Cardboard toilet paper rolls. Egg cartons. Vintage film slides. Most people wouldn’t think of these as art supplies, but the St. Paul nonprofit ArtStart sees potential for these materials to become projects such as fairy houses, lanterns and jewelry.

And after 32 years of providing affordable art materials at its ArtScraps Creative Reuse Materials and Idea Center on St. Clair Avenue, the nonprofit is purchasing the building in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood.

“We’re really happy to have the building, because it helps us keep doing what we’re doing,” said executive director Anne Sawyer.

ArtStart collects donations of recycled materials and art supplies and sells them back to the public at low prices at its ArtScraps center. The organization also offers youth art camps, workshops in libraries and artist residencies in schools across the Twin Cities.

Sawyer said the nonprofit moved into the building on St. Clair Avenue in 1993, but didn’t have funding to purchase the building at the time.

ArtStart paid for a large portion of the building’s down payment this year with a grant from the F.R. Bigelow Foundation. Now the nonprofit is fundraising for the rest of the building’s payment and repairs, partly because it’s receiving less support from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

The Arts Board is giving less to organizations such as ArtStart this year because the board received about 25% less funding from the Minnesota Legislature, according to Sue Jens, executive director of the Minnesota State Arts Board.

“The fund is supported with sales tax revenue. So if sales tax revenue decreases, then the funds available in that are also lower,” Jens said.

ArtStart has currently raised $4,000 of its $10,000 goal, and is asking the community to help.

Community impact

A customer walks out of ArtStart’s ArtScraps ReUse Center in St. Paul on Thursday, July 24, 2025. (Bennett Moger / Pioneer Press)

ArtStart supported artist residencies in 20 St. Paul schools and provided 17,000 children and adults with workshops and camps during the 2024 fiscal year.

Puppeteer and artist Kallie Melvin was born in India and adopted to St. Paul. She attended the first ArtStart “Passport to India” youth camp 30 years ago as a student. This summer, she taught students how to make shadow puppets at the 2025 “Passport to India” camp.

“I had this opportunity to teach an art form from the country that I’m from with ArtStart,” Melvin said. “It was so amazing to just see the kids really drawn into creating their own puppets.”

Melvin said that as a kid, she would go to ArtScraps to find materials for crafts and school display boards.

“It’s just this really fun, vibrant place, even from the outside,” Melvin said. “Going there to get things for school projects was so exciting.”

Kris Klas is an adult basic education science teacher at the Hubbs Center in St. Paul. She often gets materials for hands-on classroom work and experiments at ArtScraps.

Klas said she’s especially grateful for ArtScraps now that Joann Fabrics and the nearby Treadle Yard Goods are closed.

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“We live in St. Paul, we don’t have a car, and we’re like, ‘How are we going to get fabric anymore?’” she said.

Klas also gets supplies from ArtScraps for leather working, block printing and home remodeling. She was looking for fabric for placemats at ArtScraps on Thursday.

“They bring so much light to the community. They’re just such a wonderful resource,” Melvin said. “It’s really exciting that they were able to buy the building.”

Sawyer said people can contribute to the ArtStart campaign by donating on Facebook at facebook.com/artstart.artscraps, mailing a check to the store at 1459 St. Clair Ave. or rounding up their next in-store purchase at ArtScraps.

Today is Saturday, July 26, the 207th day of 2025. There are 158 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, prohibiting discrimination based on mental or physical disabilities.

Also on this date:

In 1775, the Continental Congress established a Post Office and appointed Benjamin Franklin its Postmaster-General.

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In 1847, the western African country of Liberia, founded by freed American slaves, declared its independence.

In 1863, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas, died in Huntsville at age 70.

In 1945, Winston Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister after his Conservatives were soundly defeated by the Labour Party. Clement Attlee succeeded him.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, which reorganized America’s armed forces as the National Military Establishment and created the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the U.S. military.

In 1953, Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista (fool-HEN’-see-oh bah-TEES’-tah) with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)

In 1971, Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy on America’s fourth successful manned mission to the moon.

In 2002, the Republican-led House voted to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

In 2018, the last six members of a Japanese doomsday cult who remained on death row were executed for a series of crimes in the 1990s, including a gas attack on Tokyo subways that killed 13 people. Previously, seven other cult members were executed on July 6 of that year.

In 2020, a procession with the casket of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, where Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten 55 years earlier.

Today’s Birthdays:

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard is 86.
Football Hall of Famer Bob Lilly is 86.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love is 84.
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger is 82.
Actor Helen Mirren is 80.
Rock musician Roger Taylor (Queen) is 76.
Olympic gold medal figure skater Dorothy Hamill is 69.
Actor Kevin Spacey is 66.
Actor Sandra Bullock is 61.
Actor Jeremy Piven is 60.
Actor Jason Statham is 58.
Actor Olivia Williams is 57.
Actor Kate Beckinsale is 52.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is 45.
Actor Juliet Rylance is 45.
Actor Monica Raymund is 39.
Actor Francia Raisa is 37.
Actor-singer Taylor Momsen is 32.
Actor Elizabeth Gillies is 32.
Actor Thomasin McKenzie is 25.

Folk rock duo the Lumineers opened their Friday night concert at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center with “Same Old Song” an aptly titled number if there ever was one.

Five albums and 20 years into their career, the Lumineers have long since settled into a groove of writing, and rewriting, the same two old songs. There’s the one that’s an anthem from the top that gets faster and shouty-er by the end. And then there are the ones that start quiet, with just vocalist Wesley Schultz and his multi-instrumentalist bandmate Jeremiah Fraites, and slowly build up to arena-sized stompers.

While they introduced themselves to the public with the irritating novelty single “Ho Hey,” the Lumineers have managed to outlive their Stomp Clap Hey peers Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Of Monsters and Men in large part because enough folks really enjoy those same two old songs — enough to fill the local hockey rink to capacity.

Thankfully, Schultz has dialed back some of his more obvious Dylan-isms and found his own voice. And it’s a loud one! While he’s never been a shy guy at the microphone, Schultz has developed an exceptionally strong voice. His belting perfectly matches his band’s melodramatic musings, even if he trades subtlety for bombast.

Backed by a quartet of crackerjack touring members, the duo opened the show on a high-tech stage filled with flashing, oversize television sets and the glitz kind of felt off brand for the guys. From there, though, the musicians hopped between that stage and the stripped-down catwalk that extended into the crowd. Schultz even spent “Brightside” walking through the crowd on the arena floor and up into the 100 level.

The gleeful, attentive crowd — heavy on young women in cowgirl drag — cheered on the new songs and cheered even harder for the old ones. As has become custom for the Lumineers, they dropped “Ho Hey” in the first hour and let the audience shout out a large portion of the lyrics.

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The Lumineers are still able to headline arenas, I suppose, because there’s a sense of comfort to what they do. They write plain spoken, lyrically direct and easily digestible anthems full of big, blowsy emotions that are even easier to stomp, clap and hey along with on a balmy summer evening.

St. Paul indie rockers Hippo Campus opened with a lively set of the sleek modern rock they’ve perfected over the past dozen years. All that time the band has spent playing festivals has paid off in their ability to win over crowds unfamiliar with their work. The Lumineers fans who spent their time spilling beer on each other in front of the merch tables missed out on a terrific performance.

Zebby Matthews’ stuff is so good, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, that his biggest challenge in the majors will be figuring out how to use it.

In the minors, his manager said before Matthews’ start Friday against the Washington Nationals, the right-hander could just throw his stuff in the zone and get hitters out. Not so in the majors.

That was apparent in his last start, his sixth this season, when he was tagged for five earned runs on eight hits in four innings of a 10-6 loss at Colorado on July 19.

“He has exceptional stuff,” Baldelli said, “and I think the ability to pitch and the ability to use it is probably the biggest challenge for him at the big league level.”

CORRECTS TO SECOND INNING NOT FIRST INNING – Washington Nationals second baseman Luis García Jr., top, throws to first base for a double play after getting an out against Minnesota Twins’ Ty France (13) during the second inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Matthews took a nice step forward Friday, rebounding to handcuff the skidding Washington Nationals in the Twins’ 1-0 victory in front of 27,736 at Target Field. Byron Buxton drove in the game’s only run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning, and Jhoan Duran pitched a 1-2-3 the ninth inning for his 16th save.

Under .500 and behind five teams for the last American League wild card spot, the Twins are trying to build some late momentum so they don’t become sellers before Thursday’s 5 p.m. trade deadline. The win staves that off for at least another day.

The Nationals, last in the NL East, have are 5-12 in their past 17 games and fell 21 games under .500

Matthews (2-2) left after six scoreless innings and allowed only two hits while striking out seven. The Twins, meanwhile, used walks to Matt Wallner and Brooks Lee and a pair of wild pitches from starter MacKenzie Gore to push a run across in the fifth.

Wallner came home on Byron Buxton’s line-drive sacrifice fly to left field.

Gore (4-10) allowed only one hit — Ryan Jeffers’ soft single to left in the first — but walked six batters. He fanned four.

The Twins had a golden opportunity to add to their lead in the sixth off a pair of Nationals relievers. After Willi Castro flied out of center against right-hander Cole Henry, Carlos Correa singled to left and Royce Lewis doubled to put runners at second and third with one out.

But Henry struck out Harrison Bader swinging, and was pulled after hitting Ty France to load the bases with two outs. Left-hander Konnor Pilkington relieved and got Wallner to fly out softly to left to end the inning.

Danny Coulombe pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, but Griffin Jax had to pitch out of a jam in the eighth after allowing a double to Daylen Lile and issuing a two-out walk to No. 9 hitter Jacob Young. Lile stole third unchallenged to put runners at first and third, but Jax got leadoff hitter CJ Abrams to fly out to shallow right to end the inning.

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