If you liked the whimsical cartoon style of the Minnesota State Fair’s commemorative poster this year, you’ll be happy to pin on a button (or four) from the 2022 St. Paul Winter Carnival. The same artist, Kevin Cannon, created the art for both.
The four 2022 Winter Carnival button designs were unveiled Saturday, Dec. 4, at St. Paul’s Union Depot as part of holiday tree-lighting festivities.
The buttons are $5 for one or $19 for a four-pack, available at Cub Foods, Spire Credit Union, select area businesses and the Winter Carnival website (wintercarnival.com/buttons/).
Cartoonist and illustrator Cannon, who was born and grew up in St. Louis Park, is best known for his detailed cartoon maps in the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune as well as his all-ages graphic novel, “The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy.”
Cannon says his art career began at an early age, drawing with Mr. Sketch markers on scraps of foam core from his uncle’s photography studio. He studied studio art at Grinnell College in Iowa and moved back to the Twin Cities after short stints living in London and Manhattan. He draws children’s books and has created illustrations for clients such as Apple, Harvard University and the U.S. Naval Academy, and publications like the Village Voice, Minnesota Monthly and Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.
According to a Winter Carnival news release, Cannon says he’s a fan of Minnesota winter activities — and all things cold. He was captain of the Nordic ski team in high school and became a polar exploration nut in his 20s, making a pilgrimage to Ernest Shackleton’s famed James Caird in London, and setting his first two graphic novels in the Canadian High Arctic.
Cannon told the Winter Carnival: “As a Minnesota kid who spent as much time as humanly possible outdoors every winter, it was pretty easy to find inspiration for the 2022 Saint Paul Winter Carnival button art. Winter has a kind of crisp beauty you don’t see in the other seasons, and there’s a natural duality in its rival colors — icy blue and fire red — that I used liberally in my drawings. I know that some people outside this state can see winter as bleak and lonely and miserable, but this season, with its frosty beauty and myriad activities, has always lived in my head as alive and boisterous and colorful, and I tried my best to channel that energy into the illustrations for these four buttons.”
He lives in Mounds View with his wife, Maggie; their son, Ulysses.
The 136th St. Paul Winter Carnival is Jan. 28-Feb. 6.
Copyright 2021 Pioneer Press.