It was a December day in 2024 and Danny Klecko was alone in Gallery 357 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, looking at a painting of Jesus surrounded by the brokenhearted.

“I remember saying to Jesus, “Give me 100 hours and watch what I am going to do for you,” Klecko recalls.

Klecko, a poet who has written more than 15 books, kept his word with a project he calls Exhausting Jesus.

Inspired by the New York Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, which invites people to look at a painting for 10 minutes, Klecko decided, as usual, to go bigger by spending 100 hours viewing Ary Scheffer’s 1851 painting “Christus Consolator” at MIA, completing the project last Sunday. The copy of Scheffer’s popular painting, valued at worth more than $30,000, was found in a storage closet in Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Dassel, Minn., and later donated to MIA.

Klecko and Exhausting Jesus intrigued Larry Buchanan, a New York Times reporter and graphics editor who selects artwork for the Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, so he flew into Minneapolis last weekend to interview Klecko and his wife, Erica Christ, on the last day of the project.

Klecko had never met Buchanan, but that didn’t stop him from sending an email at the beginning of the project explaining that he was a master bread baker for more than 40 years and a poet who didn’t finish high school, and how the 10-Minute Challenge inspired Exhausting Jesus. (Klecko used the same “you-don’t-know-me-but” message when he sent his first poem to Buchanan’s colleague Ed Shanahan, who has published nine of Klecko’s poems in the Times’ Metropolitan Diary feature.)

“During the course of my project, I kept inviting Buchanan to Minneapolis to spend an hour with Jesus and me,” Klecko said. “He kept telling me to keep him in the loop and as the hours ticked down to 100, he said he was coming for the final hour.”

Klecko and Christ, who were married in August, had a wonderful time with the recently wed Buchanan.

“Larry was great,” Klecko says. “When you do emails you never know what to expect. I expected a literary kind of guy, but Larry looks like a young Russell Crowe. He’s funny and at ease. I have dealt with a lot of reporters and can’t recall being in the company of someone who was so comfortable with himself — relaxed, on point, professional.”

Klecko and Buchanan spent several hours at MIA with Buchanan filming their interview. With them was Heather Hofmeister, MIA public relations manager, one of the museum’s staff with whom Klecko formed friendly connections, including Galina Olmsted, associate curator of European art. He knows the guards and the information desk folks who got used to answering visitors’ questions about “the 100-hour painting” or “the 100-hour man.”

Buchanan asked to see Klecko’s notes for the book he’s writing about the Exhausting Jesus project. They walked to Klecko and Christ’s nearby house to grab Klecko’s computer and allow Buchanan to be a hero to the family dog, FiFi, because he had treats.

“I showed Larry my notebook on the computer, explaining the book is practically finished,” Klecko recalled. “People don’t realize that after each viewing session I spent several hours writing a synopsis of what happened that day.”

Klecko and Christ took Buchanan to the Black Forest Inn in Minneapolis, owned by Christ’s family, where Buchanan and Klecko played an impromptu game.

“Larry would challenge me to read at random from my notebook, like viewing hour number 32,” Klecko says with amusement. “So I’d read it to him and everyone in the restaurant. It must have been a surreal experience for him to be in an Old World restaurant listening to a big Polish guy wearing pink plastic pants and a raggedy hoodie.”

Buchanan emailed the Pioneer Press that he had “a fantastic time” with Klecko and Christ.

“The hour-plus we stood and talked in front of the painting he’s chosen flew by and included a number of strangers who decided to join in. I was very moved by the way Danny spoke of his time at the museum, especially when he spoke about what he views as his two jobs as a poet — ‘to observe and to love’ — and how his experiences strengthen his commitment  to both.”

Looking back at Jesus

Minnesota poet Danny Klecko, left, with New York Times reporter Larry Buchanan at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. Inspired by the New York Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, which invites people to look at a painting for 10 minutes, Klecko decided, as usual, to go bigger by spending 100 hours viewing Ary Scheffer’s 1851 painting “Christus Consolator” at the museum in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Erica Christ)

For Klecko, who’s 62, Exhausting Jesus taught some personal lessons.

“The main thing I learned is that no matter how much I focus or attention I pay to something, there is so much I am missing,” he admits. “There are things in life I might miss, just like looking at the painting. For instance, it took somewhere around hour 68 for my wife and I to notice stigmata on Jesus’ chest.”

Buchanan asked Erica Christ, who was with her husband for about 30 viewing hours, what she thought about the project. Her no-nonsense reply: “I never liked that painting.”

Klecko admits he was somewhat surprised at people’s interest as the project got more publicity, including an article picked up by PBS.

“Around hour 50 or so an entourage started to form around me, which was nice,” he recalls. “By hours 85 and 90 people came out of the woodwork. When Buchanan was here Sunday, I purposely selected a time at MIA I had never gone before because I wanted privacy. But people waited around throughout the day. People mean well and are gracious. They want to support what I am doing and be part of it. Two years ago I began having poems published in the New York Times. Now I have a writer flying across the country to be with me. I’m not bragging, but I’m in the company of two Times staff members.”

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Now that Exhausting Jesus is completed (except for finishing the book), Klecko says he feels calm and happy at being surrounded by people who wanted respectful conversation about what could be seen as a controversial painting because some of the figures surrounding Jesus were victims of war or atrocities.

“At no time did people get angry or out of control, which could have happened in a political or religious environment,” he says. “Now I have lost my faith in religion and politics. With all my heart I believe the only way to save ourselves is through art.”

Klecko’s book, titled “Exhausting Jesus at Minneapolis Institute of Art,” will be published in spring by Julie Pfitzinger’s Twin Cities-based Paris Morning Publications.

Two Minnesota students will be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City next month in celebration of an international recognition.

Laila Elazab, center, of White Bear Lake, as Morticia Addams in the White Bear Lake Children’s Performing Arts 2022 production of “The Addams Family.” Elazab will perform Dec. 20 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. (Courtesy of the MacPhail Center for Music)

Earlier this year, the two MacPhail Center for Music vocal students won international awards at the American Protege International Vocal Competition. They will be celebrating the win with performances at Carnegie Hall.

Sixteen-year-old Laila Elazab, a high school student from White Bear Lake, took first place in the category and 13-year-old Max Zhang, of Wayzata, took second place. Both performed classical songs in Italian and competed through video submissions. Their Carnegie Hall performances will take place Dec. 20, with Elazab also performing on Dec. 17 as well.

“I feel super honored and it’s really so exciting,” Elazab said. “And it’s crazy to see another student from MacPhail got it, too.”

Zhang, who is in eighth grade, said he found a deep connection with music at an early age.

Max Zhang, of Wayzata, will be performing Dec. 20 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. (Courtesy of the MacPhail Center for Music)

“My first introduction to MacPhail was my mom wanting to seek more opportunities for me to perform on stage,” Zhang said. “I used to just sing Chinese poems with my local teacher, but my mom felt like it was too little for me, so she looked for better opportunities for me and found MacPhail.”

MacPhail Center for Music serves a diverse group of more than 15,000 students yearly from across Minnesota. The center offers group and individual lessons in more than 35 instruments as well as voice lessons and other musical arts.

The center has physical locations in Minneapolis, Chanhassen, Apple Valley, Austin, Minn., and Wisconsin’s Madeline Island, and also offers online courses.

“MacPhail Center for Music provides access to diverse and relevant music learning experiences, delivered by extraordinary faculty,” according to the center’s mission statement.

Elazab and Zhang are both students of Mikyoung Park at MacPhail, and have studied with her for a majority of their lives.

“I always recommend to send my students on the stage because learning in the classroom versus on the stage is different,” Park said.

Park began singing when she was young, one of her earliest memories being the sound of a piano from a musical academy in her hometown in South Korea. Since that time, she has pursued music, coming to the United States in 2000 and graduating from the University of Minnesota with a doctorate in musical arts and a voice pedagogy certification.

Joining MacPhail in 2014, she is now an instructor leading courses in voice, piano, opera, musical theater and K-pop.

“I can’t even describe how much I’ve learned,” Elazab said. “I don’t think I would have ever been the singer I am without her, for sure. I learn so much every single time I go, and all of her advice, like, I never disagree.”

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Elazab has been performing since she was young, originally studying piano with Park before singing in a piano performance. From that moment, Park and Elazab both agreed she was meant to be singing.

Today, she dreams of studying musical performance in college, and maybe one day performing on Broadway.

“I really do love New York and love the opportunities for music there,” Elazab said.

Similarly, Zhang looks forward to performing at Carnegie Hall in December, and hopes to one day return.

“I’ve done a lot of music, so it’s kind of like my second home to me,” Zhang said.

“I am just really excited to see all these different performers perform and learn something from them,” Elazab said.

I had an epiphany at the end of a trip to the West Coast earlier this year: Seattle is a lot like the Twin Cities, and Bellingham, Washington, is Duluth’s equivalent. Granted, there are major differences – but hear me out: The population of Seattle and the Twin Cities metros are roughly the same (3.5 million to 3.7 million), both reside on important bodies of water, both have world-famous industries, attractions, sports teams and musicians and both have Democratic mayors (all three actually).

Devil’s Tower with Amy Nelson’s teardrop camper in the foreground. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

As for Bellingham vis-a-vis Duluth, drive two hours north from the larger cities close to the Canadian border and you’ll find two spots again with roughly the same population, also on waterfronts, with a vibrant university population and an outdoorsy, progressive ethos.

I came up with the comparison after an epic 3,500-mile road trip pulling our teardrop camper and our car filled with clothes, furniture and various sporting goods to help move our son from South St. Paul to his new home in Bellingham. We made the trip over 10 days, camping most nights but spending a few days doing touristy things in Seattle, checking out Bellingham and taking a few detours into Wyoming to see some sights we’ve always wanted to visit. It was a lot of long days on the road and hours spent listening to podcasts, but the driving was part of the adventure and the freedom to pull over to a roadside attraction when we wanted also was an appeal. We likely won’t make the drive again anytime soon – direct flights into Seattle are fairly affordable – but for anyone planning a similar trip, here are some recommendations and observations.

A slow start

We got on the road later than we had hoped that first Saturday of our trip in late August after some last-minute packing and a lunch that ran late. Traffic out of the Twin Cities was heavy, too, but we made it to New Salem, North Dakota, in seven hours and had a reservation at a barebones campground that had electrical and water hookups but strangely no bathrooms or showers (only a biffy). No matter, because by the time we arrived, we went straight to sleep under the town’s oversized Salem Sue fiberglass cow statue on the top of the hill.

The Enchanted Highway “Geese in Flight” sculpture near Gladstone, North Dakota. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

The next day, we knew that we would gain an hour as we drove west, so agreed to check out the Enchanted Highway sculptures along the route. These seven quirky, gigantic metal pieces of art are the work of local artist Gary Greff, scattered along a 32-mile route originally intended to draw visitors south from the interstate to his hometown of Regent. The first piece we discovered is titled “Geese in Flight,” near Gladstone, North Dakota. This sculpture holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest scrap metal sculpture and was dazzling as the sun reflected off it and birds flew between the connecting rays. We also visited the “Deer Crossing” sculpture before turning back to the interstate for an hour-long drive to our next stop at the south entrance to Teddy Roosevelt National Park, where we marveled at the gorgeous stripes and striking topography of the Badlands from a scenic overlook. The immense change from the prairie to the Badlands is like discovering a whole new world.

We ventured into charming Medora for some coffee and discovered a storefront/office space dedicated to the upcoming Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, opening nearby on July 4, 2026, to coincide with America’s 250th birthday. A scale model display of the museum and event center shows how the design honors Roosevelt’s deep love for the land and his environmental interests. We may consider attending the grand opening event because it’s sure to be impressive.

Crossing the Continental Divide

Our day ended after a six-hour drive from Medora to Bozeman, Montana, where we met up with our son. We have been to Bozeman multiple times because he attended college at Montana State University, so we knew we wanted some cocktails at our favorite speakeasy, Devil’s Toboggan, and a late dinner inside the charming Field & Stream Lodge, which is themed around the popular outdoor magazine. I learned the magazine title was bought last year by musicians Morgan Wallen and Eric Church, who have added a music festival and the hotel to the brand. If we weren’t already camping, I would have lobbied for a stay at the new lodge. Over the years of visiting our son in Bozeman, we knew short-term rentals are difficult to find and hotel stays are incredibly expensive, especially for popular dates like graduation. Even the campgrounds were $50 or more a night at the end of summer.

One of many nods to penny-farthing bicycles in the west, this one in Wallace, Idaho. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

The next day, we headed out for Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, planning to sleep there for the night on a friend’s recommendation. Seattle is a doable 10-hour drive from Bozeman, but we wanted to see more sights. It was a hot day with some challenging driving through Glacier National Park and past the Continental Divide marker, especially with our camper in tow, so I was grateful to pull into Wallace, Idaho, for a stop. What first looked like a typical dusty small town off the highway’s overpass turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The town of approximately 1,000 people is rich with museums and quirky attractions. First, we made new friends at Wallace Brewing and heard about the area from the bartender.

Then, we had to go find the “Center of the Universe” manhole cover in the middle of the town’s main intersection. The marker came about in 2004 when the mayor announced the town was the universe’s center based on the philosophical concept of probabilism, which states that if something can’t be disproven, it must be true. I intend to use probabilism for future ideas. The town celebrates the designation every year and for its 21st birthday this year, had an extra special festival planned because now “the town can legally drink.” We also explored the very detailed mining museum dedicated to the area’s rich history of silver, lead and zinc mining but were disappointed to discover the Oasis Bordello Museum was closed for the day. That’s right, along with the center of the universe, Wallace also celebrates its history of legalized brothels that allowed prostitution until 1991. We needed to get back on the road but wanted to see more of the area, which we did on our return trip, camping at the Wallace RV Park that has an attached restaurant and brewery. Just an hour away was Coeur D’Alene and its breathtaking, scenic drive of the lake. We captured a beautiful sunset at our campground and settled in for the night.

The Center of the Universe decal in Wallace, Idaho. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

Seeing Seattle

The Seattle skyline from a boat tour. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

The beauty of Coeur D’Alene quickly disappears on the nearly 5-hour drive across eastern Washington to Seattle. At least it was flat. Past Spokane, it started to lightly rain, and I realized we had nearly perfect weather up to that point. After dropping our camper at a generous friend’s house just outside Seattle, we drove into the heart of downtown for a two-night hosted stay at The Maxwell Hotel. The funky boutique hotel is pet-friendly and part of the StayPineapple chain, so there are pineapple-themed details throughout. It’s also a great location to take in many of Seattle’s main sites, and we had a looming view of the Space Needle from our room.

The day ended with a magnificent hosted dinner at Raccolto in West Seattle. Raccolto is the latest restaurant by chef Brian Clevenger, who is also behind popular restaurants Vendemmia and East Anchor Seafood. The amazing breads, pastas and inventive desserts reminded me of some of the best meals I’ve had back home at Dario in Minneapolis and Mucci’s Italian in St. Paul. We ended the night completely satisfied without even enough room for a nightcap at one of the many taverns and dive bars near our hotel.

A sculpture in the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum in Seattle. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

The fifth day of our trip was dedicated to seeing Seattle’s top tourist sights, and it was a full 14-hour extravaganza. We had two CityPass vouchers to use, and could choose five of seven attractions. First up was the most popular and iconic: the Space Needle. From our hotel, we walked about 15 minutes to the landmark in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood for our morning timed entrance. Built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the observation tower feels both retro and futuristic at the same time. The historic photos detailing the construction and engineering of the observation tower offer a sense of how remarkable it is, and the panoramic views of the city and its waterfronts showcase the area’s beauty on all sides.

Speaking of beauty, our second pick was the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit, which is steps from the Space Needle. It features the colorful, immense and intricate glass works of artist Dale Chihuly. I’d say Chihuly’s worldwide works are almost as instantly recognizable as the Space Needle, and pairing the two next to each other is brilliant. Another nearby CityPass choice was designed by another instantly recognizable creator, architect Frank Gehry. Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture’s distinctive, stainless steel facade resembles the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis because Gehry designed both.

Our next CityPass attraction was Seattle’s famous three-building aquarium on the central waterfront, which we explored after an impeccable steak lunch at The Butcher’s Table. Owner Kurt Beecher Dammier told us his Sugar Mountain restaurant group also runs Beecher’s Cheese and is looking to add a location in the Twin Cities area or River Falls, Wis. We also stopped by the Beecher’s Cheese store in Pike Place Market for some samples. Pike Place was hopping, and those famous fish tossers were putting on a show for the many tourists as we roamed the stalls and stopped in for a drink at the enormous Pike Pub.

Pike Place Market in Seattle. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

For our final CityPass attraction, we had scheduled a sunset cruise with Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour and joined a friend’s family who now lives in Seattle for the launch out of Pier 55. As a first-time visitor to Seattle, I learned some interesting history and highlights on the cruise, but it was our friend who said she probably gained the most from the tidbits about her new home. After my Fitbit showed I had walked 18,000 steps for the day, I called rideshare to return to the hotel, but my husband and son chose to walk the 2.5 miles back, stopping at a few more of those famous Seattle breweries along the way.

Bellingham’s best

A mural welcoming visitors to Bellingham, Wash. (Courtesy of Amy Nelson)

After a long day as Seattle’s No. 1 tourists, we slept late the next day but knew we only had a 90-mile drive to get to Bellingham. We picked up our camper and were off, driving north out of Seattle but into some heavy sprawl and snarled traffic so it took almost two hours before we arrived at Hotel Leo in downtown Bellingham for a hosted stay. Our son’s new rental didn’t start its lease for a few more days but we were able to move the clothes, furniture and other items packed into our car and his into the garage and walk through the house. That meant that we got to explore Bellingham with him that evening while he stayed at the hotel with us.

We found the area as endearing as we had hoped. Our first stop was Ritual Records, an immense warehouse dedicated to vinyl. I judge cities based on their music scene – which is why I love the Twin Cities so much – and Bellingham delivers. After that, I spent an hour at the NEKO Cat Cafe before dinner at the Penny Farthing restaurant. We had noticed a penny farthing theme along our drive, mainly in Idaho and then again in Seattle. The quirky bikes with their oversized front wheels look impossible to ride but seem to be a popular design element – possibly tapping into the steampunk vibe. From the restaurant, we walked along the waterfront to The Portal, where families and friends were enjoying drinks and dinner from the food trucks, craft beer kiosks and coffee stands all housed in shipping containers.

We continued exploring by walking back toward the downtown area to find a surprising number of breweries for a town its size. College-aged kids and their parents roamed the side streets and filled the eateries and patios several blocks. It felt like a welcoming, buzzy place to be. And while I hadn’t quite made the connection between Washington and Minnesota yet, when we left a few days later to return home, we were confident in our son’s new but somehow familiar next home.

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In the mid-1990s, when his band wasn’t touring, Jeff Nelson would work at local coffee shops. He was, he admits, “just OK” at making coffee, but quickly found a knack for designing the shop’s menu chalkboards.

At first, he just considered the task to be a creative bright spot in an otherwise uninspiring day job. But then he received a call from another cafe wanting him to do their chalkboards. And then another.

“It was kind of like Instagram before there was Instagram, because your portfolio was there for anyone with a low-grade caffeine addiction,” he said. “And word has it that lots of people in food service like coffee.”

At some point in the early 2000s, he said, the scales tipped: The requests he was getting for menu board gigs were keeping him just as busy as the coffee shop job. The decision of which path to pursue “was a no-brainer,” he said.

Now, under the moniker “Jephemera,” Nelson works full-time from a studio in the Lowertown Underground Artists cooperative, a basement space on Prince Street founded by artists like Nelson who formerly had studios in the Jax Building before it was converted to apartments.

Nelson’s handiwork regularly announces what’s new at places like Cooks of Crocus Hill, Subtext Books and The French Hen Cafe. He drew the wall of flavor signs for Grand Ole Creamery’s outpost inside what’s now known as Grand Casino Arena, and this year, he designed signage for the St. Paul Farmers Market’s new indoor space.

His work shows up in other formats, too, from magazine covers to beer cans to building walls, including the floral mural he painted behind Grand Avenue art shop Wet Paint in 2019. For the past couple years, he has created map guides for theater company Wonderlust Productions’ interactive Hidden Herald audio storytelling project.

Speaking of maps: When Nelson isn’t working on client projects, he creates extraordinarily detailed maps — but not of places that exist in real life. They’re mostly not even places at all: One, “The Glorious Island of Cheese,” imagines every ‘country’ on a fictional island as a variety of cheese with ‘cities’ marked as suggested pairings. Other maps break down the famed 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper soda and visually organize favorite albums from artists like Weezer, They Might Be Giants and Tom Waits.

In college, he said, he’d format his class notes as maps.

“It’s a way of cataloguing taxonomical information in a visual kind of way,” he said. “Everything’s kind of a taxonomy when you get down to it. You have a big body of knowledge and you drill it down to the smaller parts.”

Nelson, in his classic cheekily self-deprecating way, denies he’s an artist. No, he says: He’s an illustrator. Or maybe, in a way, a translator.

“I really only have, like, three really good original ideas a year,” he joked. “I really love working with other people who have something they need to get out there in a visual way. It’s a ton of fun to work with people who have something they care a lot about and to be able to put that into a visual medium.”

But, as the name “Jephemera” implies, the work he creates for businesses around town is ephemeral. It’s meant to be temporary. When it’s time to roll out new specials, Nelson’s work disappears beneath a fresh coat of black paint.

“It’s really freeing to work in a medium that’s not meant to be forever,” he said. “It’s fun to be part of that madness. If people want to change things up completely, we change it up completely. People are much more willing to play around when it’s a medium like a chalkboard.”

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