2026 Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Preview

Where I live, the surest harbinger of the end of summer is The Minnesota State Fair. It runs for ten days, starting in late August and ending on Labor Day. The Fair’s Fine Art Competition Previewis usually on the warmest day of late August. It has been covered here numerous times, even when I didn’t get in (i.e., this year.) With 8 categories and as many judges, the result is always a mixed bag. This years competition proved to be no different, and the sweltering heat was also the same. The best category was Textiles and fabrics, many fine works in what is usually an ignored area.

Trump’s ICE occupation of Minneapolis was noted in paintings and photographs:

J. A. Anderson’s In the Winter of ’26

Textiles were ably represented by Erik Jon Olson’s Once There Were Green Fields:

And Jan Rapacz’s Grief: 365 days:

Posing with one’s entry is always good for people watching:

Elizabeth Putnam, Consolidated Rupture

Kristina Jager, Salt

Kellie Kvern, Sanctuary