oh you poor man,’ ‘Oh keep going and don’t give up’ — It was ridiculous,” Schmitt said.

So he posted again: “Someone who continues to enter after being rejected for over 50 years hasn’t given up. They also long ago learned not to define their success by whether or not they get in.”

Schmitt said he will continue to submit his work to the Minnesota State Fair.

Douglas Flanders & Associates hosts an opening reception Aug. 29. The Burl Community Art Gallery will host a reception on Sept. 12. Visitors can vote for a people’s choice award at both galleries throughout the duration of the exhibitions.

Correction (Aug. 25, 2026): This story has been updated to reflect the correct number of artworks accepted into the 2026 Minnesota State Fair art exhibition.

If you’re in a book club, you know that not everyone is going to like every book every time. So, it was a delight for Gina Grinde of Four Pines Bookstore in Bemidji when everyone liked Bailey Seybolt’s mystery/thriller “Coram House.”

"They said, ‘This was a page-turner; I forgot to go to bed on time; I didn't do any chores,’ stuff like that. There's over a dozen of us, and we all agreed upon it. It’s my best-selling book so far this year."

Here's the story: Alex Kelley, a true crime writer recovering from a flopped book, gets an exciting offer from an attorney to tell the story of their recent case. It’s an old one: 50 years ago, a boy disappeared from a Catholic orphanage in Vermont. Alex moves to the small town and starts sifting through the case file, but she quickly runs into more questions than answers.

Why did the investigation go this direction? Why didn’t they speak to that person? And could the body of the woman who has just been found in a lake be related?

Alex sets out on her own investigation, interviewing past residents of the now-closed orphanage. The secrets she unearths in the small town — and the danger that arises — keeps readers turning pages.

Maree Lee and Kmari Watson come to Dayton’s Bluff library almost every day.

They're engaged and have brought their three kids with them ever since they were born. To them, it’s like a second home.

“I mean, I like to give them a challenge, you know, read as many books as you can, and whoever wins gets to sit in the front seat with me,” Watson said. “Make them read all these little books out here, little picture books in here, let them run around, color books, the computers, everything.”

Watson and Lee live a couple houses down from the library on East 7th Street in St. Paul. Lee said she doesn’t know where the nearest library would be if the city shuts it down, as Mayor Kaholy Her proposed in her 2027 budget.

It’s part of numerous cuts Her suggested — combined with property tax increases — to close a $26 million budget deficit. The city is expected to pass its budget in December.

Her said in a statement to MPR News the Dayton’s Bluff branch of the St. Paul Public Library was among the least used locations. It also has one of the most expensive leases at $150,000, which the city pays yearly to Metro State University.

"St. Paul is facing difficult financial choices, and I have a responsibility to make sure we invest in a library system we can sustain for generations to come,” Her said.

She said staff will keep their job and be reassigned to another location.

While the city said usage is low, Council member Cheniqua Johnson argues that isn’t the full story. She said Dayton’s Bluff gets between 4,000 and 5,000 annual visits a year and has some of the highest Wi-Fi and computer usage.

“Are we just saying that they have to go somewhere else?” Johnson said. “Like that's the part that doesn't necessarily make sense to me.”

Dayton’s Bluff is in Johnson’s ward, which she said is already an under-resourced community home to some families making less than $3,000 a year.

“We're taking that resource and something that's been on the east side for 22 years out of the east side with no plans to provide anything alternatively. Or even just, like, no plans to reopen,” she said. “There isn't anything in the track. I've heard a couple times people have shared that they're working with a council member to find alternatives, and I just want to be clear that right now in the budget there's no budgeted alternatives.”

Beth Burns, executive director of the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, a nonprofit fundraising group, said there have been discussions about how to serve Dayton’s Bluff. That includes putting a library back in the neighborhood if the proposed shutdown goes through, she said.

While Burns agrees the number of visitors at Dayton’s Bluff has been low for a few years, she said it’s nice to see how much people love libraries and don’t want them to close.

“Even if the library that's there right now is not being as deeply utilized as maybe other libraries in the system, let's figure out why that is,” Burns said. “And then let's create affordable, accessible library services for that neighborhood that are going to be better used, better supported and affordable in a way that the city can sustain.”

Burns said part of the reason they haven’t invested in the library up to this point is because the space is leased from Metro State.

“Making investments in the physical facilities is more challenging because you are actually talking about making investments in a building that's owned by Metro State, not the city of St. Paul,” she said.

Lee said she doesn’t know what she’ll do if the library closes. Her dad attended Metro State and used to bring her to the stacks while he studied.

Her fond memories are partly why she does that for her children.

“I think it's important that we keep our kids reading,” she said. “Especially in a space that's public and free for everyone to come and use.”

There’s a before and an after to Paul Yoon’s writing life, and at the center is Oscar — a floppy, gentle, food-loving, 70-pound yellow Lab.

Yoon didn’t grow up with dogs, so it was really his wife — fellow writer Laura van den Berg — who insisted on the addition. She might have known what would happen to their buttoned-up writing life when a puppy entered it. Paul didn’t.

But he quickly fell in love with this disruptive and magical creature. It gave him a new way of looking at the world. His sixth novel is the result of that transformation.

“Etna” is about a combat dog searching for home after war ravages his unnamed country — and the whole story is told from the dog’s point of view.

It’s something Yoon wouldn’t have attempted outside of Oscar.

“Part of it was imagining what Oscar might sound like,” Yoon tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. ”I imagine him to be a dignified and empathetic creature. To me, he’s the best — so it was trying to capture what I thought were his best qualities and bring that onto the page.”

Guest:

• Paul Yoon is a writer and a professor who lives in Hudson, New York, with his wife and their dog, Oscar. His new novel is “Etna.”

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MN Shortlist is the MPR News weekly roundup of arts and culture recommendations. This week’s picks include a history of Mexican music in Minnesota, the new musical “Made in India” by local playwright Kristen Marx, the inaugural Duluth Flock ArtFest, the first Midwest Black Book Fair and more.

‘140 Years of Mexican & Latino Music in Minnesota’ at the Hennepin History Museum in Minneapolis — Through February 2028

In 1886, as Aaron Johnson-Ortiz tells it, a 56-member military band from Mexico came to perform at the inaugural Minneapolis Industrial Exposition. They performed for 41 days and even celebrated Mexican Independence Day in Minneapolis on Sept. 16, 1886, with a parade through the city.

“This would be the first cultural celebration of Mexican and Latino culture in Minnesota,” said Johnson-Ortiz, executive director of the Minnesota Latino Museum. To celebrate this untold history, the MN Latino Museum and the Hennepin History Museum collaborated on the exhibit “140 Years of Mexican & Latino Music in Minnesota,” which opened Aug. 20. The exhibit highlights historic photos, documents, banners and newspaper articles. There will be an opening reception Sept. 3. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Bonus Joy — A New Comedy Variety Show’ at Turf Club in St. Paul — Aug. 21

A little bit of everything is on the bill at Turf Club. “Bonus Joy,” a new locally produced variety show, brings together stand-up, music and magic for a night of entertainment where you’re never quite sure what’s coming next. Minneapolis comedians Ben Katzner and Pearl Rose host, with comedy from Maggie Faris and Comrade Tripp, music from the duo Ashton & Maddock and a performance from Parker William, a comedy magician and mentalist.

The show starts at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 21 at the Turf Club in St. Paul. (Annie Russell)

Flock ArtFest — Aug. 21-22

Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth will be home to the inaugural Flock ArtFest this weekend. It’s unclear if this two-day festival is completely bird-centric, but one thing is certain: there will be improvised bird-inspired puppetry including options for “life advice from a bird” and “tarot reading from a bird.”

Other highlights: Twin Cities textile artist Sadie Ward will host an interactive art event, making a “Superior Memories” quilt using upcycled textiles from festivalgoers’ written memories of the lake. The fest will also install a towering piece of dichroic film, or an iridescent shimmering material that will provide a dreamy new lens of Superior. Chalk artist David Sundaram will transform pavement into tableaux and there will also be a kid artist tent, where artists under 14 can display and sell their wares. Flock ArtFest tickets start at $10. The festival runs Friday from 12 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Made in India’ at the Cowles Center for Dance & Performing Arts in Minneapolis Duluth — Aug. 21-29

The South Asian Arts & Theater House presents “Made in India,” a production that uses dance, theater and puppetry to tell the story of “an Indian-born transracial adoptee as she navigates identity, belonging, and the search for her roots.” The all-ages production includes more than 70 artists, dancers and crew members, including several South Asian adoptees and plays with many genres, from Michael Jackson to traditional and contemporary Indian dance and music. The play was written by Minnesota playwright and actor Kristen Marx and, according to the press release, it was “workshopped with parents who adopted from India, so those lived experiences are woven into the production.”

At the preview Aug. 19, director Madhu Bangalore told the audience to engage with the production. “Leave Minnesota Nice outside this,” he said. “There are times you might have to cheer, holler, hoot, cry. Let it all out. Your energy feeds the people on stage.”

Tickets are “pay what you like” with a $10 suggested donation. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Zagaandagaa-Anishinaabeg, People of the Thick Coniferous Forest’ exhibit celebration at the Chik-Wauk Museum & Nature Center on the Gunflint Trail — Aug. 22

Near the northern border, surrounded by the boreal forest, sits the Chik-Wauk Museum & Nature Center and Gunflint Trail Historical Society.

Inside the museum, a new permanent exhibit, "Zagaandagaa-Anishinaabeg, People of the Thick Coniferous Forest," has been years in the making.

Margo Brownell, chair of the Anishinaabe Exhibit Task Force at the museum, said the exhibit tells the story of the Anishinaabe, the Ojibwe people, who lived in the area before contact with settlers, through the fur trade and into the 1900s.

“We have been incredibly fortunate in doing this exhibit to have worked with the descendants from some of these Anishinaabe families that really lived here for generations,” Brownell said.

The exhibit features a mural of Ojibwe clan animals by Sam Zimmerman, an animated video by artist Jonathan Thunder, art by Carl Gawboy, artifacts that are on display for the first time and more.

The celebration runs from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the museum. Heads up: Though the museum's address is in Grand Marais, it’s more than an hour's drive from town, at the end of the Gunflint Trail. (Leah Lemm)

The Midwest Black Book Fair at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis — Aug. 22

Because Terresa Hardaway wasn’t busy enough, she decided to start the first Midwest Black Book Fair. Hardaway, the cofounder and owner of Blackbird Revolt, professor at the University of Minnesota and owner of Black Garnet Books (to list a few of her accolades), was in a meeting with other Black bookstore owners when it dawned on her — there isn’t an event to celebrate Black booksellers and authors in the state.

Hardaway got to work planning the event and reaching out to publishers, authors and bookstores in the region. The fair will feature two dozen particiants and organizations, along with workshops about Black literary history in Minnesota, the publishing industry and the influence of the Midwest on Black writers.

Hardaway took over Black Garnet Books in 2024 and said it’s hard for her to not think about the literacy crisis while planning the event. She hopes that people walk away excited to keep reading and get involved in bookish spaces.

“I have a responsibility to make sure that I am pushing this idea around the importance of literacy,” she said. “That should really be an agenda item for anyone who's in the literary space.”

The Midwest Black Book Fair is Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center in Minneapolis. Tickets are free, but attendees must register in advance. (Sam Stroozas)

This weekend is a first for Minnesota’s literary scene. The inaugural Midwest Black Book Fair will bring Black authors and booksellers to north Minneapolis on Saturday.

There will be food for sale, and books as well as workshops and panels. Terresa Hardaway, who’s behind the event and the owner of Black Garnet Books in St. Paul, joined Minnesota Now to give a preview.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Your local library has more to offer than a good book. A library card can connect you with job-search help, classes and events, computers, free or discounted tickets to museums and even 3D printing.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about the wide range of resources libraries provide, how to access them and how the role of public libraries is changing.

Guests:

• Jennifer Baker is community relations manager for Metropolitan Library Services Agency, or MELSA, which supports eight public library systems across the Twin Cities. She works to connect people with the resources and services available through the region’s libraries.

• Maureen Hartman is the director of St. Paul Public Libraries. She oversees its library branches, mobile library and online services.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.   

Ana Fores Tamayo is the executive director of the Refugee Support Network, a nonprofit staffed by volunteers who help refugees apply for asylum in the United States. She's also a poet. And she'll be reading from her most recent collection of poetry, the bilingual “Peregrina/Pilgrim,” on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Eat My Words Bookstore in Minneapolis.

Fores Tamayo brings a unique perspective to her work with asylum seekers; her father was a political refugee and her family moved to the United States from Cuba when she was about 5-years-old. The family settled in Miami before moving to Montana and, eventually, to Minnesota. Fores Tamayo says she's glad to once again call Minnesota home after she and her husband recently moved back to the state to be closer to their kids.

As an adult, Fores Tamayo found herself in Texas for nearly 30 years, living, working and raising a family. Texas was where she first got started with the Refugee Support Network. That experience — as well as her own experience as an immigrant — has shaped all of her written work.

“I’ve always written poetry,” she said, “but I’m very shy about it ...I just wrote for me and that was it. [When] I started doing asylum work, it was really, really hard to get it done and I needed some kind of outlet. And so I started writing poetry to kind of get it out of my system.”

“Peregrina/Pilgrim,” is Fores Tamayo’s third published collection. It’s a bilingual collection, with poems in both English and Spanish. Being able to publish her poems in both languages is, she says, “a dream.”

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Here’s how she describes her creative process: “A lot of these poems I wrote in Spanish first and then I would go back into the English and I would ... see how that differed from the Spanish, and I would change the Spanish. And so it was very, very simultaneous. And that’s why I say it’s a simultaneous translation, because it wasn’t one language interpreted to the other ... [I]t is never a translation because translation is just like word for word and it's not poetry. And when you read Peregrina and you read Pilgrim, both of them, both the Spanish and the English are poems in their own right ... I try to make the poetry sound beautiful in both languages.”

She hopes readers understand through her work that languages and cultures are to be exalted.

“They add to the framework of a city and of a state, and they make it beautiful because they add so much. And this is what this is about. Peregrina is that. It's the pilgrim coming forth, looking for a home. And hopefully finding one.”

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.

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A twilight circus takes over Raspberry Island

Erinn Liebhard, artistic and executive director of Rhythmically Speaking, is looking forward to a one-night-only circus and cabaret performance Sunday, Aug. 23. Insomnia Salon Vol. 3: The River Night Circus takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Raspberry Island in St. Paul. The free event begins at twilight and is staged by Deeper Water Arts & Jackson Street Arts in partnership with St. Paul Parks. Liebhard notes that there's abundant free parking a short walk from the performance site.

Liebhard says: "This show has brought together more than 45 performers to build an amazing twilight river circus, including fire dancers, aerialists, installation artists, giant puppets, food trucks, all manner of dancers and singers and musicians, tarot card readers, and a mysterious woman who tells your fortune by creating a custom fragrance for you. I'm so excited to bring my whole family to this. The show is going to be a totally delightful end-of-summer treat."

Opera, drag and burlesque share the stage in St. Paul

Isa Condo-Olvera is an actor and singer and St. Paul. She's a fan of both opera and drag, and she says these two high-drama performance styles combine to form "an absolute blast" in An Opera Theatre's Divas & Drag: Young, Sexy, and Baroque. Now in its fifth year, An Opera Theatre has partnered with the Bach Society of Minnesota, which will provide the musical accompaniment to opera, drag, and burlesque performers. The show takes place at the Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul, Aug. 21 – 24.

Condo-Olvera says the combination "makes for really diverse audiences. There's the opera fans and there's the drag fans, and there's people that love both, like me. It makes for introducing new forms of art to both of those audience members, which is just so exciting and fun. It's also really fun to witness people discovering those new art forms, because the audience is such a huge part of drag."

An upcycled quilt collects memories of Lake Superior

Kristen McCoy creates designs from used clothes and textiles in Minneapolis under the brand ReThink and she wants to highlight two interactive, upcycled art opportunities at the Flock ArtFest taking place Aug. 21 and 22 at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth. Resource Renew is hosting a Free Store where people can take gently used art supplies that were locally donated. Visitors can also contribute to Minneapolis-based artist Sadie Ward's Lake Superior memories quilt project by writing their memories of Lake Superior on denim from upcycled jeans. Ward will sew the pieces into a quilt in the shape of the lake.

The choice of denim is intentional, McCoy says, not just for its shades of blue, but because cotton is a very water-thirsty crop. According to reporting from the U.N Environment Programme, making a single pair of jeans can take 800 to 1,000 gallons of water, with less efficient jeans soaking up as much as 2,600 gallons.

"I like... everything coming together on this art project for Sadie. Having that parallel of using the denim to tell the stories of water, and also [having] a place where we can hold our memories close to us as climate change is making changes to our waterways and also with human impact changing our waterways too."

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is adding new explanatory language to an exhibition after visitors mistook an artist’s digitally rendered work for generative AI.

Joe Dobrow recently took his two children to the Walker. They wandered from exhibition to exhibition, eventually settling in front of a screen in a dark hallway.

The screen was looping the 2026 video “Field Recordings” by artist Olalekan Jeyifous. It is the first solo museum exhibition for the New York-based artist who is known for his immersive speculative world-building artworks. The video features realistically animated people in leafy riverine settings, sometimes in groups, sometimes with deer, sometimes tinkering with what seem like remnants of analog technology.

“My kids were fairly intrigued with it,” Dobrow said, but “it seemed to me to be almost entirely AI slop.”

Dobrow is a software developer based in north Minneapolis and says he sees a lot of AI content in his work.

“It looked very much like someone directly, just from a prompt, created different clips and then just stitched them together,” Dobrow said. AI art is “so cheap and kind of doesn't feel like it has any value, so to see it at an art museum…”

Walker curators said that generative AI was not used to create works in “Olalekan Jeyifous: Hydricosmic Litanies,” which opened Aug. 6, but acknowledged that the exhibition offered little information about the digital process behind them. The museum says it’s also developing a policy governing the display and disclosure of AI-generated or AI-assisted art.

Jeyifous told MPR News that he’s not surprised that museum-goers may have confused his work for AI.

“For more than two decades, people have asked some version of, ‘How did you make this?’” Jeyifous said, pointing to his training in architecture and the digital tools of the field. “Those methods are commonplace within the discipline I emerge from, but less familiar to a general museum audience, so there has always been some uncertainty around how my images and objects are produced and that has followed me from the beginning.”

A Reddit post made on Aug. 15 in the Minneapolis subreddit, titled “AI slop alert,” claimed that the exhibition was “almost all AI content and there’s no disclosure letting guests know this.” The post racked up more than 220 comments, including one from Dobrow, who shared his disappointment. Another commenter wrote, “Art museums should be a haven from AI.”

Jeyifous says that the content of his work also may lead to confusion.

“A lot of early AI imagery skewed heavily toward science fiction and its subgenres: cyberpunk, steampunk, and any sort of speculative world-building. That overlaps visually with the sci-fi territory I’ve occupied for more than 20 years,” he said. “As AI imagery increasingly entered the broader visual culture, I anticipated that people might begin viewing my work through that lens, and even retroactively framing my earlier work as ‘AI slop,’ which has actually happened.”

As the Walker exhibition copy states, Jeyifous created a speculative river world inspired by the locale, “neither utopian nor dystopian, the enclave emerges from the histories of the Mississippi River yet exists outside of fixed time.”

In addition to videos, Jeyifous created this water world through dozens of 3D-printed black resin sculptures, CNC-milled wood panels and digital illustrations and technical illustrations printed on watercolor paper, aluminum and vinyl.

Jeyifous says he uses AI-assisted software selectively, be that Photoshop or 3D modeling. Architectural renderers often use computer-aided design programs and digital 3D visualization and modeling software to conceptualize buildings and built environments and how people move through them.

“The central principle for me, both in my practice and teaching experience, is authorship: exploring these possibilities inventively without allowing their seductive capabilities to determine the visual language, narrative or conceptual intent,” Jeyifous said. “Simply prompting images and presenting the results as my artwork is fundamentally at odds with how I’ve always worked.”

Standing in the Jeyifous exhibition, Walker curators Taylor Jasper and Henriette Huldisch said that the artist does not use AI that creates new content wholesale – audio, images, video, text – from simple prompts.

“He works extremely iteratively,” said Jasper, comparing his practice to collage. “Everything goes through multiple stages of reconceptualization, of rendering, of visualization and revisualizing and visualizing again.”

“There's a fundamental misunderstanding of what his medium actually is, and so the question of how these works were made arises often,” Jasper said. “He's academically trained as an architect, and he uses the tools of his field – which are mapping, visualization, spatial logic, rendering – to think through architecture and its impacts, and to imagine these kinds of speculative worlds and environments.”

Huldisch points out that while the artworks are not AI-generated, that does not mean there is no AI used in the process.

“It's never our intent to be misleading or secretive about an artist's process,” Huldisch said. “He uses a range of sophisticated software and tools, many of which have AI embedded within them.”

“There's art historical precedent for there being skepticism around new technologies and emerging technologies as they enter into our field,” Jasper added.

Many saw the invention of photography, for example, as a death knell to painting, but artists still paint, like Suzanne Jackson, who has her first major museum retrospective in an adjacent Walker gallery.

Artists have always used cutting-edge technology, Huldisch said, and while Jeyifous did not use generative AI for this exhibition, the museum is not opposed to working with artists who do use it.

“We will support artists working across all mediums, technologies, and follow whatever work is timely and resonant,” Huldisch said.

The exhibition’s sparse labeling may have contributed to the confusion. Visitors encounter a short introductory text about Jeyifous and the speculative world he created, but little explanation of Jeyifous’ process, digital or otherwise.

“We've obviously since then learned very quickly that people immediately jump to the assumption that generative AI must have been used in the making of the work, and people have really strong feelings about this,” Huldisch said. “So, we're listening and we're learning with our visitors, and we are adding language.”

The Walker, along with the rest of the museum world, is grappling with how to develop policy about the display and disclosure of AI-generated or AI-assisted art. “We are in the process of developing one,” she said.

Jasper and Huldisch said the new explanatory language for the exhibition will be installed this week.

“I recognize that AI usage raises very real ethical questions, and I understand why people want transparency around it,” Jeyifous said. “The difficulty right now is that we don’t have much nuance in the language to describe it. Saying that AI was utilized somewhere in a process can very quickly become perceived as ‘this artwork was entirely AI-generated,’ even when those are fundamentally different things. Disclosure can provide useful context, but it can also unintentionally become the lens through which the entire work is understood, regardless of how marginal that tool was to its production.”

How do teens imagine the future of our country and world? That's the question a group of youth poets will answer at a reading taking place Thursday at the Bell Museum.

It's the culmination of a program that spanned several weeks where a group of teens took workshops and received mentorship from adult writers. In that time, they reflected on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. and were prompted to imagine the world they want to see.

Knox Frederickson is one of the teen poets and a rising senior. Amanda Rosas is one of the mentors and a teacher at Visitation School. They talked with MPR News host Nina Moini and shared pieces of their work.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

In his office at the Guthrie Theater, several posters from past shows line Joseph Haj’s walls. One from a production of “Angels in America” that he starred in while in Venice in 1995. Another from a production of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” which he did at the Guthrie in 1990. And on the far side of his office, behind his desk are the scripts from the plays he’s directed over the last 10 years at the Guthrie.

“I do storyboard, especially if they're big-scale plays,” Haj said of his directorial process.

“Storyboard is probably an extravagant term because it suggests that I can draw, which I can't,” Haj said in his usual self-effacing tone.

Haj is more than a resident director, though. He holds a role many covet—artistic director of one of the nation’s leading regional theaters. The role oversees one of the founding companies in the nonprofit American regional theater movement. A theater that over the last 62 years has been a beacon of artistic excellence and has drawn in talent from across the world.

For the last ten seasons, Haj has been at the helm of this Argo—upholding the standard of art the theater is known for and correcting course when the financial winds get blustery. In some ways, his time at the Guthrie has mirrored that of the first play he ever directed for the company—“Pericles, Prince of Tyre.”

“I was so proud of that production,” Haj said. “I thought it was some of my very strongest work.”

It’s an obscure play in William Shakespeare’s canon; a swashbuckling adventure about a Phoenician prince, faced with solving the catastrophes that lie before him—like a famine and a devastating shipwreck. Like Pericles, Haj has weathered mighty storms.

Act I: The measure of a man

Ask Haj about leadership, and he’ll point to art.

“Everything I do, I view through the lens of an artist,” Haj said.

The moments Haj comes to life are when he is able to talk about the craft with other theater makers. When he was directing “Somewhere” in the fall of 2025, a conversation with the playwright Matthew Lopez had him as light as a feather and as merry as a schoolboy.

Haj, however, has a hard time with being labeled a particular kind of artist.

“I think artists get frustrated when people put them in boxes,” said Haj. “But I think as artists we put ourselves in boxes more often than we would like… I squirm at being overly defined as an artist.”

“He is really, really interested in how language moves a play forward, and how to craft the spoken text in a way that is meaningful,” said Addie Gorlin-Han, an associate producer at the Guthrie Theater who was mentored by Haj early in her directing career.

This love for language comes through in Haj’s self-professed favorite shows, which include many of Shakespeare’s plays, Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”—which Haj is directing this fall. That interest in language started in his youth. He grew up in Miami, the son of Palestinian immigrants.

“I remember actively learning English,” Haj said, noting his first language is Arabic. “The way words felt in my mouth, the way language resonated for me, the miracle of language. I mean, you know, it's 26 letters and some punctuation, and the fact that whole worlds are built around it felt then—and feels now—as somewhat miraculous.”

His appreciation for language was also aided by his father, who was blind. Due to this, Haj would often read to his father—sometimes these were high-level materials connected to his father’s postdoctoral work as an educator. That experience also plays into how Haj approaches his work as an artist, according to Gorlin-Han.

“I think that has really been a big part of how he understands equity and responsibility to make all audiences feel welcome and create accessible opportunities into the art,” she said.

Despite having educators for parents, Haj wasn’t a star student. By his own admission, he flunked out of most of his classes senior year. However, there was one subject he loved—theater.

“I had no skill or talent, but I wanted it so badly. For whatever reason, it just vibrated with me in a particular way,” Haj said.

While he didn’t complete his senior year, Haj was able to fake some transcripts, with the help of a friend, to attend community college.

Haj admits he was a bit queasy to admit his actions, even now. “Not that it’s untrue…I just want to make sure I’m not getting anybody in trouble.”

He eventually transferred to Florida International University and went on to attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina for acting, before launching a career as an actor and director.

As a theater maker, he performed and directed across the country—including as an original member of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, and as a member of the Guthrie's standing acting company in 1989-1990 season. He was also involved with projects inside prisons and in Palestine. Across his career, Joseph Haj has always looked for a new challenge to face—and his interests would eventually turn to artistic leadership.

Act II: The early voyages of Joseph Haj

Haj’s first job as the head of a theater was as the producing artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, a well-regarded company that’s affiliated with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s theater school—his alma mater.

“There's no training to be an artistic director,” Haj said. “So we all come into it idiosyncratically based on our own experiences. And my experience… was as somebody who's been a practicing artist.”

At PlayMakers, Haj’s tenure included turning the theater’s finances around. He also began programming more plays, some of them quite extravagant. One season, he produced “Amadeus” in collaboration with a full orchestra to play the music of Mozart that is central to the show. In another, he directed a seven-and-a-half hour version of Charles Dickens’ “Nicholas Nickleby.”

“It was truly epic,” said Jeff Cornell, an actor and longtime associate of PlayMakers. “[It was] 25 actors, playing over 150 parts. And [Haj] was asking this company to do more than it perhaps thought it could do.”

That style of ambitious theater became a signature for Haj over his nine years with the company. He would produce and direct massive productions of “The Tempest” and "Metamorphoses," as well as both plays in the “Angels in America” cycle. However, according to Adam Versényi, the resident dramaturg at PlayMakers and former department chair at UNC, those big shows proved to be a strain on a theater the size of PlayMakers.

“While we were very proud of the scale of those productions and the quality of them, they did overtax the company,” Versényi said.

While Haj loved his position in North Carolina, a larger theater with opportunities to tackle new challenges waited just beyond the horizon.

Act III: Arriving on the beaches of Minneapolis

Haj was announced as the new artistic director of the Guthrie in the winter of 2015, only the 8th person to ever hold the title. At the time, he was something of a dark horse candidate for the job. He didn’t even appear on some media outlets’ shortlist of possible replacements for outgoing artistic director Joe Dowling. Some had speculated—and hoped—that Oskar Eustis, a major figure in American theater who grew up in Minnesota, would take the reins.

A fable told by Guthrie staff is that when Haj was first introduced, he remarked how he was not who people were expecting.

“I wish I could remember the exact words,” Haj said, confirming the story by saying he said something to the effect of ‘I know you’re all sad it’s not Oskar Eustis.’

Coming into the job, Haj was determined to take on managing a theater with an operating budget of nearly $30 million—ten times the budget he was working with at PlayMakers. His history as an actor at the Guthrie was noted at the time of his hiring, however, he had yet to direct a mainstage production. To make clear who he was, Haj turned to Shakespeare’s “Pericles.”

“I think it's a very great play,” said Haj. “It is a play filled with wisdom…this is one of Shakespeare's last four or five plays that he ever wrote. He's writing at the very pinnacle of his significant gifts.”

Haj had a long history with the Shakespeare play. He acted in a production in New York, had directed a version of it for PlayMakers in 2008, and then directed it again at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, before it transferred to the Folger Theater in D.C. In the usual grandness of Haj’s productions, the show had a spectacular set.

“He's not afraid to make a bold design choice if we can afford it,” said Jan Chambers, who designed most of Haj's versions of Pericles over the years.

“Sometimes we couldn't afford it,” said Chambers.

Haj remounted “Pericles” for his Guthrie debut. In Minneapolis, Addie Gorlin-Han served as his assistant director. She remembers being mentored by Haj during the process, but also being treated like a colleague. She recalls offering suggestions to him, which she said he would take into consideration.

“He took them seriously, which he did not have to do, and not all directors do,” Gorlin-Han said. She also remembers that the weight of the moment hit Haj on opening night.

“He turned to me and he's like, ‘This is a night I will never forget,’ because it was the first night of his work on the Guthrie stage as a director,” said Gorlin-Han.

Similarly, Jan Chambers admires Haj for the doors he opened for her when he hired her to work on several projects with him.

“I had been designing for a number of years in academia and occasionally freelancing,” Chambers said. “He really opened up a whole new world for me, professionally. I owe him that for sure.”

Act IV: The making of a king

Aside from his artistic feats at the Guthrie, Haj has had to navigate the theater through similar challenges as his royal Phoenician counterpart. A major round of layoffs took place in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic, and like many arts organizations post-pandemic, the Guthrie Theater was facing significant financial headwinds. A $4 million deficit was announced in 2024. However, unlike other institutions, the Guthrie turned around its situation in two years and announced a modest surplus in 2026.

Trisha Kirk is the Guthrie Theater’s managing director—a role that oversees more of the operational elements of the organization, and reports to Joseph Haj. In her opinion, without Haj’s leadership, the financial turnaround would not have been as quick.

“It wasn't easy. It was making sacrifices all over the place that Joe and I and the team spent a lot of time trying to figure out,” Kirk added.

The solutions Haj, Kirk and the company came up with ranged from small changes—such as reducing the size of show programs to save on printing costs—to larger ones, like producing one less show each season.

Haj’s collaborative style of leadership started long before the financial crisis, however. Coming out of the pandemic, Haj expanded the roster of his inner circle, and created a “senior leadership team,” consisting of subject matter experts who could provide the best insights to different aspects of the theater’s operations. Kirk can’t remember there being another formal committee like that in her 40 years at the Guthrie.

“I think [what] you really see in Joe as a leader, [is] that he is looking to hear from people,” said Kirk.

Kirk also highlighted Haj’s leadership in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion. In January 2020, the theater created its “Native Advisory Council,” to strengthen its ties to Minneapolis’ Native community.

For all the praise his coworkers give him, however, Haj has a hard time claiming any sort of glory in his leadership.

“I would love to tell a story of brilliant and heroic leadership, but it's not like that at all,” Haj said. “One tries to make the very best decisions one can, sometimes under uncommonly difficult circumstances.”

That kind of humbleness comes through in many aspects of his personality. During the lead up to the premiere of "The History Plays” in 2024, when asked how he felt that his multi-year magnum opus was coming to a fruition, he said “Some of us get much more than we deserve.”

For Haj, the story is less about him as a singular talent and more about the Guthrie as an institution.

“Your kid's been admitted to Princeton,” he said. “The parent doesn't say, ‘Hey, pump the brakes… who's the president of Princeton right now?’ Nobody says this. Princeton is the story.”

Ten seasons into Haj’s tenure, he would say the same of the Guthrie.

Frank Beard, the drummer for the Texas boogie-rock trio ZZ Top who kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” and “Gimme All Your Lovin,’” has died. He was 77.

Beard was in hospice care when he died Tuesday at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with family members at his side, according to publicist Bob Merlis. Band co-founder and guitarist Billy Gibbons, on tour with bassist Elwood Francis, hailed Beard in a statement.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished,” Gibbons said.

ZZ Top sold more than 50 million records and had six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Seven of their albums have been in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 and they earned three Grammy Award nominations.

“I’ve found the people I was meant to play with,” Beard says in the 2019 documentary “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.” “I never wanted to quit, and never wanted to get fired.”

Minnesota’s tourism arm is trying to jumpstart the state’s film industry — and a brand-new fund is helping local filmmakers get to the silver screen.

The “10,000 Stories Fund” by Explore Minnesota Film and FilmNorth has picked 10 filmmaking teams to receive $10,000 to help create their work.

Nell Lawrenz-Wareham, deputy director of Explore Minnesota Film, and filmmaker Alex Nystrom, who is a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and one of the recipients of the fund, joined Minnesota Now to share more about the effort.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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Terresa Hardaway says above all, she’s a connector. She thrives when building relationships and organizing and prefers to stay busy, hence her long resume including co-founder and owner of Blackbird Revolt, a social-justice based design studio; associate professor of graphic design at the University of Minnesota; and owner of Black Garnet Books.

She was attending a monthly Black Bookstore Coalition meeting when the group got to talking about book festivals, and it struck her: Minnesota doesn’t have an event to celebrate Black booksellers and authors.

“I was just looking around at all these like really amazing Black women who are doing this really important work in the literary space, and I'm like, we need to. It's just been on my heart. We need to do something,” she said.

Hardaway decided to launch and curate the first Midwest Black Book Fair.

She and her team got to work planning the fair, an event to honor stories of resistance and Blackness. The inaugural event takes place Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center in Minneapolis.

The fair will highlight about two dozen people and organizations, including Black authors, Black-owned bookstores, collectives and publishers focused on Black perspectives, and more. Hardaway and others are hosting workshops about Black literary history in Minnesota, how to get published and the influence of the Midwest on Black writers. As of last week, over 800 tickets had been reserved.

Mary Taris, the founder and owner of Strive Publishing & Bookstore in Minneapolis, will be at the fair. She said when Hardaway mentioned the event to her, she knew she had to be a part of it. It’s also special to her that the inaugural fair is in north Minneapolis.

“I’m from north Minneapolis, and I really wanted my bookstore to be in north Minneapolis, but that didn’t come to fruition. But being able to host our inaugural Midwest Black Book Fair in north Minneapolis is just incredible to me,” she said.

“I just really hope that everyone comes out for the Black book fair. No matter what background you are, come out and learn all about what's going on in the literary scene in the Midwest in terms of Black voices.”

Hardaway said she chose to host the event toward the end of the summer to coincide with Black August, an annual month-long commemoration that honors the lives of Black revolutionaries and activists. She also didn’t want to compete with Independent Bookstore Day in April.

“I think that is an important day for all independent bookstores. But I do think there is something about celebrating Black stories and narratives during Black August,” she said.

Tickets are available for free but attendees must register in advance. There will be free parking at NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center.