See Previous years of Emma Programming
Restoring Waters: The Emma Norton Project 2026
Classes are here for 2026!
Emma Norton: Call for Artists to Teach!
We are continuing our trauma sensitive art classes at Emma Norton! To be eligible to teach, you need to be an active ACW member, up to date with volunteer hours, and have taken trauma curriculum training from ACW. The next training course by Robin Getsug will be offered when we have new teachers who need it.
Submit a teaching proposal lesson by filling out this form: Emma Norton Teaching Proposal
Once approved by Barbara, Megan will coordinate with you to schedule your class.
The classes pay $200 per 2 hour class. Classes will be taught on Thursdays 6-8pm at Emma Norton’s St. Paul Restoring Waters location. We have many supplies available at Headquarters, but supply stipends are available for up to $50 if needed. 8 person class max, be prepared for 4-10 students. Must be a theme that can relate to social justice, nature, healing, etc. Barbara would like new and different classes. Please read the information below:
Info and past classes: https://www.
How to write a lesson plan: https://www.
Email Megan with questions: megan@meganmoore.com
2026 Classes January -April
January Classes:
January 8, 2026
PAINT ANYTHING — Latex Acrylic
with Megan Moore
You don’t need paper or a canvas to make a painting—we will use discarded items and leftover house paint to create a new work of art.
CATHARTIC PAINTING—Intuitive Landscapes
with Catherine Palmer
with Liisa Lee
Create a visual bridge from past struggles to future possibilities using animal symbolism, paint and stencils.
February 5, 2026
EMOTION MONSTERS — Polymer Clay
with Layl McDill
Make a monster that embodies an emotion you are trying to cultivate or control. Take your creation home and bake it in your own oven.
February 12, 2026
FIND YOUR SOCIAL VOICE — Paint & Collage
with Debra Ripp
In this class we will explore the mediums of paint and collage to create a comment piece to take home.
February 19, 2026
VISION BOARDS: Reflection, and Moving Forward — with Sam St. John
In times of uncertainty and complex emotions as we start 2026, collage can be a great way to move through complicated emotions.
February 26, 2026
HAND-DECORATED POUCHES — Tea Bag Transfer
with Karen McDonald
Image transfer and bright little paintings on tea bags. Make sachets bags (lavender/cinnamon), jewelry gift bags, or decorations from simple teabags.
March 5, 2026
DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM NATURE — with Megan Moore
Practice the art of seeing with this sketchbook session. We will use images of nature—both objects and photos—along with pencils, pens, and markers to capture inspiration.
March 12, 2026
RELAX WITH NEUROGRAPHIC ART — Change Stress into Calm as you Draw!
with SAM Green
Overcome stress and achieve a healing, meditative state of present-moment awareness by using an artistic process called Neurographica.
March 19, 2026
PAINTING ROCK MANDALAS — with Laura Burlis
Learn simple ways to make dots on a stone to make your own mandala painting.
March 26, 2026
SCRAPPY WALL HANGING — Mixed reused materials
with Becca David
Create an original wallhanging with discarded materials.
Teacher Bios:
Megan Moore
My paintings are accessible, calming, and meditative. Themes of inner peace and sanctuary recur in my compositions as I use my canvas to frame small vignettes of the natural world. My paintings are ready to engage the willing viewer in contemplation and reflection. I am inspired by natural forms, creating personal symbolism, and employing my own version of magic realism—elevating realistic subject matter by use of idealized and dreamy arrangement. I create balanced compositions with instinctive but careful use of color. My background in illustration and graphic design is sometimes seen in the use of narrative elements or flatness of objects. I primarily use oil paints, but also use watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and drawing materials in developing concepts. Mural projects over the past five years have led to my use of latex acrylic in studio work.
The life changing events of 2020—the global pandemic and the local murder of Geroge Floyd and the subsequent civil uprising—were a catalyst for changing my approach as an artist from that of a craftsman to that of a co-creator, community engager, and meaning-maker. The pressures of 2020 caused enough of a shift in my perspective of life that I reoriented my understanding of values, emotions and connections in relation to my work. That fall, I completed a mural project that clarified my participation in public art as an opportunity to support community healing and a way for neighborhoods to express their shared values. A second project, a series of paintings commissioned for a new office space, and the conversations I had around the project, clarified the value of my art in supporting holistic individual wellness. My work is displayed in many health care settings, and the attributes that make it appropriate for those spaces are also supportive to individuals in other spaces, including workplaces and homes, as well as to individuals that see my public art. I am now less focused on my art as a final product and more interested in the experience of art, both in creation and sharing.
In 2021, I was invited by the Lake Street Council to be part of an artist panel to discuss the potential and power of including the arts as a central aspect of redeveloping the Lake Street corridor after the effects of the civil uprising. I have continued to work with the Lake Street Council on public art and have been an active member of my neighborhood artists’ group, LoLa (The League of Longfellow Artists). Through two residencies with local organizations, which both included working in public space, I have learned the importance of artists as a community within ourselves. This encouraged me to give my first workshops in 2024, using painting as a tool to facilitate accessing individual creativity. Sharing not only finished work but also the creative process, with its experience of a flow state of mind, has become important to my work.
Layl McDill
grew up in Gillette, Wyoming where she began creating at a very young age. Her early works were dollhouses, marionettes and even an entire “Smurf Village”. Layl received her BFA in Illustration from the Columbus College of Art Design but she found it more exciting to make sculptural work and sell it through galleries and art fairs. She has exhibited her work around the country since 1994. Polymer clay has been her medium of choice using the millefiori technique and some mixed media materials added. The theme of wonder permeates her sculptures that are covered with endless details. Her work can also be found in numerous books and publications. Selected recent awards include 2nd Place Overall at Arts North International 2021, Best in “Blue” at “Primary” Banfill Locke Center for the Arts 2021, Best in Sculpture, Edwardsville Arts Fair 2018 and 2019.
Social media: https://www.facebook.com/layl.
Tiktokk.com/@laylmcdill
Twitter: @laylm
Catherine A Palmer BFA,
University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN While I have been at the business of making art for as long as I can remember, my work as a student began in earnest in 1987 when I was awarded a scholarship to the Split Rock Art program. Since then, my study has led me from the precepts of life and figurative drawing to the freedom I have found in theory and an abstract vision. In other words, you need to know the rules to break them. And in the process of doing so, catharsis is found. My starting place is color; color leads me through space to composition. My subject matter can be identified as a conversation with the world I live in, influenced by feminism, personal circumstance and the on-going attempt to create a pure art object, one that exists solely for the experience of the beholder. I have shown my work in Minneapolis since 1997 in Galleries, Community Colleges and Coffee Houses. As a result, my paintings are held in personal collections across the United States and in Norway.
Debra Ripp
I am a native Minnesotan born in Mankato and based in the Twin Cities. I welcome you to come visit my studio in the Dow building and the Creative Zone of St. Paul. The Dow building is on the Green Line of the Twin Cities Light Rail System~ Tobersonstudios, 2242 University Ave. W. #201B, St. Paul. MN 55114
Tobersonstudios is home to a broad range of spirited images by Debra Ripp in various media. Toberson is the doghead figure on the home page; he is an original insignia character in Debra’s work, the guide to all of her imagery. ~
I am a Mixed Media artists which means I am willing and love to explore all possible media, anything that will make the image emerge stronger and obtain the voice it is meant to have. My favorite thing is to vacillate between media and observe how the image can transform and mature as it is manifested in different clothes, so to speak.
Sam St. John
Sam St. John ( she/her) is a Indigenous multi-media artist from Hastings, Minnesota. Her mother taught art for 31 years and Sam grew up in a home full of art created by her father. Sam developed a passion for learning about art history and drew inspiration from artists she learned about.Sam is a painter, poet, live painter, art facilitator, performance artist, and singer. Sam has an Associate degree in Fine Art from Inver Hills Community College. She finds inspiration in her travels, connecting to nature, animals, meditation, and living near the Mississippi River.
Sam is passionate about art transforming lives. Sam’s art is grounded in the essence of storytelling, resilience, authenticity, and vulnerability. Rooted in the soul, art serves the purpose of evoking emotions, fostering connections, and building community. Sam believes that creating art, in any form, is a means of self-healing. She paints with expressive bright colors that narrates her story, recognizing the power embedded in our narratives. Sam uses her art to start conversations about mental health, identity, queerness, race, healing, and trauma in hopes to inspire others.
SAM Greene, 2D illustrator and jewelry designer
After earning my BA in Graphic Design, I worked at design firms in New York City first doing print design, then illustration and design for the web. My most fun and inspiring job was a stint as head art director for Skittles and Snickers. During those years, I moonlighted doing editorial illustration for the New York Times, Business Week, and other publications. After 911, I worked independently as an illustrator and graphic designer. My biggest accomplishments were ninety illustrations for a book for Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and fifty signage illustrations for New York Botanical Gardens.
During this time I began developing my own personal work: a series of humorous illustrations of extremophiles (extreme life forms) and a second series depicting Planets and Planettes, which relied heavily on astrological metaphors and magical realism. This work was exhibited or sold at the Flushing Hall of Science in Queens NY, Brooklyn Public Library, and the American Museum of Natural History.
My career took a turn when I became a teaching artist for the New York Department of Education and the New York Department of Juvenile Justice. I taught art workshops to underserved students in New York City public schools and to residents of Juvenile Detention sites, both girls and boys in Brooklyn and Bronx New York.
And now I live in Minnesota, where I’ve finally come to embrace my own muse, making my art the main course, as it were, of my life. Since moving here in 2018, I’ve been working in polymer clay and have continued creating 2D illustrations–after a 5 year detour to earn my MA in teaching English as a Second Language while teaching at colleges, adult learning centers, and libraries. At this moment in time, I eagerly anticipate the next chapters of my creative journey.
Website www.sciencepiction.com
Email sam@sciencepiction.com
Karen Daphne grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended the Art Student’s League in New York. Early on, Karen’s photo-realistic renderings set her work apart. Fascinated by quantum physics and frequency, Karen studied Sacred Geometry and in Australia spent time with a Reiki Master who was able to imbue painted image with prana or chi. One of her aspirations is to create art for public spaces that produces positive, healing changes in quantum field.
Karen holds a B.A. in Art and Education, M.A. in Language & Culture and M.F.A. in Writing. She has taught in NewYork, Miami and Santa Fe as well as France, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco, Republic of Georgia and the U.K.
Laura Burlis has made art since she was a child, and knows how important making art has been to her own sense of well-being and creative self-expression.
She has experimented with many mediums in her life- a few include painting, bronze casting, screenprinting, and scarecrow making. For the last 15 years her main medium has been Polymer Clay. She uses the clay like solid paint, assembling her landscapes & nature scenes like a mosaic. She loves plants and landscapes, and was Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park in 2017.
Laura loves teaching both kids and adults both how to work with polymer clay and other mediums.
She has taught at the Textile Center of MN, Minneapolis Community Ed, Courageous heArts, Phipps Center for the Arts, Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, and for Breanna’s Gift, a program to bring art to kids in hospital.
You can find her art at: https://www.etsy.com/your/
Facebook: Laura Borealis Art
Becca David was born in rural Pennsylvania and currently resides in Southside Minneapolis. She began her formal education at Edinboro University of PA and completed a BA in Art and BS in Business Administration at Waynesburg University in Pennsylvania. She is a Certified Master Naturalist and holds a certificate in Mental Health First Aid.
Becca paints primarily in watercolor and acrylics using linear elements within her work to explore rhythmic patterns inspired by music and her environment. Her latest mixed media body of work incorporates discarded materials and elements of her past work and is a reflection of the times and environment we live in.
Teaching Info here