Seventeen years ago, I hosted a solo exhibition by St. Paul, Minnesota-based painter and printmaker Carolyn Swiszcz titled Minnesota Miracle. Her depictions of the city’s landmarks, parks, and storefronts carry a subtly off-kilter quality, despite their contemporary designs and cheerful signs and banners. Through complex layers of painting, printing, cutouts, and collage, Swiszcz reimagines banal scenes and familiar places, uncovering unexpected pleasures within them. Yet her work never turns away from the reality she observes—reality as lived and inhabited by people, suggested through details such as tire tracks etched into frozen roads, capsized plastic chairs in a restaurant backyard, or a house window adorned with a hand-lettered “Happy Birthday” sign.
Why, then, does she call this unvarnished reality a “miracle”? The word seems to signal Swiszcz’s deep attachment to her city and its people, even though she is not originally from the region. As of this writing, social unrest in Minnesota continues to intensify, particularly following two civilians—both, coincidentally, 37 years old—who were protesting immigration crackdowns and were murdered by federal agents in front of fellow protesters and bystanders. When I asked Swiszcz how she was coping with the situation, she said she was finding small ways to help others.
Her response reminded me of a news story about a local shop handing out hot drinks and donuts to protesters enduring sub-zero temperatures. Swiszcz has created several works inspired by Granny Donuts, her favorite neighborhood shop—one that endured for generations before closing during the COVID pandemic. If free donuts can be understood as a small miracle, then perhaps a larger one lies in the towering corporate presences of Minneapolis, such as 3M and Target. The former, in particular, was a recurring subject in Swiszcz’s work.
What stood out most to me in the exhibition, however, was a painting depicting—beneath a brutally gray sky—a tedious tan building with a brown roof and a tall vertical structure that might be mistaken for a prison watchtower were it not for the elongated cross beside a large sign reading “HOPE.” This modest local church, rendered with somber restraint, exemplifies Swiszcz’s sensitive magical realism. It is also an emblem of warm localism—one I appreciate even more now, as I reflect on the harsh realities facing her state today.
