BLOOMING!
A Celebration of Bloomington Artists
Dates: May 30 - June 29, 2025
Opening Reception: May 31 / 1pm - 3pm
Featuring:
Janet Adams, Joan Einsman, Leon Erstad
Les Fordahl, Dana Johnson, Steve Sack
Jamie Schumacher & Rocio Zuniga
Artistry is excited to present Blooming: A Celebration of Bloomington Artists that will feature eight artists that currently live in Bloomington. The exhibition includes Janet Adams, Joan Porter-Einsman, Leon Erstad, Les Fordahl, Dana Johnson, Steve Sack, jamie kalakaru-mava, and Rocio Zungia. Each artist will exhibit pieces of their work that reflect them as artists. From Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Steve Sack’s sculptures, Les Fordahl’s Mall of America paintings, to Leon Erstad’s stone and glass work, and to Janet Adams and Rocio Zungia abstract pieces. We are excited to show you the range of artists that live right here in Bloomington!
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Janet Adams was intrigued by the mega-sized blooms on the hibiscus tree by her home and she needed to paint them. And so, at age 50 and experiencing the first free time in her life, she bought some watercolor paints. That was 30+ years ago when she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic. Once she returned to Minnesota and retired she began weekly watercolor lessons with Marian Alstad. Adams' love of experimenting led her to collage workshops and acrylic paints. Challenged to try painting abstractly, she joined a studio acrylics group, at Artistry. She appreciated the encouragement of Tom Tyler and the talented artists in the group. She loves experimenting — using brushes, or pouring, splattering, texturing, collaging. Acrylics are way different from watercolors — with new techniques, paint properties, drying qualities, paint surfaces, finishing.
Joan Porter-Einsman is a native to Minnesota. She is a visual artist, art instructor, historian, author, and former art gallery owner. Her education was at the University of Minnesota and other institutions. She has a Bachelor of Science in art education, Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing, and a Master in Fine Arts. Porter-Einsman has taught multiple mediums and subjects for the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Community College and multiple art centers. Most recently she has taught at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College and Lac Coulte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College. Her work is in collections in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japa, and other countries.
Leon Erstad is inspired by the beauty and complexity that nature has forged into the agates, jaspers, and other stones formed over the millennia deep within the earth. He wants to do more with these materials than fashion them into small ornaments to hang around someone’s neck. Erstad has been collecting and working with semi-precious stones for years, but it was not until retirement that he found the time and inspiration to create art with them. Since he cannot change the pigmentation or markings occurring within the stones, he tries to make images in the shapes of creatures and objects that I can then fill with the unique colors and design patterns inherent in the cut and polished rocks. Erstad has been volunteering at the Bloomington Creekside Senior Community Center for several years as one of the leaders and teachers in the Lapidary Shop there.
Les Fordahl started sketching at age eight and started painting in oils at age ten. He was self taught with mail order lessons. His first commission was at age fourteen and continued into adulthood. Fordahl was assigned to the drafting and illustration department of the Army's ASA headquarters in 1967, drafting in Germany and then Vietnam, and to a combat art team in Vietnam to document the war. Five paintings and 85 sketches of his are in the Library of Congress and one in the Vietnam National Museum of Art in Chicago. Fordahl served on the board of directors for the Bloomington art center for 12 years, held an art class for seniors at the Minnesota Masonic Home for over 20 years, and painted murals for our churches for about 26 years. He also painted sets and props for the Bloomington theater for about 15 years and presently still volunteers in the community. Fordahl was inducted into the Minnesota Center for the Humanities for lifetime achievement for volunteering in the arts and other volunteering.
Dana Gervais Johnson is an artist very grateful to be living and working in Bloomington, Minnesota. They create works in printmaking, mixed-media, and larger scale abstracts. Johnson’s art is an exploration of identity, growth, and experiences as an artist, mother, and non-binary person. They have completed several daily practices, and shared progress online to explore, play, and let go of the fear and expectation of an end result. With their children, daily paintings exhibited their artistic journey of growth (and some of the chaos, energy, and patience that goes into parenting). Johnson felt their children were teaching them to explore, play, and let go of the fear and expectation of an end result. Johnson’s work includes drawings, watercolors, colored pencils, chalk pastels, oil pastels, acrylic, ink, linoleum block printmaking, wire sculpture, and collage. In addition to Abstract Expression, they also create artworks with themes of history and pop culture, as an artisan at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. Johnson strives to explore and share with their work, a claim to their identity as an Artist.
jamie kalakaru-mava is a visual artist and an accomplished writer, the recipient of multiple MRAC and State Arts Boards awards. Their written work has been featured in Pollen and Minnesota Women’s Press, and they contribute regularly to the Star Tribune. Their first two books It’s Never Going To Work (2018) and Butterflies and Tall Bikes (2021) are narrative nonfiction featuring Minnesota’s creative communities. Their children’s book Half A World Away (2024), which they illustrated, is based on the story of their father’s return to Sri Lanka. They perform comedy regularly, and is an active member of the Funny Asian Women Kollective. jamie is also a Loft Literary Center Mirrors and Windows fellow, and was a member of the 2024 Creative nonfiction cohort. They startle easily, likes warm hugs, and is endearingly awkward (at least they hope.)
Steve Sack is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and has always had a passion for painting and sculpture. Upon retiring from the newspaper in 2022, he embraced a new medium: 3D printing. Using an iPad to design his humorous figures, he brings them to life as resin models, which he then hand-paints in acrylic. This modern twist on sculpture blends his lifelong passion for art with digital tools, sharing his unique humor in a whole new dimension.
Rocio Zungia is an emerging abstract painter based in Bloomington, originally from Los Angeles, whose work is informed by her experiences with Autism and Alexthymia. Each of her pieces are inspired by a place, encounter or event which she filters through a neurodivergent lens. By mixing paper and acrylic media on canvas, Rocio creates textured and ambiguous, semi-organic images to reflect a conflicted internal emotional world. She holds a B.A from Cal State Northridge and spent time studying Art History at University of Tübingen, Germany. She has exhibited in several group shows throughout Minneapolis, including Collective Alchemy at Burl Gallery and, most recently, Mental Health: Finding Creative Solace at ArtReach St. Croix.
