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Golden Valley Modernist Home

Sustainable Modern: Two new Twin Cities houses that fuse the edgy and the earthy

Camille LeFevre Wednesday, September 01, 2010
What happens when an architect designs a house for a designer or some other creative-industry professional? In the Twin Cities, the result is likely to be both stylistically ambitious and sensitive--to the neighborhood, to the neighbors, and to the planet. Two projects by a couple of the area's premier architects show how hip new houses can both stand out and fit in.
Aaron Porvaznik of Olive & Myrtle

Online merchant Aaron Porvaznik: bucking a down economy by being greener than the next guy

Meleah Maynard Wednesday, September 01, 2010
On his web site Olive & Myrtle, Saint Paul designer/merchant Aaron Porvaznik sells beautiful, high-design things, from housewares to toys to bedspreads, that aren't exactly necessities. So why is he thriving at a time when most folks don't have many spare dollars to spend? It might have something to do with the passionate care he takes to make sure that everything on Olive & Myrtle is sustainably sourced--and his conviction that good design and sustainability are practically the same thing.
Mojo Minnesota

The MOJO Minnesota "agitators" want investors to get risky--and innovators to get what they need

Dan Haugen Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The eleven people who formed the "innovation advocacy force" called MOJO Minnesota have been working hard to make it easier for smart money to reach bold entrepreneurs. They pushed hard for the recently passed Angel Investor Tax Credit, and, as Innovation and Jobs editor Dan Haugen found out when he talked to two of them, they're still on the front lines of the effort to fire up our state's startups.
Colin Kloecker and Shanai Matteson

The creative connectors behind Works Progress turn networking into an art form

Molly Priesmeyer Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Colin Kloecker and Shanai Matteson recently got married--but the wedding was only one of the many connections they've been making as members of Works Progress, a wide-ranging, multi-project organization dedicated to bringing people, ideas, and new perspectives on culture together. Call it face-to-face Facebook, a sharing of real concepts and real skills in the real world, all done in the spirit of improvisation and artistic innovation.
Meatloaf at the Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group

Bringing ideas to the table: Three hot restaurants that break the mold

Ellen Shaffer Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Nothing helps a new restaurant get off the ground faster than a fresh idea--a brand-new way to dine as well as great food and a hot location. Three new Twin Cities restaurants--the Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group, Barrio Tequila Bar, and Ringo--offer this special kind of conceptual freshness. But they give it an egalitarian Twin Cities stamp too, by fusing the drop-dead hip and the decidedly democratic.
Zuhur Ahmed on Air

Meet Zuhur Ahmed, the young, female radio voice of the Twin Cities Somali community

Meleah Maynard Wednesday, August 18, 2010
It's hard for 25-year-old Zuhur Ahmed to find some time for herself. Wherever she goes in the Twin Cities Somali community, from malls to workplaces to coffee shops, people have something to say to her. Her issue-oriented call-in show on community radio station KFAI is an open forum for what concerns Somalis here--immigration, family issues, crime, gangs, drugs. And what she's learned has convinced her to continue helping people displaced by global unrest and chronicling their lives.
Ron in his studio

In the TractorWorks building, art comes off the walls and into the lives of office workers

Jon Spayde Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The trendy new TractorWorks office building in Minneapolis' North Loop looks a lot like an art gallery inside-- ex-SoHoite Ron Ridgeway has made it that way. The artist and design professional curates the building's art collection, but what he's actually creating is an art center where employees of the firms in the building can explore their creative selves and get their art on. In the world of "tenant amenities," this just might be 2010's answer to the workout room.
CoCo

Does coworking work? A colleague-craving freelancer gives the non-office office a try

Elizabeth Millard Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Our intrepid, and maybe just a little lonesome, freelancer Elizabeth Millard decided to road-test Saint Paul's two coworking spaces--offices where people like her, who would normally toil at home or in coffee shops, gather for mutual support, idea swapping, and random chitchat in between bouts of work. This is office life without managers, a dress code, or water-cooler grousing. And there are pancakes.
Roy Goslin & his wife Diane Ferrandi

South African wines are winners--meet the couple who are putting them on Twin Cities tables

Lori Storm Wednesday, August 04, 2010
When South Africans Roy Goslin and Diane Ferrandi were hired by an American firm and offered their pick of US locations, the couple chose Minneapolis/St. Paul because it's about the size of Cape Town. Within a few years they were working for themselves, importing wine from their homeland. But thanks to the bad rep that cheap South African wines had garnered, and their unfamiliarity with the Twin Cities food scene, they had an uphill climb. Today, after the World Cup, South Africa is trendy, Goslin and Ferrandi are old hands, and metro Minnesotans are getting a taste for fine vintages from the land of the springbok.
Bjorgvin and Maikel of Element Six Media

The earthy admen: Element 6 Media turns snowbanks, water, and volcano dust into ads that go viral

Dan Haugen Wednesday, July 28, 2010
There's a pair of European-born marketers who, from a table in a literary coffee shop in Minneapolis, turn the earth itself into an ad platform. Dutchman Maikel van de Mortel and Icelander Bjorgvin Saevarsson stamp logos into snowbanks, draw slogans in dirt and dust, and plant flower gardens that spell out client identities. The Internet loves it, and so do the duo's mostly European and coastal-US clients. Is this the earthy new face of advertising?
I Like You

I Like You, the colorful shop that gives hip crafters a home

Alyssa Ford Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Twin Cities teem with cool crafters whose edgy and beautiful creations go miles beyond hand-painted "Bless This Mess" signs and laser-cut rocks that bid us "Imagine." For a long time these artists' main outlets were occasional crafts fairs and web sites. Then along came Sarah Sweet and Angela Lessman, who crafted the big, colorful, funky consignment store in Northeast Minneapolis with the disarming name. All it took for the shop to succeed was a dream, a near-failure, and a work ethic that borders on insanity.
Red Alert

The Central Corridor's funky treasures: A slideshow of offbeat "stops" on the future light rail line

Jon Spayde,Bill Kelley Wednesday, July 21, 2010
In one magical zone in the Twin Cities, there's a loon made of junk, a chimney covered in shattered glass and ceramic shards, a place to buy tarantulas, and a hotel straight out of the Coen brothers. It's called the Central Corridor. The Line's ace managing photographer, Bill Kelley, and its managing editor, Jon Spayde, traveled University Avenue and Washington Avenue, where much of the light rail line will run when it's completed in 2014, seeking out their favorite offbeat, oddball, one-of-a-kind, things, things they hope and trust will be preserved through the construction of the line and the development of the Corridor neighborhoods. Herewith, their top ten.
An Artist's Rendering of The Capitol East Station

All aboard: Years before it rolls, Central Corridor light rail is already connecting Twin Citians

Chris Steller Wednesday, July 21, 2010
It's four years before a single train is slated to set out on the tracks, but the Central Corridor light rail line between Minneapolis and Saint Paul has already created a powerful network of connections across the Twin Cities. In particular, ad-hoc collaboratives, instead of a single light-rail "czar" or bureaucracy, and Saint Paul's traditionally strong neighborhood political structure, have pushed planning for how the line will impact the city now and in years to come.
Community Supported Art box 1

From locavore to art-avore: the local-food movement inspires tasty new forms of art support

Camille LeFevre Wednesday, July 14, 2010
People love locally-sourced food and close connections with the people who grow it, right? That's what inspired the Community Supported Agriculture movement. Well, a few forward thinkers in local arts organizations wondered if they could harness that same passion for connection to help support area artists and make art-buying fun, and Community Supported Art was born: cratefuls of art instead of kale, kohlrabi, and spinach. Meanwhile, Brooklyn-born FEAST was established here too, offering artists a festive, food-themed new form of competitive patronage.

Fashion from scratch: four local designers who started small and are getting noticed

Lori Storm Wednesday, July 14, 2010
They started with not much more than a sewing machine and an idea and, far from global fashion centers, they set out to turn their dreams into beautiful things to use and wear. And lo and behold, these Minnesotans made it happen. Laura Nelli's chic handbags, Rapport's leather bags and whimsical accessories, and Gillian Gabriel's beautiful, flattering-to-any-form swimsuits are made-in-Minnesota fashion phenomena that are making their mark in the wider world.
582 Articles | Page: | Show All
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