Inspiration from a feather from the sky
NEW ULM — For New Ulm painter Mark Krambeer, inspiration fell out of the sky. “I was walking down the back sidewalk and I picked these two feathers up,” he said. “Sometimes you get an intuition. Something tells you to do something, and that was the deal. I picked them up, brought ...
Cutting through the noise of media voices
When the world wide web of the internet was beginning to expand in the mid-1990s, many people grasped onto the idea of how it could be used to spread information and misinformation as the case could be. Remember email chain letters? Just forward it to 10 people to get your wish! Or perhaps someone shared with you an urban legend once spread only in gossip columns but now able to spread even faster. Just look up the origins of eating spiders in your sleep or the Pacific Tree Octopus. Things like these are still around by constantly reinventing the method of their delivery even though the ...
Snail shells have captured artists’ minds for years
Snails have a lot of negative associations. Their slow movement makes them a symbol of laziness and inefficiency. They are garden pests, eating plants and oozing slime. And yet they often appear in decorative arts, like this miniature brass figure that sold for $51 at an auction by The Benefit Shop Foundations. Its shell is decorated with colorful glass “jewels,” a popular adornment on brass in the Victorian era. The beauty and geometry of snail shells has captured artists’ minds for thousands of years. The image of the “lazy” snail is often reinterpreted to have themes of ...
Hand-crafting greeting cards ‘a good pastime’
Lois Schorn has moved around a lot over the past 23 years, from Minnesota to Arkansas to Arizona and back to Minnesota. Throughout that time, however, one thing has remained consistent. Since 2001, Schorn has been hand-crafting greeting cards for others to enjoy. The 87-year-old Schorn cuts, ...
Refinishing old furniture is nothing new
It’s a current trend to buy inexpensive old furniture and paint, decorate or otherwise alter it into something new. Some people may see this as disrespectful to history, but it’s a practice that has been going on for hundreds of years. After all, access to mass-produced “fast furniture” is a recent development; historically, everyday items like furniture and clothing were made to last, handed down for generations and altered to suit changing fashions. Furniture of the Victorian era (about 1830-1900) came in many styles, all of which were elaborately decorated. Sometimes, ...