Cynthia Dickinson

My grandfather’s life was saved by an Ojibwe guide in Northern Minnesota during the Babbitt Survey.
He was a surveyor and had laid an axe into his thigh somewhere out in the bush too far from medical help. The guide filled the wound with white pine pitch, wrapped it an old shirt, told my grandfather when the shirt fell off the wound would be healed.
It healed. Consequently my grandparents had a healthy respect for native culture and people. And my grandmother edged my seeing by asking me to find the spirit lines and spirit breaks in Navajo rugs and various baskets that filled her cabin. Those lines and breaks, she said, were the places where the spirits moved into and out of objects. Every summer I looked at the lines and watched for the spirits to move.
It wasn’t until I was 14 that I visited an art museum.
The first painting I stopped to look at was a still life of a champagne glass and fruit. I thought the colors were beautiful and I couldn’t figure out how the artist painted a champagne glass so clear the fruit in back of it shimmered. But what stumped me was I could not find the spirit line. And that meant, to me, one of two things. The spirit of the painting was not free or there was no spirit in art.
I spent the rest ...

Mentorship 2017 to present with Joseph Ginanetti - artist with a background in commercial photography and painting.

Internship 2015 to 2017. Icebox Gallery and Framing, Minneapolis, MN.

Mentorship 2015 to 2017. Howard Christopherson, photographer. Minneapolis, MN.

Highway 12 Road Trip/Photography Workshop. 2015 and 2016. Instructors - Howard Christopherson, Will Agar, Tom Quinn Kumpf, Toby Old, Sid Kaplan.

Creative Live Workshops. Photography processes. 2014 to present.

University of Minnesota. 1987 - 1993. Cast Iron and Bronze Sculpture and Photography.

2019. Group Show. "Not Accepted. Minneapolis Photo Center, Minneapolis, MN.
2018. Merit Award. AAP Magazine. San Francisco, CA.
2017. Group Show. "LOVE". Icebox Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.
2017 Solo Show, Women's Club, Minneapolis, MN
2016 Julia M. Cameron Awards Exhibit. Berlin, Germany. October.
2016 Solo Show, Lyric Gallery, Virginia, MN
2015 MN State Fair - Fine Arts Exhibit
2015 Benchmark Gallery Solo Exhibit
2014 Saatchi Online Black and White Collection
2013 Saatchi Online Black and White Collection
2013 Great Lakes Water Exhibition
2012 Grace Exhibition
2010 Going Postal Exhibition
1993-2014 Food art
1993 Visiting artist. Foundry. Chicago Art Institute
1992 Visiting artist. Foundry. Chicago Art Institute
1992 Visiting artist. Foundry. Oxbow, Chicago Art Institue
1992 Visiting artist. Iron Pour. St Paul College
1992 Public art pour. St. Paul, MN
1991 Visiting artist. Aluminum pour. Duluth Art Institute
1991 Artist Assistant. Revival Field. Mel Chin. St. Paul, MN
1987-1993 numerous local exhibitions of cast iron and bronze.