Most of the projects that are designed and made at Designed & Made, a cabinetry and woodworking shop in Arden Hills, are custom jobs for high-end homes around the country.

But when the team wants to show off an innovative technique or test a new process, they go rogue.

That’s the story behind a 20-foot-tall multimedia artwork hanging in the lobby of their production shop in Arden Hills. The main body of the work consists of two large slabs of fiberboard carved in a complex geometric pattern with a computer-guided router, then finished with mirror-like polished brass inlays and coated with a pearlescent paint that reflects different colors at different angles.

A detail from a large-scale artwork made by Arden Hills cabinetry shop Designed & Made is shown in March 2025. The work was produced using a large computer-guided router and a pearlescent finish used mainly in automotive contexts, said owner Brian Grabski. (Josh Hway / Dynamic Photowerks)

“We’re just showcasing things that are possible,” owner and woodworker Brian Grabski said. “A lot of people don’t know to ask for something because they don’t know it exists. That’s a big part of the reason we do these art pieces on the side; it’s a way for us to flex and show our capabilities.”

Grabski titled the work “Tanks in Tiananmen Square: A Study of Emergent Behavior,” the subtitle of which refers to unexpected results that emerge from combining disparate elements. In this case: modern computer-aided design using software like Rhinoceros 3D and Autodesk Fusion, industrial routering machines, traditional woodworking assembly techniques and coatings and resins pulled from other industries. The color-shifting paint used in the piece is an automotive-grade finish, Grabski said.

“The design process is mostly Brian ping-ponging off me what he wants,” said Duncan MacLeslie, the lead machinist and 3D designer. “I take his little napkin sketches and put them into the computer in 3D, and make it into a physical thing.”

Grabski and the team have been working on completing the project for several years, he said, partially because the shop is busy with client work but mostly because they’ve continued to build a portion, test something, find a problem, and start over to get it right. In an earlier iteration, for example, they were finding the color-shifting paint would pool in the carefully routered interior corners, making them round rather than acute. The solution: Hang the piece upside-down and spray it from below.

Designed & Made owner Brian Grabski holds two pieces of wood to demonstrate the effect of a particular finish on March 20, 2025, at the cabinetry company’s shop in Arden Hills. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)

“Tanks in Tiananmen Square” is certainly the most eye-catching experiment in the Designed & Made lobby but not the only one: A massive built-in bookshelf, a pool table in progress and even the drink coasters the staff use are, functionally, advertisements for the company’s techniques. The team is also working on a massive kinetic light installation to hang over the pool table once it’s complete.

“A lot of these things we play with, we end up taking those concepts and incorporating them into our millwork and cabinetry in these big, multimillion-dollar houses.” Grabski said. “Every project we do, ultimately, is a stepping stone to our next best work, because we’re taking everything we’ve learned and reapplying it and going hard again.”

In short: Pushing the envelope of what architects, designers and homeowners can expect, Grabski said. Or maybe a piece like “Tanks in Tiananmen Square” could end up in a modern art gallery or museum one day, he said.

“The envelope doesn’t close here, for sure,” added Antoine Scott, the lead finisher, responsible for coatings, paints and polishes. “We bring whatever people are looking for to life. That’s the challenge but also what’s fun here.”

Related Articles

Made in St. Paul: Ice skating as storytelling and Black cultural expression, by figure skater Deneane Richburg’s organization Brownbody

Made in St. Paul: Painter and wine educator Angela Kallsen finds the personalities of wine grape vines

Made in St. Paul: Printmaking to revitalize an endangered Alaskan language, by Deg Xit’an illustrator Gidinatiy Hartman

Made in St. Paul: Plastic trash becomes detail collaged portraits by ‘junk art junkie’ Sonja Dapper

In 2023, Minnesota had a budget surplus of nearly $18 billion. The state’s current financial picture is less rosy — with a $456 million surplus for 2026-27 and a shortfall of $6 billion for the following two years.

The state has to have a balanced budget, so the Legislature will either have to make spending cuts or raise taxes.

So far, spending cuts seem to be the governor’s and lawmakers’ favored method for reaching balance, but tax hikes remain on the table.

What they’re saying on taxes

Here’s what state leaders are saying about taxes this session:

Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, recently said he isn’t “asking to balance this budget by increasing revenue,” though his budget proposal does call for new taxes for services like legal advice and accounting. It also calls for a modest reduction in the state sales tax.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. (AP Photo/Matthew Putney)

“I’m asking to balance this budget by curbing long-term spending and continuing to invest in the things that grow our economy,” he said after a negotiation session with Democratic-Farmer-Labor and GOP lawmakers earlier this month.

Republican leaders in both the House and Senate oppose any new taxes in the budget.

“Any tax increases are off the table,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said in January after Walz presented his initial budget recommendations.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Springs. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

DFL lawmakers haven’t ruled out new taxes to help balance the budget.

Some House DFLers are backing a proposal to create a new tax bracket for top earners to help the state with potential cuts to Medicaid, something that might happen under a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump.

House Tax Committee Chair Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis, says they’re ready for conversations about finding ways to raise revenue.

“When the moment’s upon us, it’s like the real choices will just be right there,” Gomez said at a press briefing on the new tax tier bill. “We’re not going to be able to go back into remote ideological bunkers and make … absolute statements.”

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy said the DFL-led Senate’s tax committee is weighing various proposals to raise revenue. The Senate DFL’s budget targets rely on billions in cuts over the next four years to help address shortfalls.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

Asked if she thought Republican resistance to any new taxes was realistic, Murphy said DFLers want to see how Republicans would balance the budget without reductions to the Human Services and Education departments, which Walz and the Senate DFL had backed.

“If they don’t want to raise revenue, then I want to see where they’re making their cuts,” Murphy said, adding she is worried there will be tougher times for the state down the road. “We know down the line that we could see some incredibly damaging cuts coming from the Republican Congress and Republican president.”

DFL House leader Melissa Hortman said she’d have to wait to see what Republicans propose for the budget before she could make any serious calls on how her caucus will proceed.

“I’ll be interesting to see what the GOP, what the Republicans, put on the table for their budget proposal,” she said. “Because so far, what we have seen Minnesota Republicans do is sit back and say, not this, not that. No, governor, we don’t like this proposal.”

The state’s budget

State budget officials warned earlier this month that uncertain economic conditions brought by the Trump administration’s policies, such as tariffs and federal government cuts, could mean tougher times ahead.

Democratic-Farmer-Labor politicians used that to blame the president for the worsening budget forecast. However, the state was already spending more than it was taking in under a budget they had passed in 2023, when they grew spending by nearly 40% to over $70 billion — a few billion of that one-time spending.

In that last two-year budget, which had a significant amount of one-time spending, the DFL-controlled state government significantly expanded government spending to fund programs like paid family and medical leave, free school meals and free public college tuition for low-income students.

The future deficit for 2028-29 of $6 billion is up a billion from the $5 billion forecast in December, according to Minnesota Management and Budget.

The governor’s budget

In his budget recommendations, Walz has already proposed cuts to long-term disability services and special education to keep costs from growing.

Walz first presented his budget proposal back in January, as is typical for the governor, and he also asked for cuts and changes to state sales tax.

His proposal also calls for new taxes for services like legal advice and accounting.

The governor is seeking the statewide sales tax to be cut from 6.875% to 6.8%, meaning Minnesotans would pay $7.5 cents less on every $100 they spend. That amounts to a $95 million cut to overall sales taxes.

Power-sharing in the House

Meanwhile, Republicans have a 67-67 tie with Democrats in the House and it’s the first time they’ve had serious sway in budget talks for some time. Though under a power-sharing agreement with the DFL, they won’t be able to get any partisan budget proposals to the House floor. Even if they could, Democrats still control the Senate.

Lawmakers have until May 19 to finish their business. But if they don’t, they’ll have to come back for a special session to pass a budget before the end of June or risk a government shutdown.

As the DFL trifecta expanded state government spending by nearly 40 percent in 2023, Republicans decried what they called roughly $10 billion in new state taxes between 2023 and 2027 that came along with new programs and other adjustments.

One tax was for a new paid family and medical leave program, which will charge a new payroll tax of 0.88%, which will be split between employers and employees and has exceptions for smaller employers. The 2023 session also resulted in new fee increases for vehicle registrations and local sales tax increases.

The DFL also created a 50-cent fee on all retail deliveries of $100 or more. The fee applies to sales of goods subject to state sales tax, as well as clothing, though prescription drugs, food, items purchased for resale and baby products are exempt.

Republicans have opposed those increases while calling for broader long-term tax relief, including exemptions for Social Security income. The DFL expanded those exemptions, though Republicans want to fully eliminate Social Security taxes.

Related Articles

2,350 Minnesotans were sterilized under state’s 1925 eugenics law — most of them women

St. Paul downtown: Lunds, Alliance Bank retailers close up shop

Families of Cambodians, Lao, Vietnamese affected by ‘Secret War’ seek wider state recognition

Minnesota judge says ex-senator arrested in prostitution sting can be released to halfway house

St. Paul mayor, Wild owner pitch Xcel Energy Center to senate panel

Gene Carmichael’s morning routine includes a cup of coffee, the Pioneer Press and a phone call.

For 15 years, Carmichael has been calling the Ideas for Positive Living phone line at 11 a.m. daily to listen to its free recorded message. On a recent Friday, Carmichael heard volunteer Candice Johnson recite a four-minute message on “cheerfulness,” which she called “a blessing that comes from deep within us.”

Johnson, 78, of Lake Elmo, thinks of the messages as a gift to the community.

“When we’re happy and positive, we become almost magnetic. We can draw others to us. More and more people become cheerful,” she said. “Happiness and positivity are much more than politeness. It’s a way, in this anxious world, to show all people that we can aspire to create a hopeful, loving world.”

Ideas for Positive Living, which is run by Johnson and four other volunteers, offers new messages Monday through Friday, accessible 24/7, with Friday’s message repeated Saturday and Sunday.

The phone line (651-602-2176) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The volunteers, who call themselves “Messengers,” often share inspirational stories, poems and positive affirmations.

“It’s like having a bunch of nice friends. They’re all different, and they talk about different things. Gil on Thursday is my favorite,” said Carmichael, referring to Gil Kinnunen of Woodbury.

Carmichael, a retired sheet-metal worker, learned about Ideas for Positive Living from a relative in 2010. He said he recommends the phone line to everyone he meets.

“I always look on the bright side of life. Always,” he said. “I’m sure other people would enjoy it, too.”

Something you need to hear

Ideas for Positive Living was launched in 1995 by White Bear Lake resident Kathy Young, who died in 2000 at the age of 63.

Young was a social worker, a motivational speaker and an adviser on topics ranging from parenting and anger management to balancing work and home.

“She brought sunshine into the life of every person she met and made them feel worthwhile,” friend Carol Pesola, a longtime Ideas for Positive Living volunteer who died last year, told the Pioneer Press at the time.

Young got the idea for the phone line while working as coordinator of the “Parent Warm Line,” a noncrisis phone line for parents, said Barb Frederick, 74, of White Bear Lake, an Ideas for Positive Living volunteer who was recruited by Pesola in 2000.

“My son was leaving for college, and I was an empty-nester, and he encouraged me to do this,” Frederick said. “Carol said, ‘You often write something that you need to hear,’ and I’ve always remembered that, and that’s probably true. Through the years, I would write things that maybe I wanted to hear.”

Frederick’s messages are know as the “Monday Meanderings.”

“It’s whatever I can find that is interesting,” the retired elementary-school teacher said. “I try to focus a little bit on nature, and then I try to find interesting snippets that people might want to listen to. It might be weather-related. It might be the latest environmental news. Sometimes I’ll find something in a book.”

One of Frederick’s favorite parts of volunteering is listening to the messages that are left for her and the other Messengers.

Related Articles

No survivors on plane that crashed into Brooklyn Park neighborhood home Saturday

St. Paul City Council convenes but doesn’t appoint new Ward 4 member

St. Paul downtown: Lunds, Alliance Bank retailers close up shop

St. Paul-to-Chicago Amtrak Borealis sidelined by corrosion

15-year-old chess master from North Oaks wins American Cup, again

“People get to know our personalities,” she said. “You never know when something that we might say might encourage them in their lives. I wish that lots of people, especially right now, would be able to listen to this and go, ‘Oh, this is something positive that I can listen to, and it will be different from the news, and nobody’s going to know that I am calling. Nobody knows.’”

Volunteers for Ideas for Positive Living have remained mostly anonymous since it started. That’s why the volunteers haven’t moved to a social-media format such as Facebook or Instagram, Frederick said.

“It’s just easier to do it this way,” she said. “Most of our callers are elderly. I think this is just a safe way.”

‘Quack-quack lady’

The phone line receives about 1,100 calls a month, said volunteer Charlene Danielson Nelson of Minneapolis. Volunteers pay Arvig Answering Solutions in Perham, Minn., a monthly fee for the phone service, but occasionally receive donations to help cover the costs, she said.

Nelson, 72, listened to Ideas for Positive Living for a year before joining as a Messenger in December 2002, she said. Johnson, of Lake Elmo, is her sister.

“I do it on Wednesdays,” she said. “I’m the ‘quack-quack’ lady. I tell a joke every Wednesday. Humor is a wonderful way to connect.”

Charlene Danielson Nelson, of Minneapolis, holds a card advertising the phone line Ideas for Positive Living on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Courtesy of Charlene Danielson Nelson)

Here’s part of Nelson’s March 19 message: “I’m Charlene, and I’m really glad you are taking these moments to plug in to this circle of love and support. Hey, do you know that tomorrow it’s officially spring on the 20th, and spring is coming? We can see the signs of it. Yesterday I saw my first robin. Oh, that was exciting. ‘When nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.’ That was Harriet Jacobs. So hold on, spring is coming for sure. And aren’t we glad? Well, it’s Wednesday, and I always like to lighten up with a silly little quack-quack joke. Here goes. When is an Irish potato not an Irish potato? When it’s a french fry.”

Nelson said the phone line has endured through the decades because people long for connection.

“I just think that people hunger for the sound of a human voice — a kind, human voice, and to know that there is somebody out there who cares,” she said. “It’s a real gift to the world — and to us as well.”

Nelson ended her March 19 recording by letting listeners know they were welcome to leave a message or a prayer request.

Occasional mishaps

Lakeland resident Mary Miller began volunteering with Ideas for Positive Living as a substitute Messenger in 2007. She came on permanently in 2013. She fills the Tuesday slot.

Mary Miller began volunteering with Ideas for Positive Living as a substitute in 2007. (Courtesy of Jean Larson)

“To me, it’s somewhere between a ministry and a community service” she said. “I have found that I need the connection as much as some of the callers.”

Miller and Nelson became friends while working at 3M during the 1970s, and Miller said she learned about the phone line from her. “I had called into the line many times, and she thought I might be interested in doing messages,” she said.

The Messengers must record their message by 7 a.m. on their allotted day. There have been some slip-ups over the years, even with the low-tech format, Miller said.

“One time, when Charlene was leaving on a trip to Mexico, I got up one morning and accidentally erased her message that was going to play that day,” she said. “She was already at the airport, and I was frantic. I thought, ‘Oh, she’s going to kill me.’ So I had to sit down and quickly write a message to replace hers.”

Another time, Kinnunen overslept, and “Charlene got a call saying ‘Gil didn’t put his message on today,’ so she got up and she did it,” Miller said. “Of course, we worried something had happened, but he had just overslept.”

‘Sounds just like you’

Johnson, whose messages fill the Friday, Saturday and Sunday slots, learned about Ideas for Positive Living from Frederick, her daughter’s second-grade teacher at Lake Elmo Elementary School.

Candice Johnson began leaving messages on the line and then was asked to be one of the Messengers over 20 years ago. (Courtesy of Roger Nelson)

“Barb gave me a number to call, and she said, ‘Call this number sometime,’ so I did, and I called it a few times, and I thought, ‘Gosh, you know, that one speaker sounds a lot like Barb, but she didn’t identify herself by name. She just, you know, gave the talk and so she asked me one time I went in and she said, ‘Have you called that number?’ And I said, ‘Yes, and, you know, in fact, what’s kind of neat is that the one speaker sounds just like you.’ She looked at me, and she said, ‘That is me.’”

Johnson began leaving messages on the line and then was asked to be one of the Messengers, she said. “That’s over 20 years ago,” she said. “Then my sister (Nelson) got involved too because of me, so it’s been a fun, fun thing and people continue to call.”

Johnson said the service fills a vital role.

“There are a lot of people out there who don’t have anyone that they ever talk to,” she said. “We have one fellow who calls and leaves a message, and he just talks and talks, and he’s just so fun and wonderful. I’ll think, ‘Oh, I wish I knew where he was.’”

Johnson said she often talks about kindness and nature.

“Life’s a miracle,” Johnson said. “I like to reference the wisdom keepers. So I talk, you know, a lot about that and I’ll read things, you know, from Emerson and John Muir because I’m into all of that and nature.”

On speed dial

Caller Sharon Hochstein, 71, of St. Paul, called in on March 21 to listen to Johnson’s message. She rarely misses a day, she said.

Related Articles

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota and Children’s Home to merge

Downtown St. Paul: Nonprofit law firm given just days to move up to 50 offices

St. Paul: Hope Dental Clinic officially calls it quits, files for bankruptcy, auctions equipment

U of M, Essentia, Fairview to continue talks with facilitator

Lions Clubs plan Community Day of Service

“I know who has each day,” she said. “They are all very, very friendly and pleasant to listen to. I have it on my phone, on speed dial, so I just have to go under ‘Positive Living.’”

Hochstein said she puts the recorded message on speakerphone so her husband, Tom, also can listen in.

“If you’re ever feeling down, all you have to do is call in and listen to the person who has that day’s message,” she said. “They’re so pleasant. They just kind of uplift you.”

Hochstein, who calls from her landline, said she is glad Ideas for Positive Living hasn’t made the switch to social media.

“It wouldn’t be the same on Facebook,” she said. “I kind of like the one-on-one, and you can leave a message there. If you have somebody that you need them to pray for there, they’re all there for you, and they just comfort you. I just sit in my glider and listen to what they have to say. I’m always sitting when I’m listening to them. It’s soothing. It’s very soothing.”

Ideas for Positive Living

The Ideas for Positive Living phone line can be reached at 651-602-2176.

In 2021, St. Paul voters passed one of the strongest rent stabilization policies in the country: a 3% cap on annual rent increases with no exceptions. It was a clear and decisive statement — renters deserve stability, and housing should be a human right, not a speculative asset.

Now, some are pushing to permanently weaken that ordinance. They claim it’s scaring off developers, harming our housing supply, and stalling new construction. But the truth is far more complicated — and if we want real solutions, we need to be honest about what’s actually making it hard to build in St. Paul right now.

Let’s start with the most immediate harm: The current proposal would exempt new construction from rent stabilization permanently. That creates a two-tier system — one set of protections for older buildings, none for the new ones. This paves the way for income-segregated neighborhoods, where wealthier tenants cluster in new high-rent buildings while low-income families are pushed farther out of sight and out of reach. I’m afraid my neighbors and I along University avenue will be in the latter.

That’s not equitable growth. That’s exclusion by design.

Developers know what’s really making it hard to build in St. Paul right now — and it’s not tenant protections. It’s the public-health and economic crises we’ve failed to address: rising homelessness, untreated addiction and an under-resourced mental health system.

You can’t build high-demand housing on a corridor struggling with instability and neglect.

Weakening rent stabilization won’t change the fact that any lobby or stairwell becomes a temporary warming shelter for our unhoused neighbors when the temperatures drop. It won’t bring a grocery store back to downtown either — an essential part of living in any part of our city. If we want investment in places like Snelling and University, we need to create the conditions for it — through care, not criminalization.

Meanwhile, housing starts are down across the region, not just in St. Paul. Minneapolis doesn’t have rent stabilization, and they’re facing the same construction slowdown. Developers say interest rates are too high to get a meaningful return. When homebuilders do build, prospective buyers are hard pressed to move ahead because it’s still unaffordable.

What has made a difference across the river are zoning reform and clear rules for permits and inspections.

Minneapolis has simply enabled more small-scale, multi-family housing by easing restrictions. St. Paul, on the other hand, still allows single-family zoning to dominate much of the city — and opposition to single-resident occupancy, a form of shared housing, and four-plexes often blocks progress before it starts. It’s also easier to do business in Minneapolis when you’re playing by the rules.

When major developers and do-it-yourselfers face the same challenges to get an inspection and a permit, we’re limiting development. It should be as easy to schedule an inspection as it is to schedule a haircut. I’ve spoken to contractors who refuse to do work in our city because of problems like these, whereas rent stabilization doesn’t even come up.

We’re blaming rent stabilization for problems that stem from deeper systemic failures. That’s not just misleading — it’s a distraction from real, actionable reform.

Let’s not forget: Voters approved rent stabilization in its original form. City leaders quickly rolled it back with carve-outs and exemptions. Those changes were unpopular and are still argued over today. Now, before we’ve even had a full evaluation of the program’s impact, the push is on to roll it back even further. Meanwhile, there’s no central database for residents to look up landlords, or understand the vacancy rate. The closest is the fire certificate of occupancy database, and even that isn’t perfect. There’s no one-stop shop for renters to learn about their rights in our city, or to help landlords meet the requirements to inform their tenants. Everyone gets a lead notice if required — nobody gets a rights notice, and that’s a policy failure the city needs to own.

These are basic tools that residents and policymakers need to make smart decisions about policy in our city. We should be strengthening transparency and listening to residents — not undermining their vote.

And if developers won’t build housing under fair rules, then let’s build it ourselves.

Cities already bond for roads, parks, and libraries — there’s no reason we can’t invest in public, permanently affordable housing the same way. And we can do these things by reconsidering our city’s approach to taxes. Programs like Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) or land-value taxes are a way forward. But we don’t need to go far to see models we could start right now in our own city.

Imagine mixed-income, accessible and welcome social housing built along transit lines — run by the city, not corporate landlords. This is already working in places like Dakota County, where the Community Development Agency has built successful, accountable housing without exploding municipal budgets. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky stuff — it’s a short drive away if you want to see it for yourself.

St. Paul’s future depends on telling the truth about what’s holding us back — and having the courage to act on it. Weakening rent stabilization won’t fix our development challenges. It will only make our city less fair, less affordable, and less just.

We don’t need to abandon rent control. We need to stand by it, and pair it with the real changes that will make housing more available, more equitable, and more democratic.

Cole Hanson, a public-health worker, renter on University Avenue and longtime neighborhood organizer, is a candidate for the St. Paul City Council seat representing Ward 4. The special election for that seat is scheduled for Aug. 12.

Related Articles

Your Money: The 60-year career: How to plan for a longer work life

Working Strategies: Navigating part-time jobs at a professional level

Joe Soucheray: Any way you cut it, that Signal chat was amateur hour

Ed Lotterman: Attacking Denmark about Greenland is wrong, dumb and damaging

Letters: Tim Walz is doing what the party wants