The cover of the new issue of MOQ features a wintry leafless tree in icy blue surroundings, painted by Minneapolis artist Kat Corrigan. Kat has a whole series of tree paintings, as well many lively and charming paintings of dogs, cats, and even power poles, which you can see on her Web site. She also makes colorful and inventive one-of-a-kind sweaters that are combinations of two or more repurposed sweaters, which she calls Frankensweaters and sells through her Etsy shop. We asked Kat to tell us more about herself, including how she came to do a set of paintings based on a flying lesson, the dogs she has known, and the Art Shanty Projects.

Kat holds degrees in art and English, and teaching licenses in both. She and her husband, Duane Tougas, participate each year in the Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake, where they were married two winters ago on Groundhog Day. Here follows our questions and Kat’s answers about her many interests and activities.

Where are you from?
I am from Minnesota and consider Minneapolis my greatest home on earth. I have moved away from here three times (to Browns Valley, Minnesota, Key Largo, Florida, and St. Paul) and each time have been overjoyed to return. It is the place where I have developed the most as an artist and an adult and a human being, and I have always found the artistic and creative worlds here very open and accepting.

Tell us more about your educational background.
I just generally love learning and so am quite over-educated, but I feel some of my most important art education came when I was a guard at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the early ’90s. Being in that building every day with not a lot to do except walk around and tell people not to touch stuff left a lot of time for simply looking at the art. I lived with those paintings for those years. Also, lots of incredibly cool people came through, and I learned a lot from them.

I am also a big fan of the Women’s Art Institute at MCAD, directed by Elizabeth Erickson. My mom and I have been going up to the Artist’s Colony in Grand Marais every spring for years to take Elizabeth’s Spring Intensive Workshop.

How many dogs do you own? Tell us about your “Autobi-DOG-raphy,” please.
We live with Bingo, a 10-year old slightly neurotic lab mix, and his side-kick Gus, our “mini-shepherd” we call him, due to his coloration -- we think he is a Jack Russell mix but aren’t sure. They both add greatly to the rhythm of our lives. We love the dog beach.

My Autobi-DOG-raphy is the title of an upcoming show I have at the 801 Gallery, opening February 20. I am doing a series of paintings of dogs from my life, going back into my childhood. Sometimes our memories of our pets frame the events of our lives.

It looks like you’re coming up on your second wedding anniversary this February, and that it was a rather unique wedding -- on the ice during the Art Shanty project at Medicine Lake. Will you be celebrating your anniversary at the Art Shanty project this winter?
Yes! We will have a Groundhog Anniversary Cake Walk on February 6, the last Saturday of the project, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Come and join us!

We are so lucky to have so many artistic communities in this city, and the Art Shanty Project somehow seems to represent a large number of them! My husband and I are part of the Art Car Taxi Stand, having made and driven several art cars, and are also close friends with many of the other shanties, and felt that getting married out there was the perfect representation of our union. It is a time of year when things are dreary and spring seems a long time away, and, honestly, Groundhog’s Day was the one day we were both available and it seemed sweet to have our wedding on a minor holiday. I found out later that, aside from St. Brigid’s Day, and the Catholic celebration of Forty Days After Christmas [Candlemas], it is the Pagan celebration of Imbolc, the coming of spring and the very beginning of new life -- so, consequently, we were pregnant at the last Anniversary Cake Walk and will have our son, Max, along for this one.

Your Web site includes seven paintings from a recent flying lesson!?
I traded a portrait of the family dog for the lessons. I love bartering!

Please tell us about the artists’ collective you belong to.
I feel lucky to be a part of the Twin Cities art crowd and am a part of a number of art collectives, including (but not limited to) the Barebones Halloween show, Chicks-on-Sticks stilt walking group, the Women’s Art Institute, the Art Cars of Minnesota, SMARTS (South Minneapolis Arts Business Coop), LOLA (League of Longfellow Artists), WARM (Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota), through which my small art collective titled L7 ( for “Longfellow Seven,” since most of us lived in or near Longfellow neighborhood and there are seven of us) met and was congealed. We are a very active and committed group of women artists and have excellent meetings twice a month complete with wine.

What are you working on currently?
I just participated in the Craft-A-Thon at Midtown Global Market as part of the No Coast Craft-O-Rama. My team, the Whipper Snappers, was pitted against three other teams of crafty and creative people and given a tub of crap and four hours to create an entire outfit. It was a gas, except that we were right in front of the speakers and the last band was LOUD.

I currently have some work at Articulture, the Edina Art Center, and at Fireroast Mountain Café, where I will also be hanging a solo show in January. The big show is the one at the 801 Gallery, opening on February 20. And we’ll be active out on the ice for the Art Shanty Projects beginning Jan 16.

Fergie-Kins, the Cutest Ears Over All, by Kat Corrigan