Minnesota

‘Dreaming’ big: Minnesota exhibit explores connections and rich history of Indigenous painters

Published

2 years ago

February 1, 2024

‘Dreaming’ big: Minnesota exhibit explores connections and rich history of Indigenous painters

Historian Brenda J. Child stares at a buttery yellow sky framed by converging treelines reflected upon a lake. The scene is a painting by Duluth-based artist Jonathan Thunder and it’s called “On the Grave of the Giant.”

Below the sky’s glow is a couple harvesting wild rice from a canoe. On the lake bottom are the skeletal remains of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

The painting is on public view for the first time as part of the new exhibition “Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers” at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota.

Child, the Northrop Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies and former Chair of American Indian Studies, co-curated the exhibition with gallery director Howard Oransky.

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Small canvases by late Minnesota Ojibwe painter George Morrison.

Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News

It features paintings by 29 mid-century and contemporary Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Dakota and Lakota) artists from, or connected to, the region.

It is the inaugural exhibition of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts, an “interdepartmental study center to support the creation, presentation and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms.”

Child is the founder of the new center, which was sparked by the success of the 2016 Nash gallery exhibition that she curated, “Singing Our History: People and Places of the Red Lake Nation.”

Art piece with yellows — Untitled 1959 artwork by George Morrison on loan from the collection of the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Courtesy of George Morrison Estate

The center is named in honor of the internationally renowned abstract expressionist, a member of the Grand Portage Ojibwe from Minnesota, who died in 2000. Morrison also taught art at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s and 1980s.

“We tend to think in Minnesota, ‘Oh, George Morrison. He’s like a local guy who’s done well in the art world,’” Child says. “But he’s a very important figure in American abstract expressionism.”

Back in the gallery, Child is focused on that yellow sky. “What I really like about this work, and I wouldn’t have known this unless Jonathan had told me,” Child begins.

She pauses and walks to the opposite gallery wall, which features a string of paintings by the famous mid-century painter Patrick DesJarlait. Like Child and Thunder, DesJarlait was from the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota. DesJarlait is one of their heroes, she says.

Art piece02 — “Because I come from a family of fishermen and women -even my grandmother was a commercial fisherwoman- I’ve always loved his painting in the collection of the Minnesota Museum of Art called ‘Red Lake Fishermen,’” says curator Brenda J. Child. The 1946 watercolor painting is by Patrick DesJarlait of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe.
Courtesy of Minnesota Museum of American Art

In addition to paintings like “Red Lake Fisherman” (also on view), DesJarlait is also famous for his 1950s redesign of the Land O’Lakes maiden, adding an Ojibwe floral pattern to her attire.

“So Jonathan’s nod to Patrick is the bright butter yellow that he used in this painting,” Child says.

Over the phone from his Duluth studio, Thunder says Land O’Lakes discontinued DesJarlait’s design, and the maiden, in 2020, soon before he began working on the painting in 2021.

“With the yellow sky in that painting and the two points of land that come together, that’s obviously a nod to the Land O’Lakes butter box,” Thunder says. “From what I understand, the two points of land that come together, they can be seen in Red Lake where the upper and lower Red Lake kind of join.”

Art piece of woman standing with drawings — “Different Star Woman,” 2023, by Los Angeles-based Spirit Lake Dakota and Diné artist Avis Charley. Another work by Charley on view in the exhibition, the 2022 “Smile Now, Cry Later” is the first artwork by a Dakota artist purchased by the Minnesota Museum of Art.
Courtesy of Avis Charley

That year, Thunder had gone to see the Red Lake vista.

“It was like seeing a cartoon come to life or something,” Thunder says. “It’s very much a tribally significant image with or without the butter maiden.”

Thunder says the painting was also inspired by the time when he and his wife decided to learn how to harvest wild rice around Walker, Minn. In the painting, a pipeline takes the shape of a tentacle reaching into the canoe above the watery grave of Bunyan and Babe.

“At the time, the Line Three protests were happening across Minnesota and I was starting to see some of the division it was creating in the communities there,” Thunder explains. ”You see statues of Paul Bunyan kind of littered throughout the landscape, which is significant of a time when they were coming through clearing forests. Paul Bunyan was the noble face of that cause. In the wake of all that, it’s nice to see that people can still go out and rice and practice those traditional ways.”

Art piece01 — “Ultime Grida Dalla Savana,” a 2011 painting by Ojibwe artist Andrea Carlson on loan from the collection of the Plains Art Museum.
Courtesy of Andrea Carlson

Thunder says he’s excited to be placed in the gallery next to DesJarlait, an artist “I’ve seen my whole life.” He adds that, when he was growing up in the Twin Cities, he used to play basketball at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. It was there he discovered the 94-foot-long wood mural “Turning the Feather Around” that Morrison created in 1974 (and which was r ecently restored and reinstalled).

“That’s a huge development for the campus,” Thunder says of the new center.

“Dreaming Our Futures” is a web of these overt and covert dialogues and relationships between artworks, artists and generations.

Art piece — Oscar Howe “is a mid century artist, and he was kind of awesome in that he was moving in his own direction,” says curator Brenda J. Child. Pictured here is Howe’s 1975 painting “Creation of Weotanica” on loan from the collection of the University of South Dakota.
Courtesy of Oscar Howe Family

On view, of course, are the abstracted rainbow-colored canvases of Morrison himself, as well as the paintings of other blue chip artists such as Dyani White Hawk, Frank Big Bear, Jim Denomie, Oscar Howe and Andrea Carlson.

A woman paints — “I felt very privileged to be considered part of something like ‘Dreaming Our Futures,’ that big and centered around our artists and our worldview,” says Bismarck-based artist Holly Young.
Courtesy photo

“This exhibit shows the history of American Indian art, fine art, in the United States and where it’s been in the last half-century, especially with Howe, Morrison and DesJarlait,” Child explains.

“Dreaming Our Futures” acts as an important marker in time, too: Fifty years ago, Morrison, DesJarlait and Howe participated in an exhibition of contemporary Indian painting in Washington, D.C.

Child says that “Dreaming Our Futures” also shows how contemporary artists “have been very influenced by those foundational figures.”

A small watercolor painting — A watercolor painting on view by ledger artist Holly Young.
Courtesy photo

These include artists like Thunder and Dakota artist Holly Young, of Bismarck, N.D. Young uses the mediums of beadwork, quillwork, and ledger art, an art form that originated in cave and hide painting that has evolved to also use parchment and actual historical “ledger” documents as a canvas.

Young also created the illustration for the cover of “The Seed Keeper,” the 2021 novel by Minnesota Native writer Diane Wilson, the wife of Denomie. Denomie died in 2022. Wilson wrote an essay, “Jim Denomie at Home,” for the exhibition catalog.

Four of Young’s ledger-style watercolor paintings are on view, featuring Native women dressed in a combination of historical regalia and contemporary attire.

“A lot of what I draw is kind of based off of real life,” Young says. “I enjoy the look of the old things, but I’m also living in today’s world as a contemporary artist.”

Young is self-taught. Many of her artist influences — White Hawk, Bobby Wilson, Francis J. Yellow, Thomasina TopBear — have work on display in the same room.

A piece of art on a wall — “Lakhota Organizational Paradigm,” a 1994 piece by Francis J. Yellow, who died in August, facing Fern Cloud’s 2022 untitled buffalo hide painting.
Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News

The ledger art of Yellow, a Minneapolis-based Lakota artist who died in August, hangs right next to Young’s.

“He was also somebody that I looked up to as a ledger artist. His work was very emotional,” Young says. “I always wanted to meet him, and I’ve been in the Minnesota area over the years, but we never crossed paths.”

Flanking the other side of her paintings is a large spray-painted canvas by TopBear. In 2022, Young and TopBear painted a mural together in Young’s hometown of Fort Yates, S.D.

“I really gravitate towards Thomasina’s work,” Young says. “She does a lot of nature-inspired work: Flowers, the prairie and the plant helpers, as I call them, like insects and bugs, things that I really enjoy myself.”

In another room, three paintings by St. Paul figurative painter and muralist Steven Premo, of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, hang facing three surrealist and spiritual paintings by fellow Ojibwe artist Joe Geshick, who died in 2009.

Premo is the husband of Child, and was a good friend of Geshick, she says. Premo inherited Geshick’s easel, which Child says will be on display with a list of artists who have died in recent years. Another Minnesota Native author, Louise Erdrich, will be speaking about Geshick’s art at the gallery on Feb. 4.

“Each of these individuals takes their place in a lineage of Indigenous painters that stretches back centuries,” Oransky, the gallery director and curator writes in his essay, “A Vast Field of Feathers,” for the exhibition catalog. He also points to the Jeffers Petroglyphs, the 7,000-year-old sacred rock carvings Native people made in southwestern Minnesota.

“The exhibition of paintings, like all the exhibitions that came before it and will come after it, beautifully and forcefully demonstrates that the need for drawn and painted images is a universal need,” Oransky writes.

At the end of a gallery tour, Child pauses again, pondering the timing of the exhibition. The pandemic set back its original opening date years.

“We need to show American Indian art every year and all the time,” Child says. ”But thinking as I do, as a historian, I’ve been thinking about the anniversary of American Indian citizenship in the United States 100 years ago.”

President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act on June 2, 1924. Morrison, Howe and DesJarlait were all born years before they were legal citizens of the U.S.

They were working in a different era, Child says. “And that’s why I particularly wanted to include these figures like Oscar Howe, Patrick Desjarlait and George Morrison in the exhibit.”

Paintings in a gallery — The paintings of Minneapolis artist Steven Premo on the left wall and on the right those of late artist Joe Geshick.
Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News

There will be “Dreaming Our Futures: Art and American Indian Citizenship, 1924 – 2024” panel discussions Feb. 2 at the Regis Center for Art.

“Dreaming Our Futures” runs through March 16. The opening reception is Feb. 3 at the Regis Center for Art. Speakers include Child, Erdrich, Wilson, Minnesota Museum of Art executive director Kate Beane and Harvard professor Christopher Pexa.

On Feb. 15, Patricia Marroquin Norby, the inaugural associate curator of Native American art at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, will read her catalog essay “Painting Medicine: George Morrison’s Big Water Magic.”

On March 14, artist Fern Cloud will present “The Spirit of My People: Traditional Dakota Hide Painting.”

A woman poses for a photo in an art gallery — “This exhibit shows kind of the history of American Indian art, fine art, in the United States and where it’s been in the last half century,” says curator Brenda J. Child, pictured here with paintings by Joe Geshick and George Morrison. “But it also shows what’s going on in fine art today.”
Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News

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Minnesota

Byron Buxton Immediately Leaves Twins’ Home Opener After Getting Hit By Pitch

Published

25 minutes ago

April 3, 2026

Press Room

Byron Buxton Immediately Leaves Twins’ Home Opener After Getting Hit By Pitch

Twins star Byron Buxton immediately left Friday’s home opener after getting hit on the arm and then the ribs by a pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Byron Buxton got hit on the right arm by a 92 mph fastball, called for a trainer, and immediately left the game. pic.twitter.com/QEfGYEhXAn
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) April 3, 2026

Buxton tried to shake it off for a few seconds before quickly calling for a trainer, walking into the bullpen and then the clubhouse. He was replaced by James Outman as a pinch runner.

It was quickly announced that x-rays were negative, and Buxton suffered what the team called a right forearm contusion. It looked like it could’ve been much worse, based on initial reaction. The Twins seemingly avoided disaster with their best player’s health in their first home game of the season.

This is a developing story.

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Minnesota

Minnesota housing reform proponents remain hopeful for movement

Published

13 hours ago

April 3, 2026

Press Room

Minnesota housing reform proponents remain hopeful for movement

ST. PAUL — A bipartisan group of Minnesota lawmakers working on housing reform remains motivated and hopeful despite hitting another roadblock this session.

One of the major bills in the overall housing reform effort, the “Starter Home Act,” stalled in committee on March 23, just before a key March 27 deadline that says committees must advance bills in their house of origin. The bill,

HF3895/SF4123

, hits on several reforms, including limiting the zoning authority of local governments, incentivizing more multifamily housing, and streamlining administrative reviews.

Although the bill didn’t meet that deadline, there is a chance a version or pieces of the bill will show up later in the session. Last session, smaller pieces of the housing reform, such as limiting aesthetic mandates, traveled solo and further than the bigger zoning reform bills.

Proponents of the reforms, including authors of the Starter Home Act in the Senate and House Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, and Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, remained hopeful that something could be done this session.

“I am still highly confident,” Igo said in an interview Wednesday, April 1. “Anything worth doing is never easy, and change is really hard, but the fact that we all know … whether you support land use and zoning reform or you’re against it … everything we’ve done in Minnesota in the past 10, 15 years hasn’t moved the needle yet, and it’s on us as legislators and as a state to start making changes that could make a difference, because we can’t afford to wait any longer.”

Rasmusson said that regardless of outcomes this session, “this issue isn’t going away.”

“A lot of Minnesotans, especially younger Minnesotans, are concerned about their ability to afford a home, and that’s why we’re working to make starter homes legal again here in Minnesota by reducing government overreach that’s preventing these types of homes from being built,” he said.

Rep. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls

Contributed

It’s the

third push at the Legislature

for the housing reform; its first official appearance was at the end of the 2024 session. Igo said there have been roughly 30 different versions of the bill as a result of weekly meetings with stakeholders and opponents.

Daniel Lightfoot, senior intergovernmental relations representative at League of Minnesota Cities, said that while cities are always opposed to local preemption, the League of Minnesota Cities has taken a more neutral stance this session as a result of some changes made in the interim to accommodate flexibility for cities.

“Previous iterations of this bill were much more sweeping, and they applied statewide, forced density everywhere, without accounting for infrastructure and things like that, and because cities stayed engaged, the current bill certainly is more targeted … and ultimately, better reflects how cities actually operate,” he said.

One of those changes is a “menu-based option,” Igo said, where, based on population, cities can pick changes that work for them to meet the new land use and zoning requirements.

The Starter Home Act is a policy bill, meaning it comes without state funding — the Legislature also isn’t in a budget-building session — but cities note that the reforms could cost them instead.

Igo said it’s “probably true” that the reforms could cost cities, but pointed to potential long-term returns, such as community growth or a larger tax base, should affordable housing become available.

“I think it’s really easy to look short-sighted and freak out about why that would hurt in the early phases, but think about what’s going to happen in the long run,” he said.

Lightfoot argues that it remains to be seen whether these reforms would actually result in more affordable housing. During the hearing on March 23, Rep. Patty Acomb, DFL-Minnetonka, said she’s concerned the Starter Home Act would not address affordable housing, but only housing supply.

“There is nothing in here that is going to ensure affordable units are built,” she said. “I encourage that we allow our communities who have elected officials who represent and are accountable to our constituents be allowed to continue to do the good work cities are doing.”

Opponents have also argued that the bill is another overreach on local government. But lawmakers in support are pushing back on that. Rasmusson said there are several occasions where it might be better for the state to step in, and pointed to how local units of government used to have their own building codes before the state stepped in.

“It created a lot of confusion for builders and for the marketplace. We don’t allow local units of government to have their own gun laws, right? They’re preempted on that,” he said.

Rep. Nathan Coulter, DFL-Bloomington, said during the March 23 hearing for the bill that “government overreach is very much a thing on the local level.”

“It is absolutely possible for local governments to overreach, and I have seen it happen time and time again,” he said. “And the result is, when it comes to housing, that not only are we punishing the communities that want to do the right thing, but we are punishing the people.”

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Minnesota

Minnesota DNR plans spring webinars

Published

1 day ago

April 2, 2026

Press Room

Minnesota’s wildlife management areas — there are more than 1,500 public WMAs in the state — are celebrating 75 years this year. Individuals can learn more about their history in a webinar recorded on March 25 and archived on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website. It’s one webinar of many on outdoor topics the DNR produces every quarter.

The department has been hosting webinars for several years now, and they continue to remain popular, according to Benjamin Kohn, DNR volunteer mentor program coordinator.

“We started these right after COVID as a way to share information and encourage people to get outdoors, to share with them some of the work that DNR is doing and some of the great opportunities we have in Minnesota,” he told the Grand Forks Herald. “It’s gone really well.”

After starting them during the coronavirus pandemic, it slowly grew from there due to people’s interest. “We did an 11-part series on deer hunting — we still use that for our Learn to Hunt programs — and it just kind of built off of that,” he said.

Most of the presenters are from the DNR but sometimes an expert from another organization is invited to present on a topic, such as one in May about yellow bass by a DNR staffer and Jon Lore, an avid yellow bass angler. The two will discuss the fish’s population status, biology, fishing challenges and angling opportunities in the state.

Some of the topics are repeated every year, such as webinars about the state’s fishing or hunting openers, but there also are a mix of issues that have not been covered or that take a new approach to a previously presented topic.

“We typically do one around turkey season about turkeys, we always do one around deer season highlighting regulations for deer and CWD (chronic wasting disease),” Kohn said. “There are some standard ones we always throw in to get the word out to a large number of people.”

The webinars have received a lot of participation with many thousands of views every year.

“There’s a good chunk of people who turn in and watch them,” Kohn said, but noting if someone cannot join during the live session — although that is preferred since participants can ask questions — the webinars are recorded and saved in an archive on the DNR website. People can then review what sessions they missed or are most interested in watching.

Topics cover a gamut of outdoor activities and topics under the generic subheads of fishing, hunting, nature, outdoors, etc. One of the more popular videos is one about micro-fishing, a sport that started in Japan and in recent years came to the United States.

“Microfishing is the practice of catching the smallest fish,” Kohn said. “There’s a more active and larger niche audience in Minnesota that loves to microfish. We’ve had a lot of views on that one.”

Most of the videos are roughly an hour, with some variations. Typically, the speaker will present for 30 minutes or so, followed by a question-and-answer period. Length of the Q&A, of course, depends on audience participation.

All of the webinars are captioned and free to watch, but pre-registration is required to participate in the live events. Registration is not required to view recordings. Kohn said the webinars and archive are a bit unique for a natural resources department.

“Two or three years ago, we went to a Fish and Wildlife conference in South Dakota where they did a presentation on how virtual learning is adding to what DNRs can offer,” he said. “As far as I know, we’re the only agency in the country that is still doing and maintaining some of these videos.”

Watch a webinar

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has several upcoming webinars planned on outdoor topics in the state. Participants can pre-register at dnr.state.mn.us/fishwildlife/outreach/index.html , where visitors can also find the archived videos.

April 8: Turkeys – Greg Henderson, wildlife specialist and avid hunter, will talk about turkey populations across the state, different hunting opportunities and some tips for bagging a gobbler.

April 22: Native fish – Shannon Fisher, fisheries populations and regulations manager, will discuss native species, their importance to Minnesota and related regulation and legislative updates.

May 6: Walleye – DNR fisheries staff will discuss the walleye forecast for this year, a behind-the-scenes look at how the department manages the species and some tips for catching one.

May 20: Yellow bass – Jon Lore, an avid yellow bass angler, will discuss the species biology, population’s status, fishing challenges and angling opportunities in the state.

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