Visiting Artists Share Their Perspectives for Studio Arts Mini Portfolio Day

September 18, 2026

Studio Arts students welcomed visiting artists Tshab Her and Erik Krenz on Friday, September 18, for Mini Portfolio Day. Alongside the Perpich Studio Arts faculty, the artists spent time viewing student portfolios, talking with students about their work and goals, and sharing their own experiences as working artists. Their comments served to make improvements and edits for our upcoming Portfolio Day with visiting colleges on Monday, September 28th. The visiting artists will be back this school year to share details about their own art and processes.

Tshab Her reviews the portfolio of a Perpich student

Her is a textile artist based in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, whose work explores identity and belonging as a second-generation Hmong American woman. The daughter of Hmong refugees who fled the “secret war” in Laos, she uses paaj ntaub, a traditional Hmong textile art, particularly story cloths, to explore Hmong history, culture, identity, and personal agency.

Krenz, a Minnesota native, combines his love of nature with painting, design, science, and fantasy. As a painter and designer for Blue Rhino Studios, he helps create life-size sculptures, murals, and dioramas for museums and natural history sites around the world, featuring subjects ranging from Northwoods wildlife to prehistoric mammoths and dinosaurs.

Both artists were impressed by the range and individuality they saw in the Perpich student work.

“I’ve actually really been impressed with all the students’ portfolios,” Krenz said. “There’s a beautiful range. I feel like they’re starting to explore the foundations, the fundamentals, but at the same time, they’re all pursuing their own interests and their own aesthetics.”

For Her, seeing the students’ work brought back memories of her own high school experience and the process of figuring out where her art could take her. “It reminds me of when I was in high school, figuring it out,” Her said. “Every student has kind of different goals, too, so it’s really been cool to hear and see what they’re doing here.”

Her was especially struck by the variety of mediums the students are exploring, from animation and painting to video and design. “It’s been super wonderful to be here,” she said. “It feels such a privilege to be here and see and support them, and I’m excited to see what they’ll do in the future, too.”

Erik Krenz reviews the portfolio of a Perpich student

Neither artist had visited Perpich before, making the day a new experience for both Her and Krenz. For the students, it was an opportunity to share their developing portfolios with working artists and receive another perspective on their creative work.

Tshab Her is a textile artist currently residing in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. She is a daughter of Hmong refugees who fled the “secret war” in Laos and was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. Within the context of immigration, displacement, war, statelessness, and colonial religion, Her’s work grapples with the tension of belonging as a second generation Hmong American woman searching for personal agency, cultural autonomy, and communal sensibility. She uses paaj ntaub, a traditional Hmong textile art, in particular the creation of story cloths, as a tool for storytelling and explorations of her identity and culture as a modern Hmong woman in America.

A Minnesota native, Erik Krenz has built a career around a profound love and respect for nature. His work consistently combines an incredibly deft and naturalistic painterly style with a playful sense of fantasy and wonder. Krenz pairs his fantastic imagination with a passion for natural history and science as a painter and designer for Blue Rhino Studios, a leader in artistic fabrication for museum and zoological environments. At Blue Rhino Studios, Krenz helps to create life-size, strikingly life-like sculptures, murals, and dioramas that feature creatures ranging from little known Northwood species to prehistoric mammoths and dinosaurs, which are used to educate visitors at museums and natural history sites around the world.

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