The City of Mankato participated in an economic study called Creative MN in 2019, showing the impact of Mankato artists, creative workers and nonprofit arts and culture organizations on the economy. The results are in and the creative economy in Mankato is impressive!

Join us on Monday, April 27 at the Mankato City Council meeting where Sheila Smith from MN Citizens for the Arts and other arts leaders from the community will present the data findings.

We need all artists, arts leaders, creative business owners and passionate patrons to show up in support of more investment in arts, culture and creativity! To show solidarity among the arts community, wear white; Twin Rivers will supply you with a "Get Creative Mankato" button.

Save the Date and plan to attend this important arts advocacy day in Mankato.

Join us for an Affiliate Meeting on Tuesday, February 11 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. at the Hubbard Building, 424 N Riverfront Drive.

This is an opportunity for us to share our vision of a strong creative economy in Greater Mankato, and hear from you on how we can best serve the needs of the creative sector.

Current, new and potential affiliates are all welcome to attend!

Through the collective power of creativity, we can build strong communities together and make art accessible to everyone.

YOUR creative work is important to the success of our region, and we invite you to learn more about affiliation with Twin Rivers as we advocate for the voice of the creative sector in Greater Mankato.

The Resident Artists Exhibition will feature paintings, fiber arts, and jewelry by the studio artists of the Emy Frentz Arts Guild: Ginger Neilon of Baubles & Bobbies of North Mankato, Margie Larson, Raeann Irwin, Kylia Irwin, Eileen Hines, and Amanda Wirig.

The exhibition runs from December 6 – 27 at the Emy Frentz Art Guild and is sponspored by Antje Meisner Concepts.  

There will be an opening reception on Friday, December 6 from 5-7pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Gallery hours are from 1-6 pm Wednesday-Saturday. 

Kyle Fokken's Animalia will feature vintage ‘toy’ and ‘folk art’ aesthetics as a way to talk about the passing down of cultural values from one generation to the next.

Join us for a closing reception on Sunday, Nov. 24 from 1-3 p.m. and a chance to meet the artist. This event is free and open to the public.

The full exhibition runs from November 1-24 at the Emy Frentz Art Guild and is sponsored by Meyer & Norland Financial Group.

Gallery hours 1 - 6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour 2020
Entry Deadline: November 1, 2019 by 5:00 P.M.
Artist Stipend per sculpture: $1,000

The CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour is an exciting exhibition of outdoor sculpture displayed in the heart of downtown Mankato and North Mankato. Entering its tenth year, CityArt continues to draw thousands of visitors making the Greater Mankato arts community known around the nation.

Dowload the full Call for Artists or apply online at cityartmankato.com

CityArt is a collaborative venture between Twin Rivers Council for the Arts (TRCA), Greater Mankato’s arts commission and the City Center Partnership (CCP), a downtown development organization representing Mankato and North Mankato. Both organizations are committed to creating a vibrant community through arts and culture programming.

Join us for the opening reception of “Roxanne, In Print,” by local artist Nicole Soley . A series of prints, installation artwork, and objects exploring the nostalgic imagery representing Soley’s mother, Roxanne.

Opening reception Friday, October 4, 5-7 p.m. Live music by Amanda Wirig. This event is free and open to the public.

The full exhibition runs from October 4-25 and is sponsored by Internet Connections.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Starving Artist is a site-specific art experience with an element of surprise around every corner. Dynamic local artists perform, create and interact with guests to delight your senses and raise funds for Twin Rivers.

BUY TICKETS

$75 - VIP
$50 - General Admission
$25 - TRCA Affiliate

VIP Ticket includes:

• Meet + Greet with Silo Art artist Guido van Helten

• Access to Luminous Lounge

• Private beverage service and signature cocktail

• Food truck ticket

The main event is from 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. with over fifteen interactive art experiences and performances by local creatives. The 2019 line up includes: Miss Aliya Mukamuri · DJ CNDRM ·  Live Art Installation by Shelley Caldwell ·  Metal pour with Greg Mueller ·  Live art demo with Matthew Harding + Daniel Tapia ·  Cultural dance performances ·  AND SO MUCH MORE ...

Join us for a FREE guided tour of the 2019 CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, featuring 26 sculptures from artists across the U.S. Our fabulous sculpture walk docent will lead you through City Center Mankato and North Mankato and provide fun facts on the artists and inspiration behind each artwork.

Bring a water bottle, comfortable shoes and camera to tag yourself (#cityartkato) with these beautiful sculptures!

The tour starts at 500 S. Front Street at sculpture #1.

For more information contact 507-387-1008 or email info@twinriversarts.org.

Join us for the opening reception of “Deliquescent: Art in Motion” by local artist Lori Wolf. Fluid acrylic painting exhibition showing art in motion.

Opening reception Friday, September 6, 5-7 p.m. Live music by David Gadberry. This event is free and open to the public.

The full exhibition runs from September 6-27 and is sponsored by Old National Bank.

Gallery hours 8-430 p.m. Monday-Friday

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Saturday Art Social is a unique art experience designed to celebrate our creative community. Hosted by the Twin Rivers Movers + Shakers & Triple Falls Productions this event will be held at Red Rocks Nightclub in downtown Mankato. Guests will experience visual art curated by Daleki Art & OmniMatter Pop-Up Shows, burlesque performances by Button Down Burlesque, & music by CNDRM.

Come unwind, network, & enjoy the arts!
$5 at the door
21+ to drink

Join us for a FREE guided tour of the 2019 CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, featuring 26 sculptures from artists across the U.S. Our fabulous sculpture walk docent will lead you through City Center Mankato and North Mankato and provide fun facts on the artists and inspiration behind each artwork.

Bring a water bottle, comfortable shoes and camera to tag yourself (#cityartkato) with these beautiful sculptures!

The tour starts at 500 S. Front Street at sculpture #1.

For more information contact 507-387-1008 or email info@twinriversarts.org.

Join us for a FREE guided tour of the 2019 CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, featuring 26 sculptures from artists across the U.S. Our fabulous sculpture walk docent will lead you through City Center Mankato and North Mankato and provide fun facts on the artists and inspiration behind each artwork.

Bring a water bottle, comfortable shoes and camera to tag yourself (#cityartkato) with these beautiful sculptures!

The tour starts at 500 S. Front Street at sculpture #1.

For more information contact 507-387-1008 or email info@twinriversarts.org.

Join us for a FREE guided tour of the 2019 CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, featuring 26 sculptures from artists across the U.S. Our fabulous sculpture walk docent will lead you through City Center Mankato and North Mankato and provide fun facts on the artists and inspiration behind each artwork.

Bring a water bottle, comfortable shoes and camera to tag yourself (#cityartkato) with these beautiful sculptures!

The tour starts at 500 S. Front Street at sculpture #1.

For more information contact 507-387-1008 or email info@twinriversarts.org.

“From Myself” is a series of large scale oil paintings created by artist Sophia Weisensel. To create this series of paintings, she drew upon memories as her influence. Due to the elusive nature of memory, the paintings are not exact representations of events, but rather images that relay an emotion or movement in a moment. Each painting focuses on women, as the paintings are from the artist’s point of view.

The show will be hanging from June 7-28 at the Emy Frentz Gallery

Sponsored by Wade & Kellie Abed

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Join the Twin Rivers // Movers + Shakers for "Self-sufficient Artist" a night of networking & Artist Talk featuring installation artist Liz Miller multidisciplinary artist Michael Cimino, and Shelley Caldwell installation and drawing artist. These artists were chosen for their dedication to their artistic career. You will hear them discuss what has worked for them, what hasn't, and their journey to where they are now.

This event is free, but pre-registration is required.

Our event and venue sponsor Profinium, will be providing the Executive conference room and city view patio overlooking downtown Mankato. Snacks and beverages provided!

Profinium Place, 100 Warren St., Mankato, MN 56001
Take elevator to the 7th Floor

The CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour will welcome 26 new sculptures to the City Centers of Mankato and North Mankato on Saturday, May 11 for its ninth public art installation! The exhibit will feature stunning works of art created by artists from across North America, including many pieces by Minnesota sculptors. Artists and volunteers will begin installing the sculptures at 6:00 a.m. that morning.

CityArt is partnering with Mankato Downtown Kiwanis to add artistic elements to the annual pancake breakfast, held Saturday, May 11 from 8:00 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. at the Loose Moose Saloon and Conference Center. The breakfast will include an all you can eat breakfast buffet featuring a Build Your Own Pancake Bar with a topping and ham carving station, breakfast potatoes, eggs, coffee, and orange juice.

Tickets are $9 for adults, $4 ages 6-12, and free for ages 5 and under. Advance tickets are available online at cityartmankato.com, at the door or in advance from Kiwanis members.

The public is invited to meet CityArt artists at the breakfast and enjoy kids’ activities including tin foil sculptures and coloring sheets.

CityArt volunteer tour guides will lead free tours of the new sculptures at 9:30 a.m., 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Local musician, Nate Boots will play throughout the breakfast.

Residents are encouraged to vote for their favorite sculpture, and the People’s Choice award-winner will be purchased by CityArt for the community’s permanent City Center public art collection. Voters can complete the ballot found in the tour brochure and drop it in one of the ballot boxes along the route or vote online at cityartmankato.com.

The Twin Rivers // Movers + Shakers invite you to the Emy Frentz Arts Guild on Friday, May 3 from 5pm - 7pm for the Opening Reception of "palatable crEATions: A Food Inspired Juried Art Show", to gather together with food and friends, celebrating our creative arts community.

FREE event

-Event produced by: Lindsey Schaefer and the Twin Rivers Movers + Shakers
-Sponsored by: Open Arts Minnesota & Poor Farm Studios
-Visual Art
-Music by CNDRM
-Lollipop Performances by Aerial Affinity
-Food
-Awards



***Submission dates are April 24th & 25th at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild (8-4:30pm). $5 per entry, 3 entries per artist. Please provide a completed W-9 form for artwork over $500 that will be up for sale. ***

Artist and educator, Antwon Key, discusses his work using graphic design to address social issues. His series—Red, White, and Black— part of the "MN Black Fine Art Show", currently on exhibit at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild Gallery, explores the challenging relationship amid African-American citizenship and who gets the privilege to be critical and yet still patriotic.

Free and open to the public.

Artist Bio:
Photographer and graphic designer Antwon Key is based in Eagle Lake and Mankato. Key is a Graphic Communications instructor at South Central College where he also serves on the Diversity Committee and Academic Quality Improvement (AQIP) Steering Committee. Outside of the classroom, he has been employed as a photographer and graphic designer since 2012 and won the 2018 Print Regional Design Award and will have his work published in the HOW + Print book “The Best Design of 2019.” Key earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a degree from the University of Alabama.

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Calling all Greater Mankato artists and creatives!

The City Center Partnership is gearing up for phase two of INFUSE: Artists on Mainstreet Mankato. This year they will be funding large (up to $10,000) and small (up to $1,000) projects. The goal is to activate Washington Park, one of the largest green spaces in our City Center filled with history and diversity. Projects can be temporary or permanent, performances, events, visual art; whatever you can come up with!

The workshop, led by Springboard for the Arts and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota will give you the information you need to submit a proposal. All are welcome! You must attend to apply.

Presented in partnership with Obsidian Arts and funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the MN Black Fine Art Show will feature ten Black Minnesota artists in a variety of artistic mediums.

The artists were chosen from a pool of applicants by a jury process and represent some of the best Black artists in the state. The artists include: Kprecia Ambers, Eyenga Bokamba, Carla Hamilton, Christopher E. Harrison, Bill Jeter, Antwon Key, Terresa Moses, Theoneste Munyemana, Ivy Vainio, and Carl Wesley.

After showing for four weeks in Mankato, the show will continue around the state and be on view in Duluth, St. Cloud, and Minneapolis.

The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, April 5 from 5 to 7 p.m. The reception is free to attend and open to the public. Enjoy refreshments, drinks and music by Anastasia Ellis.

The exhibit will remain on view in the Emy Frentz Gallery through April 26, 2019. The Emy Frentz Gallery is fee and open to the public.
Hours are Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm.

The MSU Music Performance Series and Twin Rivers will co-host The Reminders and Amirah Sackett for an artist talk on Developing a Creative Mindset.

It is important today for artists to develop the softer 21st century skills of:

-- Capacity, Cooperation and Collaboration > the ability to work productively with others
-- Enterprise and Entrepreneurship > the ability to work for yourself
-- Creativity and Innovation > the ability to think and have new ideas

Learn how these skills are teachable and learnable in a discussion led by husband and wife team Big Samir and Aja Black and Amirah Sackett.

This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited and registration required.

A reception and Meet & Greet will follow the discussion.

This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals; and Building Bridges: Arts, Culture, and Identify, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.

Artistic Duality is a panel discussion  featuring two of Mankato’s most prominent art duos Brian Frink & Wilbur Neushwander-Frink, as well as Betty & Ocho. They will be discussing the dynamics that come into play when two creative brains are at work. Bring your sweetheart or show up stag, we'd love for you to join us  Monday, February 11th!

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To reserve your seat, click here: https://app.etapestry.com/cart/TwinRiversCenterfortheArts/default/category.php?ref=7710.0.218394796

AUTHOR WORKSHOP: Sequoia Nagamatsu will be the guest author of Good Thunder Reading Series at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild on Thursday, Feb. 7 at 10:00am. All are welcome!

Sequoia Nagamatsu is the author of the story collection, Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone (Black Lawrence Press), silver medal winner of the 2016 Foreword Reviews’ Indies Book of the Year Award. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Conjunctions, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, The Fairy Tale Review, Tin House online, Black Warrior Review, Willow Springs, The Bellevue Literary Review, Lightspeed Magazine, and One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories, among others. Originally from Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay Area, he was educated at Grinnell College and Southern Illinois University. He co-edits Psychopomp Magazine, an online quarterly dedicated to innovative prose, and teaches at St. Olaf College and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing.

The Bend of the River Photography Club will be presenting a photography exhibit of barns of varying size, shape, color, and condition. Barns are becoming a lost part of our heritage, and this exhibit will showcase the ones that are still in existence, or, at least, still recognizable. The members of the Bend of the River Photography Club have varied interests, skills, and artistic preferences, so there will be a unique blend of styles included in the show.

The opening reception takes place on Friday, February 1st from 5-7 pm in the Emy Frentz Gallery. There will be refreshments and live music provided, and the event is free and open to the public. The exhibit runs until February 22, and is sponsored by Meyer & Norland Financial Group.

"Omitted Histories: The Role of Music and Theater to Challenge Biases" is a discussion about the role music plays in theater and society. Participants will learn about how art can help challenge commonly held notions and rhetoric about cultures other than their own, as well as being a way to present omitted or misrepresented histories. 

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To reserve your seat, visit https://app.etapestry.com/cart/TwinRiversCenterfortheArts/default/item.php?ref=7710.0.208860193.

This event is relevant for general audiences, social studies, linguistics, and history courses. 

Ronnie Malley is a multi-instrumentalist musician, theatrical performer, producer, and educator. With a background in Global Music and Performance Studies, Ronnie has collaborated with artists internationally and has composed and consulted for many cultural music projects in film and theater.

He conducts Arabic language artist residencies for Chicago Public Schools through his business, Intercultural Music Production, Inc., is a teaching artist for music and theater with the Global Voices Initiative, is a faculty member at the Old Town School of Folk Music and Chicago Academy for the Arts, an accomplished artist with Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, and a veteran artist with Chicago Arts Partnership in Education.

Join Liz Stensland and Brittney Wegener as they present their new sculptural work in Two Friends, a joint exhibition. The artists’ reception takes place on Friday, January 18 from 5-7 pm, and is free and open to the public. There will be light refreshments and live music by Harris Deno and Shawn Bagley. The full exhibit runs from January 4-25, and is sponsored by the MSU Department of Art.

Join us for a Family Meeting to talk space at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild. Your involvement as an affiliate or member is important to us and we’d like to hear from you regarding your ideal space for working, playing, and connecting with others.

As the central information hub for arts and culture in Greater Mankato, we’d like to know how we can best serve our creative community through a thoughtful revisioning of the Emy Frentz Arts Guild.

Here are a few questions we plan to address:

• If you could have anything in a space, what would it be?

• How often do you use the Arts Guild?

• What amenities would you like available that currently are not?

All are welcome to join in on the conversation. If you cannot attend, no worries. We will be sending out an electronic survey to capture your input. This event is free, but registration is requested. You can reserve your seat here: https://app.etapestry.com/cart/TwinRiversCenterfortheArts/default/item.php?ref=7710.0.215948309

Thank you for your passion and commitment to the arts!

Join the Twin Rivers [Movers + Shakers] for Mindful Movement + Meditation for Creativity! We will begin with mindful movement with instructor Jessica Roemhildt where we discover that all movement starts with the feet! In this 30 min segment we will be warming up our bodies with some mindful stretching, and you will learn how important warming up your feet can prepare and effect the rest of your body. We will next focus on Mindfulness meditation with David Gadberry, Ph.D. which can be a useful tool for stress reduction and increased enjoyment of life. By using easy-to-learn techniques, people can employ their practice of mindfulness meditation throughout the day to decrease anxiety and get more out of their everyday activities. Mindfulness meditation is easily integrated into all faiths, religions, and world views; and it also can be done without any spiritual connection. This session will focus on the techniques without exploring any specific religion or spiritual affiliation.

Jessica Roemhildt is the owner of Lulu’s Wellness Center in Mankato, she is a Self-Care Specialist and has been offering a variety of options for improving your health for 15 years now. Whether you need a Massage, gait assessment, nutrition or herb consultation. Jessica believes that no pain is normal and wants to help you Live Your Life Unique. 

David Gadberry, Ph.D. the Director of Music Education at Minnesota State Mankato and also teaches music classes at local preschools as well as leading music groups at adolescent treatment centers in the area. Gadberry has been practicing mindfulness meditation for over 10 years and has led introductory meditation experiences in personal and professional settings.

“Art has the power to heal, inspire, provoke, challenge, and offer hope.” –Renee Phillips

To register for FREE, visit https://app.etapestry.com/cart/TwinRiversCenterfortheArts/default/item.php?ref=7710.0.189874254