The Lantern— A Gathering Space for Community & the Arts

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 take each other seriously.

"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

Your Host

Who Opens the Door

Michael Moses

Visual Artist · Photographer · Musician

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 listen to it slowly.

I am a visual artist and photographer. I am a musician. I make things with my hands and with my instruments and with my camera, and I have done so for most of my adult life. The Lantern is my answer to a simple question: who else is here, and what are they making?

Gayle Coursol

Co-Host · The Lantern

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 work.

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

Take It With You

The Invitation Card

Print and share this card and leave it where a neighbor might find it...
The best communities grow one small act of connection at a time.

The Rhythm Circle — drums and instruments

The Rhythm Circle · The Lantern · Madison Lake, MN

Music · Art · Design · Madison Lake, Minnesota

The Lantern

Monthly Rhythm Circle

Traditional cultures have long recognized the strength of people in community. Drumming and dancing have been used for millennia to bring people together — in good times and bad.

Come join our monthly rhythm circles. Meet your neighbor. Experience the tried and true power of shared rhythm —
food, conversation, the sound of the drum, the joy of dance,
and a simple break from the day-to-day.

Join the circle

musicartdesign.com/lantern

madmuse@musicartdesign.com · Madison Lake, MN · Everyone Welcome