arts and culture : Innovation + Job News

The River City Revue (RCR) is “an annual summer series of river tours throughout the Mississippi National River & Recreation Area organized by Works Progress Studio, the Mississippi River Fund and the National Park Service,” according to its website. And RCR isn’t shy about highlighting the dark side of living in a river city.
 
After an August 22nd canoe trip between Hastings, Minnesota and Prescott, Wisconsin, the series returns to the Padelford Riverboat in St. Paul for “Filth on the River” on September 10. That program features “performances, participatory games, and short illustrated talks on some of the filthy, debaucherous, and unseemly aspects of life on the Mississippi.”
 
The overall goal of the series is to showcase the Mississippi River’s impacts on the Twin Cities’ economy, culture and natural environment. “To me, living in a river city means thinking about our relationship to water,” says Shanai Matteson, co-director of Works Progress Studio. “Water connects and sustains us,” adds Colin Kloecker, the studio’s other co-director.
 
According to Matteson, River City Revue began in 2011 as a public art collaboration with Northern Spark. Initially planned as a one-off, the initiative was so successful that Matteson and Kloecker pushed to turn it into an annual series. As the only National Park Service-protected waterway in a major urban area, the Twin Cities’ Mississippi River frontage is a unique asset that RCR’s collaborators believe is worth celebrating.
 
Other events have included “Purity on the River,” a get-together on the Jonathan Padelford Riverboat that featured speeches, performances and material showcases from local artists and thinkers.
 
The event was a mishmash of water-themed content, including a “water bar” with flights of local tap water and “collaborative panoramic river drawing” with the MAKESH!T Collective. Other highlights included a water-themed photo showcase, a poetry reading by Mary Austin Speaker, and a discussion of “water purity and beer brewing” – always an interesting topic – that included local author Doug Hoverson and representatives from Boom Island, Bang Brewing and Indeed Brewing Company.
 
“Purity on the River” was the third of five River City Revue events and one of two riverboat cruises in the series. The first RCR event, held at the Science Museum of Minnesota on June 27, featured riverfront walking tours (which had to be modified slightly due to high water levels) and lectures from National Park Service employees and local historians.
 
The second, which launched from the Soap Factory on July 23, explored the Twin Cities’ best “fishin’ holes” and included input from local fishing experts, chefs and naturalists.
 

For drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians in Dinkytown and the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood in Minneapolis, the view has gotten more interesting. The Box Fresh Utility Wraps Project, an initiative spearheaded by the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association (MHNA) and The Soap Factory, was unveiled July 25 and will be on view through the remainder of the summer.

The initiative paid for six artists to transform six utility boxes at high-visibility intersections. "We wanted to use this opportunity as a showcase for professional artists," many of them local, says Chris Lautenschlager of MHNA. "For well over a decade, Marcy-Holmes has conceptualized its streets as an urban gallery," he adds. As examples he points to the Moroni sculptures on 6th Avenue SE and the murals scattered around Dinkytown.

Scott Bean, whose box is at 326 6th Avenue SE, is a local resident and former instructor at the Marcy Open School. Candy Kuehn, whose work is at 327 14th Avenue SE, is a Minneapolis artist. Tony Chrenka and Christina Laskowski, a recent University of Minnesota graduate, are both former residents: Their boxes appear at 1300 4th Street SE and 100 University Avenue SE, respectively.

Though not a resident, Norbert Marklin has collaborated on various art projects with Marcy Open School staff and students. Rachel Orman is an active Marcy Open School parent and patron of the Southeast Library.

Utility boxes are bulky, ground-based assemblies located at intersections with traffic lights. "Their primary purpose is to control the nearby traffic signals," Lautenschlager says. "We chose these locations, along or near University Avenue SE and 4th Street SE, because of their maximized visibility to passing cars, bicycles and pedestrians."

According to the MHNA press release, the artwork ranges from "traditional painting to contemporary conceptual." The project had a price tag of about $12,000. The TCF Bank Stadium Good Neighbor Fund, a neighborhood improvement fund administered by the Stadium Area Advisory Group (which in turn is associated with the University District Alliance), provided $5200.

Although the MHNA had never undertaken a project like this, Lautenschlager says the organization drew inspiration from "Thinking Out of the Box," an initiative undertaken by south Minneapolis' Kingfield Neighborhood Association in 2009 and 2010.

MHNA has plans for more eye-catching street features. The MHNA recently received another Good Neighbor grant to fund a "wayfinding project" for the Dinkytown Greenway, which serves the greater U of M area. "[We'll be] adding signage that will lead to the Dinkytown Greenway and point people in the desired directions away from it," says Lautenschlager.
 

 

On Tuesday, July 22, the West Bank's Southern Theater publicly launched its ARTshare program with a festive gathering at Town Hall Brewery. Beginning in January, ARTshare members will get full access to all 15 of the Southern's resident performance companies for $18 per month, with a minimum commitment of 12 months. Members can reserve seats at performances on a first-come, first-serve basis, with no additional fees or restrictions. The theater is also working on a set of members-only perks, to be announced later this year.

To start, the theater is making a total of 2,100 memberships available. The Southern is already well on its way to this goal: Barely two hours into the celebration, nearly 200 memberships sold online and at Town Hall. Once the cap is reached, membership will be closed until and unless executive director Damon Runnals and his team decide to add more capacity. Memberships help fund a three-year, $11,000 per year residency for each group. The Southern won't charge residents to rent the space, though they must shoulder their own production costs.

In a recent interview with MinnPost, Runnals acknowledged that ARTshare will bring live performance to the Southern Theater for the first time in more than three years. While this means that the space won't be available for rental or other functions for the foreseeable future, it will provide a platform for more than a dozen small, local dance or theater groups. To smooth the transition, Runnals plans to "[hold] meetings with the resident companies to talk and share best practices," according to the interview.

If the Town Hall-hosted event was any indication, the initiative should be successful. Eighty attendees filled the brewery's patio. Free beer and appetizers fueled a merry crowd, many of which were members of Southern's future resident companies. People in orange ARTshare T-shirts circulated through the crowd, speaking with attendees about the initiative and soliciting membership pledges. At 4:30 p.m., the brewery patio hosted three impromptu performances from future ARTshare resident companies.

Members can expect more of the same from ARTshare's nearly untested membership model. As he noted in the MinnPost interview, Runnals and his team didn't have another example to study. Two theaters in Chicago and the Pacific Northwest also offer limited numbers of unrestricted memberships, but they both double as production companies. As a "co-presentation" facility, says Runnals, the Southern is more like Northern Spark - "a platform for artists," who have lots of say over how the theater operates, not to mention its content.

The Twin Cities has an entrenched biking culture and a surprising history of local cycling innovations. Soon, MSP will have a cycling museum to celebrate those achievements, as well.

Three cycling enthusiasts, including the two founders of Recovery Bike Shop, are creating the Cycling Museum of Minnesota (CMM)—"an idea that's long overdue," says Nina Clark, Secretary of CMM's Board of Directors. The museum will open sometime in 2015, in the 4,000-square-foot, second floor suite above Recovery.

The idea for a cycling museum originated with Juston Anderson, the captain of the Minnesota chapter of The Wheelmen, a national organization "dedicated to keeping alive the heritage of American cycling," according to its website.

Over the years, CMM has accumulated dozens of bikes and bike-related artifacts from sponsors, including one of the oldest bike repair stands in existence, a solid racing wheel prototype from HED Cycling and the first Surly fat tire prototype. "We want to be a repository for those seminal artifacts," Clark says.

At the moment, CMM's collection is largely made up of items Anderson has loaned out. In turn, Recovery owners Brent Fuqua and Seth Stattmiller permit rent-free use of their second-floor space. But CMM is growing quickly: According to Clark, the organization has already had some success in soliciting donations, pledges and loans from individual biking enthusiasts and companies tied to the industry.

A fundraising/open house event in late July showcased items that represent various cycling eras. "The idea is to represent all periods" of cycling history, says Clark about the museum, while "keeping the focus on Minnesota."

The museum won't just be for physical artifacts. A self-described "biker about town," Clark is particularly interested in literature and exhibits that celebrate cycling's contributions to the development of the Twin Cities' park and trail systems, as well as the manufacturing and retail businesses that profit from growing interest cycling.

CMM's founders and directors envision the space as a force for advocacy, too. "We want to be advocates for cycling's benefits for health, the environment and sustainable urban development," Clark explains, "not just a static collection."

Significant donors can earn membership in one of three "Founders' Clubs": Silver Spoke for contributions of $50 to $249, Gold Spoke for $250 to $499, and Titanium Spoke for $500 to $1,000. Since the cost of refurbishing and maintaining items in a collection like CMM's increases proportionally with its size, the organization is exploring membership and/or sponsorship models that ensure positive cash flow.

 

This week the Twin Cities BIKEFUN!'s Pedalopolis extravaganza will take to the streets. Pedalopolis is an annual "crowd-sourced festival of social bike rides" with dozens of user-generated events and themed rides. The celebration kicked off at 5 p.m. yesterday with a parade between Matthews Park and Powderhorn Park, where a potluck lasted into the evening. The parade's centerpiece was the enormous Pedal Bear, a "pedal-powered polar bear" built by the locally based ARTCRANK Collective.

The opening festivities were just the tip of the iceberg. "The Pedalopolis festival is an ever expanding work in progress," writes Nickey Robare, of Twin Cities BIKEFUN! "[We're] creating a space, and the community has stepped in to fill it up." The goal is to create a series of themed rides and gatherings around Minneapolis and St. Paul. BIKEFUN! accepted ideas from members of the public until shortly before the festivities began, with "room for any type of bike ride you can imagine," says Robare. (Awesomeness is encouraged.)

Participants have clearly had fun planning this year's event. Last night, riders could choose from a 15-mile mural tour of Minneapolis or a meditation-themed ride with the DharmaCore Queer Meditation Community. At noon today, the 2DCLOUD Bicycle Distro rounds up riders who'd like to distribute free books at community centers and other locations around the Cities.

This evening, the "It’s Your Birthday Bike Ride" asks riders to pretend it's their birthday and dress accordingly. (No actual birthdays required, according to TC BIKEFUN!'s website.) For a nightcap, St. Anthony Main Theater hosts a screening of "Half The Road: The Passion, Pitfalls, and Power of Women’s Professional Cycling," a film that looks at women's love for the sport and "the pressing issues of inequality that modern-day female athletes face in male dominated sports."  

Tomorrow, history and amenities are on the agenda. A 6:30 p.m. ride hits six "overlooked parks" in St. Paul, a simultaneous jaunt visits various architectural gems in the Seward neighborhood, and a 7 p.m. "Replacements Ride" takes a tour of locales mentioned in the Twin Cities band's songs and ends with a drink at the CC Club, a favorite haunt of theirs.

On Friday, the weekend begins in style with "Tour de Breweries," which includes a stop at Town Hall Brewery and other yet-to-be-named locations. At 11 p.m., the "Secret Society of Midnight Cyclists" meets to pedal to "a location known only to the [tour] leader," according to TC BIKEFUN!'s website.

Pedalopolis's last big event will take place at 9 p.m. on Saturday, at Bedlam Lowertown in St. Paul, with a "short jorts" dance party and a performance from River City Soul. The event, like all Pedalopolis gatherings, is free and open to the public. A "Hangover Ride" and other "day-after" activities will take place on Sunday.

In addition to Pedalopolis, its showcase celebration, BIKEFUN! also administers an online biking forum that connects Twin Cities cyclists with safe, community-themed activities in all seasons. In addition to establishing it as a key mode of transport for Twin Cities residents, the organization aims to make biking fun and accessible for kids and adults of all ages.

Earlier this summer, more than a dozen Minneapolis-St. Paul 17-21 year olds participated in the inaugural production of Film in the City, a Minnesota State Arts Board-funded initiative that connects at-risk youth with local filmmakers and front-of-the-camera talent. The original short, “A Common Manor,” was entirely written by Film in the City’s young participants, who also made up the majority of its cast. Highlights of the filming process were included in filmmaker Jeff Stonehouse’s contribution to One Day on Earth, with the edited production to be released in October.

Film in the City is the brainchild of Rich Reeder, a 30-year veteran of the film industry. He was inspired by a tragedy: While he was producing a documentary on the White Earth Reservation, a local high school student suddenly took his own life, shattering the community (and Reeder’s crew). As a filmmaking veteran, he saw the medium’s potential to boost self-esteem and commitment in at-risk youth.

Reeder and an assistant connected with six homeless youth organizations—Ain Dah Yung, Youthlink, Avenues NE, Face to Face/SafeZone, Full Cycle and Kulture Klub Collaborative—across the Twin Cities. Beginning in February of this year, 16 participants attended 12 workshops that covered everything from art and sound design to improvisation.

Filming took place over two weeks in June, at several locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul (the Midtown Farmers’ Market and private residences in St. Paul’s Summit-University and Midway neighborhoods among them). Local arts organizations including the Guthrie Theater and HDMG Studio & Production Center lent backdrops and equipment.

“A Common Manor” wrapped on June 25. There’s still plenty of editing and marketing work to be done before its release. But the project has already paid dividends: As a direct result of their work with Film in the City, says Reeder, at least eight participants have conducted internships or mentoring sessions with “professional Twin Cities’ directors, writers, cinematographers, lighting and sound specialists, makeup and wardrobe mentors.” Two have worked with Stonehouse on a commercial film shoot in Wisconsin.

Reeder also sees Film in the City, and projects like it, as critical for character-building and professional development. “These youth have made major strides in terms of self-esteem, collaboration with other youth and adults, learning the entire film[making] process and focusing…on specific aspects of the creative arts,” he says.

Reeder and crew plan to apply for the same Minnesota State Arts Board grant next year. The hope is that first-year veterans will actively mentor second-year participants, creating an artistic legacy among at-risk youth.

More ambitiously, Film in the City may soon export its concept to other cities. “Youth organization leaders in Seattle and San Francisco have already expressed interest in the concept,” says Reeder, noting that those cities’ famous writing and visual arts workshops for homeless youth haven’t yet been complemented by filmmaking initiatives.

 

On June 26, for the second year in a row, five Twin Cities’ artists gathered at the Walker Art Center’s ArtPrize Pitch Night to share their ideas for a highly visible installation at Grand Rapids, Michigan’s annual ArtPrize extravaganza – and compete for a $5,000 prize. Each had five minutes to pitch to five jurors.

The winner, Bjorn Sparrman, will construct a “faux border crossing” on the Gillett Bridge, a heavily trafficked pedestrian bridge in downtown Grand Rapids. The installation will stand for the duration of the festival, from September 24 to October 12. Along with work from thousands of other participating artists, Sparrman’s project will contend for one of two $200,000 grand prizes.

The project, which will straddle the dividing line between the east and west sides of Grand Rapids, is a tongue-in-cheek take on an international border crossing. According to Sparrman’s pitch, it will feature “border guards,” a fake customs booth with awning, and signs indicating the “political” barrier.

“[The] jurors were impressed with Bjorn’s awareness of the bridge as a passage,” says Jehra Patrick, one of the five Pitch Night jurors, in an interview with ArtPrize. “We were interested in his ability to create a point of engagement and an obstacle, making people stop and consider the work.”

The four Walker Pitch Night runners-up have impressive CVs: Aaron Dysart is a City Collaboratory Fellow with the City of St. Paul; Alison Hiltner is a prominent Minneapolis-based installation artist; Bill Mullaney is a performance artist and one half of the popular performance duo Fire Drill; and Aaron Squadroni recently served as Grand Rapids, Michigan’s Artist-in-Residence.

The jury included Melinda Childs, Director of Artist Services at Forecast Public Art; John Hock, founder of Franconia Sculpture Park; Mia Lopez, a current Walker Art Center fellow; Jehra Patrick, program director for mnartists.org; and Piotr Szyhalski, professor of media arts at Minneapolis College of Art & Design.

ArtPrize is in its sixth year, but last year’s Walker event – put on in collaboration with Delta Air Lines, mnartists.org, and Open Systems Technologies – was the first organized opportunity for non-Michigan artists to earn funding for more ambitious projects. Pitch Night has since expanded to Cincinnati.

ArtPrize itself is wildly popular with artists. Billed as “a radically open, independently organized international art competition,” ArtPrize turns “three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids [into] an open playing field where anyone can find a voice in the conversation about what is art and why it matters.”

Anyone can participate and any space within the designated district can host installations. In addition to the $400,000 in grand prizes, participants can win eight category prizes of $20,000 each. This year’s event will feature more than 1,500 individual entries.

 

ArtsMidwest, an Uptown-based arts organization that forms partnerships with artists and local art organizations throughout the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, has released a major report to publicize the achievements of its ArtsLab subsidiary. Entitled “Capacity Building and Resilience: What Participants Learned Through ArtsLab,” the exhaustive report outlines the experience of eight organizations, including five from the Twin Cities.

According to Anne Romens, ArtsMidwest’s External Relations Manager, the report “offers key takeaways for nonprofit organizations seeking to build their resiliency and for grantmakers supporting the arts and culture sector.” The report itself is intended for “organizations looking to strengthen their adaptability, funders interested in the leadership qualities that support careful fiscal oversight, and…colleagues in other capacity building programs, both within and beyond the arts community.”

ArtsLab partners can enroll in the Peer Learning Community, an intensive, two-year “training and technical assistance program that brings diverse arts leaders together in a supportive, collaborative environment.” Components of the Peer Learning include mentorship assignments, monthly webinars, quarterly retreats, and training sessions that focus on financial management, strategic planning, community engagement and impact evaluation.

The five participating Twin Cities organizations had incisive feedback for ArtsLab—and the program’s future participants. During its first year working with ArtsLab, All My Relations Arts was evicted from its space at the Great Neighborhoods! Development Corporation, forcing the organization to hastily partner with the Native American Community Development Institute and seek funding assistance from ArtsLab. Over the subsequent two years, All My Relations found a new gallery and performance space that now anchors Franklin Avenue’s ascendant American Indian Cultural Corridor.

Mizna, a St. Paul organization that sponsors the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, nearly went bust when its former director resigned to pursue her writing career. ArtsLab helped the organization secure much-needed funding to carry it through. But Rabi’h Nahas, Mizna’s board director at the time, is even more appreciative of the guidance and experience of ArtsLab’s staff and educators.

In addition to the report and accompanying case studies, ArtsLab released a complementary video series on ArtsMidwest’s YouTube channel, including contributions from the studied organizations.

ArtsLab was founded in 1999 with grants from six funding partners, including the Bush Foundation. According to its website, the initiative aims to “support the acquisition of new skills, tools, and habits [that enable] navigation in a constantly changing environment” through “a highly participatory process.” It’s permanently staffed by Program Director Sharon Rodning Bash, Program Manager Angela Keeton, and Program Assistant Emily Anderson, and supported by a national group of educators and arts leaders.

 

Local musicians who value realistic, earthy sound quality have a local source for their equipment: Northeast Minneapolis-based Northeast Cable Company (NECC).

Founded in 2012, the company designs and handcrafts reference cables for instruments, microphones and amplifiers. Its wares can be used in live and studio settings. According to Jake Gilbertson, NECC’s operations manager and an engineer by training, the cables are designed for musicians who need “unique, durable, and flexible” cables that won’t wear out with regular use.

Unlike many larger companies, NECC focuses exclusively on these cables – it doesn’t manufacture accessories or other equipment. NECC takes a bespoke approach to its products, creating each order to customer specifications and executing a thorough inspection—“by a real human”—before shipment. Additionally, the XLR (microphone) cable is made to avoid tangling and the patch cable made rigid for stability.

Reliability is a key objective. Larger manufacturers take a quantity over quality approach to cable manufacturing, forcing musicians to go through cables faster and make needless replacement purchases. By outlasting their inferior counterparts, NECC’s cables significantly reduce a major expense for prolific musicians.

Even patch cables, which are notorious throughout the industry for their tendency to wear out, get this treatment. Gilbertson and his colleagues took the “time to figure out what would make these cables last forever,” according to NECC’s website, and developed “the most durable and reliable patch cable on the market.” Despite a higher manufacturing cost, musicians reap long-term benefits because they don’t have to buy replacements as frequently.

Sound quality is also essential. NECC’s cables are designed to minimize feedback and interference, creating a studio-quality listening experience even in sub-optimal settings. All of NECC’s products include features that make this possible, including double-Reussen shielding (which clarifies sound by allowing the cable to lie flat on the stage or floor) and a proprietary ULTRA-FLEX cord jacket that minimizes crimping when the cable is moved, stretched or wound back on itself. The cables’ contacts are gold, a superior material for the purpose.

NECC cables also aim to create a sound that’s as natural and “clean” as can be. “All of the properties of sound are tied up in each cable’s copper strands,” says Gilbertson. “By manipulating the individual strands, you can change how your instrument performs.” Whereas many cable companies sell sound- and even genre-specific cables—rock, acoustic, and so on—NECC’s products can be used by musicians of all stripes.  

And they are. Though still small, NECC already has a nascent, global dealer network, with outposts in Bend, Oregon; New York City; Brantford, Ontario; and even Japan. Up-and-coming musicians from Minnesota, Tennessee and California are regular customers. Twin Cities residents can find its stock cables at Twin Town Guitar in Uptown, American Guitar Boutique in Plymouth, and Lavonne Music in Savage, or order custom cables directly through the company’s website.

FOCI Minnesota Glass Center for the Arts based in Northeast Minneapolis, the state’s only nonprofit glassworking nonprofit, has launched an ambitious crowdfunding initiative to fund the purchase of a new “mobile hot shop.”

The project aims to raise $50,000 to fund the purchase and retrofitting of a vehicle that will carry a fully functional glass studio to schools, community centers and special events around the Twin Cities. Individual donations for this “mobile teaching facility on wheels” are tax deductible and can be made through FOCI’s Go Fund Me page.

In the past, FOCI has done mobile glassworking demonstrations at the St. Cloud State Lemonade Festival and the Swedish American Institute. According to Bryan Ethier, FOCI’s board chairman, the new shop would be a closed trailer with several benches to accommodate glassworkers and an open design to accommodate crowds of spectators.

The mobile hot shop would replace a smaller, less user-friendly mobile shop that contained a single furnace and “glory hole” for reheating glass. Outside spectators had to stand around it or use seating provided by the demonstration venue.

Ethier expects the initiative to enhance FOCI's visibility and reach. The organization’s old State Fair headquarters was demolished to make room for the Heritage Square project. FOCI’s now-defunct satellite shop at the Renaissance Festival formerly anchored its outstate presence.

“The only way we can provide demonstrations now is with a mobile studio,” says Ethier. FOCI’s 120 members, who are proficient in the art of glassworking, typically monopolize the company’s main location.

The new mobile shop will also solve accessibility challenges at FOCI’s headquarters. “We’re located on the basement level of a building with a non-functioning elevator,” says Ethier, making handicapped accessibility impossible.

The organization’s location in an industrial area of Northeast isn’t convenient for visitors without cars, so the shop will facilitate demonstrations in more transit-friendly locales. Eventually, FOCI would also visit suburban and rural schools whose students can’t afford to travel to Minneapolis.  

Michael Boyd, FOCI’s artistic director, started Foci as a private studio in 2004 and converted the organization to nonprofit status in 2010. Foci now provides educational services for students and glassworking novices of all ages. It also rents space and supplies to its member artists. In addition to the mobile hot shop, FOCI plans on opening a new studio space at the State Fairgrounds’ West End Market project.

As part of the redevelopment at the Schmidt Brewery site, Blue Ox Mini Golf is leveraging a $350,000 grant from ArtPlace America and the proceeds from an ongoing GiveMN campaign to fund its new course on West 7th Street. The course sits amid the site’s 260 residential units and multiple commercial spaces, all of which are part of a $120 million project that’s wrapping up early this summer.

The course “will add art each year in the form of new holes, amenities and supplemental programming,” according to the Blue Ox website. All will be designed and installed by local artists. The course’s permanent features are also artist-designed, creating “multiple points of entry for everyone from committed art-ophiles to the random passerby on the way to the bus stop.”

Blue Ox is taking a page from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which has constructed several art- and architecture-focused mini golf courses in the past 10 years. Like its St. Paul counterpart, the Walker’s Artist-Designed Mini Golf regularly incorporates new artist-commissioned holes, examples of which include a foosball area replete with garden gnomes and a “gopher hole vortex.”

Although Artist-Designed Mini Golf is only open during the warm season—May 22 through September 1 this year—its most popular holes enjoy permanent status amid the newcomers. Blue Ox, which will shut down each fall and reopen in late spring, will also recycle perennially popular holes.

The similarities between Blue Ox and the Walker’s course aren’t accidental: Blue Ox’s Christi Atkinson previously served as the Walker’s course director, and Jennifer Pennington, the initiative’s marketing director, is married to the designer of one of the Walker’s most engaging holes. The Walker’s current Sculpture Garden course’s $12 or $18 tickets (for 9 and 18 holes, respectively) include free admission to the museum. This has been a winning formula, with long waits for tee times on weekends and nice evenings.

The St. Paul course presents an additional design challenge thanks to strict historic preservation guidelines to which future artists will be beholden. Each hole has to incorporate themes or design elements that harken back to the brewery that once occupied the site.

Blue Ox doesn’t have a world-class art museum to keep golf-averse family members occupied, although the as-yet-unnamed restaurant tenant of the site’s soon-to-be-renovated keg house could keep visitors fed and watered.

But Blue Ox does double the number of artist-commissioned mini golf holes in the Twin Cities, providing visibility and recognition for installation artists in St. Paul. And as the entertainment centerpiece of the Schmidt redevelopment, the course promises to draw families and local residents who previously sped by the disused site on their way to downtown St. Paul or the airport.

 

Got big plans for April 26? Lu Lippold, the local producer for One Day on Earth’s “One Day in the Twin Cities,” has a suggestion: Grab whatever video recording device you can—cameraphones included—and record the audio-visual pulse of your neighborhood.

On the final Saturday of April, the Twin Cities and 10 other U.S. metros will host the fourth installment of One Day on Earth’s celebration of film, culture, and all-around placemaking. Founded by Los Angeles-based film producers Kyle Ruddick and Brandon Litman, One Day on Earth (ODOE) has a “goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period,” according to its website.

The first event took place on October 10, 2010 (10-10-10); 11-11-11 and 12-12-12 followed. ODOE skipped 2013, but its organizers weren’t about to wait until 2101 for their next shot. Instead, they selected a spring Saturday—both to accommodate amateur filmmakers with 9-to-5 jobs, and to give participants in the Northern Hemisphere longer daylight hours to work with—for a bigger, bolder, slightly revamped version of the event.

For the first time, participants get 10 questions to inspire their creativity and guide their storytelling, from “What is the best thing happening in your city today?” to “Who is your city not serving?” The goal is to create a multi-frame snapshot of “cities in progress,” one that doesn’t simply answer the who-what-where of the places it covers.

As One Day in the Twin Cities’ point person, Lippold supervises local filmmakers and pitched the project to dozens of partner organizations, including the Science Museum of Minnesota and Springboard for the Arts to visual media companies like Cinequipt and Vimeo. (The McKnight Foundation and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative are the largest local sponsors.)

The upside? “[The event] is a great way to shine a light on all the hard work that our nonprofit community does,” says Lippold.

Lippold also works with a handful of local ambassadors, some of whom enjoy national acclaim. These include noted cinematographer Jeff Stonehouse, veteran documentarian Matt Ehling, and community-focused filmmaker D.A. Bullock. They’ll be contributing their talents—and stature—to One Day in the Twin Cities’ promotion and execution.

One Day in the Twin Cities could be seen well beyond Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Along with their counterparts from other participating cities, local filmmakers may see their work incorporated into a condensed, three-part series that Litman and Lichtbau will market to PBS affiliates around the country. No word on whether TPT will air the special, but TPT Rewire has agreed to publicize the event in the coming weeks.

The real stars of One Day in the Twin Cities, though, are its filmmakers. Even if you’ve never filmed anything in your life, says Lippold, you can contribute meaningful work. Thanks to an interactive map feature on ODOE’s main site, the work will visible to anyone who visits.

“If I were just starting out in video, I would see this as a huge opportunity,” says Lippold. Since all contributions are credited by name and location, each participant “instantly becomes a documentary filmmaker,” she adds.

Source: Lu Lippold
Writer: Brian Martucci

On April 5, the West Bank Business Association (WBBA) will host a full day of creative merrymaking for artists, business owners, and arts enthusiasts on the West Bank. The West Bank Arts Foundry (WBAF), as the event is known, aims to connect Twin Cities artists with local business owners and “create more opportunities for artistic endeavors on the West Bank,” according to its website.

The neighborhood has long been known as a hotbed of creativity, but West Bank Business Association director Jamie Schumacher sees an opportunity to double down. “The arts are so important to the West Bank’s history…and part of what makes us a great destination district,” she says. “I want to do everything I can to support the creative activity we have and help build more.”

The WBBA already supports local creative events like the West Bank Music Festival, but the district lacks an arts advocacy organization. As an advocate for all local businesses, including many creative enterprises, the WBBA is a natural catalyst to help grow the West Bank’s arts scene. Schumacher cites a glaring need to “recognize and help more of our musicians and artists” and connect them with “businesses [that] want to be more arts-friendly.”

Ultimately, the goal of the West Bank Arts Foundry—hopefully an ongoing one, if WBAF becomes an annual ritual—is to forge, and then build on, partnerships between local property owners and artists. With so many “great minds coming together to collaborate” at WBAF, says Schumacher, “I’m interested in seeing what creative solutions [can be found to solve] some of our area’s issues.”

Owners of temporarily vacant buildings might work with local muralists to keep their properties lively before new tenants move in, for instance. Installation artists might use their talents to help West Bank visitors explore or navigate the neighborhood.

Schumacher is well-suited to oversee WBAF. As an employee of Peace Coffee—and, later, as owner of Altered Esthetics, a nonprofit art studio—she learned the ins and outs of the nonprofit sector. Her tenure as boss of the WBBA, meanwhile, has reinforced the placemaking power of creative enterprise. “[The] arts help to make communities unique, vibrant, livable, and destination worthy,” she says. “The West Bank is a pretty fantastic example of that.”

WBAF will feature 15 (and counting) “breakout sessions.” Many—Budgeting & Accounting for Artists, Marketing for Artists & Events—offer practical advice for working artists. Others, like Underground Art and the Vibrant History of the West Bank/Rekindling the Guerrilla Art Spirit, are meant to be “inspirational and collaborative,” according to Schumacher. WBAF will also feature appearances from prominent artists, including Joan Vorderbruggen (recently featured in The Line), who will lead a discussion of street and storefront art called Popping Up in the West Bank.

“It’s going to be a fun day,” says Schumacher, “and a solid opportunity to increase art and creative activity on the West Bank, as well as be a good networking opportunity for artists and businesses.”

Source: Jamie Schumacher
Writer: Brian Martucci

Even in an increasingly interconnected world, few events or movements are truly global in scope. Global Water Dances (GWD), a biannual event aimed at raising awareness of water issues in various parts of the world, is among the precious few. GWD is a complex effort governed by a steering committee and facilitated by thousands of dancers and choreographers. But it owes its existence, in large part, to the efforts of one woman: Marylee Hardenbergh, a Minneapolis choreographer and Artist-in-Residence at Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education in Saint Paul.

At 1:30 p.m., on March 22 (the United Nations’ World Water Day), the Center will host a film screening to benefit GWD. The event will include short films about GWD and presentations by local water activists from H2O for Life, Friends of the Mississippi River, the National Park Service, and other organizations.

Global Water Dances grew out of Hardenbergh’s “One River Mississippi” project, a simultaneous, six-city dance event that was “the world’s largest site-specific performance,” according to the website for the 2006 event. The project was just one of many that Hardenbergh has overseen as Artistic Director of Global Site Performance, a 501c3 nonprofit.

In 2008, Hardenbergh attended a gathering of Laban Movement Analysts in Europe and showed a documentary about the event. The attendees were floored by the event’s scope, the artistic freedom of performers at individual sites (in New Orleans, for example, one of the performances incorporated local jazz music), and its unabashed advocacy of river-related environmental issues. Many wanted to participate or contribute somehow, but most lived nowhere near the Mississippi. The solution was an international dance event focused on general water issues: Global Water Dances.

Given the scale of the undertaking, the first GWD wasn’t held until June of 2011. In total, 60 sites—on all six populated continents—participated. Part of the appeal, Hardenbergh says, was the fact that “the event can be easily replicated anywhere, using local resources.”

The first GWD was a “rolling” event, scheduled for 5 p.m. local time at each site. The timing was meant to be convenient; folks in North America didn’t want to get up in the wee hours for a truly simultaneous performance. But it was an inconvenience for the Australian contingent, which struggled on through twilight conditions (it was close to the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, after all). Hardenbergh hopes to avoid the daylight issue by scheduling the next performance for 2 p.m. on June 15, 2015.

Hardenbergh and the other organizers, which are based in Canada, Germany, Colombia, and the United States, hope to forge official partnerships with local, national, and maybe international water advocacy organizations to a greater degree than the previous two events. While the event is a high-profile, ready-made means of drawing attention to pressing environmental problems, says Hardenbergh, “the nice thing about a dance is that it’s not an overtly political expression.”

Source: Marylee Hardenbergh
Writer: Brian Martucci

It’s not quite “Pinterest for professionals” or “Facebook for freelancers.” But CreativeMinneapolis.com, developed by Mark Sandau of the Minneapolis design firm Sandau Creative in the North Loop, is an interactive, user-curated, free online community for designers, illustrators, writers, and other artists who want to get their work noticed.

After kicking the idea around for several months, Sandau soft-launched the site in early February. He invited his close friends and colleagues to make submissions and approvals. He followed up with a proper kick-off at the end of February.

According to the website, Creative Minneapolis’ member-submitted, member-approved content is “about the creative work, people, and events in and around Minneapolis.” After a trial period, during which creatives can submit their own work but can’t approve other members’ submissions, users gain “editing” privileges that give them a say over the approval and placement of the site’s content. By “hyping” chosen posts, editors can push compelling work to the “top” of niche-specific silos like “advertising,” “copywriting,” “photography,” and “digital.”

“This platform isn’t revolutionary,” Sandau says. “It’s evolutionary, an interesting idea.” The fact that users can shape submitted content—and, thus the very appearance and nature of the site—is a powerful proposition.

Sandau’s worked in the industry for nearly two decades. Prior to founding Sandau Creative 10 years ago, he worked several entry-level jobs. He then landed at Fallon for a seven-year stint. He understands how tough it is for rank-and-file creatives—especially freelancers, who often toil around the margins of the media and advertising industries—to get their work noticed by the right people.

Even smaller agencies like Sandau’s, unless they have a “sexy brand” under their belts, might not have the resources to devote to a tradeshow exhibit or promotional campaign. Creative Minneapolis aims to be a highly visible virtual portfolio for these folks.

Current focus notwithstanding, there’s nothing stopping Creative Minneapolis from morphing into something bigger or broader. In the future, Sandau hypothesizes, a close-knit group of gearheads could use the site to share pictures, videos, or animations of modified cars or motorcycles, and the most interesting of the bunch would bubble to the top alongside portfolio pieces from local graphic designers. 

“Done right,” he says, “Creative Minneapolis has the potential to mirror the audience that’s watching and contributing.”

For now, Sandau is content to see where this all leads. He has a business to run, after all, and doesn’t have unlimited time to promote the site. That’s okay, he says. “At the end of the day, it’s just fun to see other people’s work.”

Source: Mark Sandau
Writer: Brian Martucci