Current Exhibit:

Ingrid Restemayer
BFA - University of North Dakota, 1996

Originally from North Dakota, Ingrid studied fiber arts & print making. Her works are influenced by familial generations of craftsmen, reflecting traditional embroidery techniques while incorporating process-intensive fine art mediums through collage.

Ingrid's works are stitched by hand, using needle and thread – not by machine.  In this age of instant electronic communication and getting anything instantly via internet downloads to your mobile phone.  Sustainable tactics in art creation, things made by the human hand often have the power to promote further human interaction. 

Ingrid's work reminds society that non-mechanized art and imagery is still achievable and experiential.  Learn more about Ingrid Restemayer and her work.

Previously Featured Artist:

Water is Life

5th Annual Art Contest Winners

The Freshwater Society's 'Water is Life' Program encourages senior high school students from across MN to express their views of water with art. The Freshwater Society, in collaboration with Minnesota's educational cooperative service units, sponsors the contest as part of an on-going effort to educate youth of the importance of protecting and sustaining freshwater resources.
Photo of Anna Carlsen's winning entry,
Kasson-Mantorville High School.

Learn more about the Freshwater Society's
Water is Life Art Contest

Margaret T. Gill

BA, BFA – University of Minnesota, 2005

Margaret's work depicts the experience of being within a landscape, specifically focusing on terrain that has been manipulated by human interaction - inviting and encouraging, the ecological message encompassed within her chosen subject matter.

“I commonly incorporate odd details, text, or ephemera, which are often inspired from the place or experience that I am trying to represent. ... The applications I’ve experimented with have become the resource with which I am able to convey the visual emotion of a landscape”. Learn more about Margaret T. Gill and her work.

Margaret Carroll

BFA, MFA – Illinois Institute of Arts, 1975

Raised in Chicago, Margaret lives in Minneapolis and spends time painting at her cabin on the Gunflint Trail. For Margaret, painting is both a creative and spiritual act that is fueled by nature – rocks, trees, water, and sky.

“I paint the wilderness because it is alive and completely untamed. To me, The Boundary Waters area is pure living soul. I am fascinated by the cycle of death and rebirth in nature. Creativity, like spirituality is a mystery. You can't box it or define it by its very nature”. Learn more about Margaret Carroll and her work.

Joel Starkey

MFA - Kansas State Univ.

Raised in Wisconsin and now based in Minneapolis, Joel Starkey exhibits throughout the Twin Cities and is a member of the Rosalux Gallery.  His work explores how identity can be shaped through external and internal forces: location, personality, interests, goals, gender, dreams, etc.  He uses line and shape to bring together often contradictory imagery in to one cohesive whole."
Learn more about Joel Starkey and his work.

Ray Becoskie

Traditional self-taught painter

Born and raised in Wisconsin - and after brief relationship with New Jersey, Ray somehow ended up in Minnesota. He started painting in 1986, using it as an alternative to study hall and found a new way to explore what he considers in life, to be little gems - contradictions, conundrums, and dysfunction. "With the diabolical nature of symbolism and maddening variables of spatial construction I strive to create a narrative to convey these little gems." Learn more about Ray Becoskie and his work.

Chillon Leach

BA - Univ. of Minnesota, 1983

Raised in Benson, MN Chillon lives in St. Paul where her current focus is on religious and liturgical art, as well as secular mixed media paintings. Chillon’s “Swift County Landscapes: Prairie Soul Remembered” depicts the changing atmospheric conditions and seasons over fields, roads, sloughs, lakes, and rivers of Swift County in rural Minnesota. Reflecting the ‘soul’ of the prairie, as well as and her attachment to environment in which she was raised. Learn more about Chillon Leach and her work.

Michael Schmidt

BA – Univ. of Toronto, Canada

Raised in Canada, Michael lives in St. Paul and works as a fine artist, scenic painter, and illustrator. Represented in collections throughout the U.S and Canada, Michael’s paintings focuses on “the beauty and variety of everyday life” which are the constant sources of inspiration for his paintings. “Common household objects, the urban and natural landscape, and the people I encounter provide endless ideas for color, form, and composition.” Learn more about Michael Schmidt and his work.

Caitlin Karolczak

BA, BFA – Univ. of Minnesota, 2005

Raised on Minnesota’s Iron Range, Caitlin lives in Minneapolis where she works as an artist and gallery owner. Caitlin’s work often explores the fragility of the human body and mind. “I am attracted to the way early photographers blur the line between artistic portraiture and medical illustration. ... My attraction to early medical and memorial imagery reflects a desire for my work to mirror these sentiments of beauty and distress, but at the same time take them a step further in a way that photography cannot”. Learn more about Caitlin Karolczak and her work.

Teri Bloch

BFA – Univ. of Minnesota, 1998

Raised in St. Paul, Teri's paintings explores how the dialogue between space, color, form and line communicate perceptions that are often influenced by an internal dynamic. By concentrating on the simplification of form, an abbreviated and abstracted rendering of space and on the relationship of the formal elements, Teri creates distilled images that trigger something universal in the mind of the viewer - leaving enough ambiguity in the hopes of unlocking a deeper sense of reality. Learn more about Teri Bloch and her work.

Ruth Donhowe

BFA – Univ. of Minnesota, 1954

After decades of traveling abroad, Ruth has returned to MN and now lives in St. Paul. Ruth’s work often reflects Norway (her parent’s homeland) and Lake Superior where her family had summered. “I have always felt a strong connection to the land, and in the studio endeavor to capture the spirit of place in pigment and brush stroke. Out of chaos comes form – order out of disorder –harmony out of discord – and sometimes, discord out of harmony.  I feel drawn to the land, sea and sky as a state of endless change from which no thing and no one ever escapes”. Ruth’s studio is located in the Dow Building at Raymond + Hampden Ave. in St. Paul.