A Tool for Creating Social Understanding

Greg Nielsen East Side Arts Council Within a social environment as complex as that created by American culture, visual arts can serve as a powerful language to help unify an increasingly diverse population. From the early days of colonization to the current information age, this young nation’s saga has been …

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Bad Art Nights

Jon Spayde Excerpted from: Utne Reader Every Tuesday night is Bad Art Night at our house. My wife, Laurie, and I haul up the old metal folding table, set it up alongside our dining room table, and pull four or five chairs around. She gets the art supplies out of …

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Being a Green Bibliophile

Eva Lewandowski I love to read, and more than that, I love books, and I’ve always thought of it as a good thing.  But a few years ago, when I was trying to jam more than 1400 books into my tiny one-bedroom apartment, I started thinking that maybe having so …

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Great Green Reads

Eva Lewandowski I recently wrote a blog post about young adult books with environmental themes (you can read it here).  I don’t want to leave out those of you who might be looking for a more mature reading experience, so I thought I would recommend a few adult novels that deal …

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Green Galleries in the Twin Cities

Rob O’Brien Object Magazine Art galleries have a way of not wanting to fit the criteria determined for something to be considered "green." There’s very little recycling happening in these creative spaces (unless you count harvesting scrap metal for sculpture). Social consciousness? This, too, seems to be a rarity in …

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Green Puppetry in the Twin Cities

Jim Ouray Puppeteer It is springtime. You are sitting on a hillside with thousands of smiling people singing “You Are My Sunshine,” as two dozen puppeteers dressed in white slowly turn a giant Tree-of-Life puppet on the shore of Powderhorn Lake. Where are you? At the May Day Parade and …

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Green Stages in the Twin Cities

Rob O’Brien Object Magazine The Twin Cities is overflowing with theater. Okay, St. Paul is lagging far behind with only a few companies. But Minneapolis’ theater cupboard is fully stocked. Selecting a green list of theaters isn’t much of a chore because there are hundreds from which to choose. Theaters …

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Guide to Using Art & Craft Materials Safely

Excepts by Daniel Smith and Informed by The EPA Artist/Author –Excerpted from Artists’ Materials and EPA.gov In recent years, many people have become more informed about the potential hazards of art and craft materials to themselves and to the environment. Many artists, particularly those who have had allergic reactions or …

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The Art of Spoken Word

Jules Nyquist Loft Literary Center Write on Radio at KFAI What is the difference between a poet and a spoken word artist? Between a reading and a performance? With written word, the inner spirit of a poem is there on the page, and the poet connects individually with the reader. …

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Young Adult Novels with Environmental Themes

Eva Lewandowski When most people think of environmental literature, they think of nonfiction works like Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac or Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  I read a great deal of nonfiction, but I have always preferred fiction.  Happily, there are a number of wonderful novels with environmental …

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