Through a SoMinn LENS

While concert-goers listen to music at Faribault’s Central Park in 2020, Kate Langlais paints. Photo by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Faribault portrait, landscape & teaching artist Kate Langlais

Creatives often trace their artistic interests back to their youth, to some influence of person or place. What’s your artistic backstory?

I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is trying to paint with watercolors using an easel and being upset when the paint dripped down the paper. Even at two years old I was attempting to create something realistic in my painting rather than abstract. I was always observant of my surroundings and this followed me into my young adult years of traveling—meeting new people and going to

Only 3½ years after moving to Faribault, Kate Langlais, 32, is already making a mark on the Southern Minnesota arts scene. A talented portrait and landscape artist, Langlais also teaches. Her passion for art is lifelong. She remembers trying to paint with watercolors at age two, one of her earliest memories.

Now she’s the mother of two-year-old Frida, who also loves art. Langlais and her husband,

Frank McGrogan, will welcome a second child in

June.

Langlais is happy to be back in her native

Minnesota—she grew up in the St. Cloud area— returning here from urban Massachusetts. Mc-

Grogan’s job landed them in Faribault. They’ve embraced their new community and all it offers, including the Paradise Center for the Arts. “We were so pleased that such a great gem would be found in a small town,” Langlais says. She teaches through the PCA (and elsewhere) and has also had her art exhibited there.

Dual roles of creating and teaching are something Langlais has pursued since the first community ed class she taught the summer after graduating high school. She went on to earn an associate of arts degree from Anoka Ramsey Community College and then her bachelor’s from Peru State, a small Nebraska college with a strong 1:1 mentorship program.

Today she remains passionate, committed and focused on creating art and sharing her knowledge with others. She stresses the importance of observation in the creative process. That’s easy to see in her work. Not long after moving to Faribault, Langlais applied for and received grant funding for “I Am Minnesota.” Via that project, she met with local immigrants to record their stories and create their portraits. She’s just been awarded a second grant to continue that effort.

Her backstory led her to this place in her creative journey, now based in southern Minnesota, but rooted in a life-long love of creating art.