Meet the Monfest team

Brief interviews with the people making the magic happen

We are excited to bring you behind the scenes of the Middle of NOWhere Rural Art & Music Festival with interviews featuring the MONfest team.

But before we dive into that...

Enter to win a MONfest Merch Pack in our Back to School Giveaway

You might have seen this drop in our IG feed earlier this week but in case you missed it - we recently announced our

🎒Back to School Giveaway where 5 lucky winners will receive a gift package which includes: 2 shirts, 1 coloring book,  1 MONfest canvas bag, and stickers.

🎒How to enter:

    •    Follow the MONfest IG page (click the image above to head to our IG page!)

    •    Tag a friend in the comments

    •    Share on your story (don't forget to tag @themonfest)

    •     We will Pick 5 winners Sunday Aug 17th and announce winners on Monday the 18th - so don't delay, get your entries in now!

Meet our team - Featuring Kandace Creel Falcón

Hi! I am the face and mind behind the Middle of NOWhere Rural Art & Music Festival newsletter!

Unlike the former interviews with the MONfest team, I'm not going to pretend I'm interviewing myself, so instead, let me just tell you a little bit about who I am!

I am a former tenured Associate Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies who now spends my days painting, writing, and healing my nervous system.

I maintain a research-informed studio practice our of my home that I share with my spouse, chickens, goats, and cats in the Erhard Hills of rural Otter Tail County, Minnesota.

As the MONfest Wordsmith I oversee the framing and marketing of the event and our virtual community spaces (like this newsletter) via words.

Like a metalsmith or blacksmith, I work words to serve the mission of MONfest like massaging copy elements and carefully and lovingly crafting the Middle of NOWhere newsletter sent directly to subscribers’ inboxes.

My mission statement shines through my art practice where I create portals for deeper conversations about building more equitable societies. I am particularly interested in the ways that amplifying the power of narrative can shift the world toward the queer utopias we deserve.

I met Siri a few years ago when he was a Rural Regenerator Fellow through Springboard for the Arts. As an Artist Career Consultant working with Siri, we clicked as soon as we met. When he asked me to join the MONfest team, I was happy to help support bringing people in rural places together in the name of diversity, inclusion and through art.

Since leaving my academic job in 2019 I have been a full time visual artist and writer.

I intimately know what it's like to make a living from piecing together various opportunities as an artist. Which is also why I love supporting the MONfest as a space for helping other rural artists thrive.

Besides the MONfest work, I am most recently most proud of a solo exhibition of paintings that went up in early August in St. Paul called Queericana. (Read a bit more about in this great MPR write up!)

I also am working on another body of work that consists of quilted paintings that will go up a little closer to my home, in Fergus Falls later this year. To prepare for that show I've been learning how to use a long arm quilt machine.

Being an artist is the best job because there is a lot of learning involved and for me that just makes life really exciting.

Thank you for reading! I hope you learned a little more about who is behind each of the newsletters that makes their way to your inbox!

I would love to stay connected! You can find me Kandace and my business alter ego The Art of KCF on IG, YouTube, and Facebook. I also write my own newsletter where I share more about my behind the scenes life as an artist living in rural Minnesota. And of course, my website provides a deeper dive into the kind of art I make and share!

And don't forget to tap in to the MONfest socials below where you can catch snippets about the people and the community we're building together that expands beyond our one day festival.

In rural we vibe,

KCF and the MONFest Team