The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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July 5, 2008

Artists, and their work, on display

By Dan Linehan

ST PETER — Within Trygve Beckel’s penchant for pottery, he has a proclivity, a predisposition, toward two themes: color and curves.

His ceramic sculptures explore the spectrum of blue — sky-blue and cerulean merge into teal and dark blue.

The Eagle Lake 21-year-old calls himself “very devoted” to the concept of color. The glazes used by sculptors to color their work are complicated; the melted liquid glass can change hue according to temperature, he explains.

Beckel also pays lots of attention to curves — he doesn’t like straight lines and even holds a mild distaste for obtuse angles that flirt with straightness.

That’s easily evident in the plates and cups that are folded on each other as in a Salvador Dalí painting. Less obviously, almost all of his pottery features rolling edges.

A dozen or so artists at the Art Center of St. Peter’s fair were all selling their work Friday and Saturday in the expanded, two-day event, and they each had a story.

Cynthia Bergman enjoys painting her watercolor portraits, just not selling them.

The Janesville woman began painting as a homemaker, and did it for her own enjoyment.

“I was a little scared I was doing it all wrong,” she said.

So Bergman took some workshops and learned she was doing just fine. Artistically, that is. She’s still a bit nervous about showing her work in public.

Her favorite piece on display is a horizontal watercolor of white roses, evocative of romance.

“I guess it must be a woman thing,” she explains helpfully.

Jon Smithers stumbled into photography on the heels of a friendly competition six years ago over who could buy the best digital camera. (He figures he won.)

He’s always been interested in the outdoors, and the camera gives him an excuse to indulge.

A mainstay is one of the half-dozen or so known bald eagles that are known to nest on the Minnesota River near St. Peter. She’s got another nest this year with two eaglets, he says.

Sue Peoples, of Owatonna, creates art made of beads, but not the kind you can string together after a stop at the Hobby Lobby.

Within every work, she tries to include a piece of glass she’s fashioned herself.

One method involves slim cylinders of glass that are heated with an oxygen torch, then wrapped around a steel rod to form interesting shapes.

Another technique is called “fused” glass, and it involves sheets of glass cut into shape.

The art fair is using professional artists, but at the same time it’s trying to make their art more accessible, less intimidating.

In Peoples’ work there is perhaps the least threatening item: Tiny dog bones fashioned out of glass as jewelry to dangle off Rover’s collar.

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