By Janet Wight
The 57th annual St. Anthony Park Arts Festival will fill the neighborhood with arts galore on Saturday, June 6.
This year’s one-day celebration will feature more than 50 juried artists on and near the grounds of the neighborhood St. Anthony Park Branch Library along with musicians and a community plant sale. There will be also numerous food vendors.
The featured artists for 2026 are Clarissa Dahl, Mary Ila Duntemann and Jana Hedlund.
Clarissa Dahl
Gouache artist Clarissa Dahl has been a lifelong student of the arts, learning throughout her childhood from her artist parents.
As she grew up in Richfield, art lessons and creating art together were part of her family’s culture, she said.
Dahl has been drawn to plants and animals since she was a young girl. As she learned about climate change and environmental concerns in high school, she became passionate about science and decided that she wanted to make a difference.
Dahl divides her time between creating art and pursuing a master’s degree in conservation science at the University of Minnesota, where she also was recently accepted into the PhD program. Ecological restoration of wetland plant communities is her thesis topic.
“I love native plants more than anything,” she said.
Dahl lives with her partner Dominic, their cat Milo and their wheelchair-reliant dog Kaylee in student housing on campus.
Recently, she realized that making and sharing her art could be a viable part of her livelihood. Her motivation increased once she discovered gouache, a type of paint similar to watercolor.
Dahl was introduced to this medium by a co-worker. “It combines everything that I love about watercolor with the ability to use thick, intense paint strokes,” she explained.
Focusing on lighting and shadows, along with her ecological knowledge, makes her art style unique. Clarissa gives extra detail to underappreciated organisms such as mosses and grasses, she said.
Clarissa said she tries to stay true to her heart and what she finds beautiful and evocative.
“I would say I do paintings that are inspired by my love for nature and the experience of being in nature. I focus on people and wildlife interacting with the natural environment. My education allows me to appreciate natural systems,” she said.
“I paint what I want to, not what I think people want me to paint,” Clarissa added.
Dahl’s greatest fulfillment as an artist is derived from the creative process itself.
“I am most satisfied when I can enter a complete flow state and feel completely immersed in what I’m doing,” she said. “It’s satisfying to share my art with the world, and seeing people relate to the feelings I am trying to evoke with my paintings is special.
“After spending lots of time in nature and having artists as parents, it’s not an exaggeration to say that I have been an artist my whole life,” Clarissa added. “This is just the time that I am starting to share it with the world.”
To view Dahl’s art, visit @clarissadahlart on Instagram.
Mary Ila Duntemann
For Mary Ila Duntemann, handcrafting unique beads has been an important part of life for the past two decades.
Duntemann, a resident of Minneapolis’ Powderhorn neighborhood, has been interested in beads since she was a young girl.
“Beads in general are found in every culture around the world. I just think that the meditative aspect of making the bead connects me with the wider world,” Duntemann said. She added that different cultures use beads in various ways such as for prayer, meditation or adornment.
Working in her backyard studio, Duntemann creates glass beads from thin rods of colorful Italian glass. She uses the lampworking process, which uses the flame from a torch to melt the tips of the rods.
The beads are hollow which makes them light. Since they are bigger than most beads, she has a larger canvas to decorate, she said.
Afterwards they are placed in a rock tumbler with a fine grit for 10 to 12 hours in order to achieve the desired matte finish.
“Most people are thrown off by my beads because they say they can’t be glass since I prefer a matte finish,” she explained. “People mistake them for being wood or stone or ceramic. I don’t like shiny. My color palette is earthy and organic.”
Although Duntemann’s beads are often used for adornment, some people use them as focal meditative pieces. “They are large, they’re hollow, they’re good-sized to hold in your hands. A lot of people buy my beads just for the simple act of being able to hold them,” she said.
Besides making beads, Duntemann has been teaching at the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center for over 14 years. This organization supports heat, spark or flame mediums such as welding, blacksmithing, and jewelry and stained glass making.
Duntemann offers a variety of price points for her beads and jewelry. Prices range from $4 to $15 for spacer and disc beads. Her signature decorated beads range from $32 to $55. Simple chain necklaces are available for $90 while chunky necklaces with multiple beads sell for $495.
Duntemann participates in several art fairs including the Grand Marais Arts Festival in July, the Powderhorn Art Fair in August and the LoLa Art Crawl in September.
In addition to creating beads, Duntemann likes dabbling with fiber. She loves color so she enjoys dying fabric. She sews some of her own clothes and she also does a lot of mending.
“I like playing with stitches for adornment,” she said.
For additional information, visit Duntemann’s website at maryiladuntemann.com.
Jana Hedlund
Handbuilt. Functional. Durable.
These are words used by Jana Hedlund to describe the type of pottery that she creates.
Hedlund has enjoyed art since she was a child growing up in Crookston. She took elective ceramics classes in high school and during her college years at Concordia College in Moorhead.
“There is peace and calming in the routine of making pottery,” Hedlund explained.
All of her bowls, plates and mugs are food grade and may be used in a microwave. These items are also dishwasher-safe which makes them suitable for everyday use.
Hedlund embraces the natural imperfections that occur when using the hand-building process to make pottery. These unique qualities of the clay, along with the simple use of color highlights, set her work apart, she explained.
Making hand-built functional stoneware is a part-time pursuit for Hedlund. She is also busy in her role as a special education coordinator in an east metro school district. Although she has been creating ceramics on and off for 20 years, she has been more focused on developing her craft in the past year, she said.
Hedlund eventually aspires to have a home studio. But, for now, all of her work is currently done at Midway Clay, a membership-based community clay studio at 1708 University Ave.
Having a creative outlet outside of her day job, along with a way to connect with other artists, brings Hedlund a great deal of satisfaction. She is exploring whether this is something that she would want to do at a higher level.
“I would love to get to the point where I can sustain it financially,” she said.
Since the St. Anthony Park Arts Festival is her first art show, her primary challenge is to prepare for the event and ensure that she has the right number of items for her booth, she said. Prices range from $15 to $50 apiece.
Hedlund has lived in the Midway neighborhood with her husband for 15 years. They have two cats, Fern and Rue, plus four chickens named Meg, Road Rash, Snowball and Muffin.
Hedlund believe that anyone who creates art is an artist. “Whether it’s for your own enjoyment or to share with others is equally valid,” she said.
Visit sapfest.org for more information, a detailed schedule, a festival map or to make a donation.
Janet Wight is a regular freelance writer for the Bugle.
