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Photos by John Haynes
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Overall and Home Category Winner: Väva! Veve!
If you want to visit Marian Quanbeck Dahlberg’s weaving studio, you’ll need to embark from Minneapolis on a two-hour drive along two-lane roads, winding between pastures and pull-tab bars. Somewhere past the horse farm, you’ll find yourself—or, rather, lose yourself—in a remote wooded area of western Wisconsin. If there’s snow on the ground, Dahlberg will warn you not to venture down the steep and rutted gravel road to her cabin door, unless your car has all-wheel drive.
Once you’re inside, you won’t need directions to Dahlberg’s weaving loom. The industrial-grade wood frame stands nearly a story high and takes over the entire living room where the furniture used to be, back when this cedar-clad cabin served as a mere family getaway.
The journey into the wilderness captures what inspires this artist; it also speaks to her solitary craft. For nearly 20 years, Dahlberg has been weaving linen into intricately patterned towels, napkins, table runners, throws, and other textiles for the home. She is well known in the local and national textile community—a rock star, almost, to the weavers who fill the occasional classes she teaches at the Textile Center in Minneapolis.
In 2009, Dahlberg established her business Väva! Veve! (the word “weave” in Swedish and Norwegian). The same year, she entered, for the first time, the prestigious American Craft Council shows. She won a spot in all five of them, a feat akin to trying out for the watercolor show at the local library and receiving an invitation to exhibit at the Walker.
“I didn’t even have my business cards made yet; it was a total head trip,” she recalls. “I could only afford to go to two of the shows—St. Paul and San Francisco.” Since then, Dahlberg has sold her goods in local boutiques, online, and at pop-ups, including at West Elm in Edina.
For years, Dahlberg created her linens with a hand loom in her Minnetonka home. Yet her aesthetic is anything but rustic or naïve. Dahlberg’s is a modern Scandinavian look—as precise and luxurious as any premium brand of linen.
A tea towel can take up to three days to complete, once you factor in the process of setting up the loom. But once this work is done, Dahlberg can put up to 100 yards of warp threads on the loom and weave multiple items from it. Each gets a card telling the story behind her design. “It’s a part of me and like a window into my life,” she says.
Dahlberg picks up another textile with a yellow and white honeycomb design, and a smile spreads across her face. She recounts the time when she and her husband kept bees out here when their two kids were small. One day, Dahlberg says, she walked out to see a bear just steps from her deck (and her toddler daughter). The bear gobbled honey from his paws while absorbing bee stings from the swarm whose hives he’d just destroyed. “I just stood there, as calmly as I could, asking my daughter to come back inside with me,” she says. Everyone turned out OK. But that was the end of the Dahlbergs’ beekeeping days.
She’s got her own industry to look after now. Recently, Dahlberg began a new venture, called Small Dog Weaving Mill, so named for the three Chihuahuas who act as her studio companions. Here, Dahlberg will weave wool and other fibers from local farmers into textiles, a practice that all but disappeared over the past century in the upper Midwest. “There are no cottage-sized weaving mills here offering this kind of service,” she says. Call it the farm-to-tablecloth movement.
“I want to be that niche between the farm and the Faribault mill,” Dahlberg says. “I hope to bring back what was lost.” vavaveve.com
Finalist: Vevang MPLS
It’s not unusual for Erik and Michele Vevang to find the tall branch of a lilac tree or a log of boxelder leaning up against their front door. Neighbors and friends leave the gifts knowing this husband-and-wife team will turn the raw material into a useful heirloom.
Five years ago, the couple began carving wooden spoons on a whim—first as a wedding gift for Erik’s brother. “It was the oldest, driest piece of walnut,” Erik says.
Michele adds, “The spoon was so misshapen, it kind of looked like a Flintstones spoon. I think we owe them a new one.”
But the process proved rewarding enough to coax the couple out of their hair salon business into what is now a woodcarving studio in Northeast Minneapolis. Their practice appears pretty primitive: In addition to the friendly doorstop drop-offs, they source their wood from fallen branches and storm-damaged trees. They also eschew power tools in favor of old Scandinavian carving tools. Their methods hark back to the hamlet of Vevang, Norway—Erik’s ancestral home. The couple hopes to one day build a small cabin there and teach carving classes.
For now, they carve daily in their studio; they also teach classes there and at Norway House in Minneapolis. Their wares—which include bowls and boards—can be found at local art shows and boutiques. Each spoon carries a note about the provenance of the wood. “Using hand tools in a traditional way has more meaning than buying one at Williams-Sonoma, because these pieces have a story,” Erik says. “This is utilitarian art.” vevangmpls.com
Jon Loer Pottery
Finalist: Jon Loer Pottery
Jon Loer doesn’t overthink his work, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t deliberate about his black and white pottery of Minnesota iconography. Loer works primarily in the sgraffito (Italian for “scratches”) method by painting black clay over white clay, then scratching away the black to reveal the white imagery. His platters, dishes, mugs, and magnets showcase scenes of cabin life, loons on the lake, and, more recently, campers and trailers.
Loer grew up in the St. Croix River Valley in a family of Red Wing Pottery collectors. He calls himself a functional potter. “I don’t need to be a one-man show at the Guggenheim,” he says. “We’re just making our stuff, and we’re happy when people like and use them.”
Finalist: Dutton Brown
At first blush, you might mistake Dutton Brown’s lighting fixtures for vintage work. With shapes and finishes inspired by classic midcentury designs, the pieces could come right out of an episode of Mad Men. But these men, Zach Dutton and Thomas Brown, got their start in 2013, when they concepted a spiky urchin chandelier (crafted from a wire coat hanger), posted the pic online, and sold it within 24 hours.
Today, the partners and co-founders of Dutton Brown operate out of a slick studio in Northeast Minneapolis, where you wouldn’t look out of place at noon sipping a dirty martini. Their collection features chandeliers, sconces, and pendants. Customers can customize their orders by size, finish, and color, including Pantone options.
“When we design our fixtures, we configure them often with smaller versions,” he says. “We know not every trendsetter lives in a mansion or penthouse.” The nursery deserves a cosmic lighting piece of its own. duttonbrown.com
Photo courtesy of Patti Wagner
Patti Wagner Made in the North Judge HOME
Meet the Guest Judge: Patti Wagner currently renovates old properties in Minneapolis with her husband and is a Senior Designer at Target. Patti went to Virginia Commonwealth University to study interior design and has worked with a couple of design firms. After college, she moved to Minneapolis and shortly after, landed a job at Target on the Product Design and Development team, helping to create product within the Home category. Outside of work, her passion for design extends to renovation where she and her husband fix up old properties and turn them into rentals in desirable neighborhoods like Uptown and LynLake. She documents their home design and renovation journey on her Instagram account under the handle @patticakewagner.
The Made in the North winners and finalists were determined by guest judges and Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's editorial team.
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