Drop-In Events, Winter Coat Drive, and More at the CAT

December 1, 2024

The holiday season is a time for gathering with those you love and sharing with those in need. This December, the CAT Museum is doing just that! In addition to our regular guided tours by reservation only, guests will have two opportunities this month to visit the museum reservation-free. We are also hosting a winter coat drive all month long, and we’ll need your help to make sure kids in our community can stay safe and warm.

Drop-In Events in December

On Friday, December 6th from 5:30 pm–7:30 pm, the CAT will be open for the perfect cozy night out. See our current exhibition, From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, and head next door to Churchill Street to purchase a Glass Menagerie, a specialty cocktail inspired by the CAT Museum. This gin martini is flavored with house-made clarified tomato and features a cherry tomato and olive oil garnish. It is a perfect farewell to the warmer weather as we move into winter.

The CAT Museum will also be open to drop-in guests all day on Saturday, December 21st from 10:00 am–4:30 pm. Bring your guests in town for the holidays to see From Origins to Horizons on the last day before it closes.

Winter Coat Drive

The CAT Museum will be collecting youth winter gear all December long on behalf of Project for Pride in Living, a local non-profit that provides affordable housing and career readiness services. When you make your visit to the CAT, bring along coats, snowpants, winter boots, or mittens for children of all ages. New or in-great-condition (no pet hair, stains, or damage) donations only, please.

The CAT Museum is a proud partner of Project for Pride in Living’s LEAP program serving young adults.

Preview of Changes to Come

The drop-in days in December are just a preview of exciting things to come to the CAT in January. Our exhibitions will soon be easier for families, students, and those who work during the week to visit. When our next exhibition Echoes of Life: Paintings from the Collection opens January 24, visitors will be able to drop in every Saturday without making a reservation! Thursdays and Fridays will be business as usual for the CAT, with tours by reservation only at 10 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm. But on Saturdays, you can drop by any time between 10:00 am–4:30 pm. Come when you like, stay as long as you like, and return as often as you like!

The team at the CAT wishes everyone a happy holiday season, and we hope that you include us in your plans this month!

Painting with Gratitude: Joshua Cunningham Revisits a Painting at the CAT Museum

It is a special moment when an artist can see their work on display at a museum. Painter Joshua Cunningham (American, born 1974) recently visited the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum to see his painting, Along the Line, on display in the new Focus Gallery exhibition, Vantage Points: Landscape Paintings from the Collection, open through December 21, 2024. The CAT Museum’s Director of Collections, Ashley Walker, interviewed Cunningham during his visit to learn more about his artistic process, and the painting in the Museum’s collection. Below are excerpts from this conversation that discusses Cunningham’s influences, process, and when he sold this painting to Gerard Cafesjian.

On how he began painting trains:

But [this painting] stood out because…it was a high watermark for me at that time in my life as a painter. To take an idea through several iterations and really continue to flush it out. It’s also a place where my mentor painted…Joe Paquette also painted down and around [Child’s Road in Saint Paul]. He had a real heart for industrial stuff…His dad was a foreman in industrial New Jersey…He taught a workshop in New York….And we’re in this apartment in Soho—someone is hosting us for dinner—and he’s looking out across the Hudson, and he’s like, “That’s where my dad [used to work.} I used to go on Saturdays with my dad to the job sites,” and he starts telling the stories, and this big light goes on in my head: Oh my goodness, he’s not painting industrial stuff to be edgy and cool, that’s actually a part of his childhood. So for me, that opened up parts of my painting life. It opened up a door.

I was such an impressionable student that whatever my mentors were doing, [I was doing]. This is over the top expression—but in the Jewish tradition, when you have a rabbi, you’re doing everything the rabbi does. It’s not just learning what he’s reading. It’s, how is he talking to other people? And so, when I went into my art trainings…I’m trying to learn everything they’re doing because you don’t know which part of it is painting. And then in time…they’re a part of your story. And so then his love of industrial stuff, like for me, the trains….it’s a way of thinking about him, and how grateful I am for what he brought me into. But also, as a kid, my grandpa had a model railroad in his basement that me and my twenty-five other first cousins would get to play with.

Spooky Selections from the CAT Collection

Digging through the CAT Museum’s collection of over 4,000 artworks can sometimes get a little spooky. Our Director of Collections, Ashley Walker, put together a list of the scariest objects she has come across so far. They are listed below from least to most frightening. Only the bravest readers will make it to the end!

1 out of 10 Scaries:

This person In Disguise is both endearing and a little creepy.

Janusz Walentynowicz (American, born Poland, 1956). In Disguise, 1993. Cast glass and steel. 37 3/8 × 10 1/2 × 8 1/2 in. Cafesjian Art Trust 2023.187.1.

2 out of 10 Scaries:

A night spent in this Spirit House would result in a few ghost encounters.

José Chardiet (American, born Cuba, 1956). Spirit House, 1987. Cased, hot-worked, and sandblasted glass. 7 1/4 × 3 1/8 × 3 1/8 in. Cafesjian Art Trust 2023.177.2.

From Origins to Horizons Extended!

The CAT Museum is delighted to announce that our current exhibition, From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, originally set to close in October, will now be open through December 2024. “The exhibition has been so popular with visitors that we want to give more people the opportunity to enjoy it, as well as welcome back some of our biggest fans,” explains President and CEO Kathie Baradaran. So far, the CAT has provided public tours of this exhibition to 2,100 guests and counting.

Crowd Favorites

Although each work in the exhibition is outstanding in its own way, there are a handful of works that have become visitor favorites. Mark Peiser’s Moon and Landscape and Amber Cowan’s Willie the Mouse with Tractor and Train have without a doubt risen to the top with the CAT’s guests.  

Check out a YouTube video highlighting Moon and Landscape.

Check out a YouTube video highlighting Willie the Mouse with Tractor and Train.

Art from the Great Minnesota Get-Together

For most Minnesotans, the State Fair brings to mind fried food on a stick, baby farm animals, carnival games, and live performances. For Gerard Cafesjian, however, the State Fair was a chance to buy artwork from Minnesota artists. As we gear up for the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” at the end of the month, we wanted to shine a light on Gerard’s love of collecting art at the State Fair.

Gerard’s daughter Kathie, the museum’s CEO and founder, remembers that her father got to know many of the artists who exhibited at the State Fair. It was always important to him to encourage and support local artists, and he did so with gusto! He became such a prolific buyer that he was invited to visit the Fine Arts Exhibition a day early, before it opened to the public. This became an important annual day on his calendar, one he would rearrange his schedule to accommodate. He continued collecting art at the Fair up until 2013, the year he died.

After Gerard’s death, his art collection became a part of the Cafesjian Art Trust. Kathie opened the Museum in 2022 to share the vast and eclectic collection with the public. Although perhaps best known for its holdings in glass art, the Museum’s collection today includes fifty artworks purchased at the State Fair.

Q&A with the Curator: American Studio Glass at the CAT Museum

Two new exhibitions now open at the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum tell the story of American studio glass from its beginnings through today. From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement begins in the mid-1960s when ceramics professor Harvey Littleton hosted a series of workshops to experiment with blowing glass in a small, artist studio setting. The exhibition concludes with work created in the past five years from internationally known glass artists. Midwest Voices in Contemporary Glass, on display in the adjacent Focus Gallery, shows museum guests what artists in our very own region are creating today. In the interview below, Andy Schlauch, the CAT’s executive director and curator of the exhibitions, gives further insight into these exciting projects. From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, and Midwest Voices in Contemporary Glass are on display at the CAT Museum through October 5^th, 2024.

Q: Why did you want to organize an exhibition about the American Studio Glass Movement?

Andy Schlauch (AS): Since we have such a remarkable and deep collection of glass art, I wanted to develop an exhibition that provides a context for this uniquely American movement. There are so many great artists working in glass, and I hope our guests are intrigued to learn about it.

To learn more and book your visit to the exhibitions, visit us online HERE.

For more on School Programs at the CAT Museum, visit us online HERE.