Intersections Exhibition Catalog (PDF) - Minneapolis College of Art ...

Women, Leadership, and the Power of Collaboration

INTRODUCTION 

Intersections is the evidence of multiple crossing points: 

collaborative studio projects between teachers and 

students and alumni, discussions among women leaders 

in the arts, and interrelationships among eleven art 

departments in the greater Twin Cities area. 

The idea for this exhibition began with fourteen 

women who are current or recent studio art 

department chairs, engaged in very similar 

institutional activities, often in isolation. The 

traditional academic leadership model that 

creates that isolation begs to be challenged. 

Contemporary studio practice, on the other 

hand, is developing increasingly sophisticated 

collaborative models. The challenge is to 

discover how these practices might inform 

teaching and learning. And in turn, how does 

pedagogy inform leadership? The reciprocity 

among the practices of teaching, leading, and 

making speaks to the challenge, fostering open 

discussion and encouraging flexible process. 

Established artists/teachers let go of their set 

practices, and students and recent alumni 

explored unfamiliar directions. As the relationship 

between teacher and student intertwined, 

collaboration dissipated hierarchical roles. The 

process of creating work became a form of 

joint mentoring, reversing normal relationships 

of power through mutual learning. These 

collaborations had an element of risk taking, 

with a public exposition of work not readily 

couched in the artists’ usual studio practices. 

With team participants at differing points in 

their careers and having vastly different life 

experiences, each of them is a reminder and a 

projection in the continuum of what it means 

to be an artist. Talking and making, questioning 

and challenging are the essential elements 

common to all of the projects presented. The 

open exchange and shifting boundaries among 

those elements are also essential to leadership. 

It is my hope that Intersections is just the 

beginning of many more exchanges. 

to make this exhibition possible. The project 

is an extension of two leadership fellowships I 

was fortunate to receive during my sabbatical 

from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design 

(MCAD): a Bush Leadership Fellowship and an 

American Council on Education Fellowship. I 

thank Kerry Morgan, director of MCAD Gallery, 

for her ability to envision this show long before 

the work was completed; Patricia Briggs 

for her essay that frames the ideas and the 

work in a larger context; Nicole Summers 

of MCAD DesignWorks for the smart and 

gorgeous design of this catalog; Kristine Wyant, 

director of corporate and foundation relations 

at MCAD, for her clarifying questions and 

assistance. I especially thank the artists/ 

leaders/teachers/students—all one and the 

same—who participated in this project. 

Karen Wirth 

Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs 

Minneapolis College of Art and Design 

For Intersections, each woman invited students 

or alumni to engage in a collaborative project that 

would include dialogue about art and process. 

Collaboration means “to work together,” and 

there were many institutions and individuals, 

beyond the studio artists, who worked together 

INTERSECTIONS

ESSAY 

CROSSINGS | Intersections presents aesthetic experiments in collaboration 

that suggest we revisit our basic assumptions about art making. 

Collaborative art practices are significant because they challenge the 

way that we define the artist as an individual in the modernist sense, 

a singular, self-contained, free agent. Philosophers call this framework for 

understanding identity the “autonomous subject.” 

Within critical debates inside and outside the 

art world, alternative models of subjectivity 

consider identity to be fragmentary, fluid, 

and collaborative have largely displaced the 

“autonomous subject.” In the world of the visual 

arts we still conceptualize the “artist” as 

essentially singular and autonomous: Artists are 

loners, outsiders, expressionists, individualists. 

The truth is that although many of us intellectually 

accept the critical consensus that there is no 

such thing as an “autonomous subject,” we have 

not developed robust alternative collaborative 

models of art production to use in our studios 

and classrooms. Intersections mobilized fourteen 

teams of artists to experiment over the course 

of a year with collaborative practices. Their 

presentations and writing provide us with 

practical examples for developing art-making 

strategies that push beyond our usual default, 

the solitary individualist. 

INTERSECTIONS

ESSAY (CONTINUED) 

VOICES CROSSING | Intersections demonstrates that 

collaborative artistic practices make participants 

engaged viewers. Aesthetic collaborators are not 

autonomous agents crafting objects alone in their 

studios, but rather are typically two or more people 

locked in intensive conversation about their own 

and each other’s work. 

One could say that the medium of collaboration 

is conversation. Dialogue is one of the most 

important products of collaboration. It was 

through discussion and writing, for example, that 

painters Alexis Kuhr and Stephanie Thompson 

developed a new understanding of their individual 

approaches to geometric abstraction as different 

“ways of knowing the world.” Their collaboration 

spurred in each a sense of urgency to become 

more actively engaged in the larger contemporary 

discussion about abstraction as an important 

vehicle for thinking and communicating. Stevie 

Rexroth and S. Catrin Magnusson also used 

collaboration as a framework for intensive 

analysis. For this team, discussion yielded a 

descriptive architectural vocabulary linked to 

digital technology that captures more precisely 

the shared qualities in their work than the 

formalist language they inherited from the fine 

arts tradition. 

The benefits of this kind of dialogue are difficult 

to quantify and therefore often go unrecognized. 

Yet, we know that a perfectly chosen reading 

recommendation made by an artist with insight 

into one’s work can change the course of 

an entire project. Last summer, Hannah Geil- 

Neufeld suggested that her teacher Chris Willcox 

read Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, featuring 

fisherman climbing ladders from their boats 

to the moon and drinking ”moon milk.” Geil- 

Neufeld’s fantastic landscape subjects culled 

from childhood memories, together with Calvino’s 

imagery, encouraged Willcox to see new ways 

of overlapping the real with the imaginary in 

her own Arctic landscapes. 

Another benefit of aesthetic collaboration is that 

an artist can simply relax and be inspired by her 

collaborator(s). A painter, Kim Benson focuses on 

the subject of human suffering and consistently 

holds images of the body in pain within her 

frame. Inspired by Benson’s treatment of the 

disturbing subject of the war injured, Jenkins 

recommitted to a series of drawings devoted to 

prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib, a project she had 

earlier abandoned in frustration. Triangulating 

one’s work with similar work by other artists is 

not encouraged in the professional art world, 

where artists are likely to see each other as 

competitors rather than collaborators or allies. 

As we have seen, support and encouragement 

often come with collaboration, but actually making 

artwork with another person or other people 

is quite difficult. How does a team produce an 

object for display when they don’t share a studio 

or live near one another? Nobody wants to turn art 

making into one more thing done by scheduling 

a “meeting.” 

Fear of losing control of the quality and form 

that the final work will take is another obstacle 

coauthors of works often face. Letting go and 

trusting in the process took some getting used to 

for Alyssa Baguss and Lynda Monick-Isenberg, 

who developed a strategy of “joined authorship” 

by alternately working on a single drawing that was 

handed back and forth between them every two 

weeks. Incorporating discussion of their drawing into 

the process by “uploading questions, research, and 

reactions” onto a shared website, this collaboration 

yielded so many new ideas, techniques, and subjects 

that Baguss and Monick-Isenberg are planning an 

ongoing aesthetic partnership. After a rocky start, 

Mary Griep and Adelyn Rosenwinkel imposed a 

few controls—working with aerial photography, for 

example, and using the same type of paper to draw 

on—to be assured that the final piece would hold 

together. They then found themselves freed to 

focus on the exploration of the landscape around 

Northfield, which is their shared interest. 

INTERSECTIONS


TEMPORAL CROSSINGS | Painters love to look back in time. Patricia Olson and Roxi Swanson 

used Intersections to deepen their engagement with art of the past. These figurative 

painters switched places with models featured in famous portraits from art history as 

a way of metaphorically getting inside the skin of inspirational masters, as when Olson 

represented herself as Max Beckmann in his 1907 Self-Portrait in Tuxedo. 

This dialogue with the past becomes denser 

yet when Swanson represented Olson in Egon 

Schiele’s Portrait of the Artist’s Wife Standing, 

and Olson placed Swanson—tattooed arms and 

all—in Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’s 1851 

portrait of Madame Moitessier. Paying homage 

to tradition in such a literal way, without irony, 

is risky in an art world that values individuality 

and singularity above most things. Intersections 

offered Olson and Swanson the perfect opportunity 

to challenge these unwritten assumptions with 

a game of art historical time travel. 

A number of the teams address, either directly 

or indirectly, the issue of temporality in their 

projects for Intersections. For example, Elaine 

Rutherford, Steven Lemke, Nate Burbeck, and 

Chloe Briggs developed an installation about 

their shared interest in remembering, which 

explores the relationship of memory to souvenirs 

and mementos. Projecting images of their own 

vacation snapshots onto a wall dotted with 

blank wax tiles and gilded frames ready 

to “receive” memories, this group presents a 

network of object-containers meant to trigger 

viewers’ memories. Any object, it seems, can 

serve as a container for an entirely different set of 

memories or associations. But why do this? This 

group surmises that the past is forever gone, 

yet human consciousness projects its experiences 

of the past, its memories, onto objects in the 

world, and thereby these things become “home.” 

Similar insights about temporality and experience 

are illuminated by the project of printmakers 

Sara Downing, Stephanie Hunder, and Elizabeth 

Sunita Jacobson. This group devised a method of 

working independently to coauthor a set of large 

prints that are palimpsests. Each artist worked 

alone printing images, then left the prints for the 

next artist to pick up, consider, and respond to. 

Each session of printing yielded a visual message 

of sorts sent forward to the future. 

By turning the creative process into a series 

of relays played out across time, this team’s 

process reveals one of our most repressed 

phenomenological senses, consciousness of the 

temporal axis. So caught up are we in the present 

moment, we forget the uncanny truth that every 

image we make, every text we write, functions as a 

message from the past sent to the future. 

Time is not linear. The installation by Linda Rossi 

and Alec Soth maps points of intersection in the 

paths of these artists’ lives over the course of 

twenty years—first as teacher and student, then 

as professionals working in their field. We tend to 

conceptualize history as an arrow; our individual 

trajectories progress along its line forward in time. 

By calling attention to the illusive intersections 

of time, space, and human consciousness, Rossi 

and Soth’s installation about Carleton College’s 

Goodsell Observatory charts points of convergence 

that reveal wildly eccentric trajectories that 

crisscross in uncanny ways and make it 

impossible to conceptualize time as a forward 

linear movement. In this installation, we see 

that time is not a line, but rather a cluster 

of fragmentary events that mingle and flow in 

innumerable directions. 

INTERSECTIONS


CULTURES CROSSINGS | Whereas much contemporary art concerning identity and 

ethnicity — African American art, Latino art, lesbian art, etc. is devoted to the 

differences between cultural groups or within specific ethnic traditions, Italian 

American artist Laura E. Migliorino worked with Japanese sisters Yumi and Mayu 

Nagaoka on a photography project that explores the unlikely intersection of Italian 

and Japanese heritage in Madame Butterfly, an opera about a Japanese woman 

written at the turn of the twentieth century by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. 

Similarly, Priscilla Briggs and Hmong artist 

Blong Lor spent months photographing the 

rich environments of local Hmong markets. For 

their installation they created a grid of images 

that “emphasizes a merging of Hmong and 

American culture.” These projects demonstrate 

that when artists work collaboratively, cultural 

difference often serves to structure intersections 

and convergences rather than separation 

and divergence. 

The idea that identity is shaped at the juncture of 

the individual and community, at the intersection 

of interior voice and the exterior voice, is the 

subject of the video installation by GraceMarie 

Keaton and Katherine Turczan about the 

awkwardness of adolescence. A boy is shown 

practicing the task of tying a knot, one of the 

skills encouraged by Boys Scouts survival 

guides to ready boys for their masculine roles 

in the world. He recites a poem as he works, 

reminding us of the inner voice of adolescence, 

which is often both vulnerable and cocky at this 

stage of ego development. Far from autonomous, 

subjectivity is represented here as a receptive 

field that is responsive to a range of exterior 

voices and pressures. 

It is fitting to conclude this essay that pits 

collaboration, intersections, and multiplicity 

against singularity and autonomy by turning to 

Virginia Woolf, whose 1931 novel The Waves is 

the source of inspiration for Isa Gagarin and 

Karen Wirth’s installation. Considered Woolf’s 

most experimental book, The Waves presents 

an abstracted voice that does not correlate with 

the “autonomous subject” and aims instead to 

simulate human consciousness unfolding within 

a buzz of undirected perception. The reader is not 

offered a point of view or singular perspective(s), 

but rather is presented with constantly shifting 

points of view that intersect and meld one 

into another. 

Narrating multiple streams of consciousness 

rather than a plot, Woolf offers the reader no 

“I” to attach to in the text. Inspired by Woolf’s 

example, Gagarin and Wirth present moving video 

footage, written text, sounds, and pictures as 

a web of crossing perceptual waves intended to 

unmoor the viewer’s rootedness in their sense 

of the “I,” their perception of themselves as 

separate and autonomous in the world. 

Patricia Briggs is director and curator of the galleries 

at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Her writing 

appears in Artforum and many other print and online 

journals. She writes the blog Scene Unseen: Viewing 

Notes about visual arts in her community. 

INTERSECTIONS

LAURA E. 

MIGLIORINO 

MAYU 

NAGAOKA 

YUMI 

NAGAOKA 

MN Butterfly Series, inkjet on paper, installation dimensions variable (grid of 12 images, each 16" x 10"), 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

LAURA E. 

MIGLIORINO 

MAYU 

NAGAOKA 

YUMI 

NAGAOKA 

Shooting the project. 

INTERSECTIONS

LAURA E. 

MIGLIORINO 

MAYU 

NAGAOKA 

YUMI 

NAGAOKA 

ARTISTS’ STATEMENT 

MN Butterfly is a series of photographs illustrating 

the metamorphosis of a traditional Japanese woman 

into a young man. 

Inspired by the opera Madame Butterfly and 

the play M Butterfly, the project explores the 

Japanese response to an opera written by an 

Italian where the person lacking a moral 

conscience is American. 

The collaborating artists are Japanese and Italian 

American. The fluid gender identity in the play M 

Butterfly adds another layer to the project and 

reflects the experience of a generation that is 

more comfortable with nuanced gender roles. 

INTERSECTIONS

LAURA E. 

MIGLIORINO 

MAYU 

NAGAOKA 

YUMI 

NAGAOKA 

COLLABORATION STATEMENT 

The relationship between student and teacher 

is one of the most intimate and profound 

relationships between two people. From 

Socrates to the film Dead Poets Society, the 

bond has been analyzed and romanticized. It 

can be a beacon of hope for a young person 

who is seeking direction. When the balance 

between teacher and student shifts, however, 

challenges arise for both people and require 

special navigational skill. 

Laura collaborated with two former students, 

sisters Yumi and Mayu. We began our project by 

discussing topics of interest to us. We were drawn 

to Madame Butterfly because the opera concerns 

Japanese culture but was written by an Italian and 

addresses women’s issues. We are all interested 

in issues regarding gender norms and identity. 

Laura suggested we merge the two subjects, and 

we then explored the M Butterfly story. 

Laura’s challenge was to step back and not steer 

the project. Yumi and Mayu did a lot of checking in, 

and Laura tossed control back to them. Eventually 

we settled into our roles but remained aware of 

how easily Laura could dominate the team. During 

our shoots Laura would work and then step away, 

encouraging Yumi and Mayu to take risks and 

be confident. 

INTERSECTIONS

LINDA 

ROSSI 

ALEC 

SOTH 

FAR LEFT Linda Rossi, Optic Nerve (poster representing Goodsell Observatory installation) with details, inkjet print, 24" x 18", 2006. LEFT Linda Rossi, The Moon and the Sea of 

Crisis, inkjet print, 24" x 18", 2006. TOP CENTER Linda Rossi, Camouflage, transparency on Plexiglas, 8" x 10", 2006. BOTTOM CENTER Linda Rossi, Luminos, transparency 

on Plexiglas, 8" x 10", 2006. RIGHT Alec Soth, Fly and Comet, color coupler print, 16" x 20", 2001. FAR RIGHT Alec Soth, Observatory, color coupler print, 16" x 20", 2001. 

INTERSECTIONS

LINDA 

ROSSI 

ALEC 

SOTH 

LEFT Linda Rossi, Luminos, transparency on Plexiglas, 8" x 10", 2006. RIGHT Linda Rossi, Camouflage, transparency on 

Plexiglas, 8" x 10", 2006. 

INTERSECTIONS

LINDA 

ROSSI 

ALEC 

SOTH 

LEFT Alec Soth, Fly and Comet, color coupler print, 16" x 20", 2001. RIGHT Alec Soth, Observatory, color coupler print, 16" x 20", 2001. 

INTERSECTIONS

LINDA 

ROSSI 

ALEC 

SOTH 


We met in Linda’s Introductory through Advanced 

Photography class twenty years ago. Linda still 

remembers Alec’s images, which quietly asked 

the viewer to reflect on the specific detail within 

a larger ambiguous space, often resulting in an 

unexpectedly rich experience. 

Today, we both engage with photography as 

a journey, teetering with our cameras between 

control and wondrous discovery. This method of 

walking the edge between the known and unknown 

becomes a “field guide” for both teaching and 

artistic work. 

Carleton College’s Goodsell Observatory, dedicated 

over a hundred years ago to the quest for celestial 

knowledge, provides a fertile meeting ground for 

our parallel visions. 

INTERSECTIONS

LINDA 

ROSSI 

ALEC 

SOTH 


The Observatory is less a conventional collaboration than 

a conversation across time. 

Alec visited the Goodsell Observatory at Carleton 

College in 2001 for the project Vantage Points. He 

used the frame of the window to articulate the 

relationships between inside and outside and 

between constructed and natural environments. 

“I don’t know a lot about life at Carleton. I’m a 

tourist. Maybe that makes the beauty more 

apparent. From my first day on campus, I 

found a distinct and consistent beauty. This 

beauty has something to do with the mix 

of rural serenity and intense scholarship.” 

Linda created the installation Optic Nerve in 

Goodsell in 2006, an intervention into the space 

that dramatized artifacts and intensified the 

sense of history. “In the illuminated display case 

surrounding the base of the large telescope, I 

replaced the old glass plate images of stars and 

galaxies (see an example in Alec’s photograph Fly 

and Comet) with my own pictures, printed on glass, 

of science experiments and objects.” Visitors pass 

through the lobby to the window-lined room 

above (Alec’s photograph Observatory), where 

the reflecting telescope reaches for the stars and 

The Moon and the Sea of Crisis was shot. 

In 2011 we talked about the provocative 

intersection of our work within Goodsell 

Observatory and read Rebecca Solnit’s A Field 

Guide to Getting Lost. We selected particular 

images (Rossi’s Luminos and Soth’s Fly and 

Comet) based on Solnit’s concept of the Blue 

of Distance. Blue Distance is both optical and 

emotional; blue defines the edge of vision and 

embodies the longing for a distance we never 

arrive at. 

INTERSECTIONS

CHLOE 

BRIGGS 

STEVEN 

LEMKE 

NATE 

BURBECK 

ELAINE 

RUTHERFORD 

Re-collections (full view), handmade, found, and altered objects on the wall overlaid with 

projections of photos from personal archives, variable dimensions, 2011. Photo credit: 

Alex Johnson, Alex Johnson Photography, alexjohnsonphoto.com. 

INTERSECTIONS

CHLOE 

BRIGGS 

STEVEN 

LEMKE 

NATE 

BURBECK 

ELAINE 

RUTHERFORD 

LEFT TO RIGHT Re-collections (details), handmade, found, and altered objects on the wall overlaid with 

projections of photos from personal archives, variable dimensions, 2011. Photo credit: Alex Johnson, 

Alex Johnson Photography, alexjohnsonphoto.com. 

INTERSECTIONS

CHLOE 

BRIGGS 

STEVEN 

LEMKE 

NATE 

BURBECK 

ELAINE 

RUTHERFORD 

Re-collections (group image), handmade, found, and altered objects on the wall overlaid with projections of photos from 

personal archives, variable dimensions, 2011. Photo credit: Alex Johnson, Alex Johnson Photography, alexjohnsonphoto.com. 

INTERSECTIONS

CHLOE 

BRIGGS 

STEVEN 

LEMKE 

NATE 

BURBECK 

ELAINE 

RUTHERFORD 


Re-collections considers the idea of the souvenir, or any 

object used to store and express memory or personalized 

experience. These items are not the commodified kind, 

nor do they belong in the sentimental realm of kitsch. 

Rather, Re-collections is meant to investigate a kind of 

cultural geography through the use of the souvenir. 

These objects explore the souvenir as a means of 

materializing experience and engage a dialogue 

between “the miniature and the gigantic.” 

Re-collections is an installation in which projections 

of photographs excavated from both personal and 

imaginary archives depict an idealized vision of 

utopian landscapes. Wax tiles and house forms, 

gilded picture frame shrines, and small paintings 

on the interiors of discarded lids dot this 

landscape of projected slide imagery. “The 

souvenir may be seen as emblematic of the 

nostalgia that all narrative reveals—the longing 

for its place of origin.”* 

*Quotations from Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection 

(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993). 

INTERSECTIONS

CHLOE 

BRIGGS 

STEVEN 

LEMKE 

NATE 

BURBECK 

ELAINE 

RUTHERFORD 


How do we cultivate a true collaboration where there is no understood 

or assumed hierarchy? What occurs in the process when we test our 

assumptions, work outside our comfort zone, and make ourselves 

vulnerable? In our case, the collaboration itself defined the outcome. 

For us, this process was more about the 

opportunity to explore what evolved as we 

stepped back and relinquished control, thus 

creating the space for a shared conceptual and 

formal vision. 

During our first meeting we drew a diagram that 

identified ideas of remembering, collecting, 

landscape, and the seductiveness found in the 

sparse or the bleak as points of intersection. 

From this, we developed a working sentence, 

which would become the springboard for our ideas: 

exploring the souvenir as a means of materializing 

experience. In our attempt to achieve a genuine 

collaboration, we have discovered the value in 

the act of letting go. Our shared authorship has 

provided us with a framework for determining 

what to keep and what to discard. 

Our formal and conceptual process is documented in our blog: materializations.tumblr.com 

INTERSECTIONS

ALYSSA 

BAGUSS 

LYNDA 

MONICK-ISENBERG 

LEFT Untitled, graphite and white pencil on paper, 30" x 22", 2011. CENTER & RIGHT Untitled (details), 

graphite and white pencil on paper, 2011. Photo credit: Jerry Mathiason. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALYSSA 

BAGUSS 

LYNDA 


LEFT Alyssa Baguss, 7, 8, 9, graphite on paper, 6.5" x 6", 2011. CENTER Alyssa Baguss, Bulb, graphite 

on paper, 6" x 4.5", 2011. RIGHT Alyssa Baguss, Forward Slash?, graphite on paper, 11" x 18", 2011. 

Photo credit: Jerry Mathiason. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALYSSA 

BAGUSS 

LYNDA 


LEFT Lynda Monick-Isenberg, Indigo Resistor, graphite on paper, 6.5" x 5.5", 2011. CENTER Lynda Monick-Isenberg, Cable 

Twist, graphite on paper, 6.5" x 5", 2011. RIGHT Lynda Monick-Isenberg, Electrical Resistor, graphite on paper, 5.5" x 7.5", 

2011. Photo credit: Jerry Mathiason. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALYSSA 

BAGUSS 

LYNDA 



Our work focuses on the process and intuition of drawing. 

We both draw with precision, intention, and curiosity, 

systematically drawing three dimensions as illusion on a 

two-dimensional plane, investigating insignificant items 

that have lost their value to society, recalling their 

onetime significance. 

Research is at the core of both of our individual 

practices. Questions drive dedication to the 

work. Through our collaborative process forgoing 

authorship, our work moves into the world of the 

uncertain, precarious, and unpredictable with 

personally delightful and indeterminate results. 

This process—akin to automatic drawing—allows 

the work to move from precise, representational 

forms to suggestions of unexpected abstract 

ideas. Content is expressed unconsciously by the 

unplanned, but suggestive, placement of images. 

Meaning develops as diverse concepts are freed 

from our rational control. 

Join the discussion at: drawing-as-language@googlegroups.com 

INTERSECTIONS

ALYSSA 

BAGUSS 

LYNDA 



Our collaboration began by creating paired lists of shared values. 

From there we designed a project, trusting that it would develop 

intuitively and that we would gain individually from the collaboration. 

Questions about the partnered relationship—how and what we would 

learn from this relationship—were at the core of the collaboration. A 

sense of joined authorship was intriguing. 

We decided to collaborate on a drawing. The 

drawing traveled between us every two weeks. 

As it changed hands, we uploaded questions, 

research, and reactions to our Drawing-as- 

Language Google group to record our process. 

When we met to exchange the work, we discussed 

our weekly experience, reflecting on product, 

process, and partnership, and examined perceived 

problems and next steps. These conversations 

led to a rich discourse about contemporary arts’ 

relationship to religion, science, and technology; 

drawing process and intention; and teaching, 

parenting, partnership, animals, food, kindness, 

trust, and time. 

In addition to the “traveling” drawing, we worked 

on small, individual “practice” drawings using 

shared subject matter. These elicited surprise, 

beauty, fear, and worry, but overall they created 

excitement and allowed each of us to explore new 

ways of working as we drew from one another’s 

expertise, ideas, knowledge, and experience. 

INTERSECTIONS

KIM 

BENSON 

VAL 

JENKINS 

LEFT Kim Benson, Coming Spring, oil on canvas, 36" x 36", 2011. CENTER Kim Benson,The Three Wise Triptych 

(1 of 3), oil on panel, 23" x 21", 2011. RIGHT Kim Benson, untitled, oil on panel, 25" x 25", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

KIM 

BENSON 

VAL 

JENKINS 

LEFT Val Jenkins, Harbinger 1, digital print on rag paper, 45" x 24", 2011. CENTER Val Jenkins, Harbinger 2, 

digital print on rag paper, 24" x 49", 2011. RIGHT Val Jenkins, Harbinger 3, digital print on rag paper, 

38" x 24", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

KIM 

BENSON 

VAL 

JENKINS 


Kim’s recent paintings inspired Val to revisit a previous body of 

work. We drew intersections between our artistic practices based on 

our desire to respond to issues of war, human suffering, and the 

body in pain. 

Kim explores the dichotomy between beauty, 

inherent in the seductive qualities of oil paint, 

and violence, endemic to human nature. The 

transformative power of life found in the cycle 

of death, rebirth, and regeneration informs her 

painting process and subject matter. 

Val’s images were culled from the mass media 

from 2001 to 2003. In her drawings, subjects of 

physical abuse and torture take on a new presence 

as fluid forms—thick pools of ink—settle 

according to the physical/geographic conditions 

that surround them. Ridges within the figures 

and tonal values, for example, are created entirely 

based on the rate of drying time, the angle of the 

table, and the vibrations in the room. Enlarged 

into abstractions, they become monstrous yet 

banal—rooted in the familiar gestures of the 

human body while implying something unfamiliar, 

mysterious, or ominous. 

As artists we desire to place our work in the 

service of posing questions about the expressive 

capability of art, the cultural value of a studio 

practice, and the need to transform despair, 

loss, and suffering into physical forms with 

positive meanings. 

INTERSECTIONS

KIM 

BENSON 

VAL 

JENKINS 


What brought us together was a shared belief in a studio practice that 

is based on an ongoing engagement with the world. This engagement 

manifests itself as part of a daily regimen; it is as much a part of our 

lives as eating. 

We are also committed to a creative practice 

that is cultivated with great attentiveness, free 

from the demands we place on our social and 

professional lives, and that relies upon a rigorous 

interplay between autonomy and mutuality. 

Respond is a salient word that characterizes both 

of our processes; we respond to the intrinsic 

qualities of the media with which we work and to 

the conditions in society that induce us to create. 

We do not make work to illustrate ideas or develop 

narratives; rather, we are both interested in how 

our work embodies meaning, incites reflection, 

and situates the viewer in a liminal space that 

embraces uncertainty as a precondition to growth 

and new experience. 

Our intersection was structured around the 

dialogue we had while present in each other’s 

studios: meaningful and lasting conversations 

about making art and living life. 

INTERSECTIONS

SARA 

DOWNING 

STEPHANIE 

HUNDER 

ELIZABETH SUNITA 

JACOBSON 

Slag and Bloom, serigraph and collage on panel, 57" x 128" (each panel 57" x 24"), 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

SARA 

DOWNING 

STEPHANIE 

HUNDER 


JACOBSON 


Ours is a collaboration of printmakers. In this medium, much of the 

content is created by the doing: how carving a line changes it, how 

layering affects subject matter, how transparency or opacity of ink 

creates a metaphor. 

Each artist brought her own interests in the form 

of images to share and combine with others. In 

the fusion, themes begin to develop. The work 

is necessarily about process, about the coming 

together of different forms and the clashes and 

unexpected harmonies that occur. 

Sara's images address her spine—the surgeries, 

pain, and disabilities following an injury. Elements 

stack up, float in graceful columns, or are shattered 

and screwed together with hardware. 

birth, growth, and aging find form in a scatter of 

leaves, the curl of an embryo, or a folding of wings. 

Elizabeth explores concepts ranging from 

horoscopes to laws of physics as metaphors 

for personal concerns. Her current work often 

requires the viewer to interact with the print or 

manipulate some part. The body, time, structure, 

and decay emerge as themes of our collaboration. 

Stephanie’s recent work examines the ambiguities 

of life through natural allegories. Questions about 

INTERSECTIONS

SARA 

DOWNING 

STEPHANIE 

HUNDER 


JACOBSON 


We met together several times to talk about 

ideas and what kind of pieces we wanted 

to make. However, maybe because we are 

printmakers and used to working out ideas 

during the creation of the work, the discussions 

seemed vague and unresolved. Eventually we 

decided to quit talking and start printing—only 

then did interesting things start happening. 

At the beginning of the project, Stephanie felt it 

was easy for her to dominate the group and set 

the direction. Though she worried a little about 

that, she soon lost sway over the others. In the 

end, the three of us seemed like equal—yet very 

different—partners. We had hoped we would 

meet together for studio sessions, but that turned 

out to be impractical, and instead we often printed 

alone, responding to what had been left behind 

by the last artist. 

When Stephanie worked in this style before (for a 

project called Semographics), it was with a larger 

team, a crew of assistants, and a structured 

schedule. The printing proceeded rapidly amid 

lively conversation, building many layers and 

dense imagery. This time the process was much 

quieter, slower, and thoughtful, and the images 

reflect that. 

INTERSECTIONS

PRISCILLA 

BRIGGS 

BLONG 

LOR 

Hmong Village, St. Paul, archival pigment prints, 40" x 78" (grid of 12 images, each image 12" x 18"), 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

PRISCILLA 

BRIGGS 

BLONG 

LOR 


As the economy struggles to regain momentum, 

people are reconsidering priorities and values. 

Last year, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts 

mounted an exhibition titled Embarrassment 

of Riches: Picturing Global Wealth. The didactic 

from the exhibition stated, “The question this 

exhibition seeks to explore is: How have 

photographers pictured and examined the 

new economy? This leads to other provocative 

questions for audiences to consider, such 

as, what does wealth look like in different 

cultural situations and, more generally, in our age?” 

Embarrassment of Riches is one example of the 

current dialogue in the arts surrounding the 

global economy as it relates to culture. We add 

to this dialogue by looking at the opposite end of 

the economic spectrum, at what immigrants (who 

leave one country for another with little more 

than their values and sense of identity) and their 

children consider to be precious. 

In Hmong Village, St. Paul, we focus on objects in 

the marketplace as artifacts or embodiments of 

culture that symbolize or reflect ideas about love, 

memory, tradition, and identity within Hmong 

American culture. 

INTERSECTIONS

PRISCILLA 

BRIGGS 

BLONG 

LOR 


We began our collaboration with an intention to create a series 

of photo and video artworks based on the idea that the things 

people value reflect their individual and cultural identities 

and perspectives. 

Initially, we planned to compare and contrast 

various ethnic markets in the Twin Cities 

as mirrors of cultural values. However, after 

beginning to photograph and discuss the images, 

we decided to focus specifically on Hmong culture 

for two reasons: the Hmong culture in Minnesota 

is a large and rich territory; and as a young 

Hmong American navigating two cultures, Blong 

is in the process of questioning and defining his 

own values. 

Our collaboration revolved around a process of 

exchange and integration as a verbal and visual 

dialogue. Initially, we photographed on our own at 

various Hmong markets in St. Paul. After pooling 

our photos to explore our ideas, we decided to 

focus on the Hmong Village shopping complex 

on Johnson Parkway for this suite of images and 

made many trips there together. 

INTERSECTIONS

HANNAH 

GEIL-NEUFELD 

CHRIS 

WILLCOX 

LEFT Hannah Geil-Neufeld, Styromoon, ink, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper, 12" x 24", 2011. RIGHT Hannah Geil-Neufeld, 

Styromoon (detail), ink, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper, 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

HANNAH 

GEIL-NEUFELD 

CHRIS 

WILLCOX 

LEFT Chris Willcox, As We Left It, ink and acrylic on paper, 30" x 44", 2011. RIGHT Chris Willcox, 

As We Left It (detail), ink and acrylic on paper, 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

HANNAH 

GEIL-NEUFELD 

CHRIS 

WILLCOX 


Our work shares a fascination with what has been (and what 

surely will be) left behind as a result of human exploration 

and striving. 

Chris has studied the artifacts that were left 

behind from the British Franklin Arctic Expedition 

of 1848, such as rusted tin cans, pocket watches, 

boot heels, and grave markers. Relics from 

this time litter parts of the frozen wasteland of 

Beechey Island in northern Canada. It does not 

require a leap of imagination to wonder what 

sorts of objects have been left on the moon by our 

contemporary explorers, astronauts. 

was unlikely to decompose, and so she thought 

that her castle was going to last forever. Questions 

emerge from this line of thinking, such as, would 

such an object travel, and how would it change 

over time? What might a Styrofoam artifact look 

like covered with organic debris (like mussels 

and barnacles) in some future scene? Could her 

artifact ever end up on the moon? 

Hannah remembers that when she was a child, 

she made a castle out of Styrofoam egg cartons 

with her father. She was aware that Styrofoam 

INTERSECTIONS

HANNAH 

GEIL-NEUFELD 

CHRIS 

WILLCOX 


This past summer, Hannah suggested that Chris read Italo Calvino’s 

short story collection Cosmicomics. In particular, the story “The 

Distance of the Moon” interested us, as Calvino tells a fantastical 

tale about an earlier time when the narrator and his companions 

rowed out to sea and climbed up to the moon. 

These events occurred near the beginning of 

time as humans know it, when the moon orbited 

so close to the earth that it scraped against the 

earth with each orbit, collecting artifacts from the 

land and sea. 

The story sparked our discussion about human 

exploration of the moon, and we wonder about 

the environmental implications of exploration 

to other celestial realms. In short, what will we 

continue to leave behind as we move forward? 

This fantastical story resonated well with 

Hannah’s interest in otherworldly scenes and 

the possibility of earthly artifacts ending up in 

other settings. Chris’s interests in “otherworldly” 

earth geographies, like the polar regions, were 

the foundation for her image, although she also 

imagines it as an abandoned moonscape of 

the future. 

INTERSECTIONS

ISA 

GAGARIN 

KAREN 

WIRTH 

Nothing Staid, single channel video, copier printed bound book, 20" x 30" x 10", 2011. 

Photo credit: Rik Sferra. 

INTERSECTIONS

ISA 

GAGARIN 

KAREN 

WIRTH 

Nothing Staid, 47-second video loop, Cape of Good Hope / Park Avenue Armory, NY: Ryoji Ikeda, 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

ISA 

GAGARIN 

KAREN 

WIRTH 

Nothing Staid, sequence repeated for 100 pages, 2011. Text from Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931. 

INTERSECTIONS

ISA 

GAGARIN 

KAREN 

WIRTH 


Based on Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, Nothing Staid articulates 

the repetition of life experience. The Waves delves into individual 

consciousness over the course of life; it is internal, reflective. 

The novel’s structure couples long narrative with 

short interruptions full of simile and description. 

We followed that rhythm in editing the video, 

while in the accompanying book we provide 

a continuous, contemplative commentary. The 

meditative quality of repetition is a form of 

emptying out; nothingness can be meaningful. 

The forty-seven-second video loop cycles through 

footage that is quiet and repetitive, interrupted 

abruptly by patterns. A black book sits just below, 

with a hundred pages of sparse white handtraced 

text. Repeated lines from The Waves cause 

a rhythmic loss of self, while creating a chant-like 

poem that is both Woolf’s and the artists’. 

Collapsing our personal identities with Woolf’s 

writing and the figures in the video is a way to 

saturate the “I” referred to in the text with multiple 

points of experience. Who is the speaker? Is it the 

reader of the text? Where is the “I”? Is it in the 

handwritten type, or is it the occasional figure in 

the video? 

The lull of the wave gives way to moments of 

sharp recognition. The piece invites immersion 

at the same time that it positions the viewer as 

an observer. 

INTERSECTIONS

ISA 

GAGARIN 

KAREN 

WIRTH 


The process of developing this project began with expanding 

from a central notion of waves and contracting back to a 

focused concept. We collected visual and written sources, 

accumulating a constellation of interests related to all 

things “wave.” 

Reading Virginia Woolf’s The Waves led to homing 

in on forms and ideas in our collection that related 

to the text. Similar to the way the novel quietly 

advances through the lives of its subjects, our 

discussions of our own life stages helped us identify 

common ground. 

The novel also formed underlying structures for 

Nothing Staid. The first-person voice in The Waves 

becomes subjective in Nothing Staid—who is the 

“I”? The artist? The reader? Similarly, the cadence 

of the novel informed the editing of the video. 

Nothing Staid replaces linear narrative with 

rhythmic sequences. 

We developed a collaborative process to cultivate 

the vast range of information we accumulated into 

a refined, concerted piece. Taking away information 

proved to be a more challenging and stimulating 

process than the initial activity of collecting. 

Learning from each other’s life perspectives and 

aesthetics, we developed a project that does not 

reflect one individual more than the other, but 

bears a quality that is both shared and personal. 

INTERSECTIONS

GRACEMARIE 

KEATON 

KATHERINE 

TURCZAN 

Where the Bee Sucks There Suck I, video installation, 3 monitors, looped, 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

GRACEMARIE 

KEATON 

KATHERINE 

TURCZAN 


Where the Bee Sucks There Suck I is a video installation 

that allows the audience to observe an adolescent boy as 

he recites a poem and ties knots. 

Inspired by Boy Scouts’ survival methods, the act 

of tying knots references skills gained by physical 

practice and mental focus used to master a task. 

The poem, made up of coming-of-age poems, is 

structured to reflect both the interior and exterior 

voices of a young adolescent boy. The poem shows 

a developing ego that is cocky and insecure. 

The title of the piece is taken from Shakespeare’s 

The Tempest. In the play Ariel is an airy spirit who is 

imprisoned in a tree by the witch Sycorax. When Ariel 

is released, he sings a song to celebrate his freedom: 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I. 

INTERSECTIONS

GRACEMARIE 

KEATON 

KATHERINE 

TURCZAN 


Our project began as something physical and about the body’s 

restraint but morphed into a nonobject and about repeated words 

and a young adolescent boy’s internal and external struggles. 

We both had previously made work about young girls and were 

interested in the differences between the sexes at this place 

in development. 

We struggled with a form for this project until we 

came upon Boy Scouts manuals and poems about 

adolescence. Then the structure of the piece fell 

into place. Katherine has a thirteen-year-old son 

with braces. It was evident that he should be used 

for the video. 

Some notes on the itinerary and geography of our collaboration: 

Student Teacher Student Friends Collaborators. 

Twenty-five years age difference insignificant. 

Minneapolis, United States Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine. 

Thirty e-mails two days shooting in Minneapolis together. 

New York City Minneapolis via e-mail next three months. 

Shared readings shared poems shared writing. 

INTERSECTIONS

S.CATRIN 

MAGNUSSON 

STEVIE 

REXROTH 

S. Catrin Magnusson, 1", felt, wood, 52" x 48" x 1", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

S.CATRIN 

MAGNUSSON 

STEVIE 

REXROTH 

Stevie Rexroth, untitled from New Forms, photography mounted on Sintra, 50" x 40", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

S.CATRIN 

MAGNUSSON 

STEVIE 

REXROTH 


S. Catrin Magnusson 

My work explores in-between areas of physical 

and psychological landscapes that move 

back and forth between inclusion and 

exclusion, connection and disconnection, 

the material and immaterial. 

I am interested in the concepts of displacement 

and impermanence and how they are represented 

in geology, namely the boundaries of tectonic 

plates where subduction, divergence, or grinding 

occurs. The work focuses on the Mid-Atlantic 

Ridge, a deep rift whose force pushes North 

and South America apart from Europe and 

Africa by an inch every year. The rift functions 

as a metaphor for the increasing distance 

and tension between countries and cultures, 

and speaks as well to a personal narrative of 

coexisting between two cultures, two ideologies, 

and two landscapes. 

Stevie Rexroth 

This work continues an investigation of 

the nature of subjecthood in photography 

through the use of simple materials 

and means. 

I create small sculptural forms from white 

drawing paper and photograph them against 

a white background. The sculptural forms 

have no direct referent in the world. They are 

created purely from a sense of play—cutting, 

moving, gluing shapes around. It is organic 

and meditative. The outcome of this process 

is a quiet, almost nonpresent image, white on 

white, sitting somewhere between a two-and 

three-dimensional experience. A photographic 

image becomes a work on paper, a drawing, and 

perhaps returns in a cycle to the early definition 

of photography as drawing with light. 

INTERSECTIONS

S.CATRIN 

MAGNUSSON 

STEVIE 

REXROTH 


We came together as mentor/mentee in the MCAD MFA program. 

Although we came to art from different backgrounds, Stevie from 

literary theory and Catrin from filmmaking, from the beginning we 

had an easy, thoughtful, and engaged relationship. 

Researchers at heart, we often bring an artist’s 

work, a reading, or magazine tear-out to each 

other only to realize that we have been looking/ 

thinking/exploring similar territories. 

We share common aesthetic and stylistic 

interests, from midcentury modern architectural 

forms and Scandinavian design to topographical 

maps. Both of our work investigates repeated 

or layered forms, often in a monochromatic 

palette, as conversations spin around ideas of 

expansion/compaction, space/nonspace, and 

the solid/ephemeral. 

A bit stubborn and perhaps private, neither of us 

was interested in creating a singular work from 

a traditional collaborative process. Yet having 

recognized from our initial meeting that our work 

seemed to already be in conversation, we wanted 

to offer distinct works side by side. 

Ironically, out of our many conversations surrounding 

the Intersections exhibition, we have begun to plan 

for future collaborative making. 

Perhaps we have grown out of the mentor/mentee model 

that initially brought us together and are ready to explore 

how a collaborative investigation can nurture our ongoing 

bond and our individual practices. This is where we begin 

to intersect. 

INTERSECTIONS

PATRICIA 

OLSON 

ROXI 

SWANSON 

LEFT Patricia Olson, Self-Portrait at 60 (after Beckmann), oil on board, 55" x 37 ", 2011. 

RIGHT Patricia Olson, Roxi Swanson (after Ingres), oil on board, 55" x 37", 2011. Photo 

credit: Petronella Ytsma. 

INTERSECTIONS

PATRICIA 

OLSON 

ROXI 

SWANSON 

LEFT Roxi Swanson, Just Breathe, oil on canvas, 40" x 30", 2011. RIGHT Roxi Swanson, 

The Professor, oil on canvas, 60" x 36", 2011. Photo credit: Petronella Ytsma. 

INTERSECTIONS

PATRICIA 

OLSON 

ROXI 

SWANSON 


As figurative painters, we are drawn to the emotional, expressive 

possibilities of the human figure, and in our collaborative 

conversation we have extended our dialogue to include other 

painters from art history. 

We began by studying specific self-portraits, 

Patricia choosing Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in 

Tuxedo, and Roxi choosing Jenny Saville’s Knead. 

Roxi was interested in Saville’s mark-making 

technique and the sickly quality of the color, while 

Patricia was taken with Beckmann’s posture, at 

once confident and guarded, and wanted to bring 

a feminist update to this very male presentation 

of self. 

precedents from which to work. Roxi looked 

to Egon Schiele’s Portrait of the Artist’s Wife 

Standing to paint Patricia’s portrait, her interest 

being in conveying the innocent quality of the 

figure. Patricia selected Jean-Auguste-Dominique 

Ingres’s Madame Moitessier, again interested in 

translating this nineteenth-century presentation 

of femininity into a twenty-first century sensibility. 

After painting self-portraits in the manner of 

these two artists, we then painted portraits 

of one another, again choosing art historical 

INTERSECTIONS

PATRICIA 

OLSON 

ROXI 

SWANSON 


We find intense connection when painting alone in our studios, 

almost like having a dialogue with our subjects, so it was important 

to both of us to continue working in this way. 

Our collaborative process involved each making 

two paintings that referenced other painters 

from art history, thereby expanding the nature 

of our collaboration. We shared studio visits and 

e-mailed images of our progress to each other. 

The kind of solitary studio work that is our normal 

lot was enriched by the camaraderie that came 

from knowing that another artist across town was 

struggling with the same problems and responding to 

the presences that emerged from the painted surface. 

While we sometimes ventured encouragement 

and suggestions, our primary feelings were 

amazement and pleasure in the other’s work. 

INTERSECTIONS

MARY 

GRIEP 

ADELYN 

ROSENWINKEL 

LEFT Intersections (text panel), mixed media, 30" x 30", 2011. RIGHT Intersections (full view), mixed media, 

132" x 90" (each row 30" x 90"), 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

MARY 

GRIEP 

ADELYN 

ROSENWINKEL 

Intersections (row 1), mixed media, 30" x 90", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

MARY 

GRIEP 

ADELYN 

ROSENWINKEL 

Intersections (row 4), mixed media, 30" x 90", 2011. 

INTERSECTIONS

MARY 

GRIEP 

ADELYN 

ROSENWINKEL 


Intersections is a mixed-media exploration of the rich nature 

of the St. Olaf Natural Lands. 

Rooted in late-nineteenth-century descriptions, 

aerial photographs, writings on landscape, and 

biological data, this drawing uses layers to chart 

the progression of this particular landscape from 

the “Big Woods,” to agriculture, to its current life as 

a “demonstration” of Minnesota’s various biomes. 

Reaping the reward of looking carefully, we can 

read this landscape as a palimpsest that retains 

traces of all that has come before and hints of 

what might yet be. 

The ubiquitous division of the midwestern 

landscape into a grid informs the format of the 

final piece. Prairie blooms over reclaimed farm 

fields that settlers and farmers had earlier carved 

out from mature forests. 

Learn more about St. Olaf Natural Lands at: stolaf.edu/academics/naturallands 

INTERSECTIONS

MARY 

GRIEP 

ADELYN 

ROSENWINKEL 


This collaboration began with our joint interest 

in the passage of time and its traces on a place. 

We chose the St. Olaf Natural Lands as a place 

of study and reflection that we could both 

experience and research. 

We divided the lands into twelve segments 

based on historical aerial photographs, and we 

each took responsibility for six. Through weekly 

check-ins, we took time over several months to 

rearrange, revise, refocus, and react to what we 

had each accomplished on our assigned sections. 

True collaboration, in contrast to parallel work, 

began when all base drawings were done and 

decisions needed to be made about the piece 

as a whole. 

The process was truly one of intersections: between 

student and teacher, nature and human intervention, 

memory and time, and process and product. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALEXIS 

KUHR 

STEPHANIE 

THOMPSON 

Alexis Kuhr, untitled, acrylic, graphite on panel, 6' x 6' x 2", 2011. 

Photo credit: Patrick Kelley Worldwide Photography. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALEXIS 

KUHR 

STEPHANIE 

THOMPSON 

Stephanie Thompson, Crossing, acrylic on panel, 6' x 6' x 2", 2011. 

Photo credit: Patrick Kelley Worldwide Photography. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALEXIS 

KUHR 

STEPHANIE 

THOMPSON 


Alexis Kuhr 

In a series of large-scale, mixed-media works 

on canvas, I explore the possibilities of mark, 

space, and surface. 

Beginning with the basic elements of introductory 

perspective, I intuitively realign planes, arriving at 

spaces that both advance and retreat to produce 

a realm of disquieting spatial ambiguity. 

Through my process I produce new structures 

that create visual interest through slight 

visual disruptions that emerge out of irregular 

geometries. The overall impact is one of 

contemplative, measured activity. 

Stephanie Thompson 

Influenced by a recent investigation into my 

family’s ancestry, I create acrylic paintings 

that explore my ability to establish a 

genuine relationship with the past. 

By carefully selecting shapes derived from 

historical photographs, I create structures that 

hover between existence and intangibility. 

A neutralized color palette combined with planned 

gestural mark-making contributes to a fleeting 

sense of time and place. 

INTERSECTIONS

ALEXIS 

KUHR 

STEPHANIE 

THOMPSON 


At the core of our collaborative project is the use of painting as a vehicle 

to present layered ideas, emotions, and sensations that can be read and 

known simultaneously. While the “how” of this communication remains to 

be discovered, we believe it to be informed by the experience of the body in 

movement and through cultural memory. 

We have worked together since 2007 in various 

roles, first as student and teacher, and now in 

arts administration. It has grown clearer over 

time that although our interests, temperaments, 

and working styles align, we adopt divergent 

formal languages to explore the broader category 

of geometric abstraction. 

While we employ similar visual structures and 

vocabularies, we use these basic elements to 

create work with very different personal meaning. 

that is influenced by childhood experience of 

the landscape, our unique psychologies, and 

generational difference. 

The paintings created during this collaboration 

hung side-by-side in process in the studio 

and inspired, challenged, and enhanced our 

independent work. This opportunity proved so 

helpful to the development of our thinking that 

we continued working, allowing the paintings to 

evolve and change, until the exhibition opening. 

For each of us, abstraction encapsulates a 

relationship with color, form, scale, and pacing 

INTERSECTIONS

PARTICIPANTS / ARTIST TEAMS 

ANOKA-RAMSEY 

COMMUNITY COLLEGE 

COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS 

St. Paul, Minnesota | cva.edu 

MACALESTER COLLEGE 

St. Paul, Minnesota | macalester.edu 

ST. CATHERINE UNIVERSITY 

St. Paul, Minnesota | stkate.edu 

Coon Rapids, Minnesota | anokaramsey.edu 

Laura E. Migliorino 

Former Division Coordinator, Fine Arts 

Alyssa Baguss 

Class of 2007 

mnartists.org 

Hannah Geil-Neufeld 


hannahgeilneufeld.com 

Patricia Olson 

Former Chair, Art and Art History 

patriciaolsonart.com 

lauramigliorinoart.com 

Mayu Nagaoka 

Class of 2006, 2009 

Yumi Nagaoka 

Class of 2007, 2010 

CARLETON COLLEGE 

Northfield, Minnesota | carleton.edu 

Linda Rossi 

Chair, Art and Art History 

Alec Soth 

Student, 1991 

alecsoth.com 

COLLEGE OF ST. BENEDICT/ 

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY 

St. Joseph/Collegeville, Minnesota | csbsju.edu 

Chloe Briggs 


Nate Burbeck 


nateburbeck.com 

Steven Lemke 


Elaine Rutherford 

Chair, Studio Art 

Kim Benson 


Val Jenkins 

Chair, Fine Arts 

Lynda Monick-Isenberg 

Chair, Foundation Studies 

mnartists.org 

formandcontent.org 

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY 

St. Paul, Minnesota | csp.edu 

Sara Downing 


Stephanie Hunder 

Chair, Art Department 

Elizabeth Sunita Jacobson 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE 

St. Peter, Minnesota | gustavus.edu 

Priscilla Briggs 


priscillabriggs.com 

Blong Lor 


Chris Willcox 


chriswillcoxart.com 

MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE 

OF ART AND DESIGN 

Minneapolis, Minnesota | mcad.edu 

Isa Gagarin 


isagagarin.com 

GraceMarie Keaton 


cargocollective.com/gracekeaton 

S. Catrin Magnusson 


Stevie Rexroth 

Chair, Media Arts 

Katherine Turczan 

Former Chair, Media Arts 

Karen Wirth 

Interim Vice President, Academic Affairs 

Former Chair, Fine Arts 

karenwirth.com 

Roxi Swanson 


mnartists.org 

ST. OLAF COLLEGE 

Northfield, Minnesota | stolaf.edu 

Mary Griep 

Former Chair, Art and Art History 

marygriep.com 

mnoriginal.org 

Adelyn Rosenwinkel 


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 

Twin Cities Campus | umn.edu 

Alexis Kuhr 

Chair, Art Department 

mnartists.org 

Stephanie Thompson 


mnartists.org 

mnartists.org 

rosaluxgallery.com 

INTERSECTIONS

MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN 

MISSION STATEMENT 

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design educates individuals 

to be professional artists and designers, pioneering thinkers, 

creative leaders, and engaged global citizens. 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 

Bruce Bean, Chair 

Mary Lazarus, Vice Chair 

Leslie Berkshire 

Uri Camarena 

Nathan Davis 

Andrew Dayton 

Miles Fiterman 

Monica Little, ’78 

Betsy Massie 

Clinton H. Morrison 

Julie Snow 

D. Robert Teslow II 

Bill Thorburn, ’84 

LIFE TRUSTEES 

Bruce Bean 

Cy DeCosse, ’52 

Clinton Morrison 

TRUSTEES BY VIRTUE 

OF OFFICE 

Jay Coogan, President 

Janet Groenert, ’79, President, 

Alumni Association Board 

of Directors 

INTERSECTIONS SPONSORS 

Intersections is made possible through the generous support of the 

Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and Larkin Hoffman, with 

additional funding from Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Carleton 

College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and St. Olaf College. 

CATALOG CREDITS 

All images used courtesy of the artists unless otherwise noted. 

Catalog design by Nicole Summers, PSB ’10, MCAD DesignWorks. 

Copyediting by Mary Keirstead. 

INTERSECTIONS

2501 Stevens Avenue 

Minneapolis, MN 55404 

mcad.edu

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