On Saturday I posted the Downtown St. Paul Art Map on Start Seeing Art. It’s a free, printable, 7-page PDF map that features outdoor sculptures and murals in the downtown area.
I’m intentionally putting it out just before the Republican National Convention comes to town. Hopefully it will draw some attention to some of the amazing public artwork we have in the Twin Cities. The map itself isn’t very pretty (I’m no designer, and I didn’t even try to be), but it does include 85 works of art and pictures of each one (OK, 84 pictures. One sculpture is supposed to be placed any day now and I don’t have a picture of it).
I’m also somewhat loosely defining “downtown” St. Paul. I included the State Capitol because it’s just across I-94 from downtown and has about 16 works of art in the immediate area. How can you leave that out? And since I was including the capitol, I also included Western Sculpture Park, which is another treasure trove of art. I drew the line at the Bethesda Therapeutic Sculpture Garden (a few blocks north of the capitol) and works of art on the other side of the Mississippi River, both of which are worth checking out, but you can’t include everything in a print map. I’m hoping the map will entice people to check out more art on Start Seeing Art.
I love the map. Wish I had a chance to use it. Maybe next time I’m in town.
But perhaps RNC delegates aren’t really the demographic most likely to have an interest in public art. In fact, it’s probably the group most likely to seek an end to the public financing of art. Perhaps you’re making a late bid to sway the 2008 platform? (Keyword searching their 2004 platform’s references to “art” or “arts” or the “NEA” turned up only “the art of analyzing problems.” Then again, those keywords were absent from the Democrats’ platform, too.)
In all honesty, I’m not really expecting RNC delegates to be that excited about public art. Though there are a lot more than RNC delegates coming to town (15,000 journalists, among others).
More than anything I’m trying to capitalize on the fact that downtown St. Paul is getting a lot of attention because of the RNC.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if delegates do check out some art. You can’t venture far in downtown St. Paul without running into some art.