Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicki McCracken And Eddie Hofmeister.
Hi Nicki McCracken and, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
ArtYouHeart is an online art shop and artist collective that we (Nicki McCracken and Eddie Hofmeister) founded to support independent artists, help their work reach a wider audience, and connect art with causes and communities we care about. We met in art school and have both spent our careers as graphic designers, so our lives have always been surrounded by artists, designers, and creative communities.
A big part of the path to ArtYouHeart came through Nicki’s years as managing partner and curator of ARTCRANK, a bicycle themed poster show that produced pop up exhibitions across the United States and internationally. That experience created relationships with artists around the world and showed us how powerful it can be to bring artists together around a shared idea. When ARTCRANK closed, we saw an opportunity to take that experience and broaden it beyond bicycle art. We launched ArtYouHeart in February 2025, seeking out work we genuinely loved, with a particular focus on recruiting underrepresented artists and creating a more equitable way to promote and sell their work.
ArtYouHeart was still very young when Operation Metro Surge dramatically shifted our direction. Artists in Minnesota were responding in real time, and we realized the network, design skills, and platform we had already built could be useful. Our friends at Can Can Wonderland, an arts and entertainment venue in St. Paul, approached us with the idea of creating a protest poster exhibition and invited ArtYouHeart to curate it. We pulled together the ICE OUT Protest Poster Show in about two weeks, bringing work by Minnesota artists responding to what was happening in our communities into one space. That exhibition grew into the larger ICE OUT Protest Art collection, and social justice and protest art have increasingly become a central part of what ArtYouHeart does. Our next exhibition, Hold the Boundary, brings artists together around protecting the Boundary Waters and Superior National Forest from copper mining, while raising support for organizations working to protect those lands, waters, and the communities connected to them.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The ICE OUT Protest Poster Show was incredibly meaningful, but it also taught us some hard lessons about sustainability. What began as one exhibition quickly became something much bigger. While we were putting together the first show at Can Can Wonderland, we were also building the online ICE OUT shop. From there, we produced two ICE OUT Protest Art projection events with Second Sight Visuals on the Witch’s Hat water tower in Minneapolis. We also worked to bring our ICE OUT artists into group exhibitions at Co-Prosperity Chicago and the Torrance Art Museum in California. We advocated for their inclusion, printed and organized the work, and made sure the artwork arrived with the larger Minnesota story behind it. It mattered to us that the work could travel beyond its original moment and reach audiences in other communities.
The challenge was that we were doing all of this essentially pro bono while also working our regular jobs and paying many of the project expenses ourselves. With ICE OUT Protest Art, ArtYouHeart kept none of the proceeds. Everything we raised went to the mutual aid organizations we were supporting, which felt right for that project, but it also meant there was nothing left to support the infrastructure and enormous amount of work behind it.
We have since talked with people who know a lot more than we do about nonprofit and sustainable business models and adjusted our approach so we can continue supporting causes while also making the work sustainable for ArtYouHeart. That has probably been one of our biggest lessons. We want to keep doing this work, and we have realized that building a model that allows us to continue is part of doing it responsibly. And, ideally, lets us get to bed before 2 a.m. once in a while!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At the center of ArtYouHeart is the idea that the artists themselves matter as much as the individual pieces we sell. We make a concerted effort to seek out underrepresented artists and to make sure the collections and exhibitions we curate include a range of voices and perspectives. For our upcoming Hold the Boundary exhibition, for example, we have been especially intentional about finding and including Indigenous artists whose communities have deep cultural and historical connections to the lands and waters at the heart of the project.
We also want ArtYouHeart to help people discover the artists beyond the work they happen to find in our online shop. Each artist has a featured bio page that gives visitors a chance to learn more about the person behind the work. We also link directly to the artist’s own website, shop or social media so people can discover more of what they do. We know that sometimes means sending a potential customer straight out of our own shop, which might not be the most conventional ecommerce strategy. We are completely comfortable with that. We want someone to discover an artist they love and keep following that artist’s work, whether that happens through us or not.
Eddie and I often come back to a beloved Paul Wellstone quote, and as Minnesotans, it feels particularly close to home: “We all do better when we all do better.” That pretty much sums up how we think about ArtYouHeart.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
My family has a name for something that has happened to me my whole life: “Nicki Luck.” It can be as small as always (seriously, always!) finding a great parking spot, or as meaningful as meeting the right person, hearing the right bit of information just before I need it, or stumbling into a connection at exactly the right moment. One thing leads to another, another door opens, and somehow the timing works out.
I do think ArtYouHeart has benefited from some Nicki Luck. We have been incredibly fortunate in the people we have met and the way one relationship has led naturally to another. Our connections at Can Can Wonderland introduced us to Second Sight Visuals, which led to the idea of sharing ICE OUT Protest Art through a series of large scale outdoor projection shows. The success of the ICE OUT Protest Poster Show has opened the door to more social justice exhibitions with Can Can, and our growing network has connected Eddie and me with the Rebel Loon Archive, where we are now collaborating on a book documenting art created in response to Operation Metro Surge. Our circle keeps growing. Eddie and I have both learned to pay attention when those connections happen and to follow them when they feel meaningful.
There is also timing. ICE OUT Protest Art grew out of circumstances we certainly would never describe as fortunate. We wish there had been no reason for the project to exist. But it taught us something about the difference between luck and readiness. You cannot always control the moment that arrives. You can build relationships, skills, and infrastructure so that when something important happens, you are able to respond.
Pricing:
- Art Prints at artyouheart.com
- 6×8 = $20
- 9×12 – $30
- 12×16 – $40
- 18×24 – $50
Contact Info:
- Website: https://artyouheart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artyouheartshop/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtYouHeartShop
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicki-mccracken/
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hofmeisterdesign/
