The Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is one-of-a-kind, as far as I know. MAEP is a revolving series of shows with an unusually democratic curatorial spirit, dedicated to showing work by local artists on the walls of the venerable art museum, but with only a minimum of intervention by institutional curators.

Instead, MAEP artists are selected by an independent, annually elected panel of their peers in the Minnesota arts community. It's a laudable program, and an invaluable opportunity for area artists to showcase their work in a beautiful institutional setting and for a wide audience.

Having said that, though, as a viewer, I sometimes miss the aesthetic and conceptual cohesion that comes from having a single, strong curatorial vision behind the presentation of artists' work when I visit the MAEP gallery. I suspect it's often the restraint of a good curator that makes for a satisfying exhibition for the viewer — knowing when to edit work out of a show rather than simply jamming it all in, working closely with an artist to ensure thematic consistency in the work on view.

Last week, I took in the current MAEP show, "A Constant Line: Cheryle Melander and Don Myhre." I have to say, right off the bat, much of the work in these two, loosely connected solo shows is compelling.

I was especially impressed with Melander's sprawling, contemplative installation, "The war of the whispers," which elegantly renders the tangles, snarls and unreliable meanderings of memory in a series of pale resin panels webbed with wandering loops and intersections of stark black lines. Don Myhre's monumental pieces, shown in the gallery adjacent to Melander's, are, each one, arresting and perceptive, too. Both artists have more than earned their place in the gallery.

There's just too much work by each of them, not all of it harmonious together, in the exhibition spaces. Even though the individual pieces are quite good, there's not enough air in the room between them, and they don't all play well together.

As a result, the whole show feels a bit jumbled. I found myself wishing for a curator to do some editing, to pare each room down to its best, most essential thematic elements. Without such a guiding hand in evidence, the assemblage feels like bits and pieces of several separate shows, rather than part of a single, connected whole.

While it was a pleasure to see Myhre's familiar sentinels again -- "Dave, Don and Jeff" were favorite landmarks of mine during the seasons they stood watch over the grounds of Franconia Sculpture Park -- their massive heads overwhelmed the gallery space.

Frankly, so did Myhre's appealing, irreverent sculptural piece, "Walt," a model of Walt Disney's bodiless, dreaming head, ensconced in a large, foam iceberg in the gallery corner. "Walt" alone easily consumes a quarter of the room. Amid the giant heads, Myhre's most intriguing pieces get lost: the quiet grandeur of his nostalgic sculptures immortalizing everyday ephemera of the natural and built landscape (seed pods, lily pads, a satellite dish) would have been better served if shown on their own.

Similarly, Melander's gallery space was crowded by a series of, to my eye, unnecessary, monolithic, tower-like structures cutting through the midsection of the room.

All this isn't to say the works in "A Constant Line" aren't worth a visit — they are. The editor in me just kept itching to get out the red pen, to whittle these exhibitions down so that the artistry of each piece might have a bit more space to work on the viewer.

"A Constant Line: Cheryle Melander and Don Myhre" is on view in the MAEP Gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts through Aug. 9.