Open studios: 450 artists, free events Nov. 13-15

You know what we can do, Kelly, this weekend? We can browse some incredible art and kick off our holiday shopping this weekend. It's the Fall Open Studios event in Northeast Minneapolis. 450 artists are participating, opening up their studios to you, the public. Let's check in with Shane Wells. She's at the Casket Arts Building, one spot included. Good morning. Good morning and that's a bonus you go to explore some really cool old historic buildings as well like this one and this art maybe looks familiar to you if you've traveled recently. This was up at the Minneapolis airport for quite some time. Gina Gates is the painter here and we are in her studio at the Casket Arts building. Thank you for having us. I know this is always a big weekend and I love the callback that part of the reason you became an artist is attending events like this. Yeah I grew up in northeast Minneapolis not too far from here so I used to come to Art World and open studios when I was a kid, and I've been really excited to invite people into my studio now. It's a beautiful studio, by the way. Let's talk about your work. My question to you when I first walked in was, how does one sort of decide what their niche is? And you went abstract. What did you like about abstract painting? Yeah, I think what I love most about it is the ability to... Just be as expressive and free as possible. So really experimenting with my materials and my mediums and having the opportunity to just really follow my intuition when I create. So with my paintings, I never know what it's really going to be. The outcome always surprises me. So I trust the process and I have a good relationship with letting go when I'm making art, which is really fun. Because you said under these, I mean, how many layers of painting? There's a lot. There is, there can be up to 20, 30 maybe. And sometimes I'll be working on a painting for a few months and then I end up Starting over, right over the top. So like, yeah, over the top. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. That was my other question for you was how do you know when to stop? This is where your own brain is starting to try to answer its own questions. Like, but how do you know when you're done when it's abstract? What's the moment? Do you have like a light, a light bulb? Like, that's it. I think I, at this point, I feel like pretty good about knowing my compositions and finding the balance. And there is kind of a moment where I'm like, ah. It's good. We did it. That last tiny brush stroke, that did the trick. So yeah, it can kind of be a push and pull with my paintings. I feel like I'm in a relationship with them, in a conversation with them, trying to figure out who they are, what they want to be, and so I keep working until I get there. Let's talk quickly, I know you're not a historian, but for folks who are wondering about about the Casket Arts building. Yeah. Why is it called the Casket Arts Building? Yeah, so caskets were made here. Each floor was a different, you know, one floor was woodworking, one was upholstering. So as the Northwestern Casket Company was housed in this building up until 2006, I believe. So yeah, so they created caskets here And that's why it's called the Cascade Arts Building. That's what I assumed, but I just wanted to ask to see if that was clear, because otherwise I wasn't sure why it would be called that. Thank you so much for the time, Gina. We appreciate it. If you want to learn more, you can head to N-E-M-A-A.org, Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association. That's the website where I'll give you all the information for this weekend's Fall Open Studios. And there is one more date that is happening on December 12th as well. That, we'll send it back to you.