As a senior budget analyst for the city of St. Paul, Nichelle Bottko Woods often attends meetings of the St. Paul City Council.

She has found a creative way to stay focused.

“As I sit and watch, I crochet to stay quiet and pay attention,” Bottko Woods says.

These two worlds — the city council and the creative arts — came together for Bottko Woods during the historic inauguration of the first all-women St. Paul City Council on Jan. 9.

“It was an amazing event, and it really just inspired me,” she says.

So did the inauguration photos of Mitra Jalali, Anika Bowie, Rebecca Noecker, Saura Jost, HwaJeong Kim, Nelsie Yang and Cheniqua Johnson. Specifically, one photo by John Autey, Pioneer Press photojournalist.

The photo of the seven women standing together on stage at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in downtown St. Paul, the site of the inauguration, is a tapestry of colors and cultures and textures. The women, dressed for the occasion in outfits ranging from a tweedy pastel suit to a purple pantsuit to a traditional Hmong Xiengkhouang outfit and purple hat (Phuam Txoom Suab) to a gown made in Ghana — look joyful as they smile and wave, one with hand over heart, standing there like the American history they were making.

St. Paul City Council members, from left, Mitra Jalali, Ward 4; Anika Bowie, Ward 1; Rebecca Noecker, Ward 2; Saura Jost, Ward 3; HwaJeong Kim, Ward 5; Nelsie Yang, Ward 6, and Cheniqua Johnson, Ward 7, are introduced at the start of the St. Paul City Council Inauguration at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024. Voters elected an all-women City Council, with all members under 40-years of age and with a super majority minority representation. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Here’s how we found out about the project:

“I recently crocheted a photo you took of the City Council Inauguration, and I am hopeful to ask for your blessing, or guidance in officially requesting permission to display this photo alongside dolls I crochet which I plan to display at the Smallest Museum in Saint Paul (a display outside Workhorse Coffee Shop),” Bottko Woods wrote in an email.

Our editor did grant permission, by the way — more about the museum display below.

But first, we called up Bottko Woods to find out more about her handiwork.

Crochet artist

Seven crocheted dolls, made by Nichelle Bottko Woods, of St. Paul City Council members, are on display at The Smallest Museum in St. Paul, located outside of Workhorse Coffee Bar in St. Paul on Friday, July 26, 2024. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

“I’ve been crocheting on and off for about 20 years,” says Bottko Woods, 39, of St. Paul. “I started making these amigurumi dolls about 10 years ago.” (Amigurumi is Japanese for a crocheted/knitted stuffed toy.)

While she uses the art of crochet to focus the mind when she needs to “sit still and pay attention,” it’s also bigger than just a way of staying fidget-free.

“I make weird projects for the State Fair,” she says.

In fact, this could have been one of them. But with seven dolls representing seven council members, that was a veto as the artist interpreted the rules.

“The State Fair rules only allow groupings up to five,” Bottko Woods says. “So I had to find a different place for my City Council project.”

Too bad.

“That’s OK,” she said. “I have Mayor Melvin Carter for the State Fair.”

(Also, in separate entries, Beyoncé and Prince.)

To crochet and knit the dolls and their fashion, she looked at our photos and watched a video of the inauguration, which she frequently stopped to take photos of the outfits as the newly elected walked across the stage.

“So I have all these grainy pictures on my phone of our council members,” she says with a laugh.

It took a while to get the details right, especially since she has also juggled other creative projects and life and work along the way.

“I started making one of them the day of the inauguration,” she says, “and I just finished last week.”

Just in time for the museum installation. How did that come about?

The Smallest Museum

Artist Nichelle Bottko Woods, left, and curator Shannon Forney with the seven crocheted dolls Bottko Woods made of St. Paul City Council members, on display at The Smallest Museum in St. Paul, outside of Workhorse Coffee Bar in St. Paul on Friday, July 26, 2024.(Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

Shannon Forney, founder of The Smallest Museum in St. Paul, also is Bottko Woods’ colleague at City Hall.

“We work together, so we talk all the time,” Bottko Woods says. “She was talking about a different display of a coworker’s (about voting) and it came up that way. Essentially, I asked her.”

It felt funny to explain the project, at first.

“It’s a weird thing, I have dolls of the city council in my home,” says Bottko Woods, laughing. “If I could find a place to put them, it would not be quite so weird.”

Forney didn’t think it was weird; she thought the timing was perfect with the Great Minnesota Get-Together approaching and took on the role of curator of this exhibit.

“When she told me that she couldn’t submit seven dolls at once, I thought it would be really cool to have an adjacent exhibit at the Smallest Museum while she had other pieces at the State Fair,”  Forney says.

The timing — opening on Friday and running through September — works well for other reasons, too.

“I thought it was a great St. Paul connection, first and foremost,” Forney says. “And, not to wax poetic, but we are in a time when there’s a national conversation about representation.”

This timing — coming as Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly makes a White House bid after President Joe Biden’s abrupt exit from the race — was coincidental, she says.

“We had already decided,” Forney says of the doll display. “It just affirms why the exhibit is important.”

In addition to the dolls and Autey’s photo, the museum exhibit includes two quotes. One is from Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie, about the power of dolls, and the other is from Jalali, the president of the St. Paul City Council, on the power of voting.

The dolls knit together these two powers into art; it is Bottko Woods’ hope that girls will come to see the display.

Muses

Nichelle Bottko Woods adjusts one of the seven crocheted dolls she made of St. Paul City Council members, in a display at the Smallest Museum in St. Paul, outside of Workhorse Coffee Bar in St. Paul on Friday, July 26, 2024.(Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

The members of the St. Paul City Council were alerted to their muse status on Wednesday, when Forney emailed the council and Mayor Melvin Carter about the exhibit.

“We are delighted to share that the Smallest Museum in Saint Paul will host an exhibit opening this weekend through the end of September, honoring this historic Saint Paul City Council,” the email began.

It’s not the only work of art that the council has inspired. Another colleague created a portrait of the seven out of seed art; there have been drawings from children and who knows what other masterpieces (please tell us!).

Others were inspired by Autey’s photos as well: A high school student from California and a college student from Iowa, both researching this apparent first, also reached out about the inauguration photo.

“It makes me happy to see my photos of the inspiring event inspire others,” Autey says.

We reached out to the council members for their reaction to the news of the crochet/photo exhibit.

“I love the creativity from our residents,” wrote Ward 4 council member Jalali. “In general I’ve been really moved by the outpouring of excitement by the community.”

“It’s personally amazing to see the impact that this has had on so many people,” said Ward 7’s Cheniqua Johnson said in a phone call. “To see the colors and cultures and dresses captured in knit yarn, that’s pretty impressive. It’s really cool, and it definitely made our day.”

“These knitted dolls are adorable!” wrote Nelsie Yang of Ward 6. “It’s been incredible to see the many ways people are capturing St. Paul’s milestone of having an all-women city council through arts and crafts. These knitted dolls are a beautiful reflection of the diversity and strong leadership that exists all throughout our city and democracy! It is also symbolic of the resilience that our community and many people before us carried generation after generation in order to make this progress possible.”

See the dolls

The council-inspired dolls are on display through September at The Smallest Museum in St. Paul, which exists inside a vintage fire-hose cabinet outside Workhouse Coffee Bar, 2399 University Ave. W., St. Paul. More info at smallestmuseumstpaul.com.

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PARIS (AP) — The identity of the person who would light the Olympic cauldron for the Paris Games on Friday night (spoiler alert: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner) was up in the air … and so, it turns out, was the cauldron itself: a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon.

Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Instead of the usual ground-bound cauldron used at most Summer and Winter Games, the special edition for the Paris Olympics is intended as a tribute to the first ride taken in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon — made in 1783 by two of that balloon’s French inventors.

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They departed back then from the Tuileries Garden, which is near the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris — and where the 2024 Olympic cauldron was lit before appearing to float into the sky.

Created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur, the cauldron is meant as a symbol of liberty — an element in the national slogan of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

The ring is 7 meters in diameter (about 23 feet), and the balloon is 30 meters (about 100 feet) tall and 22 meters (about 72 feet) wide.

Mixed Blood Theater of Minneapolis is launching a new series called “Equitable Dinners.”

The quarterly run event — inspired by a similar series produced by Out of Hand Theater in Atlanta — will encourage community members to engage in conversation surrounding complex topics with the help of fun, performances and food.

“It’s been really clear that there’s a hunger for dialogue and folks just don’t have the pathways to engage,” says artistic director Mark Valdez.

The series is split into four plays written by local playwrights and focusing on the subjects of affordable housing, mental health, climate resilience and racial equity.

To create a close-knit experience, Mixed Blood is looking for people to host a play in their home for an audience of 10 to 14 community members.

To make the events more accessible, each in-home play will later be reproduced for larger crowds in public spaces like Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, where the first show will launch in August (to be determined).

Valdez said that with events like the presidential election approaching, the need to bring the community together through dialogue is valuable. He says his hope is that by creating spaces to do so  — especially within the intimacy of people’s homes — it will allow people to address issues together and understand new perspectives.

“If we can’t find ways to talk through these things, we will never reach any kind of a solution,” Valdez said. “Ultimately these are all civic challenges, civic problems that face our community, our city.”

Equitable Dinners will be hosted across the Twin Cities. Updates and dates will be posted on their website. To find out more about Equitable Dinners, reserve tickets or offer to host, visit mixedblood.com/events-at-mixed-blood/.

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Bloomington-based HealthPartners no longer will accept UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage plan at the end of the year, meaning some 30,000 senior patients will have to change medical providers or pick a different insurance plan.

HealthPartners says UnitedHealth has been denying insurance claims from the plan at a much higher rate — sometimes 10 times higher — than other insurers and forces unnecessary waits for medical care. Starting next year, HealthPartners won’t be making appointments with the insurer’s patients at all, even if they’re willing to pay much higher, out-of-network rates.

“It’s unusual for us to leave a health plan network. Unfortunately, after a year of negotiations, we’ve determined that we can no longer participate in the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage network,” HealthPartners said in a letter to Medicare Advantage users.

UnitedHealthcare told the Pioneer Press they still hope to negotiate an agreement and that HealthPartners’ accusations are untrue.

“Unfortunately, HealthPartners seems intent on disrupting access to care for our Group Retiree members as part of its effort to secure significant rate increases that are not affordable or sustainable for our members,” spokesman Cole Manbeck said.

The affected patients, all either 65 or older or with a qualified disability, include around 2,300 retirees of St. Paul Public Schools.

“We are mostly in our 80s and healthcare is a big deal for us,” said John Brodrick, a retired teacher and school board member who survived quadruple bypass surgery. “I am worried about potentially not being accepted by HealthPartners as a member of UnitedHealth. … I don’t know if I’m going to have to find a new cardiologist on Jan. 1. These are all the questions that are up in the air right now.”

HealthPartners runs Regions Hospital in downtown St. Paul, the HealthPartners Clinic in the St. Paul Midway and Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, among other Twin Cities hospitals, clinics and specialty centers.

St. Paul Public Schools said Friday that the district had no advance notice about the change.

“The district is working closely with the insurance providers to identify potential next steps. As soon as we have more information, the district will communicate with the impacted retirees about their options,” a district spokesperson said.

The HealthPartners letter suggests patients switch to a different insurance plan if they want to keep receiving care from HealthPartners. Medicare’s annual enrollment period runs Oct. 15 to Dec. 7.

Uncertainty for retirees

Brodrick said he still was on the school board a few years ago when UnitedHealth won the health contract for retirees with “a really low-ball bid,” and he made sure to ask if retirees would still be able to access HealthPartners services. “I was assured by the benefits department that was true,” he said Friday. “Whether that was written into the contract or not, I hope St. Paul Public Schools is looking into it. I was uneasy at the time, for a lot of different reasons.”

Retired teacher Roy Magnuson said part of the debacle dates to 2019, when the St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28 switched insurers for active employees, dropping UnitedHealth in favor of a public employees insurance plan. As a result, other employee groups associated with the school district suddenly had less bargaining leverage with UnitedHealth.

The affected employees are retirees for whom the school district continues to pay part of their medical coverage.

“I’ve had three other people contact me,” Magnuson said Friday. “They’re old and they’ve stayed with their doctor. The contract was that UnitedHealth would honor out-of-network providers if the school district gave them the contract. The union pulled out on fairly short notice, which left all of the different bargaining units in a different spot.”

Brodrick on Friday called on the school district to take a firm, public position in the dispute between the two healthcare giants.

“The little guy always seems to get caught in the middle,” he said. “Healthcare is the elephant in the room of every home in America, but the big-wigs seem to rule.”

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