The brainchild of the late Judith Roode, well-known arts educator and artist in the Twin Cities, the Rent-a-Mentor Program (as it was known then) was created to answer Roode’s “compelling question [at the time]: Why are there no mentors for women artists in the Art [sic] community?” The Rent-a-Mentor Program began with sixteen WARM Gallery members who volunteered to be mentors (Roode among them), five possible partial scholarships for mentees funded by the Jerome Foundation and the desire to attract twenty protégés. The mentee application process included a panel discussion, meetings and slide viewings. Twelve mentors chose to work of twenty protégé artists. Together, mentors and protégés committed to thirty hours of self-directed, one-on-one time over a ten month period that concluded with a show at WARM’s gallery. Seventeen of the twenty mentor/protege pairs’ artworks were included in the first Rent-a-Mentor exhibition in November 1982.

In addition to providing women mentors for women artists, the program encouraged mentors to share their skills, contacts and experiences to assist the development of women artists through personal connection, evaluation, criticism and exposure.

While the program was popular from the start, like any good protégé, the program itself needed some mentoring, too. Following the WARM Mentor/Protégé exhibit at the College of St. Catherine art gallery in 1986, the mentor program took a one year break to “undergo a process of re-evaluation” and expected to reemerge in 1987 with some changes. WARM’s mentor program went on to be very successful, mentoring more than 600 women artists over 36 years.

Mentor-Protégé Pairs 1982-1983
Mentors are underlined, proteges are bullet-pointed.

Harriet Bart

• Suzanne Kosmalski

Hazel Belvo 

• Sirena Bertelsen

Sally Brown

• Brenna Busse
• Sylvia Pettit
• Sharon Toscano
• Linda Troester
• Katherine Tilton McMahon

Cherie Doyle

• Deborah Wagner

Elizabeth Erickson

• Katherine K. Rogers
• Susan Brendl
• Kay Ruane

Joyce Lyon

• Ann Schmeirer

Susan McDonald

• Sheilgh McNellis

Dorothy Odland

• Deborah Hannu

Quimetta Perle

• Susan Rathke

Judith Roode

• Karen Bacig

Jantje Visscher

• Angela Henrikson
• Mary Catalina
• Isabel Deaver

Mary Walker

• Valerie Frank