Minnesota is home to many talented Lao Americans in the arts. One of those is Manola Suvannarad, who has recently been doing a series she refers to as Left-Handed Sketches at http://lefthandedsketches.tumblr.com. Many of her sketches were recently displayed this August at the Longfellow Art Crawl. There people could see her original work ranging from Oprah, Phil Jackson, Truman Capote, Margaret Cho (as Kim Jong Il), to Punxsutawney Phil. I was surprised at how much she had in common with many of our artists here, and where she took some really unique directions with her work. Manola currently lives close to St. Paul and has also worked as a shiatsu therapist. She’s taken a brief hiatus from Left-Handed Sketches, but I hope she comes back to it soon. Here are some of the things she shared with us during her interview: Can you tell us a little about yourself? How did you find yourself near St. Paul? My family came to Minnesota in 1976 when I was 3 years old, and settled in and around Minneapolis. …