Treasured Trash And Terrific Trees

A whimsical Velvet Rasputin LLC multidisciplinary collective arts exhibit featuring exquisite trash art, moving poetry, and items derived from and inspired by trees. - Opening with artist Q&A on July 15, 2026 at 6:15 p.m. at The Array room - and displayed in the lobby cases throughout July and August, during library hours. View it at the Great River Regional Library - Saint Cloud, 1300 W St Germain St, St Cloud, MN 56301, USA or by viewing the videos below. New ecosystems and content will be added until 7/18/2026. To read the artist statements and get contact information, keep scrolling.

Participants

🪺 Chinyin Cheu: Growing up next to a strip of jungle that separated two housing developments in a small town in West Malaysia, I watched monkeys swing from trees and falls asleep to mating calls of frogs amidst blinking lights of fireflies in pitch black night. As more houses were build and highways connected, jungles started dimminishing, along with the myriad of life in the infinite ecosystems that nature holds. I seek to preserve nature and the environment through my art, whether it's painting natural scenes, folding origami from used sticky notes, or writing poetry.
👧 Gnomie Johnson: I am heavily influenced by Japanese art, and I have a soft-spot for Japanese ball-jointed dolls. Typically, these types of dolls are cast in resin. I chose to go with paper clay. Although this material is far more challenging, it is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The results are just as beautiful and delicate. Although I don't have any formal training for doll-making, I've been incredibly fortunate to meet soe great doll-makers online, mostly Japanese and Russian. They've been great about giving me tips and letting me know what books I should read and YouTube videos I should watch to improve my skills.
☁️ Jonathan Wilson: I am the owner of Cloudy Sky Comics and a member of Velvet Rasputin. Believe it or not, Doug, a cartoon character who made comics, is what inspired me to make comics. I started to make sketch cards as something to sell at comic conventions. I keep on making them because they help break the ice and make it easier for me, as a neurodivergent person, to have conversations. My cards are like puzzle pieces. They don't start out with a specific meaning, but it comes out as I make more cards.
🔨 Loki Wojtanowicz: Growing up on small farm in Central Minnesota, I learned that a thing in not valuable so much for what it is, as where it is. A smelly nuisance in the barn is valuable fertilizer, if you move it a few yards downwind. The roll of duct tape and tangle of bailing wire in the back of your truck is useless junk until you need it to get a forty year old Farmal tractor moving again. And a little slab of scrap wood and a copper lead is junk to be thrown away, unless you can look at it and see what it could become, and you have the skill and the determination to make that possibility a reality.
🌈 Vas Wojtanowicz: To trash is to denigrate an object, person, culture or form of art because of its social unacceptability or perceived lack of value. Things and folks deemed as "trash" tend to be demonized as "gross" or "dirty" before being discarded, maligned or ignored, even when it's untrue. Sadly, most people don't give it a single thought before tossing trash aside. I know this, because I've been trashed. Defiantly, I embrace this label of "trash" with subversive, in-your-face glee. Trash exists as a misunderstood, messy and sometimes broken treasure. I'm trash that collaborates with literal trash to showcase its wonder using the power of visual, literary and performing arts.