Golden Valley Artist Wins First At State Fair

Golden Valley resident Mike Norman's ceramic piece "Tibet Sunrise" sits in the middle of the Fine Arts building at the .

It's prominently featured in a glass display case. As Norman said this week, "You'd really have a hard time missing it."

The judges agreed, and so did a buyer. The piece won first place in its division and sold for $1,500.

Norman, 72, has entered pieces in the State Fair for years and made ceramics pieces for decades.

This year, "Tibet Sunrise" was one of 413 works selected from 2,330 submissions for the 100th Fine Arts Exhibition.

Norman started working with clay as a student at the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry. He took clay classes as electives and studied under well-known potter Warren MacKenzie. Norman's wife, Jan Davies, is a painter and an art teacher in the Eden Prairie School District. They have three children.

Working with clay "captivated" him, Norman said.

Since then, he has created low-fire pieces, such as "Tibet Sunrise" and candleholders, and high-fire porcelain and stoneware. "High-fire work is generally functional," he explained.

"Tibet Sunrise" was part of a larger collection he made, thanks to a McKnight Foundation grant. Much of the work features decorated or drawn with imagery of animals, birds or people.

"They tend to be on the order of cartoons or children's illustration work," Norman said. "They kind of have a—I don't use this word—whimsical quality. That's what most people would say. They have more of an intelligence than that, I guess you could say. They're not done for humor's sake alone."

Norman said his philosophy is most closely related to Zen Buddhism.

"That piece at the State Fair has that quality of presence or respect for the life of those horses," he said. "And the animals that are around it are akin to me, in that I am connected to them, as all life is."

You can view more of Norman's pieces at the studio he shares at 1708 University Ave. W., St. Paul; and the Northern Clay Center, 2424 Franklin Ave. E., Minneapolis.

Other Golden Valley Fine Arts winners

Oil/Acrylic/Mixed Media

Michael T. Anderson

• "Lock and Dam on the Mississippi," oil on panel, honorable mention

Photography

Heather Janelle Novak-Peterson

• "No More Copper Here," honorable mention

Other State Fair Fine Arts exhibitors

Karie Amstutz

• "River II," Multisperse dye sublimation on polyester

Bonnie Heller

• "Girl in the White Blouse," acrylic on paper

Harold Stone

• "Plein Air, Burwell Park, Minnetonka," oil on panel