FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2 | 6:30P - 10P
Tickets: $20 general admission, $15 MMAM Members, $15 Students
Celebrate the season of mystery and transformation at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum’s New Look Masquerade Party. As part of MMAM’s 20th anniversary year and our 2026 theme, Making Waves, this immersive fall evening invites guests to step into a world where art, story, and disguise collide.
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Arrive adorned in your most enchanting masquerade look, elegant, eerie, or somewhere in between? Or, craft your own creation at our on-site mask-making studio. Throughout the evening, guests will take part in a playful tradition: each attendee receives tokens to award to the most captivating masked figures of the night. Will you take home the prize?
The museum comes alive with experiences tucked into every corner. join an artist-led conversation exploring the themes of story and transformation, gather for live spooky lake stories read by Geo Rutherford, listen to MMAM’s exciting sound experience, and end the night with Billy X. Enjoy seasonal drink specials and light bites from the Waterbar Cafe + Provisions culinary team.
Set against the crisp air and golden hues of fall along the Mississippi River, the New Look Masquerade Party is a one-night-only celebration of creativity, community, and the thrill of becoming someone, or something, new.
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6:30p | Doors Open. Waterbar Cafe + Provisions Open
7p - 7:15p | Sonification 1 “Canvas to Composition” with Eric Heukeshoven in Fluid
7:20-7:35p | Sonification 2 “Canvas to Composition” with Eric Heukeshoven in Fluid
7:20p - 8:00p | Staged Social: Andy DuCett, Geo Rutherford, & Barbara McIlrath in Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World
8:15p - 8:45p | Book readings with Geo Rutherford in Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World
8:50 - 9:05p | Sonfication 3 “Canvas to Composition” with Eric Heukeshoven in Fluid
9:10-9:25p | Sonification 4 “Canvas to Composition” with Eric Heukeshoven in Fluid
9:00p - 9:40p | Billy X. Curmano NEW X ART ENSEMBLE in Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World
10p | Doors Close
All Night | Mask-making for purchase for $5
All Night | DJ Dr. Bob
All Night | Photo Booth
All Night | Waterbar Cafe + Provisions New Look Preview Party Specials
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A Little Mysterious
Think fierce, spooky, dramatic, or chic. Fancy or cocktail attire with a mask! Masquerade masks are encouraged but not required. Don’t have a mask? Make your own at the party for $5. Our best-dressed guests will win a prize!
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Parking is available at MMAM. There is also overflow parking available offsite at the Fastenal parking lot (267 W. Third St. Winona, MN). There will be a complimentary shuttle service that will run between MMAM and the Fastenal parking lot continuously from 6:30p - 10p.
Staged Social
MMAM exhibiting artists Andy DuCett with Home(town), Geo Rutherford with Spooky Waters of the World, and Barbara McIlrath with LandSkyWater, take the stage to discuss their artistic practice, their work, and their new exhibitions currently on view at the museum.
Canvas to Composition
Canvas to Composition is a series of four digital musical sonifications that will be permanently installed in the exhibition Fluid. Visitors will experience what the artworks themselves sound like - every paintstroke and cut is turned into a composition created by composer Eric Heukeshoven. Attendees at the New Look Masquerade Party will be the first to hear the compositions and listen to Eric speak about his process.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Book readings with Geo Rutherford
Join MMAM exhibiting artist, Geo Rutherford, in her literary arts exhibition, Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World. Geo will be reading from her bestselling book, Spooky Lakes, and her newly released, Spooky Rivers.
Billy X. Curmano: NEW X ART ENSEMBLE
Billy X Curmano New X Art Ensemble, known as “Winona’s most bothersome variety band,” will bring its irreverent blend of avant-garde performance art, free jazz, and eclectic musical forms to MMAM’s Fall New Look Party. Led by award-winning performance artist Billy X Curmano, the ensemble includes unconventional mix of instruments, unexpected sounds, and lively antics.
About the artists
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Andy DuCett is from Winona, MN and received his M.F.A. from the University of Illinois and his B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Stout. His artistic approaches span many disciplines in both studio and client environments. His work has been shown in galleries and museums around the country and is in the collections of The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art and The Walker Art Center. He has been featured by Artforum, New American Paintings, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post, as well as in publications from Toronto, Berlin, Tokyo, and London. He was the recipient of a 2017 McKnight Visual Arts Fellowship, a 2021 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Grant and is listed on the curated registry of the Drawing Center in New York City. His client list includes Hasbro, Travail Kitchen & Amusements, General Mills, Can Can Wonderland, Target and Meow Wolf. He has upcoming solo exhibitions at the MN Marine Art Museum in 2026 and The Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND in 2028. Starting in 2027, he will also be a Distinguished Dayton Hudson Visiting Teacher/Artist at Carleton College.
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Barbara McIlrath earned her BA degree in Humanities at Illinois Wesleyan University, MS degree in Education at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and BFA degree at Minneapolis College of Art & Design, where she received the Vanderlip Award at graduation. She has worked as a graphic designer, illustrator, instructional designer/Mayo Clinic, corporate training consultant and faculty member at Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Barbara travels along the Mississippi River between her farm studio in Pepin, Wisconsin and her house in St. Paul, Minnesota. The seasonal color changes of the Driftless Region inspire her paintings and drawings. McIlrath is particularly drawn to the shoreline of Lake Pepin in the historic Village of Old Frontenac, Minnesota, as well as the prairie surrounding her farm in Hicks Valley, near the Village of Pepin. Her paintings range from textured impasto paint mixed with cold wax to delicately layered oils and gouache. She describes her work as “including both carefully observed images of land, sky and water to more abstract compositions, discovered in the process of simplifying, improvising and questioning what I am seeing.”
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Geo Rutherford is a Sauk City, Wisconsin based artist, author, educator and a social media sensation with a keen interest in science, natural history, and telling stories about water. On display are original illustrations from her New York Times best selling book Spooky Lakes (2024) and from her forthcoming book Spooky Rivers (2026). Her illustrations explore fascinating, quirky, and sometimes eerie stories about the Great Lakes and other fascinating bodies of water around the world. Her prints and stories are both educational and entertaining, and have earned her more than 2 million followers on Tik Tok and Instagram. Also featured are mixed media works that explore environmental issues and threats facing the delicate ecosystems of the Great Lakes. These include prints, collages, sculptures, and collections of natural and manufactured found items collected while combing the shores of Lake Michigan.
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Robert Armstrong aka Dr. Bob has been performing as Dj Rhumpshaker since the year 2000. A rabid fan of multiple genres of music, Rhumpshaker got his start playing at house parties and art openings. Eventually settling in as the house Dj for the no name bar and hosting monthly dance parties for the last 10 years. Dj Rhumpshaker is also a multi instrumentalist and enjoys throwing his own original productions into the mix. Best known for his deep funk cuts, Dj Rhumpshaker also enjoys a wide variety of musical styles and is constantly exploring new and old music genres. An active member of the online Dj community you can find over a hundred of his mixes on mixcloud.com.
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Billy X New X - began as a trio born out of Billy’s avant-garde performance art, Steve ‘Cap’n Smitty’ Smith’s free jazz saxophone and the classically trained D.L. Hunt’s on french horn. The three conducted a rotating ensemble that expanded and contracted over time. “The Amazing Tess Toster Tones” horn section amplified the band to a dozen players for a cassette boombox recording that carried a warning label: “CD sissies need not buy”. It was followed by two compact discs and live shows in Winona, La Crosse, Rochester as well as venues in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New Orleans.
Their most recent release, “Listen Up!”, is available on both vinyl and compact disc. The New X Art Ensemble is percussionist Marvin Lightspeed and bassist Dan Novak (formerly the “Evidence of Madness” core and rhythm section), Jeff Strand on fancy lead guitar and Ed Lagace accompanied by the swamp monster bass clarinet and ceremonial Ute flute. Billy fills it all out with lyrics, vocals and antics written especially for cello, dulcimer, guitar, harmonica, keyboard and mbira. Their social conscious, anti-war and environmental themes along with a sometimes irreverent mix of musical forms has inspired the cut line “Winona’s most bothersome variety band”.
As a soloist, Billy is an award winning artist. His performances include 3-days buried alive and swimming the length of the Mississippi River - source to gulf. His major works have brought him international attention, but on a quirkier note, he once traveled 6,293 miles by Greyhound in 45-days “disguised as a musician” for 21 performances in a dozen cities. The Los Angeles LA Weekly designated him solo show the “Performance Pick of the Week”, and the Minneapolis City Pages put him on “The A List”. He received a “Just Plain Folks Experimental Album Award” for Billy X: Solo Set and the “Henry Hampton Award” for a documentary of his swim as performance and environmental statement. Billy does alright on his own, but Marvin, Dan, Jeff and Ed, the New X Art Ensemble, bring out the best in Billy.
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Eric Heukeshoven (Hoy-kess-hoh-ven) is a first-generation American – the son of a German immigrant father and Scandinavian mother. Heukeshoven holds a B.A. in Music Composition and Theory from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis and an M.S. in Music Technology from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. His composition mentors include Dominick Argento, Paul Fetler, Frank Bencriscutto, Tom Root, Erik Stokes, Sylvia Dyrhaug, David Cope, and Kevin Dobbe.
As a a composer, educator, and music technologist, Heukeshoven creates works ranging from traditional to experimental. Where his instrumental and choral pieces reflect tradition, projects like “Time Machine” (2008), “In the Loop” (2017-2019), and “re-synth” (2024) push the boundaries of integrating traditional music with technology. In October 2026, sonifications created by Heukeshoven of four artworks from the permanent collection of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum will be unveiled as part of the museum’s Fall New Look Weekend.
Heukeshoven’s many instrumental and choral compositions are published by Carl Fisher, Score Exchange, and Swirly Music. His works are performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, and he is an in-demand jazz performer on keyboard and trombone as well as a composer/arranger. He is a member of ASCAP, American Composers Forum, American Guild of Organists, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. In 2023, Heukeshoven was inducted as a National Arts Associate in Sigma Alpha Iota where he also is member of the SAI Composers Bureau. In 2024, he received an “Artsie” award recognizing him a “Champion of the Arts” by the River Arts Alliance. A former Assistant Professor of Music at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Heukeshoven is now Director of Worship, Music & Arts at Central Lutheran Church in Winona, Minnesota and a member of the music faculty at Winona State University. He and his wife, Janet, have two sons, two grandchildren, and a yellow tabby cat.
Fall New Look Weekend Events
This event is part of the Fall New Look Weekend, October 2 - 4, 2026. Celebrate a season of mystery, transformation, and creativity with a full weekend of programing featuring three exhibiting artists including, Andy DuCett (Home(town)), Geo Rutherford (Spooky Waters of the World), and Barbara McIlrath (LandSkyWater).
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SUPPORT COMES FROM:
Support for Andy DuCett: Home(town) comes from the lead sponsor, Merchants Bank, and the presenting partner, the Winona Creators Collective.
Barbara McIlrath: LandSkyWater is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.
Support for Geo Rutherford: Spooky Waters of the World comes from the lead sponsor, the Sanborn Canoe Co., the media partner, Minnesota Public Radio, and the presenting partner, the Red Balloon Bookshop. Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet is published by Abrams Books for Young Readers.
MMAM acknowledges sustaining support from generous contributions from foundations, corporations, individuals, members and volunteers, including ongoing support from our Board of Directors, the Elizabeth Callender King Foundation, the Morgan Family Foundation, the Minnesota State Art Board, and MMAM’s New Look Weekend lodging partner, Hotel 44 North.
