About the Exhibition
For Michon Weeks, painting is a contemplative practice akin to meditation and prayer. Working in egg tempera, oil, and acrylic, Weeks paints the quiet terrain of everyday life: yards, tree lines, and utility poles. But these paintings do not describe the ordinary elements of the Minnesota landscape. They are the artist’s method for slow, sustained presence—and an invitation to the viewer to stay with something long enough for meaning to surface.
In Weeks’ words: “There is a way of knowing that is neither intellect nor observation alone, something that arrives through sustained presence, attention, and relation. Hildegard of Bingen called it the ‘Living Light’: a form of perception, neither dream nor reason, but a seeing through. That is why I paint and draw. Painting and drawing are, for me, a contemplative form of knowing.”
Weeks’ practice begins with daily walks. She photographs and sketches what she observes, then revisits that material in the studio before beginning to paint—always in silence. The surfaces of her paintings record alternating speeds of attention: some areas build gradually, others shift abruptly. Landscape features are partially obscured in the process. Recognizable elements remain, but only in glimpses—an ornate gate, a basketball hoop. “When a painting develops a presence that feels independent of my will—coherent, unsettled, and alive—I know it is finished,” Weeks says.
Weeks’ practice draws on a wide range of thinkers, from Medieval Christian mystics to contemporary writers on ecological perception, attention, and contemplative ways of knowing. She is particularly influenced by a strand of ecological contemplative thought that frames sustained attention as a way of drawing closer to a world increasingly shaped by ecological precarity. The exhibition includes a Painter’s Library—a selection of texts that map the intellectual and spiritual terrain of Weeks’ practice.
This body of work has emerged alongside a sustained creative exchange with author, scholar, and fellow St. Olaf professor Trish Zimmerman. Audio excerpts from the mystics, read and recorded by Weeks and Zimmerman, invite visitors to explore the sacred mystery of perception.
Programming
In Conversation: Michon Weeks & Trish Zimmerman
Friday, September 11, 5-5:45 p.m.
Viking Theater, St. Olaf College
Join us for a screening of a new short film on Weeks’ practice, followed by live conversation between St. Olaf Professor of Practice in Religion Zimmerman and Weeks delving into the sacred mystery of perception.
Opening Reception
Friday, September 11, 6-7:30 p.m.
Flaten Art Museum, Center for Art and Dance, St. Olaf College
Celebrate the opening of Michon Weeks: Mystic Topographies with refreshments and community. Free and open to the public. All are welcome.
Stay Awhile: Conversations for Loving the Planet
Saturday, September 26, 1-3 p.m.
Center for Art and Dance Lawn, St. Olaf College
Settle into a pair of colorful lawn chairs and slow down for a few minutes with a friend or someone new. Stay Awhile is a playful conversation experience inspired by Alyssa Baguss’s public art project Face to Face: 20 Questions That Lead to Loving the Planet, along with the themes of observation, relationship, and connection found in Michon Weeks’ Flaten Art Museum exhibition Mystic Topographies. Free — all are welcome
Crafting Resilience: Finding Community and Connection through Fiber Arts
Wednesday, November 4, 3-6 p.m.
Center for Art and Dance, St. Olaf College
An artist-led workshop where participants gather together, without technology, to build community while working on a fiber craft of their choosing. Bring your own project that’s in process or start a new one with materials and tools provided; we’ll be working primarily in knitting, crochet, needle-felting, and embroidery. Stop by or stay for the whole time: we’ll get to know each other and share ways that we’re practicing resilience together and on our own. From novice to expert, everyone is welcome and demonstrations will be available for those looking to learn. Light snacks and refreshments provided. This workshop is led by FAM Collections Manager Krista Anderson-Larson and made possible by funding from the Gimse Striving for Peace on Horizon’s Brim Art Endowment.
About the Artist
Michon Weeks is a painter whose work centers on attentive looking to see the wholeness in all things. Working in egg tempera and oil, she approaches painting as a contemplative practice—a way of seeing the world as it is, with reverence, presence, and wonder.
Her work has been included in solo and group exhibitions, with recent shows at the Schaefer Gallery at Gustavus Adolphus College, the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato, and the Rochester Art Center. She has also participated in survey exhibitions such as North of the 45th at the DeVos Art Museum, Abstract Painting in Minnesota: From 1930 to the Present at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, and Art on the Plains at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota.
In 2025, Weeks was featured in New American Paintings (Issue 173), where Walker Art Center curator Rosario Guiraldes selected her as the juror’s pick. Her paintings are held in numerous public and private collections, and she has received grants, including the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and the Creative Arts Collective Grant.
Weeks earned her BA in Art from Iowa State University and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Minnesota. She has taught drawing and painting at St. Olaf College since 2012, where she is Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Art and Art History.
This exhibition is supported by the Creative Arts Collective funded by the Lilly Endowment, and the Glen Gronlund ‘55 and Shirley Beito Gronlund ‘56 Annual Exhibition Series at St. Olaf College.