The Minnesota Marine Art Museum has gone through some changes in the past year and the museum’s Executive Director, Scott Pollock, talked with Wisconsin Public Radio about the Museum’s new direction. Due to a loss of some of the paintings from a loaned exhibit, the museum has taken the opportunity to think about how to create new exhibits around the theme of “art inspired by water.” Given that Winona is part of the Driftless region, they wanted to “tie together a series of exhibits that brought people a little closer to what’s underneath them,” like the plants and birds. As a result, they set up a series of exhibits titled “Flora and Fauna.”
As part of their new direction, one of the galleries has now been dedicated as the literary arts gallery and currently features “original illustrations from three book projects; Mary Casanova’s Wake Up Island (University of Minnesota Press) and Hush, Hush, Forest (University of Minnesota Press) as illustrated by printmaker Nick Wroblewski, and World of Wonder: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (Milkweed Editions) written by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and illustrated by Fumi Nakamura.”