Kevin D. Hendricks

Caponi Art Park

Last weekend I went to Caponi Art Park in Eagan, Minn., to check out the art. If you’re not familiar with it (I wasn’t), artist Anthony Caponi bought a chunk of land in the 1950s and build his home and art studio there. He started turning into his own personal art park and eventually secured a deal with the city and county to turn it into an official art park (MPR and Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine can summarize it better if you like).

It’s basically as far as you can get from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden’s manicured lawns and squared-off bushes without just dropping sculptures into the woods. Caponi has been shaping the land for 50 years, putting in paths, walls and even a ‘theater in the woods.’ And he also dropped sculptures all over the place, at least two dozen of them. The result is that you’re walking along the path and suddenly come upon a sculpture. Or you’re scratching your head and wondering whether or not that’s art. (Side Note: It reminds me of a friend’s farm in Frederick, Wis., where an artist family member installed sculpture. The tour consisted of “this is art,” / “this is old farm equipment,” and without the helpful guide you wouldn’t know the difference.) Parts of the park are like traipsing through the woods, while other parts feel like you’ve stumbled into the Shire.

Some of the especially cool artwork includes Struggle of the Elements, Snake, Monument to a Lumberjack and Walk in Outer Space.

Bottom line: It’s a cool park to visit (check out my set of pics).

Death in Many Forms: Cyclones and Cancer

Last week Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar (aka Burma) and officially killed at least 22,980 people with another 42,000 missing, 1 million homeless and unofficial estimates expect the death toll to top 100,000. Those kind of numbers, like the 2004 Southeast Asia Tsunami, are staggering. In contrast, 2005’s Hurricane Katrina was a stronger storm than Nargis yet only killed 1,836 people (still a staggering number). I can’t imagine the reality of that kind of widespread death.

Today a wife and her three children from my church are burying their 42-year-old husband and father after a 3-year battle with cancer. This death, though expected and small in number, is equally as staggering.

Death sucks.

My only comfort is that death is not the last word.

And I mean that in the sense that I believe in a life after death, and in the sense that our response to death—how we live our lives in the aftermath, whether it’s the death of a lone man or multiplied thousands—says so much more about us than death ever could.

Gas Prices Too High? Slow Down

It’s a simple idea that’s finally getting some attention. Slow down and you’ll get better fuel economy, which means less pain at the pump. I talked about it before, but it’s good to see other folks trying the same thing:

• Con-Way Freight of Ann Arbor, Mich., lowered the top speed of their 8,400 trucks from 65 to 62 mph and they’re saving $13.3 million and only adding 20-30 minutes to their shipments.
• “I’m saving between $100 and $200 a week by cutting back from 72-73 mph to 60-65 mph,” said Dennis Sheridan, who owns an 18-wheeler and hauls freight on a contract basis throughout the Northeast.

Perhaps instead of pitching a gas tax holiday, certain candidates should be encouraging us to slow down.

What Are We Getting Into?

At a Cinco de Mayo part last weekend I talked to a couple who are the unofficial grandparents of a child adopted from Ethiopia. The child has a 13-year-old brother still in Ethiopia who the parents and working on adopting as well. When friends ask the mom if she knows what she’s getting into, she responds with, “No, I don’t know what I’m getting into. But I know it’s the right thing to get into.”

While that comment rings especially true with adoption, I think it’s often true in a broader sense. How can we know what we’re getting into half the time? But if we’re getting into the right stuff, it doesn’t matter.

How Confident Are You About Your Business Direction?

Those clever, creative and confident folks at Personality™ have put together a Confidence Evaluation that can help you, well, evaluate the confidence of your business or organization. It’s really about figuring out if your organization knows itself well enough to communicate effectively.

It’s a quick little eight-question PDF, and if you have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader you can fill in your answers on the PDF, submit your info and get a free download of another PDF that thoroughly explains what you should do now that you know how confident (or not) your organization is.

It’s a pretty slick little tool and can help you begin to ask the right questions when it comes to marketing and communication. Check it out. Not only do I recommend it, but I also helped edit it (that’s my way of giving you the full disclosure).

Ignore Those ‘Elitist’ Experts

The Democratic primary campaign is getting kind of silly. When asked to defend her plan for a summer long gas tax holiday (which will save you $28) by naming a credible economist who think it’s a good idea, Hillary Clinton said: “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

So getting the opinion of experts is somehow a bad idea?

She went on to explain, “We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.” Oh, so they’re elitist experts. Reminds me of a Jon Stewart bit from the Daily Show about how we should want the very elite running the country (”If you don’t think you’re better than us, then what the &#@% are you doing?!”). I can understand Clinton’s concern that we do what’s best for the vast majority of Americans, but I don’t think that means dismissing expert advice and accusing them of being elitist. That’s not populist, that’s paranoid. Or perhaps political.

The only thing that makes this gas tax debate more interesting is that Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain agree on it.

Explaining Food Riots in Haiti

Interesting (and lengthy) article explaining the causes and realities of the food riots in Haiti:

“Haiti doesn’t suffer from a lack of food because there’s no food, no! It is because the rich don’t understand the poor.” -Sylvie St. Fleur

A lot of it comes down to inequalities between the rich and poor, as well as big time mismanagement and corruption (within Haiti and without—U.S. aid practices share some of the blame).

Simple Living: Artwork for Darfur

I love this painfully poignant Darfur poster from Nadia Plesner:

“My illustration Simple Living is an idea inspired by the media’s constant cover of completely meaningless things. My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs apparantly is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.”

She’s selling posters and T-shirts with the image trying to raise money and awareness for the plight in Darfur. She’s also getting sued by Louis Vuitton for using their product in her artwork.

It’s like many things I’ve come across recently that painfully remind me how wealthy I am and how easy I have it. And it demands an answer.

If You Sponsor a Kid, Write to Them

Compassion International booster Shaun Groves recently took a trip to the Dominican Republic and shared a story about an 11-year-old sponsored child named Daniel:

The conversation eventually turned to his sponsor.  Daniel said his sponsor is a man named Benny who has written him once in the last four years.  “Do you write Benny?” I asked.  “All the time,” he said.

After hearing about all the care Benny’s $32 a month provides for Daniel—education, nutrition, friendships, spiritual mentoring, medicine—I asked Daniel, “If Benny were here, what would you tell him?” I expected some variation on “thank you.” Instead, Daniel looked into our camera and said, “Write to me, please.” And that’s all.

Ouch.

I can sympathize with Benny. It’s hard to find time to sit down and write a letter, never mind the complicated issues involved in corresponding with a child in a foreign country who you’re supporting. I’ve talked about that difficulty before. But I think the only solution is to suck it up and do it. It’s going to be hard and awkward to forge a relationship, but that’s the only way to do it.

So if you do sponsor a child, I encourage you to drop them a line. I think building that relationship is a way to open your heart and start to do more than just send your $32 a month. Sending that monthly amount is huge, but we’re in trouble if we think that’s enough. Compassion International even has an online form you can use to send them a note and make it easier.

City Pages’ Best of the Twin Cities 2008

The City Pages recently released their Best of the Twin Cities list for 2008. I’m always eager to see who made the cut, but as I get into it I’m usually disappointed. It seems like you have to be way too hip to get all the jokes and references and be way too social (and rich) to actually experience all the best of’s.

Though they do offer a Google map, which is pretty cool (and lets you visually see the hipness centered around Minneapolis).