Andrew Wiggins finished the last tile of his mosaic the same morning his show opened at St. Catherine's Gallery downtown this past June. He'd started the piece the previous October, working nights in his garage studio until 11 or midnight, then picking it back up at first light on weekends until the show. That kind of deadline pressure sounds like art school folklore. It happened three blocks from Lake Bemidji, made by a Bemidji State graduate who describes himself as a former creative writing major who quietly switched mediums.
That grind is why the show opening at Watermark Art Center this month deserves more than a calendar mention. The bi-annual members show at 505 Bemidji Ave. N. opened with a reception on Sept. 4 and runs through Oct. 24. Local members shows tend to read as polite hometown showcases, the kind where everyone's neighbor gets a spot on the wall. This year, one of the artists hanging work in that building just cleared a screening process that rejects roughly nine out of ten applicants: the Minnesota State Fair.
The Fair Doesn't Take Just Anyone
Wiggins' mosaic is a portrait of the astronomer Copernicus, built from roughly 13,000 pieces of an edition of the Bible marketed under Donald Trump's name. It hung in the Fine Arts Center at the 2026 Minnesota State Fair from Aug. 27 through Sept. 7. He submitted his application in late May and didn't get word back until July 27, a two-month wait for a decision that, by his own account, only about one in ten applicants receives in his favor. He believes he may be just the second artist from Bemidji ever accepted into that gallery.
The piece is part of a larger body of work Wiggins has spent roughly a year building, titled after a phrase Trump uses to sign off his social media posts. He's been direct about what he's after with it:
"I'm basically taking some key moments, things happening in the country and trying to make some kind of commentary through art."
It's a notable pivot for someone who spent most of his creative life on the page instead of the wall. Wiggins has said he developed writer's block around 26 years ago and moved into visual art to keep working through it. His earlier pieces leaned toward astronomy and the cosmos, the kind of imagery that still lines the walls of his own house. The political work is new, by his telling only the last two years of a much longer practice.
Same Artist, No Drive to St. Paul
Here's the part that matters more for anyone reading this in Bemidji than the fair itself. After Sept. 7, Wiggins didn't pack the work away for a year. He's showing new pieces at Watermark's members show, the one already open through Oct. 24, three blocks from the lake and a fraction of the drive to the state fairgrounds.
That's the piece of this most casual scrollers on the fair's website will never connect: a body of work that just cleared a statewide jury lands back on a Bemidji gallery wall within weeks, admission free. You don't need a fairgrounds parking pass to see where this artist's year of work actually ends up.
The studio behind all of it is new too. Wiggins built it with his wife Lia starting in August 2025, converting what had been a dirt-floor garage with no insulation into a working space. He's been candid that the upgrade changed what he could take on:
He can now work through a Minnesota winter instead of losing months to the cold, which matters for anyone keeping the kind of schedule that gets a piece into a room that turns away most of what it sees.
What You're Actually Walking Into
Watermark Art Center runs four rotating galleries, including a dedicated space for Indigenous art and a collection tied to Bemidji State University's ceramics and printmaking program. Attached to the galleries is Shop 505, a retail space where regional makers sell pottery, prints, and handmade goods. The 2026 members show is sponsored in part by KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio. None of it requires a ticket.
This is the same organization that fills Library Park every July for the Watermark Art Festival, drawing thousands of visitors for a weekend. The members show is smaller and quieter by design, more a thank-you to the people who support the center year-round than a festival draw. It's also, this year, where a piece of statewide-juried work happens to be hanging.
If you're building a Saturday around it, downtown Bemidji is doing double duty through the end of October:
| What | When | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Natural Choice Farmers Market | Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., through the end of October | Frizzell Furniture parking lot, Second Street and Beltrami Avenue |
| Watermark Bi-Annual Members Show | Now through Oct. 24 | 505 Bemidji Ave. N. |
The two are a five-minute walk apart. You can pick up produce and a loaf of sourdough at the market, then spend twenty minutes with a mosaic that spent two weeks hanging in the same building as art from across the entire state.
Why the Overlap Actually Matters
A farmers market and a gallery aren't unusual for a town this size. What's unusual is what one artist's path through both venues says about the ceiling on the work that ends up here. The State Fair jury doesn't know or care what zip code an application comes from. Wiggins' piece was judged blind against entries from across Minnesota and still made a room that rejects roughly ninety percent of what it sees. Then it came back to the same few downtown blocks where he'd already spent a year building toward a much smaller show at St. Catherine's.
That's not a story about one artist catching a lucky break. It's evidence that "local art show" and "juried statewide competition" aren't as far apart as the phrase "hometown gallery" usually implies, at least not this fall. Worth checking what's actually on the walls before assuming you already know.
Whether you're there for the mosaic or just refilling a tote bag with produce, that's what downtown Bemidji looks like this September and October. Wendy Steinmetz and The W Group pay attention to details like this because knowing a town this well is most of what it takes to help someone feel at home here. If you're weighing a move to Bemidji, or you already call it home and want a local's read on anything else about the area, reach out anytime.
