Star Tribune
Leader of young artist program sees a statewide appeal
Fifty-three students from east metro schools participated in the 2024 Emerging Young Artists program, designed to spark art careers in the minds of young people. But it is Dawne Brown White’s dream to spread the program’s reach across the state.
“Our goal in the future is to find a concerned group of citizens, to say, ‘Hey, why not Hopkins? Or Marshall? Move on to other cities in all regions of the state,” said the executive director of COMPAS, a St. Paul-based arts non-profit that has run the program for three years. “We would love to replicate this and have gallery showings in, say, eight cities with one site showing the best in the state.”
Now in its 50th year, COMPAS has worked with more than 3 million Minnesotans of all ages to create poems, stories, drawings, and songs. “During our 50th-anniversary year, we extend a heartfelt invitation to all Minnesotans to join us in celebrating and exploring how creativity shapes and enriches our world,” Brown White said.
Expanding statewide is a big dream, she acknowledged. But no bigger than what COMPAS’s resident artists and show judges ask their young protégés to imagine — pursuing a life in design, photography, sculpture or painting.
For now, the Emerging Young Artists program has been solely an east metro affair. It’s the descendant of the Les Farrington Best 100 Juried Art Exhibition, put on by the St. Paul Jaycees from 1957 until 2019. When the Jaycees ceased operations in 2020, officials there approached COMPAS to continue something similar. After all, Brown White said, COMPAS has been hosting school residencies focusing on writing for 50 years.
“When the Jaycees approached, it made total sense — just with visual arts. We saw it as a way to extend the COMPAS mission, which is in our DNA,” she said. The program now focuses on reinforcing the arts for middle and high school students. The Emerging Young Artists program is funded with a STAR grant through the City of St. Paul, as well as money from the St. Paul Foundation and the St. Paul Jaycees Charitable Foundation, which continues.
“It’s gratifying that COMPAS has taken this on,” said Lisa Hiebert, a trustee with the Jaycees foundation. “We wanted to reinforce that art can be a career.”
The program does that through art residencies, often for five or 10 days at participating schools, where students learn from professional artists. At the end is a juried show, judged by artists, where students display their work — complete with a statement explaining the motivation of their piece.
Echo Columb, 17, is a student at Avalon School in St. Paul. Her submission was a full-size nude drawing of a female, using charcoal to create the figure on a canvas of multiple pieces of paper, glued together. Columb, who said she is looking at art schools across the country to continue her education and dreams of someday owning a gallery, likes the texture of her piece.
“It has this kind of fuzzy texture to it,” she said. “It adds this extra layer of feeling.”
Clover Ward, 17, is another Avalon student with her sights set on an artist’s life. She wants to become a fashion designer, she said. She created a dress, made of muslin, with pleats.
“It was really exciting, but also kind of scary,” Ward said. “I’d never done something like that. It kind of pushed me. It was the only textile there.”
Their teacher, Mickey Jurewicz, had four students involved in the program. The positive feeling her students received from the judges, and then having their work displayed at St. Paul’s Landmark Center, is affirming. Participants’ art will be on display there through April 28.
“It was such a blast last night. They were so happy. All the smiles,” Jurewicz said of the show that took place a couple weeks ago. “All the joy was just huge and wonderful to see.”
The DFL candidate for a Roseville seat in the Minnesota House is pushing back on allegations from his Republican opponent that he doesn’t live in the district he hopes to represent.
Curtis Johnson is currently a member of the Roseville Area Schools board. He has owned a home in Little Canada since 2017, according to Ramsey County property records.
In May he filed to run for the open seat in House District 40B, saying he lived in an apartment complex less than 3 miles from his Little Canada home. The district includes parts of Roseville and Shoreview and has been represented by DFLer Jamie Becker-Finn, who isn’t seeking re-election, since 2017.
In a statement, Johnson said he and his wife decided to move to Roseville last year, but they’ve struggled to find the right house. In the meantime, he’s been renting “a Roseville apartment as my primary residence while we keep searching for a forever home.”
“My wife and our youngest child still live in the house because we didn’t want to disrupt our child’s life by moving the rest of the family into my apartment and then moving them again after we found a house in Roseville,” Johnson’s statement said.
Wikstrom released an ad Oct. 15 that accused Johnson of lying about his residency, but he has not committed to making a legal challenge. A residency challenge would be decided by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
“My confidence level is high that we have a solid case he is not a resident of the district,” Wikstrom said in an interview. He noted that Johnson’s vehicle is often at the Little Canada home and a portable storage container appeared out front days after his political ad went online.
An unlicensed driver is now charged on accusations that he was speeding and under the influence of alcohol when he set off a chain-reaction pileup on an interstate exit ramp in Minneapolis, leaving one person dead and several others injured.
Talon Covie-Cardell Walker, 29, of St. Paul, was charged late Thursday afternoon in Hennepin County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the seven-vehicle pileup about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday after exiting from eastbound Interstate 94 toward Lyndale Avenue.
Walker remains held without bail ahead of a court appearance Friday afternoon. Court records do not list an attorney for him.
A search warrant affidavit was filed in court by the State Patrol that cleared the way for Walker’s blood to be collected to measure his degree of intoxication. Results are pending. The affidavit said Walker was “pushing 100 mph when taking the ramp, [and] it appears no braking took place before the crash.”
Walker was driving without a valid license, according to the state Department of Public Safety. In late 2019, his license was suspended, then it was revoked in spring 2021, the agency said.
Court records in Minnesota show Walker has traffic convictions for careless driving and operating a motorcycle without a license. State records also show convictions for illegal weapons possession, disorderly conduct, a minor drug offense and twice for violating a court no-contact order.
Walker’s passenger, 20-year-old Taniyah Randle-Smith, was taken by ambulance to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, according to the patrol. A hospital spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon that she was in critical condition.
Killed in the crash was Natalie Gubbay, a 26-year-old SUV driver from Minneapolis, whose vehicle was struck by Walker’s. Her passenger, Molly Elizabeth Brenton, 28, of Virginia, Minn., was taken to HCMC with noncritical injuries.
A juvenile has died while in detention at the Red Wing correctional facility in southeastern Minnesota.
Officials with the Minnesota Department of Corrections said staff on Saturday found an inmate who was unresponsive. Authorities attempted life-saving measures, which were unsuccessful. Paramedics arrived and the resident was pronounced dead at the scene, said spokeswoman Shannon Loehrke.
An investigation is underway to determine how the inmate died, she added.
No information about the identify of the deceased was released.
The Red Wing facility has a capacity of 88 inmates.
