Ellen Sandbeck
Duluth, Minnesota
Papercut artist, environmental writer/illustrator, organic landscaper, and vermicomposting specialist, who has lived and worked in California and Minnesota.
MessageARTIST BIO, Ellen Sandbeck
B.A. studio art from the University of California, Santa Barbara, 1979
Organic Landscape Designer, 1981-2010; Vermicomposting Specialist, U.S.B.O.P., 2007-present
Author/illustrator of the books: "Green Barbarians: Live Bravely on Your Home Planet" (Scribner, 2010); "Organic Housekeeping" (Scribner, 2006); "Eat More Dirt," Broadway/Doubleday 2003); Slug Bread and Beheaded Thistles (De la Terre Press, 1995, Broadway/Doubleday, 2000), and has done eleven books of original graphics for Dover Publications.
RECENT SHOWS OF PAPERCUT ART:
- April 2012, Phantom Gallery, Superior Wisconsin, "A Buddha A Day" show. The Phantom Gallery Project set up art shows in vacant storefronts in Superior, Wisconsin, as a way to promote artists, as well as to help show off vacant, available, commercial spaces to potential businesses. It was successful on both counts.
- April 2014, Red Mug Coffee Shop, Superior, Wisconsin "Rock, Paper, Scissors," solo show
- July 2014, AICHO, "Northern Women: Below Zero Windchill Creations" Group Show
- May 2017, "On the Cutting Edge," AICHO. Solo show
- October 2017, College of St. Scholastica, "Harmony" Symposium on cross-cultural collaboration on environmental justice (One piece: "We Were Stardust")
- November 2017, AICHO "Maamawi:" Artist Group Exhibit and Calendar Release, group show (My piece is the June pinup.)
- November 2017, Essentia Health/Polinsky Medical Rehabilitation Center, Duluth, MN solo show
- June 28, 2018, Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Minnetonka, MN, group show,
- July 2018, 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, IL, group show,
- August 2018, Gallery 724, Alexandria, VA, group show,
- August 2018, AICHO, "Endangered," with Moira Villiard
- October-November 2018, group show, Arts Unbound, Orange, New Jersey,
- November 2018, solo show, The Edge Center, Big Fork, Minnesota
- May 2019, Pyle Convention Center, Madison, Wisconsin, solo show
- September 2019, Indigenous Foods Expo, AICHO, Duluth, MN, invited artist
- October 2019, Unity Unitarian Church, St. Paul, MN, solo show
- March, 2020, Minnesota Attorney General's Office, St. Paul, MN solo show
- December- January, 2021-2022, Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge, Bloomington, MN Confluence Gallery, solo show
- January- February 2022, AICHO, "As Long As The Rivers Shall Run," solo show
- September 2022, College of ST. Scholastica, "As Long As the Rivers Shall Run," solo show
Grants:
ARAC Grant, 2018
Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, 2020
Added to Public Artist Roster for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, MSP, 2019
Statement
I have always been entranced by the natural world and have been making nature-based art since I was a toddler. I began making papercuts in 1985, the year my son was born, when the constant distraction of tending an infant made it difficult to do any form of artwork that involved drying time. I soon realized that papercutting was my true medium. Though every papercut I started during that first year fell apart in my hands, I persisted. After that first year, I began sending samples to publishing companies, and within a year had landed my first book contract for a stencil book. Ten other books of original graphics followed.
I work very hard to push beyond my current capabilities, and to learn something new from each papercut that I execute. Even so, it took me twenty-five years to figure out how to do multi-colored papercuts.
Most of my work deals with environmental and human rights. I always include detailed texts about the pieces in my shows, because my goals are not just artistic – I also strive to inform my audience and perhaps inspire them to take positive action. I like to work in series, in order to more fully explore a topic. My current series: “As Long As The Rivers Shall Run,” is an exploration of major rivers of the world, depicting some of their endangered, and/or recently extinct species, as well as some of their invasive species. I do a lot of research while planning and working on my pieces, so when I show these pieces, the show includes fairly extensive wall texts containing information about the river, the environmental challenges faced by the river, and the species I have depicted. While doing this research, I have learned about some really interesting interrelationships between these rivers, and I hope my work can convey a feeling of these rivers interacting and communicating with each other.
Copyright Ellen B. Sandbeck
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