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Grand Marais artist makes prints to make an impact

Nan Onkka sells layered woodcut prints and greeting cards through a quarterly club with over four years of members and a wholesale business.

  • At her Grand Marais studio, Onkka operates a business selling Northern landscape prints, stickers, and greeting cards via wholesale and a subscription club.
  • After teaching in Minneapolis, she noticed printmaking was her favorite and began making prints in her guest bedroom during maternity leave due to child-care difficulties.
  • She carves each block so carved areas become blank and plans layers before knowing the final print, then applies transparent inks from light to dark using a press, rollers, inks and carving tools.
  • Her work reaches buyers through an annual calendar, The Butterfly Effect sticker with donated profits, and a greeting-card club shipping quarterly boxes, broadening her audience.
  • She still teaches printmaking at the Grand Marais Art Colony and American Swedish Institute, with Onkka's husband and children helping run the family business, Onkka said.
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Grand Marais artist makes prints to make an impact

GRAND MARAIS — Artist Nan Onkka starts each of her prints with an image in her head. A relief woodcut printer, she has to think backward about how she wants to get color and designs onto a page. Any space she carves will become a blank space on the scene as she adds layers of ink onto a page. "It hurts my brain a little bit. You have to think of layers and problem-solve how to get it to look exactly as you want," the Grand Marais resident said. …

·Cherokee County, United States
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Duluth News Tribune broke the news in Cherokee County, United States on Saturday, March 14, 2026.
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