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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Calligrapher Maura Lynch of Minneapolis encourages a visit to The St. John’s Bible, a monumental work of sacred calligraphy and art housed on the peaceful campus of St. John’s University.

The Bible, which involved significant contributions from Minnesotans, can be viewed year-round both in person and digitally.

Maura says: Calligraphy is seen first and read second. When you experience the words in the Bible that have been rendered in a visually and aesthetically beautiful way, it elevates the entire experience.

— Maura Lynch

Hutchinson-based potter Betsy Price recommends the Edge of the Big Woods Art Wander in Carver County. The self-guided studio tour runs through a wooded landscape that gives the region its name, and features over 40 artists, including potters, jewelers, painters, woodworkers and more. Visitors can explore studios, watch live demos, and connect with artists.

The event runs Friday through Sunday, with stops including the Mocha Monkey where there will be a pottery demo by “Jon the Potter.”

Betsy says: It feels like a true wander through art and nature.

— Betsy Price

Minneapolis arts advocate Becky Smith shares her admiration for “Kinship,” a show at Form + Content Gallery that pairs Chris Cinque’s life-size charcoal portraits of friends from her lesbian and nonbinary community with expressive ceramic vessels by Sharon Jaffe, a radical Jewish feminist artist.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 4 in the North Loop of Minneapolis.

Becky says: They're celebratory, and they also serve as a real documentation towards resistance and survival of people who are experiencing an oppressed sexual identity.

— Becky Smith

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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Anita Chikkatur of Minneapolis is an educator and theater enthusiast. She’s excited for Theater Mu’s production of “Maybe You Could Love Me,” a new play by Samah Meghjee.

The story follows the evolving friendship between two queer Muslim women across three stages of life — childhood, adolescence and adulthood — all portrayed by the same pair of actors. Directed by Katie Bradley, the play opens Theater Mu’s 2025–26 season.

“Maybe You Could Love Me” runs through Sept. 28 at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, with previews beginning today.

Anita says: One of the things that I love about Theatre Mu is that it showcases the very diverse experiences of the Asian American communities in the United States

We need to kind of understand how diverse Asian Americans are across sort of cultures, nationalities, religion, sexuality, immigration status and so on.

— Anita Chikkatur

Children’s book author Peter Pearson of Minneapolis is looking forward to the Minnesota Children’s Book Festival at the Anderson Center in Red Wing.

The event gathers a wide range of Minnesota writers and illustrators to speak, sign books, and lead activities for children and families. Attendees can explore the estate's Art Barn, sculpture garden, and grounds.

The events has a strong lineup this year, including Art Coulson, Justice Alan Page, Cristina Oxtra, Chris Monroe, Pete Hautman and Molly Beth Griffin.

The Minnesota Children’s Book Festival takes place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Anderson Center in Red Wing.

Peter says: It’s just really wonderful. They have a really good lineup this year.

Just a lot of really good folks, picture book all the way up to YA stuff. So there’s really something for everyone.

— Peter Pearson

Ken Simurdiak of Rochester recalls the first time he and his wife stumbled upon Porchfest, a grassroots neighborhood music event in the Kutzky Park area.

Local bands perform on porches across the neighborhood while audiences stroll, bike, or bring lawn chairs to enjoy the performances. With four bands playing each hour, attendees can hear a wide variety of styles, including blues, rock and folk.

Porchfest takes place Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Rochester’s Kutzky Park neighborhood.

Ken remembers: Every hour, four bands would play, all located at different houses. And so we walked around looking for music that we liked, and there’s a variety, everything from blues to rock to folk.

And after that, we were hooked, and we have been attending ever since

— Ken Simurdiak

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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Eric Klepinger, an artist north of Duluth, recommends checking out the monthly artists’ shows and the artist-in-residence work at Tettegouche State Park.

Featured in August is prolific Ojibwe artist Sam Zimmerman of Duluth, whose work will be on view until September. His boldly colored work often features animal forms, and Klepinger says these works were inspired by animals he saw at Tettegouche.

Zimmerman is also, separately, the Artist-in-Residence at Tettegouche. For this role, he created seven signs, printed on weather-proof aluminum, about the seven Grandfather Teachings of the Ojibwe, which will be installed next spring at the Nature Play Area.

See all the artists at Artists-in-Residence programs at State Parks across the state here.

Watercolor artist and naturalist Chris Dillon is the featured artist next month, and there will be an artist’s reception for her Sept. 5. in the Tettegouche Visitor Center starting at 7 p.m.

Sandra Brick, a teaching artist at the Textile Center, appreciates Hend Al-Mansour's exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “Mihrabs: Portraits of Arab American Women” is an immersive exhibit of four installations of brightly colored, silk-screened fabric, which are paired with a short animation.

Brick appreciates that visitors enter each pillar to experience the objects, sights, and sounds of the lives of four Minnesota women whose heritages trace to Syria, Morocco, Palestine and Saudi Arabia. “You feel like you’re visiting these women,” Brick says.

There is an artist talk on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 2 p.m. The exhibit runs through Oct. 26.

Actor Kenzi Allen of St. Paul is looking forward to seeing “The Mother: A Punk Rock Musical” next weekend, Sept. 4-7, at Sokol Hall in St. Paul.

Inspired by Maxim Gorky’s novel, the show is a collaboration between Luverne Seifert and Darcey Engen of Sod House Theater and Carl Flink of Black Label Movement, featuring music by Annie Enneking of Annie and the Bang Bang.

Allen, who was involved in an early workshop of the show last year, is excited by the way it brings acting, dance and music together.

“I think I personally crave a whole lot more work that has this kind of overlap and interdisciplinary focus. So I hope this show kind of shows how much fun and how much vibrancy each of us artists have to give to each other's disciplines,” Allen says.

“The show is about a mother and a son who are living in poverty in Russia, and the son gets involved in what becomes the Bolshevik Revolution. The story follows how the mother is also brought into that whole uprising.

“I think now is a good time to be telling this story, because we're looking back at history in this time and seeing what has happened in the past and kind of reflecting on have we moved past this, or is it possible for things like this to happen again? The show is being performed in St. Paul, and St. Paul has such a rich, rich history of union workers coming together and fighting against oppression.”

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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Morgan Kempton of Minneapolis, who works in education at Hennepin Arts, is a fan of the Creative Activities building at the Minnesota State Fair, which runs through Labor Day.

While many flock to the rides or concerts, Kempton is drawn to the detailed displays of baked goods:

Morgan: It’s just interesting to see how many different types of pies people can make, and all the designs on the top of the pies can always be so unique and interesting to see.

— Morgan Kempton

Janet Kilsdonk of Hopkins recommends “… good dog …” an exhibition of wood carvings by artist Fred Cogelow at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The show runs through Sept. 6.

She was captivated by the lifelike quality of the work:

Janet says: It actually makes you step back and feel like you’ve stepped into a drawing when it's actually a wood carving.

— Janet Kilsdonk

Courtney Mault of Minneapolis is looking forward to the Spiralia World’s Clay Critter Workshop, led by artist Ricky at Odd Mart in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Participants are invited to bring their own stuffed animals and create colorful masks for them using a variety of materials:

Courtney: You’ll be able to totally change the personality of your stuffed animal.

— Courtney Mault

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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Luke Fanning of northeast Minneapolis has his eye on Zach Christensen of Jackdonkey Productions, whose staging of “Henry V” is now at Theatre in the Round.

Fanning says Christensen has “an uncanny knack for taking something that might be a little bit old and dusty and shaking it up and making it new and fun.”

This production promises music, movement and “weird vibes” while still exploring the play’s central themes of war, power and their effects on people. “Henry V” runs through Aug. 18.

Luke says: I know I can trust Jackdonkey to add music, movement, weird vibes in a way that I’m gonna lean in instead of zone out.

— Luke Fanning

Minneapolis visual artist Carolyn Halliday has followed Tim Harding’s textile work for decades, but his new series “Double Vision” is something entirely different.

Harding prints his own photographs on polyester, reprints them at a different scale on organza, then layers, gathers and stitches the fabrics to create a stereopticon-like effect.

The result, Halliday says, “moves and shimmers and distorts the view.” The show is on view at Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis through Aug. 30.

Carolyn says: It’s really dramatic.

— Carolyn Halliday

Justin Lucero, artistic director of Theatre Latté Da, says the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd is preparing its largest-ever orchestra for an ambitious weekend.

The festival will present an orchestral program featuring music from “The Lord of the Rings,” a new work by French composer Camille Pépin, and “The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure,” a 70-minute distillation of Wagner’s epic 15-hour cycle.

More than 100 musicians will perform on the Gichi-ziibi stage Aug. 16 and 17.

Justin says: It’ll be the largest ever orchestra that has been involved with the Lakes Area Music Festival.

— Justin Lucero

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

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

The Minnesota Fringe Festival continues through Sunday, Aug. 10, with nearly 100 shows presented in 90-minute intervals at theaters around the Twin Cities.

Phillip Schramm, an improviser and theater maker in Minneapolis, particularly recommends seeing “Clown Funeral” at Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis, Saturday at 1 p.m. The show is billed as appropriate for ages 12–15 and up.

“The funeral is about Bongo, a clown that has passed away, and there are four other clowns that are there to kind of honor his memory, and it goes the way you would think,” Schramm says.

“It's a clown show. So there are bits of physical comedy, of just them assembling the coffin. There's word play. There's one clown that really only speaks through art. Everything you would want in a clowning show is in ‘Clown Funeral.’”

One delightful touch, Schramm says, is red clown noses at the entry that audience members can take and wear. Because the theater is in the round, you can see the audience members wearing red clown noses throughout the show.

Suzie Marty, gallery curator of Everett & Charlie in Minneapolis, recommends “2°C,” a joint exhibit by painters Drevis Hager of Minneapolis and Mark Granlund of Red Wing that focuses on climate change. The exhibit runs through Saturday, Aug. 9 at the Hamilton Gallery in Minneapolis.

Marty called the paintings moving and beautiful, even as they drive home the seriousness of climate change. She pointed toward Granlund’s paintings with unusual materials, including tar, and his surprising pairings, such as a series of portraits of CEOs of oil companies overlaid on landscape paintings.

Hager paints representational landscapes as well as abstracts that invoke wildfires and melting ice caps, as in the darkly humored title “Oh Oh, There Goes Greenland.”

Choral singer Beth Gusenius of Minneapolis caught a preview performance of Mixed Precipitation’s summer outdoor opera, this year an adaptation of Mozart’s “1781 Idomeneo, re di Creta (King of Crete).”

This abridged version, first staged by the company in 2012, is called “The Return of King Idomeneo.” It blends Mozart’s arias with other musical styles, including doo-wop.

Next week, performances will be in Ely (Wed., Aug. 13), Hovland (Aug. 15), Grand Marais (Aug. 16), and Finland (Aug. 17). The run continues through Sept. 14 at outdoor locations across the state. It is free and open to all ages, with a suggested donation.

“It's a really fun performance. I think it's one of those that's going to convert people who wouldn't necessarily otherwise go to the opera. They do such an amazing job bringing the story to life,” Gusenius says.