NEW ULM — The Grand Center for Arts and Culture announce an artist residency program for fall 2021 through spring 2022. In 2020, The Grand received a bequest from the Estate of George Glotzbach, a lover of the arts in New Ulm, and an additional gift from Sharon Glotzbach. The Grand designated these donations to be used as seed money to begin our artist-in-residence program in Cellar Press. A call for residency artists went out late spring and a committee of board members and others reviewed all of the applications, selecting four local and regional printmaking and letterpress artists to participate. Each artist will live and work at The Grand for a two- to three-week period, and each residency will have a community component in order that more people can experience these art forms.

The first artist, Rachel James of St. Peter, completed her stay on Sept. 10. Rachel used the new etching press and focused on doing experimental printing on materials that usually end up being single use. Rachel will show her work to the public and do a demonstration of the etching press on Oct. 9, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. From 1 to 4 p.m. Rachel will hold a monoprinting class for registered community members. Please register on The Grand’s website.

The second artist, Monica Ihrke, is from Duluth and will be resident artist Nov. 20-Dec. 4. Monica is a runner and artist and will focus her residency on creating relief linocuts capturing the views she sees around St. Louis County on her runs.

Artist Bradley Hall, will be in residence Jan. 10-28 to work on creating large format block prints and other prints. He comes from Granite Falls and has participated in The Meander Art Crawl for over 15 years.

The final artist, Sarah Evenson, who is based in Minneapolis, will join April 10-30. Sarah is a queer, transgender interdisciplinary printmaker/zinemaker/bookmaker/writer. During Sarah’s residency, she proposes to create 100 letterpress printed zines on the subject of queer empowerment and community and distribute them to willing local locations.

The Grand encourages the community to participate in the classes and workshops that will be led by artists.