A Conversation with Noelle Lawton
N By Katie Roiger
CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, Towards Tomorrow by Tommy Riefe, Photo credit Gregg Andersen
24
SPRING 2020
southernminngirlfriends.com
oelle Lawton, self-professed theater geek, never imagined herself as director of a regional arts movement despite her love for the creative fields. The Mankato native originally left the Land of 10,000 Lakes at 18 to pursue a career on the stage. “I had aspirations of being an artist,” Lawton said. “I studied that and stuck around the Chicago area for about 15 years.” Lawton was fascinated by the arts movement in Chicago and enjoyed the cultural exposure she found during her stay. When she moved back to Mankato with her husband and two kids in 2009, she was surprised to discover that a similar arts movement was brewing on a smaller scale in Southern Minnesota. Even better, the movement was welcoming any and all volunteers with heartfelt enthusiasm. “I found when I came back that it was really easy to get involved in Mankato,” remembered Lawton. “(In) such a large urban area (like Chicago), I think there’s a lot of barriers. That’s what was so awesome about coming back to a smaller community. Any effort that you made, people were so thankful [for].” Thanks to Mankato’s tight-knit community, opportunities to get involved in multiple arts initiatives were plentiful. When Lawton started working part-time for community theater organization Merely Players, she heard about a collaboration happening between the City Center Partnership and the newly-founded, Twin Rivers Council for the Arts. The groups were working to spearhead a new Sculpture Walk program in Mankato’s downtown area that would feature a new display of sculptures by local artists every year. One of their key leaders had left just as the project was making headway and the organizations were looking for a
