Jones:
From the Neighborhood to the World
The story behind the lauded St. Paul, Minnesota, artist’s passion to understand community, politics, nature—and food BY CAMILLE LEFEVRE WHEN 2,000 PEOPLE TOOK THEIR SEATS at the half-mile-long table down Victoria Street in St.
Paul on September 14, 2014, the occasion was CREATE: The Community Meal, a project initiated by St. Paul artist Seitu Jones. For two years, Jones knocked on doors in the Frogtown neighborhood around Victoria Street, getting his neighbors’ approval to close the street for the event and distributing tickets for the meal. He organized listening tours that engaged St. Paul residents in conversations about their food traditions, attitudes, rituals, and access. He assembled an army of volunteers, chefs, farmers, artists, and residents to participate. He received a Joyce Award for CREATE and found a producing partner in Public Art Saint Paul. He immersed himself in issues around food production, business, and regulations, as well as small-scale farming. None of this was new to him. A self-described “real-deal city boy” and fourth-generation Minnesotan (he grew up in South Minneapolis), Jones is best known as an artist who has created more than 30 large-scale public art works. But Jones was “born into a family that treasured being outdoors,” he says. He studied plants—an aunt nicknamed him “Little George Washington Carver.”
Photo by Soyini Guyton, courtesy the artist.
PUBLIC ART REVIEW | VOL. 29 | ISSUE 57 | FORECASTPUBLICART.ORG
60
Seitu
