Powderhorn Art Fair showcases the Art of Community

From Aug. 2-3, these queer artists will showcase art as unique as their South Minneapolis neighborhood

In the South Minneapolis neighborhood of Powderhorn Park, colorful old houses adorned with kitschy lawn ornaments line the streets like the rows of a flower garden. Passing through on my way to People’s Pride this year, I came across a community library made out of an old microwave and a bright blue house covered with social justice messaging.

Like the annotated and torn pages of a well-read and loved book, these quirks point to a vibrant, rough-edged humanity, one that artists in the 34th annual Powderhorn Art Fair champion.

From Saturday, Aug. 2 to Sunday, Aug. 3, over 200 artists will gather in Powderhorn Park for “one legendary weekend” to celebrate community and hyperlocal art, per the fair’s website.

I connected with LGBTQ+ artists participating in this year’s fair to talk about how they forge community and celebrate the spirit of Powderhorn in their craft.

Samael Leopold-Sullivan (they/them)

Artist and educator Samael Leopold-Sullivan says, “I get bored if I’m not learning something new.”

Indeed, the 32-year-old sculpture artist is a jack of all trades. They’re currently exploring glass art, but they also have experience in metal fabrication, fiber arts, clay and printmaking.

Leopold-Sullivan’s fair offerings will include their “Lil Guys,” miniature figurines from cats to banana slugs to strawberries with legs made of borosilicate glass, alongside stained glass jewelry and decor.

“Each [Lil Guy] emerges with their own personality,” they say.

Their love of learning has also coincided with almost two decades of teaching experience that began with demonstrations for their high school art classes.

Though Leopold-Sullivan recently moved to the Lowertown Artist Lofts in downtown St. Paul, they still teach glass art classes at the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center in Powderhorn.

They say their favorite thing about being an arts educator is “Seeing [my students] grow in confidence and skill and seeing what ideas they bring and how they bring them into reality and being able to help them with that.”

Leopold-Sullivan is a returning artist from last year’s fair, which was their first multi-day outdoor event. They say a “Free Palestine” sign they put on their booth yielded good, if challenging, conversations with visitors.

“They actually went pretty well, and by the time the conversations were resolved, the people who had started them were thanking me,” they say.

They say they use fairs and markets as opportunities to have challenging conversations that build community and connectedness.

“It’s hard to engage in what might become a conflict, but it’s important that we engage in a way that is not escalatory while also not capitulating,” they say.

Overall, Leopold-Sullivan says they’re excited for this year’s fair, and that “We’ll see what this year brings.”

Leopold-Sullivan is most active on their Instagram, @sleopoldsullivan, and also has a website, samaelleopoldsullivan.com, and a Patreon.

Umbra Arts

For Umbra Arts founding member and co-owner Josh Kelly, art is an innate part of life.

“I think everything is integrated,” he says. “For mathematics to be understood, there has to be an artistic flair. Being able to craft wonderful meals that my partner and I can sit down and enjoy, and just enjoying that process and play and fun.”

As such, the Umbra Arts collective, which just opened its brick-and-mortar location on West Lake Street last November, does a lot more than just art.

Not only does the Umbra building have a cafe and gift shop, it’s also the home of Twin Cities Leather, plays host to recovery meetings and provides a safe space for sex workers.

Kelly says some people have said coming to Umbra feels like going to church.

“I just felt like the Twin Cities metro area, and my life, were missing a place for people to come as they are, however they are,” Kelly says of starting Umbra. “We’re incorporating uncensored queer life into a large building. We’re continually bringing on more artists to have a place to actually express their art, while other galleries may try to censor them.”

Today, over 20 artists are a part of the Umbra collective. For this year’s fair, member Henry Sabia-Tanis is curating a selection of upcycled artwork by Umbra artists.

Kelly says the goal is to “highlight beauty in things that people normally overlook,” adding that Sabia-Tanis’ own upcycled lamps embody this goal.

One such lamp takes the form of a vintage phone with its receiver hanging in mid-air with a bulb wired into it.

“For me, as his business partner and best friend, I’ve seen the delight he gets from creating something new out of something old, and it just feeds a piece of my soul that I can’t get anywhere else,” Kelly says.

Sabia-Tanis’ lamps were in such high demand at last year’s fair that Kelly says he had to rush home to grab some pieces that he had.

Kelly himself has an artistic background in woodworking, and is also currently working on a series of diagrams called “Altered Egos” that explores the myriad effects, uses and perceptions of various substances. However, he says Umbra has kept him so busy that he hasn’t been able to dedicate as much time to his craft.

Instead, Kelly says, his artmaking has taken the form of building community.

“The whole community has come together to move [Umbra] forward. It’s not just me,” he says. “It’s actually a large group of people, too many to name, who have helped make this happen and push this forward.”

The Umbra Building, located at 734 W Lake St., is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.