Saturday, July 13, 5 – 7 p.m.
Gallery Talk: Tuesday, July 23, 7 p.m. – Join artists Theresa Beaulieu, Cory Favre, Fawzia Khan, Sally Power, Gwen Partin and Kimberlee Joy Roth for a discussion of their work and their experiences in the summer studio intensive.
Summer exhibition hours (July 14-27): open daily, 1 – 6 p.m.
All events are free and open to the public.
This exhibition showcases the work recent participants have made at the 2019 Women's Art Institute—a summer art course at St. Catherine University for contemporary women artists of all ages and disciplines. As a community that shares, reflects and creates, this culmination of four weeks of intensive studio work and study reveals the concerns of women artists today.
Artist Participants: Nancy Ariza, Theresa Beaulieu, Darlene Eckert, Cory Favre, Sandy Gillespie, Katherine Glass, Betsey Hodson, Fawzia Khan, Gwen Partin, Kristin Maija Peterson, Sally Power, Jeri Lyn Reinhardt, Nina Martine Robinson, Kimberlee Joy Roth, Jill Stebbins, Emelin Ventura
Faculty: Patricia Olson & AK Garski
Teaching Assistants: Kristen Palm & Sarah Kusa
About the Women's Art Institute
The Women’s Art Institute at St. Catherine University annually offers the fully accredited Summer Studio Intensive, a rigorous four-week program for advanced women artists and art students focusing on issues that arise through the combination of open studio work, inspiring conversation, and critique with guest artists, curators and art historians. Begun at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1999, the Institute moved to St. Catherine University in fall 2012.
Participants gain insights into the work of contemporary women artists; achieve philosophical, aesthetic, and historical knowledge that will help them define their goals as women artists; are given opportunities for intensive studio work and individual tutoring; and develop a body of work based on exploration of selected questions brought by the women and discussed during the Summer Studio Intensive.
The Women’s Art Institute is sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History at St. Catherine University and co-sponsored by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
For more information about the Women’s Art Institute, visit www.stkate.edu/wai.
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WAI Studio Visit With Hazel Belvo
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WAI Student Sandy Gillespie Working During WAI
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
How do I have a conversation with art of the past and with my contemporaries? How can I overcome barriers that prevent me from being a practicing artist and getting down to work in the studio? These were two of the questions established for consideration by the participants in the 2019 Women’s Art Institute Summer Studio Intensive in their just-completed four-week course. Each of the 16 women artists created a new portfolio of work from which this exhibition is curated by co-instructors Anna Garski and myself. Along the way, the artists shared their artwork and hopes, attended a seminar and critiques with visiting artist Liz Miller, enjoyed a sumptuous banquet organized by our intrepid teaching assistants, and focused deeply in the triumphant final critiques with founder Elizabeth Erickson. Ranging in age from 21 to 72, the participants explored a wide range of new directions, often surprising themselves and asking: How do I give myself permission to honor my ideas and trust my instincts without inhibitions in the studio?
- Patricia Olson, Director of the Women's Art Institute
ABOUT THE FACULTY
Patricia Olson
Patricia Olson is the Institute director and professor emerita of the Department of Art and Art History at St. Catherine University. She has practiced painting and design for more than 30 years and is a founding member of the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM). She received an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
A.K. Garski (they/them/theirs)
Co-instructor AK Garski is a painter who also creates installations and performance art. Garski has a long history of commitment to the Women’s Art Institute: they first attended as a student, and have served twice as a teaching assistant. Garski is a magna cum laude graduate of St. Catherine University with a double major in studio art and women’s studies, and earned their MFA and MA in History and Theory of Contemporary Art from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Image Gallery
Click an image to view in larger size

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

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
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

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

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





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

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