Free • Spring 2019
Flipside: NEMAA Member Directory & Art-A-Whirl® 2019 Guide
“Creativity takes courage” –Henri Matisse The Minneapolis attorneys of Ballard Spahr are proud to support Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association and its 24th annual Art-A-Whirl. Your work makes Minneapolis more vibrant for all of us.
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The Work of Art
5
Letter from the Editor
18
Q&A: What is your job as an artist?
22
Leaders of the New School: Studio 400
Russ White
6
In Studio With Genie Castro Kate Drakulic
11
Gabby Coll
On Fragility & The Work We Do Together
Flip NEMAA Member Directory & Art-A-Whirl® 2019 Guide
Carl Atiya Swanson
Editor In Chief Russ White Photography* Sarah White, fotosforbarcelona.com Ad Sales Jenn Hisle & Anna Becker Letters to the editor: instudiomag@nemaa.org In Studio is published by the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association. Issue 3, May 2019, printed by Corporate Graphics, North Mankato, MN. Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of NEMAA, its Board, its members, or its sponsors. In Studio is made possible by the generous support of NEMAA’s members, donors, and sponsors, who are listed in full on page 3 of the Art-A-Whirl® Guide on the flipside. *Except where noted.
Cover: Kim Heidkamp, Unguarded (detail), archival paper on wood, 27 x 20”, 2019 Opposite: Vincent DeZutti, Gondola, digital photograph, 2018.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou Here’s to this community’s most valuable renewable resource: your infinite supply of brilliant new ideas. Keep creating. Keep sharing. And keep conjuring up fresh ideas, fueled by new experiences. We’re here to help. With thought-provoking exhibitions. Artist Talks. Concerts. Even a book club for artists and the people who love them. There’s no limit to your creativity. Let us play a part in your process.
Hopkins Center for the Arts 1111 Mainstreet • Hopkins, MN 55343 hopkinsartscenter.com
Missing the point?
We can help with that.
1684 Grand Ave. Saint Paul, MN 55105 2 blocks west of Snelling Ave.
651-698-6431 wetpaintart.com
Letter from the Editor Of the four words that make up NEMAA, you might think “Association” is the least important. The other three are so specific, after all. “Northeast Minneapolis” establishes where we are — and, by extension, who. Northeast is an officially designated Arts District (named number one in the country, no less), but it’s also a scrappy neighborhood with decades of history on every street, from the factory-turned-studio buildings to the generations of residents from all corners of the globe. Northeast is home to amazing restaurants, breweries, distilleries, and businesses of all varieties.
So perhaps “Association” seems like a bit of an afterthought, just a vague, multisyllabic word tacked on at the end to make ourselves sound official. But in fact it may be the most important. It’s our how.
I think NEMAA’s strength — outside of coordinating events like Art-A-Whirl and Wintertide — is as connective tissue, a resource between artists and their neighbors, their city officials, and their fellow businesses (including the breweries, many of whom are hosting artists during the festivities this year). And that’s what we want to bolster with In Studio: But at the heart of both NEMAA and Northeast are connecting artists to each other and opening our the “Arts.” This word is our imperative, our mission. doors to the rest of Minneapolis and the world. It is both our what and our why. Artists help a society reflect and imagine itself. They are vitally important not This issue features stories about artists actively only to the soul of a place but, as shown by the 2018 fostering growth in this community, from Genie Castro Creative Index, to its economy as well. Fine artists, providing sales and exhibition opportunities for her photographers, musicians, writers, and graphic de- fellow artists to Leslie Barlow and Public Functionary signers — some of whom are NEMAA members — are subsidizing studio space for emerging artists. It takes five of the top six creative occupations in Minneapolis, a lot of work to maintain not only a career in the arts helping to drive the creative industry’s nearly five but a community as well. In my experience, the two go billion dollars in sales in 2016 (9.2 times that of the hand in hand. sports sector; just sayin’).* — Russ White
*Many thanks to Gülgün Kayim & Dr. Brenda Kayzar (former NEMAA board chair and interim Executive Director) for this important research. Mural by Mike Davis & Chank Diesel, 2014, at Central & Lowry. Photo by Russ White.
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with Genie Castro by Kate Drakulic • Photos by Sarah White
Printmaker, curator, gallerist, and arts organizer Genie Castro is making a name for herself all while helping other artists do the same, shining a brilliant light on her community of artists in the Twin Cities and beyond. 6 In Studio Spring 2019
O
n a blizzardy Friday afternoon in the North Loop, the fourth-floor elevator door of The Coven opened with a Ding!, alerting members to a new arrival. Heads turned in anticipation as Genie Castro emerged, brushing the snow from her cheetah print jacket and exiting the elevator with a big smile. A chorus of Hi, Genie!’s floated through the air while she settled in, the room visibly brightening. It was as if the sun made a point to greet her as well. She returned the hellos and took a seat on a sleek grey couch beside me.
Genie the Artist Castro’s recent work is as explosively colorful as she is — large monotype prints, rich and vibrant and exquisitely detailed. I can’t help but smile when I imagine the art and artist, complimenting each other to a T, both radiating honest and uplifting energy. But, she tells me, her earlier work was not always as playful as it is today.
“I have some key pieces I did when I was going through some transitions that were hard and very difficult, and those pieces are kind of exciting and near to my heart,” Castro says. “I recognize them for the time that I was An artist herself, Castro brings the definition of com- going through in that period of my life.” munity to life. A NEMAA member for the past four years, her schedule is filled to the brim with collabo- With a background in fashion and print design, she prirations, group shows, and curatorial appointments, marily silk-screened and experimented with fabricahelping provide visibility and professional opportu- tion and manipulation of old advertisements. Her work nities to other artists throughout the Twin Cities and took on a more somber sentiment during this time. It beyond. She is active in the Minnetonka, Hopkins, and wasn’t until Castro began exploring monotypes that Hudson Centers for the Arts, as well as at the North her work transformed, truly embodying the idea of Star Printmakers Co-op at the Casket Arts Building. “play.” She is a mother, an artist, and a curator who has made a name for herself pioneering a number of successful, “I see artwork too, and the artwork I have done, as recurring art initiatives — including the annual Willow kind of replicating what enfolds in our lives,” Castro exRiver Elementary Music & Art Show and the Cream of plains. “Challenges and triumphs.” the Crop Artists Gallery at the State Fair. And to top it all After the breakthrough of a new artistic process, Casoff? She’s a really nice person, too. tro very much looks forward to her studio time through “I think I like to see other people succeed in what Open Edition, a printmaking seminar within MCAD’s they’re passionate about, and I like to make things look Continuing Education Program. A renewed and joyous beautiful,” Castro says. “I like the sense of community that’s around that.” Above: Castro’s ink palette during a studio session making monoprints. Opposite: The artist with her work.
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experience, she has returned after a short hiatus and is back for good. I ask her how it feels and, absolutely beaming, she responds, “It’s exhilarating.” It’s impossible not to return her smile; that’s how you know she means it.
Genie the Curator & Community Concierge A large part of Castro’s community engagement stems from her role as concierge at Betty Danger’s Country Club in Northeast, a place she initially assumed she would only be waitressing. Castro began to explore her curatorial and collaborative inklings at Betty’s, spearheading the restaurant in joining Art-A-Whirl and eventually co-creating the annual Betty’s Bizarre Bazaar. Curation, she says, has provided her much liberation and visual gratification, and has launched Castro into a persisting pattern of collaborating with local artists. “I think artists and creative people gravitate to each other, and it just kind of evolves,” she says. “NEMAA and the artist tour and Art-A-Whirl, it’s the biggest open art studio event in the country. It’s so phenomenal, and I think to be involved in that is inspiring and infectious.” It is hard to imagine anyone doing all that Castro does, especially with such an intoxicating demonstration of joy and a whole-hearted, irrefutable passion. Balancing it all has its difficulties, she admits. “It’s a challenge when sometimes it doesn’t always seem like it’s working out. But to be positive and to affirm that it really is, then all these doors open.” And there are many doors, all of which seem to be connected by Castro’s mission of curation and community. By curating her perspective, she transformed and enhanced her own artistic practice, closely aligning the work with her identity and intentions. In curating space and actively recruiting artists to exhibit and sell their work, she leaves her mark in curating a community.
Top: Untitled, oil ink monoprint, 41 x 22”, 2018. Bottom: Castro and her son August at The Cream of the Crop booth Castro runs at the State Fair every year. Photos courtesy of the artist.
8 In Studio Spring 2019
“I didn’t know how spectacular it really was until I was thrown into it,” Castro says. “Until I explored the career of being an artist in Minneapolis and embraced it.” See more of the artist’s work at geniecastro.com.
Artists are small businesses unto themselves, but their success, like any business, is never guaranteed. As arts organizations throughout the Twin Cities weather difficult times, we ask the question: What does it take to maintain a career, an organization, and a community in the arts?
ON FRAGILITY & The Work We Do Together by Carl Atiya Swanson, Associate Director of Springboard for the Arts
Thank you. Thank you for being an artist. Thank you for making your work. Thank you for choosing this life which can be hard. And hard to explain.
reading. The particulars of those stories have resonances for both personal careers and organizational futures, so let us step back, take a breath, and ask what’s next.
Compared to what?
Those are the first words of Andrew Simonet’s lovely, practical meditation Making Your Life as an Artist, and it seemed an appropriate place to start this train of thought. In this seemingly fragile moment for so many of our arts organizations, it also feels important to point out that being an artist is something one carries on as organizations come and go. As Simonet shares from his own life, it is not easy, and it takes time, luck, and nonarts jobs. Despite advantages of state and philanthropic funding in Minnesota, being an artist as a career is difficult, so thank you.
It is tempting in this moment to throw up our hands and assign a narrative that ties all these organizations together — it’s all boards/funders/real estate’s fault! — but the reality is more nuanced than that. The life and lifecycles of artists and arts organizations have historically been marked by precarity because our arts labor and the value we produce through creative and cultural work is poorly valued as a commodity in our society. Any one of us can list venues, galleries, and theaters that have shaped our scene but come and gone, from New French Café to Speedboat Gallery, from Art of This It is hard to be an artist, and it is hard to run arts orga- to Bedlam Theatre. nizations. We are here in this moment with a weary litany of names of cultural organizations that have taken That precarity is not unique to our life as artists or to a beating. Intermedia Arts, the Soap Factory, Red Eye our arts organizations. Kate Barr, President & CEO of Theater, Zenon Dance, Patrick’s Cabaret, In the Heart Propel Nonprofits points out that if the narrative of our of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, Art Shanties, current situation is that everything is fragile, she asks, and NEMAA itself have all featured in the past year in “The question is, ‘Compared to what?’ We have a tenstories of arts organizations undergoing profound, dency with small arts organizations to compare to largsometimes cataclysmic change. er arts organizations, and that’s the wrong comparison.” Instead of comparing to larger arts organizations There has already been beautiful and insightful writing with broad and established donor bases and earned about the challenges of running an arts organization revenue streams, the more apt comparison is to small from this list: Executive Artistic Director Scott Artley’s business startups, Barr argues. essay “The Final Act” on Howlround.com about sunsetting Patrick’s Cabaret, and Heart of the Beast Exec- Life in small business is risky. Citing the Bureau of Labor utive Director Corrie Zoll’s “Challenges of our Field” Statistics, the Small Business Administration notes, blog post that accompanied their January announce- “About two-thirds of businesses with employees surment of scaling back operations and seeking partners vive at least 2 years and about half survive at least 5 to co-produce the May Day Festival are both well worth years.” That still approaches zero over time, and is inPhotos above and at left by Russ White with assistance from Trina Uttley
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12 In Studio Spring 2019
dicative of the churn and grind in small business. When revenues drop as a small business owner, you pay yourself last. In response to market demand, restaurants often change menus, concepts, and hours, while stores stock specific items they know will sell. In this sense, small businesses may have more flexibility and opportunity to build a market and audience than many art-driven enterprises, where personal or group aesthetics or commitment to a method or technique drive our work. A Butoh dance group, for instance, will not become a commercial photography studio because it is more profitable. But it’s no secret that arts business models are fractured and limited. Ticket and arts sales alone do not cover the real costs of operating spaces and paying living wages. Grants are unpredictable. Dedication to a single discipline or practice is no guarantee of an audience. As individual artists we often have to rely on other jobs to make ends meet, and for our organizations this means we have to be compelled to seek partners in space and operations to support our work. More broadly in our culture, we are in the midst of conversations about dignity decoupled from labor and how nations support their populations in the face of automation, globalization, and widening wage gaps. Artists need to embrace those conversations and advocate within them. Part of our challenge now is to reconsider how we frame the lifecycles of our work and organizations as iterative and ongoing, and how to adapt our expectations as best we can to succeed in our current moment and in the future. Some organizations have second lives, and from those organizations come people with knowledge and capacity for the next challenge. Even in this moment there are producing and presenting organizations that are expanding — see Juxtaposition Arts, Ananya Dance Theatre, the Center for Performing Arts, and Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center. Not every organization will last in perpetuity, and if we can celebrate the run, that gives us more resiliency for building the next, less fragile thing together. Clockwise from top left: NEMAA Artist Members Spencer Silver, Ashley Mary, Julie Nelson* (Rhus typhina), Benjamin Brockman (North Star Printmakers Studio), Teresa Audet*, and Leslie Barlow. Photos by Sarah White except *by Russ White.
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Do less with more As artists we are so adept at doing more with less. We can find materials to create with, turn a chair into a whole theater set, write miracles with 26 characters and some punctuation. These skills serve us well as artists, but they do not always serve us so well in our organizations. In fact, the impulse as a working artist to stretch your resources turns into an organizational liability. Organizations with underpaid staff will perpetually lose those staff and their institutional knowledge, and that turnover and instability will decrease the resiliency and capacity of an organization to absorb funding shocks. Low wages also perpetuate the racial and ethnic disparities that are entrenched in our nonprofit and social systems, in Minnesota and nationally. Barr from Propel notes, “Most of the philanthropy in small nonprofits comes from the staff; most of that pie chart is unpaid labor.” That’s not a good thing for the long term health of our organizations.
$166.3 BILLION Amount the nonprofit arts and cultural industry generated in economic activity in the U.S in 2017.
$1.4 BILLION Overall economic impact of the 1,601 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the state of Minnesota in 2017. Source: The Minneapolis Creative Index 2018. More info at minneapolismn.gov
All-volunteer organizations suffer the same fate, but on a recurring basis, constantly having to reinvent themselves. New initiatives like RaiseMN, GiveMN’s fundraising support consultancy, are working to build greater capacity in small arts orgs, but organizational leaders need to re-prioritize keeping people and building reserves so their organizations can stay responsive. Boards especially need to embrace both their governance and advocacy roles within nonprofits, which means onboarding artists educated in financials as well as non-arts advocates with a deep care for artists and their work. As Anna Becker, Interim Executive Director of NEMAA puts it, “If arts organizations continue to accept that low wages are a given, then we are telling our peers, staff, potential applicants, and the world, really, that the work we are doing is of a lesser value. We perpetuate the myth that the arts are superfluous, and the public and funders will treat us that way.”
Finding the places to work
This is also true about the services we provide and the art we create in organizations. There is an old joke about a doomed businessman who claims, “I may lose money on every unit, but I make up for it in volume!” Part of making that shift possible — to doing less but doing it better — is also tied to the way we expect our organizations to behave and the output we expect from them.
Urbanist Jane Jacobs famously noted that “New ideas need old buildings,” but it might be better said that new ideas need available buildings. “Old” in the equation is a stand-in for the disused warehouses, empty storefronts, and vacant houses that have so long been the incubators of creative work. But that ideal doesn’t necessarily hold true anymore — it certainly hasn’t in
14 In Studio Spring 2019
Zoll from Heart of the Beast notes this pressure on arts organizations has risen as our culture at large has expanded to include an infinite number of preferences and options for communication and responsiveness. “I feel a high expectation for top-notch organizational capacity in financial management, fundraising, evaluation, human resources, communication, marketing, strategic planning, and program management, not to mention the expectations around actual production of art,” he notes. “We could use some compassionate changes from funders and others in acknowledging that we are stretched thin and offering more support and/or fewer requirements when it comes to funding proposals, reporting, and timelines.”
New York or San Francisco for the past two decades, and the cranes that have been rising in mid-size American cities like Denver and Austin are now on view in the Twin Cities. This real estate pressure is here, and artists alone will not confront this. We have to be in solidarity with affordable housing advocates and entities like community land trusts and co-operatives, pushing for policies that keep people in the places they have built. This is especially true as artists seek to move into affordable spaces in new neighborhoods. It is one thing to renovate a warehouse in an industrial area, it is another to take up space in historically marginalized neighborhoods or to be a bellwether of gentrification or displacement. So what is possible now? To extend a restaurant metaphor, so many small arts organizations are running hot dog carts or food trucks. But what does it look like if we are able to run more food halls? We have successful examples of this already in the cities — Open Book on Washington Avenue as a collaborative venture to house literary organizations, or the studio buildings like Northrup King, Q.arma, and Casket Arts that have made the Northeast arts scene viable and vibrant. The success of these ventures has been predicated on longterm relationship-building, joint fundraising, and ownership invested in the creative community. The 2018 Minneapolis Creative Index has narrative insight and mapping data on creative workspace in the city highlighting those relationships and clusters.
lords to appear, or we can start the conversations that lead to co-operative or collaborative spaces. A theater scene shop and a fashion designer both have need of sewing machines. Rehearsal space for musicians can double as space for writers. Dancers and theaters can share space. Many of these spaces already exist, but because of inefficiencies in management and access, cannot be used broadly. Efforts like Fourth Wall MSP are piloting partnerships that share rehearsal space, facilitated by technology. Part of what will make this work possible going forward is a willingness to see space not as a commodity owned by a single entity, but as a platform that enables the community as a whole to grow. This means flexibility, transparency, and patience with our fellow artists.
Expand what “public art” means We are also in a moment where we have an opportunity to push for a broader understanding of what public art really means in the life of a city, and how it should be funded. The Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community research from 2010 worked to measure what drives community attachment, which they describe as “an emotional connection to a place that transcends satisfaction, loyalty, and even passion.” The three most strongly correlated drivers of attachment that the research found were also things that are generated through creative and cultural events: Social Offerings, Openness, and Aesthetics.
With this in mind, it’s time for us to reconsider the line items in cities’ budgets dedicated to public art, and push beyond the upkeep of built infrastructure and placement of new sculptures and fountains. “The City of Minneapolis currently doesn’t have an avenue for funding festivals and events,” Becker says about ArtA-Whirl, “though they have helped by offering free services in regards to police presence, traffic management, garbage, and permitting.” Festivals like Art-AWhirl, Art Shanties, and the May Day Parade — all of which were impacted through not receiving Minnesota State Arts Board festival support in 2018 — unIn the face of these pressures, this moment calls on us doubtedly create social offerings, contribute to the to deepen our relationships and reach out to our neigh- openness and connection of the city, and drive the bors in adjacent sectors. We can wait for the right land- aesthetic understanding of the places we live. We know though that the presence of supportive landlords is no guarantee of continuity in the face of rising real estate pressure. Decisions to end leases or sell buildings have impacted Patrick’s Cabaret, Red Eye Theater, and the artists of Lowertown St. Paul in recent years. And the rental model for theaters also faces its own challenges — if all the organizations to whom you would rent are facing financial pressures and your costs as a landlord are rising along with inflation, then your natural tenants may no longer be able to afford your space.
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Poet, artist, activist, and Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins is open to the possibility. “As the City moves towards a more equitable future that seeks to highlight cultural districts as destinations,” Jenkins notes, “it is important that we acknowledge events like the May Day Parade or Art-A-Whirl as public art institutions that, while ephemeral, do more to build community, civic, and cultural pride than murals and sculptures sometimes offer.” Expanding direct support for ongoing events like open studios and art crawls, activity which the City not only benefits from in terms of activity but also in terms of marketing narrative, could be transformational for our arts community. By that same token, the festivals mentioned above bring out between 40,000 and 60,000 people to their events. The challenge of engaging those people throughout the year in ways that can turn into revenue or other opportunities is real, but as we look beyond the unpredictability of grants and philanthropic support, we have to be asking about other business and sponsorship opportunities. If that sounds like it contradicts the “do less with more” principle, on the surface it does. But a strategic, patient framework that builds ongoing engagements and seeks new opportunities, managed by people resourced in their work,
can make a world of difference. With deeper ongoing engagement, the loss of a single project grant can turn from a cataclysm to a manageable setback. And if we can continue to advocate to philanthropy that general operating support and long-term commitments make for healthier organizations and greater impact, then we can live up to the promise of Minnesota’s vaunted arts support. None of this is simple. None of this will be achieved by one artist, one administrator, one politician, community, or funder. It must be done with broad and reciprocal relationships, equity, and patience. Shifting framing, funding, and policy take dedication and care for each other through disagreements and setbacks. But I believe it will be done, because this is the moment we are in, because of the artists and organizers who have come before us, and mostly because I believe in the capacity of artists to turn fragile and human circumstances into powerful connections that bring us together.
Photo by Sarah White
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on the harbor in Grand Marais, MN WWW.NORTHHOUSE.ORG
QUESTION & ANSWERS:
What is your job as an artist? Four artists share their thoughts on having an unconventional (but still very real) J-O-B.
CHRISTOPHER E. HARRISON
Artist & Arts Educator at the Walker Art Center “I feel my job as an artist is to create experiences that speak our humanity through unique objects and ideas. By sharing these experiences, art to me makes our reality smaller in that we agree on our basic commonalities. Choosing to be an artist is not an easy task, in that it can be difficult to maintain an adequate lifestyle from solely making art. It is not impossible, but difficult without other means of support, be that working in another field, help from outside sources, etc. It’s not hard to see that teachers and artists get compensated and respected the least considering how much they contribute to the advancement of our culture.
“I feel that being an artist is both a choice as well as an existence. It’s not so much what I do, but what I am. Having the courage to live this creative life and be faithful to it with honesty no matter what the odds for me is a life well spent.” 18 In Studio Spring 2019
DANA SIKKILA
Artist, Executive Director of the 410 Project, & Artistic Director of Project Bike “A lot of people ask me this question, and I know I answer it differently each time. My job as an artist is an ever changing daily hustle of juggling teaching, running a gallery, board meetings, exhibitions, grants, advocacy work, leading statewide projects, maybe having a personal life, and at the same time being in my studio focusing on my own creativity and art making. To me the word ‘job’ is weird; people ask me what I ‘do,’ and for a long time I felt uncomfortable telling them I’m an artist. It took me years to define that for myself, to where now I hold strength and integrity in who I am and how I’ve chosen to live my life as a creative professional. We need to understand that no two artists share the same role.
“I grew up in a small town and was never exposed to art, far less knowing you could be an adult, an artist, and still be able to pay your bills. You never
Opposite: Hallie Bahn; Habitual (detail); Dual-channel projected animation, balsa wood, fabric, plywood, paper, glass jar, resistors, beads; 2018
saw ‘artist’ listed in the help-wanted ads or at career fairs. I knew I was into art but the job of being an artist wasn’t something that was being defined for me as a young creative. It wasn’t until my 20s that I was exposed to positive and creative mentors and peers.
become my true north — I want to make things people like to look at. Things people want to spend time with. I see it as my job to create work whose relevancy transcends the art world and enters people’s daily lives.
“After years of schooling and degrees, I’ve explored and learned how to push myself creatively, and that doesn’t mean just within my visual work. My passion and purpose for creation comes in forms of art, film, advocacy, teaching, and mentoring. My job as an artist is not just to fill gallery walls, but also to use my creativity as a leadership tool. This means bringing my ideas to the table when it comes to everything from personal and professional growth, running a business, city development, and even economic sustainability.
“I also think a lot about what it means to be an artist as one of my Jobs. To be honest, this idea is something I have struggled with and will probably always struggle with. As we see more and more artists embrace the interdisciplinary and experiential nature of their practices, we are also further subverting traditional capitalist modes of production, which is both scary and exciting. As a community, we are supported through public funding which further upholds our responsibility to make work that is accessible to the public.”
“My ‘artjob’ is never one, but rather multiple things overlapping, where I may work early one day and may work late another. But no matter what I’m doing, it all stems from being an artist and staying true to my creative integrity, to use it as a way to lift up people and places, helping them recognize their own strengths and talents, no matter their age.”
HALLIE BAHN
Artist & MFA candidate at MCAD “I think about this question pretty regularly, and it has come to inform my practice in a lot of ways. I believe that my job as an artist is to create visual experiences that are emotionally resonant and relevant to those both within and without the art world. It is my responsibility to make work that is inclusive and accessible, that doesn’t require a learned visual language to ‘get it’ but instead relies on a language of shared human experiences. Whether it’s through humor, catharsis, or familiarity, I find that appeal is a powerful conduit for this and have allowed it to
PETE DRIESSEN
Artist & Director of TuckUnder Projects “The artist’s job is to be highly open to, vulnerable to, and accountable to your higher creative purpose. In certain respects, the higher purpose is my creative identity. Although intertwined, my creative higher purpose is separate from the traditional 9 to 5 construct and conservative ‘making a living.’
“To me, a purpose holds more meaning than the word ‘job’ or ‘occupation.’ The word ‘job’ as reflected by capitalistic structures and neoliberal definitions often waters down the meaning of art-making and covertly diminishes those who labor within the creative realms. More so, the job of the artist, creative producer, or cultural practitioner is being openly vulnerable to the purpose of a creative life — one that brings forth an artistic way of doing, thinking, and being in gentle alignment with one’s life intention as a whole. Continued on next page
This article originally appeared on It has been edited for length. Find the full piece at MPLSART.COM/written
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“In terms of the artist job as income provider, artists wear hyphenated hats from interdisciplinary fields and multiple industries that make up the umbrella term ‘art job’: independent full- or part-time work, collegiate adjuncting, private or nonprofit grant allocations, artist commissions and fees, entrepreneurial risks, collaborative ventures, committee or board work, jurying shows, grant panels, teaching workshops, art lectures, and consulting work. On top of this, for me, is family and fatherhood, single parenting of two teens, and home ownership: I have included these home economics into my art job puzzle, as curator of a home/garage-based gallery. “Formally, my job is to show up in the studio, whatever that means and wherever it is, with its ever shifting studio definitions, on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, which in turn adds up to a successful artist life. It is important to me to produce any form whether the right mood is happening or not. One can harness the power of simply showing up — by allowing creativity in countless mundane and domestic ways, even on the scary, gray, and bad days.
“An ongoing part of the vulnerable art job is constantly writing applications and entering grants, fellowships, exhibitions, and residencies if only to be rejected. Though these continuous rejections sting, the best remedy is learning from them and reframing the rejection for the positive. One must accept failure as a primary part of the successful artist’s life/ job. The persistent acceptance of our mistakes and misfortunes builds strong resilience and self-confidence. “To have an art job means to embody the creative life and to be willing to develop the creative habit. The purpose is to immerse in the doing. A creative person does creative things. A creative body in motion tends to stay in creative motion. One has to be self-motivated, self-editing, self-supporting, and yet on the other hand, set the high standard for one’s own art career success. Your artistic activity sends resonance waves to the rest of the art ecosystem. Be grateful. Thank others. Share with others your success and share in others’ success.”
Below: Hallie Bahn; Good Girl (detail); Single-channel animation, balsa wood, fabric, clay, potting soil, plywood, plastic plant, paper, 87” L x 10.5” D x 13” H, 2018.
NEED A CAMERA OR PROJECTOR BUT D N'T NEED TO BUY NE? INTRODUCING
THE A.V. CLOSET The A.V. Closet is a new Springboard for the Arts service that allows artists to borrow cameras, lighting equipment, projectors and other audio-visual equipment from our location in Lowertown St. Paul. Equipment can be borrowed for up to 3 days at no charge, up to once a month, for an annual fee of $20.
For more information visit Springboardforthearts.org/avcloset Or contact Andy at Resources@springboardforthearts.org
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STUDIO 400 by Gabby Coll, Communications Manager at Juxtaposition Arts
Above, from left: Program Director Leslie Barlow, Jacqueline Nuzzo, Maiya Hartman (seated), Jon Rosemond, Maria Robinson, Taylan DeJohnette, Sarah Nicole Knutson, Philipo Dyauli (seated), Bris Carbajal. Not pictured: Lissa Karpeh.
22 In Studio Spring 2019
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aunching a career as an artist is hard. With the added expense of studio space, materials, and other costs, it can be overwhelming. Factor in the inherent obstacles facing minorities: unequal access, misrepresentation, tokenism, and energy spent navigating decentered narratives — that’s a lot to negotiate. Leslie Barlow — a Minneapolis-based visual artist, a prolific creative, and a woman of color — is breaking down at least one of those barriers with a new project called Studio 400, a residency program for emerging artists on the fourth floor of the Northrup King Building. Produced in collaboration with local gallery Public Functionary, the 2,000 square foot studio provides space, materials, and creative support to nine emerging creatives, with a focus on supporting young BIPOC artists. For these artists, inexpensive rent, access to a community of peers in varying media, and support in sourcing materials means less intellectual energy spent on financial anxiety and more freedom to create work and launch a professional practice. “I envision this space as the type of community I wish I had when I was just beginning to understand myself as an artist,” says Barlow, a painter who has maintained her own studio at Northrup King for the past three years. “I want to cultivate a community of artists that is supportive and builds shared resources. No one wants to feel like they’re the only artist of color in the room, and the hope is that this studio will allow artists to take up as much space as they want; to grow in themselves, their practice, and in their community.” She lights up as she explains the project. Here, her passion, experience, and career have found a nexus in which to address a need she’s witnessed and experienced herself.
Photo by Sarah White
A new residency program for emerging artists takes root on the fourth floor of the Northrup King Building.
Barlow realized she couldn’t pull this off on her own. For Tricia Heuring, director of Public Functionary and longtime mentor to Barlow, the concept aligned perfectly with the gallery’s mission, which is built around supporting underrepresented artists. Conversations over coffee with Dameun Strange, NEMAA Executive Director at the time, offered an entrypoint to making this project a reality at Northrup King, as well as connections to Building Manager Debbie Woodward, who was enthusiastic about tackling equity and inclusion within the North-
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east arts building. Applications were opened and narrowed down to nine creatives working in different media including painting, installation, and fashion design. Age, gender, and racial background all factored into the selection process, and priority was given to those who show intentionality and an investigative nature in their art practice. Each resident artist pays only $100 a month in rent, with Public Functionary currently subsidizing the rest. But the intention is that Studio 400 will eventually become sustainable and self-reliant. Whether that means sourcing funding from grants, donations, or a combination thereof remains to be seen, but for now, the focus lies in making repairs to the space, offering creative support to these young artists, and allowing them to build habits like paying rent and Lissa Karpeh, Two For One Hair Packs, oil on canvas, 54 x 60”, 2019. spending valuable time in a space that is their own. The studio also includes both a separate white-walled exhibition space and a storage work. “The idea of providing artist studio space isn’t area, furnished with shelving units donated by Blick Art as flashy as an exhibition or a residency, but it’s just Materials in Roseville, who also granted gift certificates as vital. It can make or break an artist’s practice,” says to each artist. Barlow. The hope is that this particular project grows beyond its original scope and creates a catalyst effect Studio 400 is about taking up space: both in centeras the artists in this first cohort go on to build their own ing the voices of creatives of color and in the very real networks and communities in the Twin Cities and besense of offering a viable studio in which to create yond. Learn more online at publicfunctionary.org/studio400 and on Instagram @studiofourhundred.
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26 In Studio Spring 2019
Jacqueline Nuzzo, Gaze No. 1, digital illustration, 2017