All Tours & Parties are available at an additional cost. Click here to register for any of the following. All tours are based on a minimum and maximum number of participants and may be cancelled if minimum is not met.
| Register by | Jun. 30 | Oct. 15 | |
| Thursday Craft Tours 1A/1B (Select one) | $30 | $40 | |
| Friday Evening Craft Tours | $35 | $45 | |
| Sunday Craft Tours 2A/2B (Select one) | $50 | $60 | |
| Party Pass (Closing Night party) | $40 | $50 |
Thursday Minneapolis Craft Tours
Thursday tours run concurrently. You may select only ONE.
All stops on these tours are in or near downtown Minneapolis for convenient return to the hotel for kickoff event Thursday evening.
Thursday, October 15 - Afternoon Tour 1A
(Departing hotel at 1:00 p.m.) :
The Minnesota Center for Book Arts/Walker Art Center/Waterbury Collection
Tour Guide: LIN NELSON-MAYSON, Director Goldstein Museum of Design
1) Minnesota Center for Book Arts/Open Book
Established in 1983, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts is the largest and most comprehensive center of its kind in the United States. From the traditional crafts of papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding to experimental artmaking and self-publishing techniques, MCBA supports the creative evolution of book arts. The facilities include studios for letterpress printing, hand bookbinding and papermaking; an exhibition space, a studio shop, an archive and reference library, and offices. In the spring of 2000, the center, the Loft Literary Center and Milkweed Editions will become the principal tenants in the Open Book Building, creating a lively destination for a diverse public interested in books, book arts and literary endeavors of all kinds.
2) Walker Art Center
Formally established in 1927, the Walker Art Center began to focus on modern art in the 1940s. Today, the Walker is recognized internationally as a singular model of a multidisciplinary arts organization and as a national leader for its innovative approaches to audience engagement. Opened in April 2005, the new Walker Art Center, nearly double in size, includes increased indoor and outdoor facilities. Adjacent to the Walker is the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, one of the nation’s largest urban sculpture parks. The garden’s centerpiece and most popular work is Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985-88), which has become a beloved symbol of the Twin Cities. The garden has demonstrated extraordinary appeal in the community and is a vital force for bringing new visitors inside the Walker and building new audiences for contemporary art.
3) Ruth and David Waterbury Collection of Wood Art
Ruth and David Waterbury’s extensive collection of wood art came about almost by accident, starting with a Norfolk Island Pine piece they purchased in 1984. They became drawn into the world of turned wood, enjoying the art as much as getting to know makers and fellow collectors while supporting the growth of the field. As Ruth Waterbury, says, “Most of our pieces were made by people we know, and many who have become good friends hail from England, Wales, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Europe in addition to the U.S.” Among the premier collections of wood art in the U.S., the collection reflects the evolution of the field from exquisitely turned bowls to pieces conceived around irregularities in the material and works that explore imaginative ways to manipulate the medium.
Thursday, October 15 - Afternoon Tour 1B
(Departing hotel at 1:30 p.m.) :
The High Point Center/Minneapolis Institute of Arts/Chester Collection
Tour Guide: EMILY GALUSHA, Director, Northern Clay Center
1) Highpoint Center for Printmaking
Highpoint Center for Printmaking is dedicated to advancing the art of printmaking. Its goals are to provide educational programs, community access, and collaborative publishing opportunities to engage the public and increase the appreciation and understanding of the printmaking arts. Highpoint provides the following opportunities: educational programming and community programs; a printshop cooperative that provides access for local artists to create and show their work in a workshop environment; a visiting artist program; and a gallery.
2) Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a free public museum that houses more than 80,000 works representing more than 5,000 years of world art and culture. Founded in 1883 as the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, the MIA opened its doors in 1915 in a building designed by the New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. The first addition to the building-a new wing to house an auditorium-was constructed in 1926. Beginning in 1970, Japanese architect Kenzo Tange enlarged the existing buildings. Two smaller expansions were undertaken in the 1990s, which included a new central storage site. In 2006, the MIA opened a major expansion designed by Michael Graves & Associates that included a new 113,000-square-foot wing to house its craft and modernism collections. The MIA also operates the 1913 Purcell-Cutts House, a classic example of Prairie School architecture, which is open for public tours on designated weekends. Associate curator Jennifer Komar Olivarez will lead a tour of portions of the MIA’s craft, decorative arts and modernism collections currently on display in the striking new Graves-designed Target Wing. Highlights include the Jack Lenor Larsen textile collection and the Frankfurt Kitchen.
3) Chester Private Collection
The collection of Sheldon and Lili Chester is wide-ranging, from paintings to sculpture to contemporary craft to ethnographic objects and antiques. Their particular interests are in contemporary craft, especially ceramics, both utilitarian and sculptural, and sculpture created by contemporary Maori and Native American artists, including the Inuit.
Friday Evening Craft Tour and Reception
On this evening open house tour, participants are treated to two of the Twin Cities’ exciting arts spaces, the Northern Clay Center and the Northrop King Building.
Participants will spend time at each facility, having a chance to see the artists’ studios and to speak with the makers in person.
Light refreshments will be served at each location.
Buses will depart from the hotel to each of the destinations and will then transport participants from one location to the next allowing an hour at each destination.
Northern Clay Center
At the Northern Clay Center, a facility dedicated to the advancement of the ceramic arts, ongoing programs include exhibitions of contemporary pots and sculpture, as well as historic, architectural, and ethnographic ceramics; classes and workshops for children and adults at all ages and levels of proficiency; studio facilities and grants for individual artists; and a sales gallery representing many of the top ceramic artists in the region and country. Tour participants will have the opportunity to view the facility on guided and unguided tours, to visit and see work in the artists’ studios, and to observe classes in session. The Sales Gallery will also be open, showing the eminently affordable pots by potters from across the region and country.
Two exhibitions on view at Northern Clay Center provide the backdrop for the evening:
- Gallery M features the 2009 Regis Masters Exhibition: Ron Meyers and Patti Warashina. Meyers was the 2008 Regis Master and Warashina the 2009, the 22nd and 23rd honorees, respectively. The Regis Masters Series, honors senior artists who have had a major impact on the development 20th and 21st ceramics, and adds to the scarce store of oral histories of a senior generation of ceramic artists
- Gallery A features the exhibition College Bowl II/09, featuring work by faculty of colleges and universities in Minnesota that grant degrees in ceramics. Also on view will be selected work by students nominated by the faculty participants.
Northrup King Building
Located in Northeast Minneapolis, the heart of the Minneapolis art scene, the Northrup King Building is home to over 190 tenants including a creative center to over 170 artists and various small business and nonprofit organizations.
This amazing building is actually a complex of 10 buildings first constructed in 1917. Originally built for and occupied by the Northrup King & Co. seed company, its location adjoining two sets of railroad tracks made it the ideal place to ship seeds across the United States.
Participants on this leg of the tour, will have the opportunity to visit a multitude of artist studio spaces of all media from sculpture and metal work to beading, textiles, ceramics, photography, and printmaking (among others).
Sunday Minneapolis Craft Tours & Brunch at the Grand Hand Gallery
All guests on the Sunday Minneapolis Craft Tours will begin with a Champagne Brunch at the Grand Hand Gallery with featured artists Warren & Nancy MacKenzie, Kinji Akagawa and his wife, Nancy Gipple from 9-11:00 a.m. Following the Champagne Brunch, tours run concurrently. You may select only ONE.
Note: Both tours will stop at the airport at 4:00 p.m. before concluding at the hotel. It will be easy for you to exit the tour at either of the last two stops to catch a taxi to the airport if you have an earlier flight.
Champagne Brunch at The Grand Hand Gallery
In its show entitled “Two By Two,” The Grand Hand Gallery will be featuring the work of two couples-four friends who are among the most influential contemporary craft artists in Minnesota today: Warren MacKenzie (clay) and his wife, Nancy MacKenzie (fiber), Kinji Akagawa (sculpture) and his wife, Nancy Gipple (fiber).
Join gallery owner ANN RUHR PIFER for a private champagne brunch with our featured artists, who will discuss their work in the context of the evolution of the vibrant art and craft environment that exists in Minnesota today.
Sunday, October 18 - Tour 2A:
The Harding Design Studio/Dick Huss Glass Studio/Minnesota Historical Society
Tour Guide: MARCIA G. ANDERSON, Senior Curator, Minnesota Historical Society
1) Tim and Kathleen Harding - Harding Design Studio
Studio visit and talk by artists - work will be available for sale.
Tim Harding, a nationally and internationally recognized fiber artist, creates pieced silk wall hangings and, with his wife, Kathleen, wearable art in silk and cotton. Harding uses a technique that he describes as free reverse appliqué to create the illusion of three dimensional space on the picture plane. Repeating linear grids and wave patterns, he explores the relationship of texture to graphics.
Tim Harding’s work is included in numerous museum and corporate collections, including those of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum, National Design Museum; Museum of Art sand Design, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; International Folk and Craft Art Museum; Racine Art Museum; U.S.Embassy - Bangkok; and Nokia, among others.
2) Dick Huss Glass Studio and Gallery, St. Paul
Studio visit, artist talk and glass blowing demonstration - work will be available for sale.
Dick Huss is a full-time glass artist who has served on the faculties of the Penland School in Penland, NC, and the University of Minnesota. From his 4,000 square foot studio on the edge of downtown St. Paul, Dick creates Venetian-style vessels, frequently incorporating gold and silver leaf, as well as large-scale custom installation pieces for institutions and individuals. Dick’s work is included in many collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the St. Louis Art Museum.
3) Minnesota Historical Society / Minnesota History Center
Tour of selected highlights from the permanent craft collection by the curator of the collection, Marcia G. Anderson. The Minnesota Historical Society is chief caretaker of Minnesota’s story-and the History Center is home to the society’s vast collections. One of the largest historical societies in the country, its archives comprise some 250,000 historical objects and over 1,250,000 archaeological objects. Over 40,000 collection pieces are displayed at 26 historic sites open to the public. All of it is accessible today and for future generations.
Sunday, October 18 - Tour 2B:
Will Swanson and Janel Jacobsen Studio/Textile Center/Goldstein Design Museum
Tour Guide: JENNIFER KOMAR OLIVAREZ, Associate Curator, Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
1) Will Swanson, Janel Jacobson Studio visit and talk by artists.
Work available for sale. Husband and wife artists Will Swanson and Janel Jacobson share studio space on their rural property near the Sunrise River, approximately 40 miles north of the Twin Cities. Swanson is a studio potter, known for functional work of elegant simplicity. Jacobsen is a woodcarver specializing in netsuke, an art form originating in Japan. Carved from wood, and often inlaid with other materials such as stag antler, amber and fossil ivory, Jacobson’s netsuke are included in numerous public and private collections, including those of the Minnesota Historical Society, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Institution, and the Brooklyn Museum. Her numerous awards including top prizes at he Smithsonian Craft Show, CraftBoston,and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. In 2008, she was awarded the Bush Foundation’s new Enduring Vision Award, a $100,000 grant to established artists to encourage their continued influence in their chosen field and on present and future generations of artists and audiences.
2) Textile Center
Textile Center is a national venue that represents and supports artists working in all forms of fiber art. Through exhibitions, education programs and textile arts resources, the center promotes fiber art as a living art form rooted in every culture; supports the creative development of fiber artists; and sustains the textile art community. The Textile Center’s facility features a gallery and shop, flexible 300-seat auditorium, classroom space, textile library, dye lab and office space. The anchor tenants are the Weavers Guild of Minnesota and Minnesota Quilters. The center is the first facility in Minnesota that represents all fiber art forms and it is the only center in the United States formed by a coalition within the textile community.
3) Goldstein Museum of Design
The Goldstein Museum of Design, part of the University of Minnesota, presents exhibitions in McNeal and Rapson Halls that explore designers and the design process. The museum’s unique collection of apparel, decorative arts, graphic design, furniture, and textiles is studied by students, faculty and international designers and scholars.
Museum director Lin Nelson-Mayson will lead a tour of the current exhibit “Intersections: Where Art and Fashion Meet,” which pairs works of art with designer fashion to celebrate the relationship between contemporary art, fashion, and popular culture.
Closing Night Party
Saturday, October 17, 7:00 - 9:30pm
Downtown Minneapolis Radisson Hotel
Join us for this final, fun-filled evening of socializing, networking, and celebration. The Closing Night Party will take place at the conference hotel and feature the music of San Francisco Bay Area jazz and American blues musician, Johnny Smith. The Closing Night Party is included in all Full Registrations. Extra passes are available to Day Pass attendees and spouses/significant others of conference attendees.
