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Jillian Collins | Wit & Wildflowers
And Yet, the Blossoms Return, 2026
10” x 20” acrylic on canvas
Suggested starting bid: $120
I’ve always loved cherry blossoms, not only for their natural beauty, but also for what they represent culturally, especially in Japanese culture. They can represent life and death, love, peace, or even beauty and violence. The blooms are short lived which has historical reference to the short lives of Samurai. As with many floral blooms, they come in spring, and can bring a presence of hope, renewal, and resurgence. I’m very drawn to the dissonance between something physically beautiful, the stark reality of mortality, the darker side of violence, and the emergence from winter (or something more metaphorical). I felt this was very fitting and representative of the times in which we are currently living. While the blooms may be short lived, they still return every year, thus the title And Yet, the Blossoms Return.
Bid:
“A Wing and a Prayer”:
Liisa Lê
Acrylic on canvas
24″ x 30
$550 (starting bid $250)
It began as a whisper in my heart and mind—a prayer for love, for peace, for a world gentler than our own. The text, written into the first layer of paint, now lies like indecipherable scripture beneath a flood of color. Those words were the first fragile marks of hope that compelled me to move forward. From them, this single wing unfurls: a swirl of color against the sky. The wing belongs to the whooping crane, a creature that teaches us survival is a collective act. It cannot fly with one wing, and neither can we. This painting is both a wing and a prayer; a belief that if we lift each other, even the most wounded among us can find the current and rise.
Bid:
I began work on the painting shortly after the death of Renée Good; the project gained urgency on Jan. 24 when agents killed Alex Pretti. I read all I could about what happened and watched all the horrific videos. As a former long-time journalist, I felt was my duty to do the research before moving definitively forward. What I felt in the end was a primal age at the injustice and the tragedy not only of those deaths but the very idea of invading a city with what, as Springsteen said, amounted to a private army. I came away with deep admiration for the stand that citizens of your city took.
David D. Haynes
“Minneapolis in January”
Acrylic on canvas, 73 × 48 inches (2026)
Minimum bid $500
In January 2026, federal agents acting on behalf of the American government, and its president, shot and killed two U.S. citizens on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Renée Good and Alex Pretti died exercising their rights of free speech and assembly.
After the killings, government officials defamed them as terrorists and lied about what happened; federal officials declined to cooperate with an investigation by the state of Minnesota.
“Minneapolis in January” exposes a moment when the federal government terrorized its own citizens as a political tool. The painting has no focal point, no rest for the eye; its expressive red palette suggests fury and chaos in the wake of the killings and yet the spare hints of teal also suggest hope.
Democracy can be weakened at such moments. Yet thousands of Minnesotans showed democracy can be strengthened when citizens stand united against immoral state power. This painting remembers the victims, even as the lies of a corrupt government encourage us to forget.
In mid-February, 2026, federal officials announced that the immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis (Operation Metro Surge) was ending. https://daviddhaynesart.org/
A raw, visceral reaction to the killings in Minneapolis and the raw, visceral painting that resulted
Bid:
Denise Lau
Brown’s Creek
16″ x 20″ acrylic painting
painted January 2026
$150 suggested price
I like to paint landscapes as they appear month after month and year after year because they are ever changing. Global warming changes our landscapes, seasons change our landscapes, natural disasters change our landscapes… so as we see it one day, it may never look the same again. I enjoy capturing the moment in time that I am there with nature, in a park, in my backyard, on a trip, and during my day to day routines. Beauty is all around us and if we don’t take the time to capture it as it is it will change before our eyes with no memory of how it used to be.
Bid:
Steven Olinger
Title: Big Birch Lake Autumn
Medium: Black and White photography
Framed – Metal and glass 24 x 24; archival image 8 x 8 and mat board.
Part of my photography work involves images that strive for an emotion. Could be quirky, intense or, in this case, peaceful reflection.
Retail: $225 Minimum bid: $111.
www.nerica.com Instagram @olinger.steven
Bid:
“Cutting Edge Tools”
Wall Hanging
Stoneware 13″x13″x4″
Becca David
Starting Bid $125 Retail:$275
This piece is part of a body of work entitled Dysfunctional Function. It represents beauty of a person even when they appear to be broken, “dysfunctional”. All people have relevance and deserve to have their voices lifted.
IG, Threads, Bluesky @beccadavidartist
Bid:
Title: The Class
SAM Greene
Size: 11″ x 14″
Digital image created in Photoshop
Starting Bid: $100
https://www.sciencepiction.com
When I was living in New York City, I was part of a tight-knit spiritual community. This is a fond and partly sardonic image of the members of our meditation group in all our wide-eyed innocence and insouciance. The floating mahasiddha represents the power that our spiritual mentors and teachers assumed in our lives. It was a colorful time full of luminance and other worldliness.
As an artist, I have always been inspired by fairytales and science fiction. Digital media enabled me to achieve next level detail that could hardly ever be crafted by hand. SAM has been an illustrator and fine artist. She has lived and worked in San Francisco, Tokyo, and New York City. Her client base includes: Skittles and Snickers, New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, New York Times, Business Week, American Museum of Natural History, and M&M Mars Skittles and Snickers.
BID:
Lady of the Lake”
Domed Goddess
Ceramic (containing Lake Superior agate fragments)
Height: 10”. Base width: 5”
Grand Marais artist / unsigned Starting Bid $40 Retail:$90
This piece beautiful Hellenistic style ceramic work is dedicated to the spirit of Lake
Superior. Painted in shades of blue, the lake is personified in a figure of the Divine Feminine. The sound the fragments made when the figure is shaken resembles that of a rain stick.
BID:
Title: Curious Carnivore Connection Tile Tale
Medium: Polymer Clay and Handmade Tile by Josh Blanc
Price: $120
Size: 8″x8″x1″
Artwork statement:
I continue to be fascinated by the ecological systems that keep the earth healthy and diverse. It has been widely studied that when you take a carnivore out of an ecosystem all sectors of that system suffer not just those directly related. I created this piece while thinking about this reality. The tile was created by my husband Josh and was leftover from a project in our own house. I wanted the tile to live on in a new iteration with the additions of my polymer clay pieces.
Bid:
Lynnette K. Black
Title: The Journey
Medium: intaglio with acrylic.
Size: 14” X 12″
Starting bId: $125
lynnetteblackart.com
Instagram @blacklynnette
Facebook Lynnette Black
Artwork Statement:
Today the number of immigrants is overwhelming many countries’ resources and their capacity to support them. Politically, there is a rise in nationalism due to fear and economic uncertainty. Politicians, especially in the United States and Europe, have used this fear to gain power, fanning the flames of division using fear of “the other.”
My piece was developed to counter this fear-mongering and create empathy with refugees. No one wants to leave their home and country unless circumstances have forced them to re-evaluate their life and to seek safety or a better way of life.
Bio:
Lynnette, a native Minnesotan, fell in love with intaglio printmaking at Hamline University while studying under Leo Lasansky. She continued studying with his father Mauricio Lasansky in the MFA Program at the University of Iowa. Lynnette maintained her art practice while pursuing a career in global medical device marketing and raising a family.
Lynnette has actively participated in juried exhibitions locally and nationally, including exhibiting twice at the Katherine Nash Gallery, Regis Center for the Arts, University of Minnesota. In 2018 her print “Wood Nymph” was selected by Juror Crawford Alexander Mann, curator for Prints and Drawings, Smithsonian American Art Museum for exhibition in Stand Out Prints, an International Juried Exhibition, at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, MN. Lynnette’s intaglio prints have been awarded First, Second and Honorable Mention in the printmaking category in the Minnesota State Fair Art Exhibition.
Lynnette is living her dream as a full time artist, coop member of Highpoint Center for Printmaking, member of Art To Change The World and curator/co-chair of the Conn Gallery, Plymouth Congregational Church .
Bid: $275 Mary Deschamp
Cathy
Purple Triangles:
55″ x 65″
Starting Bid: $75
I made this quilt as an exercise in using one color and one shape. The starting point was a
fabric designed by Kaffe Fassett. He is a master of color and his prints turned the quilting world upside down when he arrived on the scene in the early 90’s. Prior to that, most quilters used fabrics that were mostly reproductions of antique prints or sweet florals in predictable color combinations. Fassett changed all that. He used motifs pulled from cultures around the world and printed them in complex and surprising colors. When I discovered his fabrics, I felt like I’d found what I’d been waiting for. I’ve been using his prints as a starting point for many quilts ever since. This quilt uses the richness of purples, violets, and blues and the simplicity of a simple repeated triangle to showcase the idea of color.
Contact info:
Millcityquilting.com
Instagram/Facebook @millcityquilting
Bid:
“Trees Talk – Are You Listening?”
Starting bid $15
This guided meditation book doubles as a children’s book – it is written for all our inner children, all parts of us that need love. Take a pause, let the words and original watercolor paintings reconnect you to your soul over and over again. Let’s create a world full of love – starting with loving yourself.
FOR EVERY BOOK, ONE TREE SEEDLING IS PLANTED
https://www.leofortuneart.com
IG @leofortuneart
Leo Fortune (they/them), an emerging Minnesotan based artist, illustrator and author and longtime public school educator, explores the power trees and spirals have to connect us to our authentic selves, to each other and to the world. They began coloring outside of the lines at the age of three. Then, they spent most of their life disconnected from themself and consequently, their art. A year ago, at the age of 41, they came out as a neurodivergent queer trans human. Their art practice reignited and exploded. They know first hand the power that comes with being authentic. Leo harnesses their life story of being painfully disconnected to empower others to keep reconnecting and embracing their true self. They hold space in their art for others to be safely vulnerable. They deeply believe that people truly connected to their own love will change the world for the better.
Bid:
Catherine Palmer
Face the Nation
24″w x 36″h
Starting bid $150
Artwork Statement:
In this series of paintings, I am responding to the knowledge I have gained about the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across the North American continent. You can find more information about this cause at https://mmiwusa.org
Bid:
White Moon
Kelly Frankenberg
Acrylic
16×20
Suggested starting price $150
White Moon is the beginning of my Skychology series, how looking at the sky can boost your mental health and watching the clouds go by calms us and reminds us there are always blue skies. My focus is the full moon in this image that is hardly noticed when the opposite view is a sunset, but just as beautiful, sometimes, if not more. It’s a reminder to see the beauty in all of nature at any moment.
Bid:
Wings
18” x 80” 5 part Series 2024
Assemblage -Mixed Media
$600 starting Bid $1200 retail
Wings examines the concept of “Love”. Many have tried to define this word. Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotions. An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of partner, which differs from the love for food.
As biological human beings, we have a capacity for all different kinds of
LOVE
You have the power to identify your version of love and then to let it take wing.
Bridges has been an artist and a teacher/college professor for over 40 years. Her social practice sculptures have been exhibited in Maine, Miami, the Virgin Islands, Maryland, Chicago, Mexico, Spain, Canada, and throughout Minnesota.
Details
Bid:
Private House Concert by Dave Dvorak,
Value $300, starting bid $150
Singer-songwriter Dave Dvorak is widely known in the Twin Cities music scene, both as a solo performer and with his folk-Americana band Zoë Says Go. Dave’s performances are known to connect meaningfully with his audience, inviting their hearts and minds into his songs of social justice, love, struggle and wonder.
Dave would love to play a 1-2 hour private solo acoustic show for you and your friends in your own home or venue of your choice.
Bid:
Neutrals Fireside
61″ x 66″
Starting Bid: $75
This quilt is pieced from hand dyed fabrics made in Minnesota by Cherrywood, a company originally created by Dawn Hall and then taken over by Karla Overland after Dawn’s passing.
Their fabrics have a distinct suede-like texture to them and are very different from typical mass produced printed quilting cottons. They are one of the few companies producing fabric here in the U.S. as most quilting cottons are currently made in Asia. Normally I choose to work with lots of prints and lots of color in my quilts but when I saw these fabrics I was drawn to the quiet, soft look of them. I wanted to keep the piecing of the quilt as simple as possible to highlight the stillness of the colors and the softness of the texture. The pattern is called Fireside and it was designed by SuzyQuilts.
Contact info:
Millcityquilting.com
Instagram/Facebook @millcityquilting