My name is Marvin Wise, and I’m from Jacksonville, Florida. I moved to Minnesota in 2001. The first time I ever seen snow was when I came to Minnesota and I fell in love with it. Never seen snow before in my life until I came here.

And like springtime and fall — the colors in the fall is incredible to see, like somebody put all different colors of paint together, and they throw it out of a bucket onto the earth. The colors is breathtaking, and if you never seen, truly seen, pretty art before, come to Minnesota in the fall and look at the colors and the lakes, and rivers, the mountain cliff. It’s something to be seen. I base my artwork on different things, like with different nationalities of people in Minnesota. They tell you stories, you can talk to them, and the people are very friendly. And with that they give me motivation to paint ideals that they tell me, stories they tell me, and they share with me, and I can go back to the studio and paint what I heard or what I intake from other people.

And as you look at my work, you can see that, and I have worked at Creators Space. I have my work there, my studio there, and the people are very friendly, very sincere. I’d say 90% of the people in Minnesota are true, are real, how they speak, how they act is real. There’s no fake. Being here alone now, I get love from strangers that I never met before. I can sit down and have a coffee with them, talk to them, and feel like family. That the feeling you get, to me, in Minnesota. That why I make Minnesota my home.