Monica Rudquist Throws and Assembles Porcelain to Make Both Functional and Sculptural Pieces

By Sharon Parker

Monica Rudquist is a potter and sculptor working in porcelain to make functional pieces and also sculptural works formed by cutting and assembling objects originally shaped on the wheel.

She is returning for her second LoLa art crawl and will be showing her work in her home, 3101 36th Ave. S., on her front porch. (Site no. 19 on the art crawl map. Pick up a map this evening at the Longfellow Corn Feed, or look for them at area businesses. Click here for a printable alphabetical list of all artists with their site numbers.)

Please tell us more about your process.

I work with clay. Specifically I work with porcelain on a potter's wheel.The potter’s wheel has captivated me as a tool ever since I learned how to throw. The wide variety of ways to form a simple bowl or cylinder has always amazed me. I use porcelain because of its fluidity and responsiveness. 

My bowls and cylinders retain the movement of my hands even as they become building blocks for larger pieces. My love of the wheel has led me to use the thrown form as a starting point for both my functional and sculptural work.  The process of cutting and assembling these thrown pieces allows me to continue the dialogue with the clay and the wheel. This process spurs more questions and responses to the developing forms by creating new juxtapositions in surprising places.

What inspires/informs your art?

I strive to create work that explores the space between function and sculpture, while remaining connected to the tradition of the wheel.

What do you like about LoLa? Why did you join?

Longfellow is a great neighborhood and is the home of many  artists. I like the fact that LoLa does not jury the artists who want to participate. LoLa offers an opportunity to see a wide variety of work created here in our own neighborhood. I joined LoLa because I live and work in this neighborhood.

Are you doing anything special for the art crawl?

We are planning on having refreshments and lots of great conversation!

Monica’s functional work can be found at Northern Clay Center, the Guthrie Shop, the Weisman Museum Shop and the Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul. She also has an installation as part of Made Here MN in a storefront in City Center, downtown Minneapolis. An upcoming exhibition, Constructed Visions, is scheduled for next winter at the Katherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University.

See more of her work at Monica Rudquist’s website. 

Molly Keenan Creates Storybook Collages

By Sharon Parker

Molly Keenan is a collage artist working under the moniker Retro Futures Designs. Her compositions often begin with images from vintage children’s books and convey messages with thought-provoking overtones. In her Etsy shop, she describes her work as: “Vintage storybook collage. Speculative cultural commentary. Feminist. Geeky. One of a kind.”

Returning for her second LoLa art crawl, Molly will be showing at Blue Moon Coffee Cafe, 39th Avenue and East Lake Street, where she is the featured artist for the month of August. “We'll take over the back third of the cafe for the two days of the LoLa Art Crawl,” she says. 

Sharing the space with Molly is stained-glass mosaic artist Lisa Arnold, aka Xola Arts, who was profiled earlier on this blog. Lisa’s work will be showing in the windows, and she’ll also be set up on the sidewalk outside the cafe. “It's a great symbiotic relationship,” says Molly. “We're excited to be sharing the experience with Lisa."

What media do you work in?

I am a collage artist. Most of the material I collage with comes from vintage books. My work ranges from very small-scale (micro-collaged jewelry, often with vintage or repurposed beadwork) to large-scale (on large artboard, wood panels, and upcycled furniture). Many collages are mixed-media, with collage on top of a painted background.

A year ago I started experimenting with micro-collaged earrings and pendants, in metal bezels and covered with jeweler's-grade resin. With the micro-collages, I'm still trying to tell stories, like I do in larger-format work, so that people's jewelry will engage them in a certain mood, or connect them to a sense of something, or ground them in some part of their identity because they choose to wear these micro-collaged earrings about writing today, or this pendant that's part of a map of a place they've traveled.

I made one pair of earrings where one said "Yes" and the other said "No," and it became clear that that both/and feeling needed to be represented in jewelry. That pair of earrings spawned a whole subsection of the earrings I make now: Yes/No, On/Off, Awake/Asleep, Formal/Informal, and so on.

What inspires/informs your art?

I'm inspired a lot by the interplay between wildlife and human life, and by the relationship between the city and the natural world.

I have a very visceral, almost mythic reaction to certain scientists and writers and other kinds of heroes, which I think—I hope—comes across in the collages that I make about people like Rachel Carson and Rosalind Franklin.

I'm inspired by childhood—both my own and childhood in general—which goes a long way to explain why so much of my source material comes from vintage children's books.

A new series called "The Memory Keys" is the outcome of many years of therapy, recovering memories of early childhood and adolescent sexual trauma. It tells the story of recovery from trauma, not the story of the experience of trauma, so the intent is for the work to convey optimism, even if it's not as easy to take in as my work about birds and books and biologists.

What do you like about the Longfellow neighborhood?

I live in Cooper, just up the block from El Norteño, with my partner, Aaron, our kid, two dogs, and two cats. We love living on the cusp of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I grew up just a few miles due east of our home, so Ezra gets to grow up really close to her grandparents. And we're just a block from the Blue Moon, where Aaron and I first met. We love the proximity to the river, and all of the great walkable/bikeable resources in our neighborhood.

We have a special affinity for the Little Free Libraries that are thick on the ground in Longfellow. We regularly go on family bike rides that are specifically about hitting as many "LFLs" as we can find, donating books we no longer want, and collecting books for Ezra or for me to collage with. Sometimes we have to flip a coin to decide who gets a particular book, and for what purpose. Ezra has been known more than once to say, "No, Mama, don't cut that book up! I want to read it!"

photo by Julia Merle-Smith

Our favorite LFL, though, is the Little PoetryLibrary  right outside the Blue Moon. I was commissioned last fall to collage the exterior of the library. Seeing art that I created, right outside the cafe, makes me feel even more connected to my neighborhood.

Are you doing anything special for LoLa?

I will be offering Virtually Instantaneous, Personalized (VIP) Mini-Collages: You pick a word out of the dictionary, talk to me for a few minutes about your choice, then look around at the art and jewelry, or have a coffee, while I snip and glue.  Fifteen minutes and ten bucks later, you get to take home a piece of personalized art.

The Blue Moon will be providing sweet, sweet air conditioning as well as beverages and nosh.

Laurie Letofsky Takes Pictures with an Eye for Form and Pattern

By Sharon Parker

Laurie Letofsky is a photographer, painter, and seamstress whose home-based business, Lauren R. Myles Designs and Sewing, keeps her busy with custom orders and alterations. Amid all that, Laurie is also LoLa’s volunteer registrar and has assisted with other LoLa organizing tasks this year, including helping to match artists with suitable sites for the crawl.

She made the tailored LoLa table coverings for LoLa’s presence at events like the Longfellow Corn Feed in Longfellow Park this Thursday, August 14, and, on Saturday, August 16, at the Midtown Farmers’ Market and the new Longfellow Market grocery store (Lake Street at 35th Avenue)—where there will be art crawl maps available to pick up.

Laurie also works in watercolor, acrylics, and fiber. She is returning for her fifth LoLa art crawl, “and I have enjoyed each and every one of them,” she says. She is showing at her home studio in a convivial gathering with several other LoLa artists, in her shady backyard on Minnehaha Avenue, kitty-corner from Peace Coffee.

What inspires/informs your art?

Nature and texture

What do you like about LoLa? Why did you join?

I started because it was so easy and it gave me a reason to clean up my studio.

Apron with pockets

Are you planning anything special for LoLa?

We will be having all sorts of teas available for visitors, and a great story or visit.

Meg Erke Upcycles Books and Windows into Art for Your Walls and Musings

By Sharon Parker

LoLa artist Meg Erke repurposes a variety of materials to make journals and mixed media compositions. “I am a book artist and painter,” she says. 

“I use salvaged and repurposed materials as the foundation for both mediums, using old book covers from damaged or discarded books to rebind into journals."

I then use the insides of the old books as collage material in my paintings. I use old windows as my ‘canvas.’ collaging and layering paint on both sides of the glass. I studied book binding in the late ’90s and started painting only a few years before that; but only recently have I found a way to put both forms together.

What inspires/informs your art?

One of the things I love most about this neighborhood is our proximity to parks and trails. Hiking, biking, canoeing, and being outside inspire me.  

What do you like about LoLa? Why did you join?

I love our neighborhood!  When I explain to folks why they need to make time to do this art crawl (when there are so many things going on at the end of summer), I talk about the variety. Never have I been a part of an art crawl that has such a wide range of mediums, as well as personalities. 

My favorite thing about this crawl is that we have everyone from full-time professional artists to folks who build cool stuff in their basements in their free time, and everyone is included. 

Will you be doing anything special for LoLa?

Refreshments, coptic binding demos, and a drawing for a giclee print of one of my mixed media originals. 

Meg is returning for her fourth LoLa art crawl and will be showing at Flourish Pilates studio this year. 

Visit Meg’s Wordpress site, Upstairs Art, to see more pictures and learn about where to find (and buy) her artwork after LoLa.