The Lantern

The Idea

What Is The Lantern?

For three centuries, across the great cities of Europe, artists and thinkers gathered regularly in private homes — not for lectures or exhibitions or events, but simply to be in the same room. To eat together. To argue, wonder, and listen. To be changed by the quality of each other's company.

These were called salons — and what we call The Lantern — and they were the birthplace of movements, friendships, and works that outlasted everything else their participants produced.

This is one of those. Smaller, quieter, rooted in a small Minnesota town rather than a Parisian boulevard. But the spirit is the same: good people, honest conversation, a working studio as the backdrop, and a table that always has room for one more.

You don't need to know anything about art to come. You don't need to be an artist, or a musician, or a thinker. You need only to be curious — about this place, about these people, about the life that is possible in a small town when its residents decide to share time with strangers.

"The salon was not a gathering of the famous or the brilliant. It was a gathering of the interested — and from that interest, everything else followed."

— On the tradition of the literary salon

"Hospitality is not about impressing your guests. It is about making them forget, for a few hours, that they are anywhere but exactly where they should be."

— On the art of keeping a house open

The Three Things

What You'll Find Here

Every Lantern evening offers and shares these three core elements.

🍞

Food

There is always something on the table — bread, soup, wine, fresh picked flowers. We ask each guest to bring one thing to share. The meal is communal and unhurried. It is the magnet that brings everyone through the door.

🎨

Art

New photographs. An unfinished canvas. An instrument in the corner. Works in progress on the walls and play in progress in the room — because a living studio is more honest than any finished gallery.

💬

Conversation

No agenda. No program. No one presenting to anyone. Just people talking to each other — about their work, their town, their questions, their lives. These conversations help to build the gifts of connection

Throughout the Year

How the Evenings Take Shape

Not every gathering looks the same. The format shifts with the season and the room — but it always begins with an open door and food on the table.

Monthly · First Friday

The Open Studio

The studio is open, new work is on the walls, and there is no agenda whatsoever. Come when you can. Stay as long as you like. This is the foundation of everything.

Quarterly

The Convivium

A proper communal meal — each guest brings a dish from their own kitchen or garden. One question, written on a card, that everyone answers before the evening ends. Borrowed from the oldest tradition of the shared table.

Occasional

The Short Talk

One guest — a farmer, a nurse, a retired teacher, a newcomer, a student — gives an informal 10-minute talk on anything they're genuinely curious about. No expertise required. The best conversations always follow.

Seasonal

The Exhibition Evening

When new work is ready — a body of photographs, a series of paintings — the Lantern community sees it first, before it travels to any gallery. A private opening for people who have been paying attention.

Annual · Deep Winter

The Winter Table

One long, candlelit evening each year — a proper dinner for sixteen people, a musical set, and a reading or showing of new work. The event the community plans around. Something to look forward to when the cold arrives.

Occasional

The Collaboration Evening

Music plays while guests draw. A poet reads while new photographs appear on the wall in response. Process-oriented, unfinished, cross-disciplinary — the evenings that produce the most unexpected work and the deepest friendships.

Your Host

Who Opens the Door

Michael Moses

host & Internationally acclaimed multimedia artist

I moved to Madison Lake because I believed something was possible here — a slower, more deliberate life, a community that still knows its neighbors, a landscape that has something to say if you're willing to hear its whispers.

I am a visual artist and photographer. I am a musician. I love spending time translating my life into Art, and I have done so for most of my adult life. The Lantern is my answer to a simple question: there's room at the table - will you join us?

Gayle Coursol

Co-Host & Multi-disciplinary artist·

A gathering is only as warm as the people who shape it. Gayle brings to The Lantern a deep belief in the power of community — that a town becomes itself when its people make time for one another, around a table, in a room full of honest connections.

Her presence here is the complimentary half of this door being open. Come and you will understand what we mean.

You Are Invited

Come to The Lantern

The first Friday of every month · Madison Lake, Minnesota

The door opens at six. There is food on the table.
New work is on the walls. Music fills the room.
We sit together until the conversation finds its end.

Bring something to share — anything from your kitchen,
your garden, your pantry. Come as you are.
Bring a neighbor if you know one who should be here.

To join the list · receive invitations [email protected]

Write a single line — your name and what you're currently working on, growing, making, or thinking about. That is all we need.

No ticket required · No expertise required · Everyone welcome

Take It With You

The Invitation Card

Print this card and leave it somewhere a stranger might find it — the library, the hardware store, the diner counter, a neighbor's mailbox. The best communities grow one small act of invitation at a time.

Music · Art · Community · Madison Lake, Minnesota

A Gathering Space for Community and the Arts

Once a month, Michael Moses and Gayle Coursol open The Lantern — Art on the walls, Music in the room, Food on the table. No agenda. No ticket. No expertise required.

Come as you are. Bring something to share. Leave feeling better than when you arrived.

When First Friday
of each month
6 — 9 pm

Where Madison Lake
Minnesota
56063

Bring Something
for the
table

To receive the address & join the list

musicartdesign.com/lantern

[email protected] · Madison Lake, MN · Everyone Welcome

Tip: Print on cardstock (80–110 lb) for a card that feels intentional. Trim along the cut marks. Leave them face-up in places people linger.