The 2022 & 2023 McKnight Fellowship Exhibition
Each year, Minnesota Center for Book Arts partners with the McKnight Foundation to offer two transformative fellowships to mid-career book artists living and working in Minnesota. This winter, experience the exceptional work of four McKnight Book Artist Fellows: 2022 Fellows CB Sherlock and Corinne Teed, and 2023 Fellows Brien Beidler and Todd Thyberg.
Visit the exhibition during our open hours, Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm and Thursdays until 7pm.
Free and open to the public
WhereMCBA Main Gallery
WhenJanuary 21, 2025–March 31, 2025
ReceptionFriday, March 21; 6–8pm
CB Sherlock is a book artist and printmaker. Her work originates in themes of nature, community, belonging, and identity which is achieved through combining lettered images, nature, and unique book structures. She made her first book in third grade and continues to make artist books. As an Artist Coop member at the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Arts, she is able to flourish as an artist and teacher of letterpress and nontraditional bindings.
As a letterpress printer, book artist and paper engineer, CB creates small edition books, prints, and one of a kind works of art. In book making she is able to use the intimacy, flexibility, movement through time, and inter-active qualities of the book. Multiple techniques are engaged in the image making: hand painting, paper collaged, painterly printing. It all comes into formation from the inside out, first the text block, then covers, slipcase or box. Some projects retain the familiarity of the book, other depart. Each one is to be touched, interacted with, viewed and read
Her work is exhibited nationally and internationally and has been recognized by the Minnesota Book Awards, the Hertzog Awards and the International Competition of the Society of Book Binders. They can be found in many special collections including the Walker Art Center, the British Library, and MOMA.
Corinne Teed is a research-based artist working in printmaking, book arts, time-based media, and social practice. Their work lives at the intersections of queer theory, ecology, and critical animal studies in the context of settler colonialism. Much of their creative practice centers on relationships, whether through collaboration, participation, interview-based research, or encounters with the more-than-human.
Teed’s artist books, prints, installations, and video work have been exhibited nationally and internationally, in traditional gallery spaces and DIY pop-ups. They have attended several residencies, including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Women’s Studio Workshop, and ACRE Projects.
Support for their work has come from a McKnight Book Arts Fellowship with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, a Northern Spark Project Grant, and research grants from academic institutions where they have taught. Additionally, their work is supported by ongoing relationships with communities working toward social justice and ecosystem health. Their art and pedagogy are rooted in a decade spent as a community organizer and grassroots educator prior to getting their MFA.
Brien Beidler is the proprietor of Beidler Made, a bookbinding and toolmaking practice located in the Northeast neighborhood of Minneapolis. He operates within a small niche, making bespoke leather books for book lovers and specialized tools for book makers and other craftspeople.
His book work celebrates the structure and aesthetics of pre-industrial bindings in a 21st century context, and his toolmaking focuses on the creation of hand-engraved decorative leather stamps, called finishing tools. Though much of his practice is dedicated to executing commissions from private individuals and fellow binders, Brien has work that can be found at the San Francisco Public Library, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brien is often invited to share his binding and toolmaking through workshops at various art and craft institutions, and he has taught both nationally and internationally.
Ever since Todd Thyberg was a kid, he loved books and wanted to tell stories. Books were an escape from the tedium of small town life and a creative inspiration that stuck with him for life. For him, books opened up the world and exposed a wider canvas for him to explore.
Todd studied commercial art and creative writing at the University of Minnesota and eventually started Angel Bomb to provide clients with graphic design and letterpress printing. With a focus on package design, he since has taken this skill and uses it to create books that encourage the reader to explore the object as well as what it means to them. His first two books were assisted in part through an MCBA/Jerome Book Arts Fellowship Grant and MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. These paved the way for a change in focus from client work to book arts and have allowed Todd to refine his practice. He was Master Printer for Minnesota Center for Book Arts’ Winter Books in 2014 and 2016. Todd’s work is in the collections of nearly 50 special collections including Yale University, Wesleyan University, Savannah College of Art & Design, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and Duke University.
Watch the McKnight Book Artist Fellows Panel Talks
About the McKnight Artist Fellowships Program
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country.
Support for individual working Minnesota artists has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 14 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond to the unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
ABOUT THE MCKNIGHT FOUNDATION
The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive.
Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts in Minnesota, neuroscience, and international crop research.
Upcoming Exhibitions
