nokomis gallery exhibit archives
Over the years, the Nokomis Gallery at CAFAC has hosted solo, group, and themed exhibits, along with artist talks and art markets. Scroll down for an archive of shows to learn more about the artists and their work.
re.tic.u.la.tion: studies of familiar and unfamiliar networks
Artist: Emily McBride and Emma Wood
Dates: February - April 2024
About the show: “re·tic·u·la·tion”, studies of familiar and unfamiliar networks. This exhibit features works created by our winter studio residents, Emily McBride and Emma wood.
Connect with the Artists: Emily McBride [Website/Instagram], Emma Wood [Website/Instagram]
MN Waterfalls: A Fire Art Perspective
Artist: Group Exhibit
Date: November - December 2023
About the show: For “MN Waterfalls: A Fire Arts Perspective '', Pete Segar partnered with us at CAFAC to create a year-long exhibition in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s Terminal 1 for the Arts@MSP program. Each artist involved challenged themselves to capture a Minnesota waterfall in their own unique way. Techniques employed include metal casting, metal fabrication, enamel, encaustic, blacksmithing and neon. After its year at the airport it was reinstalled in CAFAC’s Nokomis Gallery. Curated by Jhyle Rinker and Pete Segar.
Featured Artists: Pete Segar, Wayne E. Potratz, Kathleen Kvern, Brighton McCormick, Debra Maertens, Brad Buxton, Esther Osayande, Greg L Mueller, John Geier, Gail Katz-James, Craig Snyder, Kim Segar, Loretta Day, Jess Bergman Night, and Jon Ault
Forging Women
Artist: Group Exhibit
Dates: September - October 2023
About the show: Created by Carla Hall and co-curated by Jhyle Rinker. This exhibit celebrates women in the world of blacksmithing, and attempts to re-forge connection after the pandemic.
"The pandemic years were quiet and reflective, yet isolating. My hope was to bring together a group of women and their forged work post pandemic. This show represents the people I encountered along the way, who continue to inspire me with their forged ironwork and open spirit of community.”~ Carla Hall
Featured Artists: Carla Hall, Gretchen Kieling, Becca Cerra, Heather Doyle, Elizabeth Belz and Liz Parent
No, yeah…Yeah, no
Artist: Group Exhibit
Dates: March - April 2023
About the show: For this group show we asked artists for 2 pieces. One they considered to be one of their most successful and one that they feel missed the mark. The viewers were given a ballot to mark which of each artists two pieces they consider to be the most successful. We gathered those results for a discussion on April 7th, 2023 which is archived on our Facebook page. It was a fun exhibit and created a really great discussion which I’m sure will visit again.
Featured Artists: Carla Hall, Patti Walsh, Arnée Martin, Carlin Baert, Michael Sommers, Hilary Greenstein, Marge Buckley, Deetle Nelson, Tamiko French, Avery Danger Hunter, Nadine Mercil, Sophia Munic, MollieRae Miller, Anna Lucia, Samael Leopold-Sullivan, and Brighton McCormick
The Eye Beholds
Artist: Tamiko French of Soulspeak Expressions
Dates: March - June 2022
About the show: A world away from its reality, The Eye Beholds pulls you into an imagined layered earth energy scape filled with vibratory art made of copper and crystals, aromatherapy, herbs, sound healing, song, and spoken word woven together by threads of truth from the community that surrounds it. From corner to corner of the gallery, Tamiko builds layered worlds that express her perceptions, wonderings, and dreams of the black embodied experience in this earth plane.
Prayer as Verb
Artist: Sayge Carroll
Dates: January - March 2022
About the show: Sayge Carroll is a potter, maker, and sound artist. In this body of work, Sayge explores prayer and its connection to the spiritual by doing. The viewer is encouraged to engage with the pieces through sound, touch and to feel the spiritual vibrations of her works. Sayge says, “I am the bloom of my ancestors laid to rest. My roots drink in and carry the stories and the lessons of the past, both theirs and mine. My life is a dream from long ago existing in this moment. When I found clay, I knew I was home. I work with clay to create a world I want to live in, a world I co-create with other artists, ancestors, storytellers. I create to bring us together, I use my skills to build what is needed, working in the media called for to create. I make for one reason, I make to create other worlds.”
Video tour of the gallery exhibit.
Still Here… Unstolen. Unbroken.
Dates: March - August 2021
About the show: Collected, conserved, and curated by the George Floyd Global Memorial and many community caretakers at 38th & Chicago/George Floyd Square, this show features a portion of the offerings laid at the intersection since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020. More than a gallery exhibit, Still Here… recreates the memorial site that so many from all over the world have visited and contributed to since the George Floyd Uprising. The exhibit offers a sacred opportunity to engage a rememory experience, to reflect, to mourn, and to commit to seeking justice and Black liberation.
Unaccepted
Artist: CAFAC Group Exhibit
Dates: September - November 2019
About the show: For this exhibit we asked artists for pieces that were turned away from shows and exhibitions. We created an exhibit of “failures” and talked about how/if they were able to triumph over it. We then joined together for an evening discussion about what it all means. Whose opinion matters and if/why it matters? Did it give the artists fuel to try again? Why was this piece created and how did it feel when it wasn’t accepted? We were able to create space to talk about the ebbs and flows of working in a creative world. It was an exhibit meant to give space for growth, honesty, perspective and creative, positive discussion. We will definitly revist this one again.
Featured Artists: James Burpee, Joli Grostephan-Brancato, Kelly Brazil, Rebecca David, Julia Jenkins, Stephanie Lenertz, Jim Marion Foreman, Thomas Payne, Nora Rickey, Carol Warner, Jill Waterhouse, and Alan Wiltgen
Regeneration Gallery Show & Art Market
Artist: CAFAC Group Exhibit
Dates: June - August 2019
About the show: For this combination gallery show and art market we featured the work of CAFAC Stoker and scholarship recipient Heidi Grostephen. In addition to Heidi’s work we had an art market featuring instructors and studio renters. Showcasing the various ways that the gallery supports the artists in a regenerative fashion where the gallery sales feed the scholarship and the scholarships allow artists have the financial support they need to learn and create.
Featured Artist: Heidi Grostephen
Market Artists: Acme Project Shop, Bugboy Jewelry, Mary Ila Duntemann, Whimsy Welding, and Jim Wadsworth
It’s Only the Beginning
Artist: Kristin Lebben
Dates: March - May 2019
About the show: Lebben is a sculptor residing in the greater Minneapolis/St.Paul area. She mainly works in bronze and stone but has also worked in copper, steel and wood. Her work is both abstract and figurative. In her abstract work she explores positive and negative space and how they inform the piece. She is also interested in how not only the form but the materials used in the sculpture impact the viewer.
Altered Aesthetics
Artist: Becca Cerra
Dates: September - November 2018
About the show: Altered Aesthetics is Becca Cerra's vision to explore the beauty within disabled bodies. Most conversations about disabilities are fraught with misinformation, stigma, and limiting perceptions. Through this project, she has aimed to shatter these beliefs, educate the public, and empower individuals living with disabilities.
She collaborated with four people with amputations and created wearable sculptures that wrap around and extend from their residual limbs to create artistic expressions. Her unique sculptural (nonmedical and nonfunctional) "prosthetics" are visual homages to the body's story. They transform the wearers' bodies into works of art and challenge limiting beliefs they and others may hold.
CAFAC Presents: Debra Maertens
Artist: Debra Maertens
Dates: September - November 2018
About the show: Saint Paul artist Debra Maertens focuses on making art which helps her connect with her inner feelings and imaginings. Her biggest desire in exhibiting her work, is to help her make connections with others.
Although she's worked in a variety of mediums, the medium she loves best is fiber. She believes this love originated when her grandmother taught her how to embroider at the age of five. She studied fine art at the University of Minnesota and went on to work in a variety of non-art related jobs (a girl's got to pay the rent somehow). She's exhibited her work with a sampling of local arts organizations and galleries as well as the Woman Made Midwest Show in Chicago.
Her most recent work combines her love of rusty, crusty metal with fiber. She loves the challenge of combining the two vastly different mediums; hard, un-yielding industrial cast offs with soft hand dyed textiles, wool, cord and thread.
Reimagined, Reinvented
Artist: CAFAC Group Exhibit
Dates: March - May 2017
About the show: CAFAC’s “Reimagined, Reinvented” exhibit featured artwork that included or involved the reinvention or reimagining of an item or idea, be it recycled items remade into something new or a thought taking on a different perspective to something that repurposed into a new function, be it tool, sculpture or jewelry.
Featured Artists: Brent Gonyea, Brianna Capra, Kathleen Kvern, Samael Leopold-Sullivan, Brad Buxton, Craig Snyder, Jeff Luedloff and Paula Jensen