My little side project, Start Seeing Art, made it on the Twin Cities blog MNSpeak today. I’m pretty excited about the exposure. And a little frightened–though so far no one has mocked the rudimentary design, and for that I’m thankful.
Category Archives: Art
Busy Week at Start Seeing Art
Last week I was all excited to announce that Start Seeing Art had mapped 100 works of public art across the Twin Cities (if ‘across’ means primarily in St. Paul). But in the past week alone we’ve added 25 more works of art. Along the way we’ve identified some previously unknown artwork, explored local history and started branching out into Minneapolis (including work by John Grider, one of City Pages 2007 Artists of the Year).
Start Seeing Art Hits 100
My little side project, Start Seeing Art–which maps and identifies public art in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis–hit 100 yesterday. The site has now mapped 100 pieces of public artwork.
It’s been a fun little project. I’ve really enjoyed discovering local art and finding some of our own local artists. Folks like Alvin Carter, Seitu Jones, Craig David, Ta-coumba Aiken, Marilyn Lindstrom and others–their work is all over the Twin Cities. I think Craig David pretty much owns St. Paul’s West Side (the West Side Citizen’s Organization named him “West Sider of the Year”). I’ve mapped nine of his works, seven of which are on the West Side. And I know of a few others I haven’t covered yet.
It’s also painfully clear that I have a long way to go. I’ve focused on St. Paul because it’s closer and I know it better, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of public art in Minneapolis. And they’ve probably got a lot more public art than St. Paul.
Monkey Outta Nowhere Launches Local Art Site
About a week ago Monkey Outta Nowhere launched its first independent project, a local art site called Start Seeing Art. The site is all about finding and identifying public art in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, so it can be enjoyed and appreciated.
Too often I’ve either not known a work of art existed in my neighborhood and missed out on it entirely, or I’ve known about the work but I can’t find any information about the artist or the name of the work. So the site is an attempt to find that local artwork, identify it and chart it using a Google Maps mashup so others can more easily find and enjoy it. You can look at the map and see all the works of art across the Twin Cities.
So far Start Seeing Art is in the very early phases (only 11 pieces of art so far) and isn’t much to look at. I’m focusing on content and the technical side before I worry too much about design. In general, I’m trying to follow 37Signal’s Getting Real approach and building Start Seeing Art quickly and cheaply. I’d rather get the content out there and get it working now, even if it doesn’t look so hot, rather than wait six months for a beautiful backend system that costs thousands of dollars (which I don’t have).
We’ll see where it goes and if it turns into a self-supporting media empire. If you know of anyone interested in advertising or sponsorship, please contact me.
Goodwill Junk Art
This bird sits on University Avenue in St. Paul, beckoning pedestrians from the street up through the parking lot to a Goodwill store. It’s called “Red Alert” and it’s by Al Wadzinski.
It just seems right–a sculpture made of junk in front on a second-hand store.
Artsy Twin Cities Photo Group on Flickr
I gave in and started the Artsy Twin Cities photo group on Flickr today, a group for public art in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. I say ‘gave in’ because I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while and finally decided to just do it today. I’ve been surprised that nobody had started a group like this before (there’s a group graffiti and groups for local art museums, but nothing for art across the Twin Cities, and specifically public art).
There’s just so much great public art in the Twin Cities and it’s so easy to completely ignore it. It’s also not always easy to find out what each piece is called and who the artist is. Sometimes you can find out fairly easily online, but not always. I’m hopeful that the group will help people stop and enjoy art.
Add this to my Como Park group and I’ve got a little local theme going. We’ll see how long I last before launching my Twin Cities Architecture group (OK, I lasted about five hours. But I blame the St. Paul Real Estate blog.)
The Scary Pumpkin Thing
I made this oddly goofy and somewhat frightening pumpkin sculpture thing in second or third grade. You can open the top and put a tea light candle in for an especially eerie effect.
The very fact that I’ve kept it this long says something about it. I’m not sure what that is though.
Happy Halloween.
North High Bridge Park
Earlier this summer Lexi and I stopped to check out North High Bridge Park (see the pictures). It’s a tiny little park perched on the bluffs above the Mississippi River and next to the Smith Avenue High Bridge. It has an odd collection of sculpture, including a giant green chair by Joel Sisson and a vaguely prehistoric creature made of out of pieces of rock by Zoran Mojsilov.
We drive by it all the time and I thought it’d be fun to check it out. Lexi, of course, enjoyed the uneven surfaces. I enjoyed the art and the view. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something about art in parks that I find especially appealing. Parks in and of themselves are great, but erecting some sculpture suddenly gives a park that extra touch of history and culture. The North High Bridge Park is certainly no Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, but it is an intriguing little spot.
Art for Orphans
I’ve been big on causes lately, and I really love this one: The Memory Project. High school art students paint portraits of orphans and then the orphans get to keep the painting. Considering that orphans don’t have parents taking thousands of snapshots (like me) or very many possessions of their own, having a portrait of themselves would be huge.
Ben Schumaker of Madison [Wis.] started the project in 2004 after spending time at an orphanage in Guatemala. He felt overwhelmed by the poverty around him and helpless because he wasn’t in a financial situation to do much about it.
“Then a Guatemalan man who had grown up in an orphanage stopped by and told me how much he wished he had something to help him remember his earliest years,” Schumaker said. “He didn’t have any photographs of himself as a child or any parents to tell him what he was like. I’ve always enjoyed making portraits of people, so the idea came naturally.” (Duluth News Tribune)
I love the simplicity of the project, yet it has a profound impact. Plus it was started out of frustration and having no apparent way to help–that’s how we can deal with consumerism.
It also reminds me of Dale Johnson’s Frogtown King CDC playground mural (which has since been torn down). And the synergy is nice–I covered this for both Foursquare NextGen Summit ’07 and Personality.
Etsy.com, Black Apple and Raveling
I must be on an art kick. Today I discovered Etsy.com, a sort of online store/eBay for the handmade hipster crowd. The stuff on there is gorgeous and all of it handmade. I’ve especially enjoyed the Black Apple store, though that’s probably because the artist, Emily, has her own blog. To the left is her Anais print, which is still available for $13. I like the way it’s printed on a fabric. It reminds me of this painting done on an old book cover, which is just a cool concept.
Seth Godin talked about Emily, how she just graduated with an art degree and has her own blog and MySpace profile and Godin guesses she’s made more than $20,000. [Every time a dollar amount comes out people start to pay attention, though you also have to realize she’s sold more than 800 items, only two of which were over $100 (neither over $200) and only a small percentage over $50), and has to make most of them herself (though she also has a fair number of prints and the like that I assume she has to order from somewhere). She’s probably made a decent amount of money, but she’s also a talented artist and obviously a hard worker.] Godin’s point was that the Internet is raveling, which I think he intends to mean that it’s all coming apart–the giant structures that make famous people famous and keep unknown people lik Emily unkown. Though Godin says raveling means the same thing as unraveling, I read it to mean to opposite–that things are coming together for unknown people like Emily. How many artists could do what she’s doing 20 years ago?