When Brad Menninga, Clatsop Community College’s new Ceramics instructor wanted to find an appropriate way to introduce himself to the region, he decided to invite the community of artists he had worked closely with in Minnesota to help him. The result is “The Country I Come From is Called the Midwest,” the fall show at the Royal Nebeker Gallery at Clatsop CC, which will include the work of Menninga and six Minnesota artists he worked closely with over the past before moving to Astoria. The artists are Maggie Thompson (textiles), Suyao Tian (watercolor), Stuart Loughridge (printmaking), Kelly Ludeking (sculpture), Heather Friedli (painting), and Lark Gilmer (photography).
“The cliche of the solitary artist working alone in the studio is true for some of the time,” says Menninga, “but engaging with other artists not only allows you to draw on their expertise, it also pushes your art in new directions and challenges you to be better.” Menninga is always looking to create connections with artists and crafters, finding ways to collaborate, volunteer, or even hire each other when the budget allows. “I’ve hired most of the artists I’m bringing out, and many of them have hired me for help with various projects. When there’s no money, we volunteer. Two have given me shows in their galleries, and all of them participated at some point in a yearly event I used to organize in St. Paul.”
Menninga, who works primarily in ceramics, stresses the importance of working with artists in other mediums. “Every substance requires a different touch and technique and prefers different forms and lines – the soft sculpture and texture of weaving compared to the thick brushstrokes of paint or graphic linework of etchings. Working with and caring deeply about the qualities of other art media helps me keep an open mind about the possibilities in my own art.”
“The Country I Come From is Called the Midwest” will be open fall term, September 30 – December 13 at the Royal Nebeker Gallery at Clatsop Community College, 1799 Lexington Ave, Astoria Oregon. The opening reception will be Friday, October 11, 5:30-8pm. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday, 9-5pm and weekends by appointment.
Artist Roster:
Maggie Thompson:
Maggie Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design(RISD) in 2013. As a textile artist and designer, she derives her inspiration from family history, Ojibwe heritage and the broader Native American experience. Skillfully and intuitively working with both natural and synthetic materials, Thompson’s multimedia artwork expands various textile traditions’ inherited ways of being and becoming.
Stuart T. Loughridge:
Stuart Loughridge is a second-generation printmaker, painter and frame maker. He learned these skills from his father, who encouraged Stuart in his art making from an early age. He later honed his skills at the Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sketching is at the heart of Loughridge’s practice, and the genre of landscape has always been his primary interest.Loughridge sketches in the landscape and creates artwork in his studio. His Plein air ink and watercolor sketches are the seeds for his studio works, which may take the form of copper plate etchings, silkscreens, or oil paintings. Loughridge’s attention to detail and commitment to craft are reinforced by finishing the work with a hand-crafted frame, another skill Loughridge learned from his father.
Kelly Ludeking:
Kelly Ludeking graduated from Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD) in 1997 with a BFA in sculpture and furniture design. Here he was introduced to the feral fires of iron casting and the precision of fine furniture crafting. Ludeking has participated in, facilitated and hosted hundreds of iron pours since. In 2008 he co-founded Ironhead Sculptural Services, LLC, a traveling iron foundry that shares the art and appreciation of cast iron sculpture and performances with local community members. Ludeking has become a leader in the cast iron art scene. He guides artists and institutions through the process of building their own furnace, running them for the first time and troubleshooting the fluid nature of coke-operated cupolas. His love for sharing cast iron art and processes lead him to begin an annual event on his family farm in NE Iowa, USA. Since 2004 artists have traveled from all over the world to the Ludeking estate for camping, community and cast iron festivities.
Heather Friedli:
Heather Friedli graduated with a Fibers & Textiles degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2005. Friedli is best known for her contemporary impressionist oil paintings, drawing on her family’s native Odawa and Mexican heritage and the land in which she lives. Bold strokes and brilliant colors light up scenes of cloudscapes, water, and native flora and fauna. Her experiences in the landscape dictate brush strokes in her imaginative and brilliant paintings. She seeks to create work that shares with the viewer the experience of immersion in the landscape and escape into the healing beauty of nature. Within these kinesthetic and contextual works, Friedli explores the spiritual world through the lens of culture and lived
experience of place.
Suyao Tian:
Suyao Tian is a professional artist based in the Twin Cities, MN. She currently serves as faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, teaching Water-Based Media studio classes. She is the founder and owner of Viewpoint Gallery, and a board member of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA). She earned her BA from the University of Central Arkansas and her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In her professional artistic career, she works as an independent curator and water-based media abstract painter. Her paintings have been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her paintings have been permanently collected by museums, institutions, and renowned collectors,
Lark Gilmer:
Lark Gilmer became a photographer through a series of apprenticeships in advertising studios abroad. Her career path has always been equally shared between her joy in making something out of nothing and her love of shepherding. At some point, whimsey suggested she explore fusing the two – and that has made all the difference. Gilmer now looks for ways to share her connection to the land using the tools she has at hand – a blade of grass, film, feather, or brush.
Brad Menninga (Curator and Artist):
Brad Menninga grew up in Bellingham, Washington, and although he has left the Pacific Northwest several times, he always ends up back on the rainy side of the Cascades. He received his MFA from California College of the Arts (San Francisco) in 2010. After running the ceramics program for a few seasons at a remote retreat center near Glacier Peak, Menninga moved to Minnesota where he produced ceramics ranging from handheld pottery to room sized installations. He received a 2020 Minnesota Artist Initiative Grant and 2020 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. In 2023 he left St. Paul to teach ceramics at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon. He has published with Studio Potter, Ceramic Arts Daily and Pottery Making Illustrated.
