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Local Author and Illustrators Celebration with Book Signing
December 6, 2025 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
IN PERSON The Second Annual !!
Wet Paint isn’t just your favorite art supply store…we’re also your favorite art book store! We have all kinds of great books; Artist Monographs, Graphic Novels, Practical Guides, Color Theory, Design & Graphics, Books for Young Artist’s, loads of Coloring Books and More! An exciting number of these books are written and illustrated by local authors and artists. Come meet some of them on December 6th and help us celebrate our thriving artists’ community! Browse & buy their books, and have them autographed…perfect for special gift giving!
RSVP is not required but we’d love to know that you are coming for planning sake and you’ll get an email reminder closer to the event! We hope you can make it!
SHOP BOOKS AT WET PAINT
Featured books and bios are below.
An Abundance of Light- The Story of Matisse in Morocco written and illustrated by Lauren Stringer
LAUREN STRINGER received her BA in Art and Art History from the University of California, Santa Cruz and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art, Independent Study Program in New York. She has exhibited her paintings and sculptures in museums and galleries across the country, designed sets and costumes for circus, theater, dance and performance art, presented workshops in schools and conferences internationally and locally, in addition to writing and illustrating children’s picture books. She received the McKnight Fellowship for Sculpture in 1992, and again for Children’s Literature in 2012, for her story, When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky, Two Artists, Their Ballet, and One Extraordinary Riot, and again in 2020 for her story, An Abundance of Light, the Story of Matisse in Morocco.
Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel Adapted and Illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard
K. Woodman-Maynard writes and illustrates watercolor graphic novels which explore themes of acceptance and self-expression. Her best-selling graphic novel adaptation of Tuck Everlasting received a starred review from Kirkus who called it “as wise and wonderful as the original.” The Wall Street Journal praised her graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby as “hugely rewarding.” K. also leads workshops, coaches comics creators, and writes a weekly Substack newsletter, Creating Comics.
Haunted USA: Spine-tingling Stories from All 50 States by Heather Alexander and Sam Kalda
Sam Kalda is an illustrator based in Saint Paul. He has illustrated ten books for children and adults alike, including Of Cats and Men, The Mother of a Movement, and Haunted USA. His work has also appeared on the pages of The New York Times and The New Yorker, among others. He is a gold medal recipient from The Society of Illustrators, New York.
Carlyle’s Tools: A Tribute in Graphite and Watercolor by Graphic Designer and Artist Eric Madsen
A Texas native, Eric began his graphic design career in Houston before relocating to the Twin Cities in the early Seventies. After five decades in the profession, he finally found the time to reconnect with his early childhood
love of drawing.
Standing in his late father-in-law Carlyle’s shop one day, he picked up an old tool and began drawing it. He thoroughly enjoyed the process and continued, unaware it would become a series of over two dozen pieces. Initially drawing with graphite to establish tonal values and details, he then
applied watercolor sparingly, in an almost dry brush technique. He realized the fine art series, which premiered at the former College of Visual Arts Gallery in St. Paul in 2007, couldn’t adequately convey the
story of its beginning, scope, or his own love of drawing. He decided a book would be the best way to achieve this goal someday, and this self-published book is the result of that effort.
Karen Wirth: Building /Books – A Catalogue for Building/Books-Karen Worth: A Retrospective Exhibition
Karen Wirth is an artist and educator whose work encompasses subjects including architecture, language, place, and science. She works from a broad definition of “book” and explores form, function and metaphor through a wide range of media. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including the Smithsonian Institution, Walker Art Center, and Banff Center for the Arts, and is included in collections such as the Getty Center Museum, Modern Art PS1 Archive, and Yale University. She has been a recipient of Bush, McKnight, Jerome, MN State Arts Board and NEA fellowships. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the UMN-Twin Cities, and is a professor emerita at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Mathew Zefeldt: Painting Constructed Virtual Worlds
Mathew Zefeldt (b. 1987, California) is Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Minnesota. He received his MFA in studio art from UC Davis in 2011 and received his BA in Art at UC Santa Cruz in 2009. He has had solo exhibitions at The Hole, NY; Celaya Brothers, Mexico City; Hair + Nails, Minneapolis; Big Pictures, Los Angeles; 5-50 Gallery, Long Island City; The Soap Factory, Minneapolis; Circuit 12, Dallas; Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; Hap Gallery, Portland; and Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica. He has exhibited in group exhibitions at Lisa Cooley, NY; The Hole, Los Angeles; Better Go South, Berlin; Night Club, Minneapolis; MOHS Exhibit, Copenhagen; Galerie Fran Reus, Palma de Mallorca; Dreamsong, Minneapolis; Joshua Liner Gallery, NY; Left Field, San Luis Obispo; The Minnesota Museum of American Art, Saint Paul; Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Currier Art Museum, New Hampshire, and The Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City. In 2022, Zefeldt was an international resident at the Cob x Plop Residency in London, UK, and in 2023 was an artists in residence at the Moosey Residency in Norwich, UK. Mathew has a new book titled Mathew Zefeldt: Painting Constructed Virtual Worlds, and this summer had a solo exhibition titled Reflections at The Hole in New York City.
The Elements of Art written and illustrated by Maren Daniels
Maren Daniels, M.A. Ed., is the author-illustrator of The Elements of Art: An Elementary Art Teacher’s Guide to Color, Shape, Texture & More. As an artist, Maren enjoys painting with watercolor, exploring photography, printmaking, drawing, and book-making.
Maren, or Ms. Daniels, as her students know her, is a public school art teacher in South St. Paul, and has been teaching elementary visual arts for 8 years. She lives in Minneapolis with her family. Check out more at marendanielsart.com
Revolutions are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs written by Mélina Mangal and Sun Yung Shin, Illustrated by Leslie Barlow
Mélina Mangal writes picture books, biographies, and short stories that focus on connections with nature and culture. She is the award-winning author of The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just, Jayden’s Impossible Garden, Jayden’s Secret Ingredient, the new nature-based board book series Outside Our Window and the newly-released collaboration with Sun Yung Shin and Leslie Barlow entitled Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs. Visit her online at www.melinamangal.com.
Sun Yung Shin is an award-winning poet, writer, editor, children’s book author, and cultural worker. She was born in Seoul, raised in the Chicago area, and lives in Minneapolis.Sun Yung Shin – Poet, Writer, Consultant, Cultural Worker
Leslie Barlow is an artist living and working on occupied Očeti Šakówin and Wahpekute land now known as Minneapolis, MN. Barlow is interested in reimagining our relationship to our racial identities through healing our collective understanding of belonging and what it means to be family.About — Leslie Barlow
