Minnesota’s Best Art Festivals and Open Studio Tours

Billed as the nation’s largest open-studio tour, Art-a-Whirl has been a must-go every May for a generation. This three-day festival draws art lovers like hipsters to vinyl. 

More than 1,600 member artists, galleries, and businesses participate across Northeast Minneapolis at 100+ locations. You can’t see them all, but you can try. Food trucks, restaurants, and breweries keep your spirits replenished.

Set on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, this winter art festival spans four typically freezing weekends. 

What’s a shanty? Inspired by ice-fishing sheds, it’s anything an artist makes it. Past art shanties include a post office, a spaceship, a radio station, a camera obscura, a seed bank, and a human carwash. 

One surprising shanty? A marriage chapel where you could renew your vows.

Imagine my surprise when, on a recent winter-camping whim, I discovered dozens of candlelit snow sculptures transforming downtown Ely into a Northwoods wonderland. I watched a sculptor smoothing his globe — so big you could enter it — with a chisel. 

The 10-day Ely Winter Festival also features an art walk of local galleries and a Nordic beard competition, where a handlebar mustache about three feet wide reached out and tickled my cheek.

South Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood hosts a great artist crawl, nicknamed LoLa. Produced by the League of Powderhorn Artists, the September fair typically announces itself via postcards that neighbors and friends quietly tuck into your pocket with a coo: “Come to my studio.” 

You’ll find the work of talented glassblowers, watercolorists and more, and without a doubt, a banjo player.

Ready to jumpstart your art collection? There is no finer opportunity than this annual three-day sale of artworks by brilliant MCAD students and alumni. 

Every November, the academic halls and galleries of the Midwest’s premier art college transform into a slick arts-merchandising machine. Featuring everything from furniture to jewelry to photography and paintings, it offers ample ways to empty your wallet while raising money for the nonprofit.

Minneapolis neighborhoods teem with art fairs during the summer: Loring Park Art Festival, the SoMi Art Fair (formerly the Uptown Art Fair, now held at Bachman’s on 60th and Lyndale), and the riverfront Stone Arch Bridge Festival. 

For my money, Powderhorn is tops. Over 30 years old, this fair takes place around a beautiful lake, and there are lots of big shade trees to relax under when the day gets steamy.

Clay, like grapes, has terroir — a quality of the earth that makes it unique. Clay of the Upper Midwest must be terrific, given the number of ceramists that call Minnesota home. 

The humble and beloved Warren Mackenzie put Minnesota on the pottery map, inspiring many to follow. Now over 30 years old, this crawl attracts enthusiasts to seven working studios scattered along the picturesque valley north of St. Paul.

Lowertown is the eye of the hurricane for this spring capital city crawl, which now sprawls through neighboring wards. Dating to 1977, when the St. Paul Art Collective first exhibited together, the crawl is family-friendly and freewheeling. 

A related event (SpringPOP!) offers a makers’ market in the historic Rondo neighborhood along University Ave.

Held on Mother’s Day, this annual three-day celebration of fiber arts is a knitter-spinner-felter’s spring extravaganza. Spread out over the Lake Elmo Fairgrounds northeast of St. Paul, the festival offers classes, demonstrations, and homespun and commercial goods galore. 

I once bought skeins of wool from a vendor, who then introduced me to the sheep — “Nigel” — from which it came. Somewhat perversely, you can order lamb burgers at the volunteer-run food stall.

Hearkening to the state’s Nordic history, gigantic trolls have emerged in the Central Minnesota city of Detroit Lakes. Made from bark and old palettes, these sculptures are the work of Thomas Dambo, who creates them to entice people worldwide into nature. 

His most ambitious story starts at a troll named “Alexa’s Elixir” in the D.L. city park. Two trolls tromp into other parks, including Ortenstone Gardens and Sculpture Park, which opened on 50-plus acres near Lake Detroit.

Held in downtown Bemidji since 1967, this two-day festival in July draws talent across Northern Minnesota. You’ll find live concerts, 100+ art vendors, art demos, food, and a creative zone for spontaneous artistic outbursts. 

Hosted by the Watermark Art Center, its vendors sell hand-crafted wood items, ceramics, jewelry, photography, metalworking, preserves, soaps, stained glass, paintings, garden art, and more.

Find more festivals & events in Minnesota.