St. Paul's Art Crawl honors Carrie Kwok after her murder

ST PAUL, Minn. – St. Paul's fall art tour is happening this weekend, but with a darker tone. The event honors the life of Carrie Kwok, an artist with the Lowertown Lofts Artist Cooperative who was murdered last Wednesday while painting a mural. St. Paul police called the killing a cold-blooded and random act of violence.

“We heal together,” said Ta-coumba Aiken. Aiken was one of the founders of the cooperative 39 years ago. “We know things will probably hit even harder after this… but this gives us an opportunity to celebrate her for celebrating us.”

On Friday, members of the Lowertown Arts Collective privately completed the mural Carrie was working on when she was killed. Carrie moved into the co-op in February.

“It didn’t scare people so much as it brought people together,” said Tara Tieso, a member of the Lowertown Lofts Artist Cooperative.

According to Tieso, Carrie was all about that sense of community.

“She would say, you know, I went to the farmers market and bought six pints of strawberries and I can't eat them all, so you have to come over,” Tieso said.

The co-op is displaying some of Carrie's work for the Crawl and is having a memorial erected to her both inside and outside the building. Pictures at the memorial show her beautiful smile.

The art crawl runs Saturdays from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Sundays from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. It includes more than 40 gallery locations throughout St. Paul.