In Studio Magazine, Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Flipside: 2020 Member Directory & Art-A-WhirlÂŽ Guide

34

There Goes The Neighborhood: On Blaming Arts and the Incomer

Photos by Sarah White

42

Making Room for Art at Rafter

Art-A-Whirl @25: A Brief History of Year One

46

Pins & Needles

5

Letter from the Editor

8

Studio Sessions

20

Russ White

Sheila Regan

Dr. Brenda Kayzar Russ White

Featuring Dinosaur Hampton, Karen Gustafson, Ingrid Rastemayer, & 3DRD

24

Art-A-Whirl @25: The Original Whirlers

54

Collector’s Items

26

In Studio with Aldo Moroni

57

Diane Loeffler: A Remembrance

30

The Art of Mapmaking

Flip

2020 NEMAA Member Directory & Art-A-Whirl® Guide

Kate Drakulic

Bridget Kranz

With Cassie Garner

Sen. Kari Dziedkic

Editor In Chief Russ White Photography* Sarah White • fotosforbarcelona.com Ad Sales Katie Garrett • ads@nemaa.org Letters to the editor: instudiomag@nemaa.org In Studio is published by the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association. Issue 4, May 2020.

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: Lindsay McCall, Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 2019 • lindsaymccall.com Opposite: Kimberlee Joy Roth, porcelain & hand painted background design Northrup King Building #431 • kimberleejoyroth.com

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Letter from the Editor

by Russ White

W

hen we first started planning this issue in late 2019, we were in a different world. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past three months, you know what I’m talking about. And if you have been living in a cave: please, just stay there. We’ll come and get you when it’s safe.

Sadly, though, we’re not getting out much these days, and for good reason. Our experience of space and place has largely been relegated to our own homes, our experience of each other put at a safe but sad distance. It’s a strange time, one that is hitting so many small businesses hard — artists included, especially when a sales event as big as Art-A-Whirl gets interrupted.

I’d always envisioned this issue being about space and place.

Art-A-Whirl itself is organized around both: studio spaces in Northeast form the backbone of the entire event, which is itself a celebration of the neighborhood. In normal years, visitors get to experience a concentrated dose of Northeast flavors: artists of all varieties showing their work in refurbished factory buildings, on the walls of local businesses, in neighbors’ front yards. The smells of restaurants, food trucks, and breweries fill the air. For a lot of us, Art-A-Whirl is the official start of summer: busting out of our hibernation at last, navigating the massive crowds through the streets and studio buildings, drinking the local beers, seeing the local bands, and — most importantly — seeing the local art.

It’s hard to know what will come from this crisis. Innovations perhaps, new routines quite possibly, and no small amount of grief for the loss of life. It has certainly has laid bare old problems; whether it inspires new solutions remains to be seen.

Artists, makers, and organizations, for our part, are doing what we always do in the face of hardship: adapting. In some ways, this calamity provides a blank canvas onto which we can paint new paths and develop new methodologies, whether their usefulness outlasts this isolation or not, from crowdfunding our careers to beefing up our website shops to conducting studio visits online.

But these studios and this neighborhood exist all year round, not just that one weekend in May, and the features in this issue dig into that reality: Sarah White shows us what maker spaces look like when they’re not tidied up for sales events. Brenda Kayzar schools us on gentrification, offering some helpful history around what’s happening to our beloved Northeast. And since nothing says “place” more clearly than a map, Tom Hedberg explains the artistry behind his maps for Art-A-Whirl and elsewhere.

Our hope is that others will come with us down these new paths, not only by supporting our practices through their screens instead of in person, but also by extending the empathy and compassion of this community outward towards all things. We are navigating through uncharted waters at the moment, all in this together, even as we’re kept apart. My advice is to look to the scientists for the right answers. Look to the artists for the right questions.

Above: Steve Ozone, Open Streets Northeast, 2018 • steveozone.com

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Studio Sessions Photos by Sarah White • fotosforbarcelona.com Text by Russ White

Artist studios are perhaps the most defining feature of Northeast Minneapolis. The old factory buildings they inhabit represent our history of manufacturing, as well as the scrappy ingenuity of the building owners and the artists who moved into them. Studios are incubators for the work that drives our arts economy year-round, as well as the beating heart of Art-A-Whirl itself.

Studios can take many forms: some are private sanctuaries, others community cooperatives. They can be classrooms, workshops, living rooms, laboratories. Gardens even, where new ideas, new methods, and new communities can grow.

During a normal year, studios in Northeast get cleaned up every May, primped and polished, turned from maker spaces into galleries and showrooms. Photographer Sarah White visited several artists throughout Northeast — before distancing became the norm — to get a glimpse of what an artist’s studio looks like the rest of the year.

Now these photos work to bridge that distance, to bring us closer to these artists, and to look forward to when we can studio crawl once more.

Opposite: Emily Quandahl in her painting studio at the Holland Arts Building, although she has since moved studios down the street to 2110 Washington Ave NE. Inspired by her background in music, Emily’s paintings develop through a practice of repetition and layering, creating abstract expression in both fluid and geometric forms. She also works as one half of Top Seda Studios with her sister Abbey, creating murals in homes and businesses.

“The biggest shift for me with everything going on,” she says, “is that for the first time, I have unlimited time to create in my studio. Before this all went down, I was running around to meetings and mural installs left and right, which left much less time to just sit and paint. I’m now painting what I want just because I want to, which is exciting and terrifying at the same time. Having a private studio is something I’m eternally grateful for, as it let’s me turn my brain off and continue to create.”

emilyquandahl.com • @emilyquandahlart • @topsedastudios

8 In Studio Spring 2020

Malcom Potek in his glass arts studio at the Flux Arts Building. Malcom has been working with glass for almost thirty years and runs Potekglass with his wife, Kara van Wyk. The studio hosts a wide variety of torch and kiln classes for students of all ages and experience levels, as well as Artist Residency opportunities.

“Space is critical for me to be able to give form to my creative expression,” says Malcom. “For better or worse I am an artist with high production values. Through good luck, reinvestment in my studio and dedication to the work, I (and a partner group of other artists) own a space that almost fully meets my needs as a glass artist.

“One of the many benefits that comes with designing a space from scratch is the ability to build a collaborative layout.

Both physically in the space, but also as a part of the artist’s practice. Toward that end, we serve students with classes, bench space, and advice. I actively look for artistic partners, both in the broader community as well as with other artists — giving voice to their vision and helping me give voice to mine.”

Flux Arts Building, Studio C • potekglass.com • @potek_glass

10 In Studio Spring 2020

Samatha R. Crossland in her studio at 2010 Artblok. She is the driving force behind Samatha Rei, a fashion label she started in 2013. You may recognize her from season 16 of Project Runway, or maybe from being City Pages’ 2016 “Best Fashion Show” winner, as well as 2016 and 2017 Reader’s Choice “Best Local Fashion Designer.” These days, like so many artists and artisans, Samantha is using her skills to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, making face masks from scratch.

“I love working in my studio,” she says. “It’s been a long running labor of love, remodeling, and getting it just right. When the shelter-in-place notice took effect, I moved my mask operation home since I wasn’t sure if I’d be okay to work in my studio. I just moved back and my productivity has improved again. It makes me feel good and like I have some semblance of normalcy in this weird world.”

2010 Artblok #3-104 • samantharei.com • @samanthareiofficial

NEMAA.ORG 11

Ashley Mary in her studio at Northrup King. A painter and designer, Ashley is also one half of the newly formed Curiosity Studio, with fellow NEMAA member Lauren Callis of An Upcycled Closet.

“While COVID created a lot of change around my mural commissions (where I’m typically traveling more),” says Ashley, “it also created a gap of (lots of) space for me to fill my time with my painting work. I’ve painted more and with more concentration than I probably have ever had the space to, because my other work was halted so suddenly. What I miss most in my work rhythms is seeing my creative community though, in the every day moments, not on a screen.

I miss the energy in the air before Art-A-Whirl.”

Northrup King Building #247 • ashleymary.com • @ashleymaryart • @curiositystudio_

12 In Studio Spring 2020

Florence Hill in her co-op drawing studio at the California Building. Florence has been hosting weekly figure study sessions every Sunday — holidays included — for the past forty-five years, in this space and others before it. She also keeps her own studio in the space, painting intricate studies of light and shadow through still life and landscape.

“My studio has always served as a creative space that needed to support itself,” she says. “ While the figure co-op satisfied my need to draw regularly it also paid for itself. That and some sales of my art have sustained me. COVID brought many changes! Fortunately the co-op can continue by a thread! My studio is large enough and has a private entrance so that I and several other select artists have been able to mask, distance by 6 - 8’, and work from the model. We all wait for a time of the great community that we knew, but as a poet once said, ‘We wash in cold water because the fire has gone out.’ Things will be different, and we must prepare to adapt and continue to create.”

California Building #103 • florencehill.com

NEMAA.ORG 13

Spencer Silver in his painting studio at the Casket Arts Building. Spencer retired from a career in chemistry at 3M (fun fact: he invented the adhesive used on Post-It Notes!), and now applies his love of physical science to the abstract works he paints.

“I moved to the Casket Arts Building in 2007 along with the Rain Collective and have now found my home in the far corner of the 3rd floor,” says Spencer. “The building is a great, quiet, uncluttered place with terrific energy, and my dots are comfortable here! The 3rd floor has great camaraderie with lots of painters somewhat squashed by the current COVID problem. I miss the social/critique interchange, although we can still get together in the hallway at the appropriate distances!”

Casket Arts Building # 319 • spencersilverartist.com

14 In Studio Spring 2020

One of the studio locations we had hoped to shoot was the Ceramics classroom at Edison High School. Unfortunately, COVID-19 got in the way, shutting down the school before we were able to capture ceramics teacher Krista Marino and her students. Krista also serves as Vice President of NEMAA’s Board of Directors, and she teaches alongside Rachel Hoemke and Stephanie Colgan in Edison’s Fine Art Department, which spearheads the annual Northeast iteration of Empty Bowls, engages students in Art-A-Whirl every year, gives them the opportunity to exhibit at the Hennepin Public Library, and includes Art In The Environment as well as Art and The Community in their syllabi. Now that classrooms sit empty, Krista continues teaching remotely.

“Providing an equitable and individualized education for all students is already a challenge,” she says, “and moving to distance learning during COVID-19 is adding even more layers of difficulty. We as educators need to adapt and innovate on the fly in our classrooms every day, and we have all been working very hard to try to create authentic experiences in our content within this new digital format. It has been a tremendous endeavor, and I am so proud of the resiliency of our students and staff at Edison High School as we move through this unprecedented time.”

edison.mpls.k12.mn.us/fine_arts_2 • Photo by Russ White

Brendan Kramp paints interiors bathed in light, often coffeeshops and restaurants. But here, Brendan has captured the afternoon sun streaming into Mercury Mosaics at the Thorp Building. He keeps his own studio at the Casket Arts Building, and has stayed busy painting through the quarantine.

“I’ve been painting everyday urban spaces for more than eight years now,” Brendan says, “and I am not only drawn to the special way that light fills a space and reflects off of objects and surfaces, but also an unmistakable mood, feeling, and character that inhabits these spaces. A good friend of mine described that I ‘find cathedral lighting everywhere,’ and I thought that description was apt as there is a mix of the mystical, spiritual, material, and aesthetic in every space that I choose. This painting of the Mercury Mosaics handmade tile factory embodies that sense of creation and inspiration in a real true-to-life maker space.” Below: The Tile Makers, oil on canvas, 72 x 60”, 2020.

Casket Arts #116 • brendankramp.com • @brendan_kramp_studio

Opposite: Jill Kittock is an artist, illustrator, and graphic designer who has brought her whimsical, comic strip style to a variety of projects, from portraiture to book illustration. She is also one of many NEMAA artists who works entirely from home. We commissioned her to capture the studio vibe of a work-from-home-artist, something that is all too familiar to most of us now.

“In a lot of ways my schedule hasn’t changed much since I do mostly work from home. It’s only when I think about leaving the house that I’m reminded of what’s going on... and I’m shocked that I don’t naturally think about leaving the house all that much. Ha! I feel so lucky to have the space to spread out at home and a little backyard to be in when I want to get some sun.”

16 In Studio Spring 2020

jillkittock.com • @jillkittock

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20 In Studio Spring 2020

Art-a -WhiRl @25: ®

a brief history of Year One

How a handful of artists in 1996 created a tornado out of thin air, a Northeast arts festival that has endured for a quarter century

Y

by Sheila Regan

ou probably know Art-A-Whirl as the frenzy of art, music, food, and beer that overwhelms Northeast with 40,000 people every single May. But the very first one, in 1996, was a much more ad-hoc affair. Artists used sandwich boards and spray-painted banners to alert neighbors from Northeast Minneapolis about the event. There were no breweries back then, no live music fanfare, and NEMAA did not even exist yet.

It all began after the great migration away from the Minneapolis Warehouse District and downtown, when many artists found themselves pushed out of their former studios.

This was spurred by rising rents, as well as the city of Minneapolis’s decision to demolish what would later be called “Block E,” which was home to numerous artist studios and galleries, including the Rifle Sport Gallery. Meanwhile, sluggish sales spurred other galleries and artists located in the Wyman Building to leave the Warehouse District throughout the 1990s.

Here in Northeast Minneapolis, in the empty industrial spaces once used to manufacture tires, to mill grains, and even to make bomb components during World War II, artist studios and small galleries began to crop up.

“We had this whole scene going that was really underground,” recalls Dougie Padilla, an artist who was working in Northeast during those years. Amidst this D.I.Y. atmosphere that had

cropped up in the industrial neighborhood, in waltzed an artist named David Felker and his wife, Lois Zabel Felker, who together would come up with the idea for Art-A-Whirl and get the festival off the ground. A Vietnam War veteran, Felker had used grant money from the G.I. bill to earn three art degrees.

His first teaching position was in the remotes of Alaska on a military site, and later he was the director of a nonprofit gallery called the International Gallery of Contemporary Art while teaching at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

Felker was initially just passing through Minnesota from Alaska. He was slated to begin teaching in Turkey and was planning to move his family overseas before his assignment began, but two things stopped him in his tracks: Felker’s father-in-law passed away, and the institution in Turkey told him they didn’t have enough money to bring him and his family after all. Instead, Felker found work doing fine art restoration in Northeast Minneapolis and opened up a branch of the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in the Thorp Building. Immediately, he fell in love with Minneapolis. “I had a wonderful feeling of being in the state,” he says.

Felker’s gallery operated much the same way he had curated while living in Alaska for 15 years, by showing his own work as well as the work of other artists. “For me it was a gift I could share for other people,” he says. “It became a philosophical circumstance of opportunity.”

Opposite: The past twenty-five years of Art-A-Whirl® catalogues, starting with the very first festival in 1996.

In 2018, the catalogue became N Studio magazine, with 2019 bringing the reversible (and renamed) In Studio/Member Directory.

NEMAA.ORG 21

Felkner credits his wife, Lois, with the idea to start an artist studio tour, similar to something they had tried while living in Anchorage. “She was the one that first set that in motion,” he says.

The Felkers began to host meetings in the gallery, where artists gathered to talk about the possibilities of a studio tour event.

Pete Driessen, whose studio was in the California Building at the time (he now works out of the Casket Arts Building), recalls a salon-like atmosphere at those early meetings. “It was kind of a mix of younger artists and mid-career artists looking at ideas of economic autonomy,” says Driessen.

Soon the festival had a name: Art-AWhirl, inspired by the Whirl Air Flow Corporation sign across the street from the Thorp Building, which artist Juris Plesums eyed from the bathroom. That sign also provided inspiration for the first logo, a tornado drawn by R.W. Scholes, an illustrator who had just left Milkweed Editions. Scholes was recruited by Howard Christopherson, an artist and committee “The first few years, we had zero budget to work with,” member who also ran Icebox Quality Framing and Gallery — remembers artist Lisa Elias, who often used to host music Northeast’s very first art gallery — which is still open today in events in her studio during the early years. the Northrup King Building after many years on Central Avenue.

Elias also remembers quite a different neighborhood, with They even got some grant money for the event, thanks to many European immigrant communities living in the area. She the City Council member Walt Dziedzic. Felker showed up at had a 99-year-old neighbor from Russia and other neighbors Dziedzic’s office, made his case, and wound up with a check for from Poland, Germany, and elsewhere. “It was cool to see $2,000. everyone in the neighborhood wandering about the studios,” she says.

“The next thing you know, we had a bus going around, and we had some money for posters,” Padilla recalls. “So Walt was key. Besides the open studios, the first Art-A-Whirl featured artist Other than that it was going to be much more underground.” demonstrations, music performances, buses that brought people between locations, and in Felker’s Gallery, a screen that Most of the artists that first year were based in the S&M offered direct communication with the concurrent Brighton Building, the Thorp Building, and the California Building. There Festival in England. were also artists in the Grain Belt Complex, several studio buildings throughout the neighborhood, and Icebox Gallery, “Middle America Meets Middle Street, Brighton, UK” one with 21 locations in total participating. poster read. “Computer available for public access, Saturday & Sunday to interact on the World Wide Web link with Brighton, Dean Trisko, one of the original participating artists and a and be a ‘virtual’ part of Art-A-Whirl.” current NEMAA board member, remembers turnout as being in the hundreds, at least. “We were all surprised that we got Felker set that up through his connections with American people,” he says, laughing. “Felker predicted it, and he was Express. “That was all new technology,” he says. “It was right that they would come.” interesting that American Express had that capability for us. By

Left: The Whirl Air Flow logo, spied through a bathroom window, that inspired the festival’s name and image. Right: Lisa Elias and Howard Christopherson overseeing banner painting. Photo by Chip Schilling. Opposite page, clockwise from top right: The original tornado logo drawn for Art-A-Whirl by R.W. Scholes; the backside of the 1996 program & the original map; and a poster advertising both a 24-hour phone-in “Hotline” and a “virtual” Art-A-Whirl on the world wide web.

Special thanks to Margo Ashmore for her help sourcing documents and to John Akre, whose Youtube archive was invaluable.

22 In Studio Spring 2020

golly they did something that was just incredible. We had direct communication with an international festival.”

The spirit of artists in Northeast Minneapolis banding together for the benefit of all continued as the years progressed. NEMAA was formed in 1997 to facilitate organizing the festival. Heidi Andermack, who was an early Art-A-Whirl Catalog Editor in 1999 and Board Chair of NEMAA by 2000, said the gentrification issues that plagued artists in the Warehouse district came back again. To help protect the arts community that had been developed, NEMAA got some grant money from the McKnight Foundation and, in collaboration with the City, created a report that would be the basis of the Arts Action Plan, published in 2002. The Northeast Minneapolis Arts District was born.

For Andermack, the growing power of NEMAA is linked to the success of the arts festival. “It was through Art-A-Whirl that all that was made possible,” she says.

NEMAA.ORG 23

aRT-a -WHI rL® @

25: The Original Whirlers

Northeast is what it is because of the people who have shaped it. On Art-A-Whirl’s 25th Anniversary, we thought we’d give a shout-out to the artists who opened their doors at the very beginning and are still going strong as NEMAA Members today.

Margaret Bussey Painting, Printmaking

David Abel Johnson

NKB #440

Painting

Pete Driessen

Brenda Litman

759 Pierce St NE

Installation, Sculpture

Casket Arts #117

Lisa Elias Metal, Sculpture

1129 Van Buren St NE

Painting

NKB #337

Mark Trelstad Painting

California #206C

Q.arma #215

Matthew Madson

Dean Trisko

Drawing, Painting

NKB #377

Aldo Moroni

Florence Hill

Shannyn Potter Sculpture, Wood, Other

Painting

Clay, Sculpture

California #103

California #113

Drawing, Painting, Printmaking

NKB #361

James Wrayge Painting

NKB #377

And to the youngbloods It’s a testament to the hard work of these artists, and hundreds more throughout the years, that Art-A-Whirl has survived a full quarter century. Long enough, in fact, to have current NEMAA members who were born the year it all started!

Hats off to the other artists in the 25 Club, those who have helped form the next generation of NEMAA. We’ll be featuring them (where else?) on Instagram @nemaamn.

At left: Lindsey Cherek; She, Her, Hers (detail); acrylic on paper; 2019.

24 In Studio Spring 2020

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with Aldo Moroni A sculptor, a teacher, an original Art-A-Whirler, and a pillar of the Northeast arts community, Aldo Moroni has built a legacy of tiny buildings and big friendships.

Now battling through pancreatic cancer, Moroni keeps working with the future in mind, using his studio in the California Building to foster new legacies.

by Kate Drakulic • Photos by Sarah White

26 In Studio Spring 2020

Above: One of the artist’s sprawling landscapes of painted ceramic buildings in Studio 113 at the California Building.

W

arm light and the earthy smells of clay and coffee first welcome me into Aldo Moroni’s Legacy Makers Place studio in the California Building on an otherwise dull January morning.

I spot Moroni among others and barely squeeze in a hello before a complex conversation about social mind-mapping recommences.

District historian David Wiggins, armed with the Scientific Journal and passionate hand gestures, discusses with Moroni the influence of narratives on human connection and perception of reality. Moroni rises from the table. With his cigarette in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other, he scrawls a note on a nearby chalkboard, a temporary bookmark to follow up on later.

A half-hour later, after an exchange of handshakes and dense literature, Moroni and I sit amid a landscape of clay in the form of looming towers, expansive civilizations, and tinier, but no less captivating, city buildings and sculptures.

“Sometimes we have to close the doors to get anything done in here,” Moroni admits.

Visitors such as Wiggins aren’t uncommon, as Moroni has spent the majority of his life-long vocation in the Twin Cities, creating as many friendships as he has clay towers. A founding member of Art-A-Whirl, Moroni has been an active participant nearly every year since.

NEMAA.ORG 27

“This year my goal is, if I’m not still standing, you guys are going to tape me to a two-wheel cart and wheel me around, like in that movie,” he chuckles. “Lisa! What’s the name of the dead guy?”

Lisa Roy, a photographer by trade as well as Moroni’s neighbor, pops around one of the makeshift gallery walls. Having no formal background in ceramics or sculpture, Roy quickly learned Moroni’s techniques so that she could assist him in the studio after he received his diagnosis — stage four pancreatic cancer.

I watch her swiftly model a Moroni-esque bridge while we talk.

“Weekend at Bernie’s!” she replies. “But it will be Aldo’s Weekend at Art-A-Whirl.”

“And my arm will bob! You’ll tie puppet strings,” Moroni laughs as he reaches to adjust a small clay tower to look a little more whimsical.

Born in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Moroni grew up working at his father’s downtown restaurant where he was immersed in the city’s eclectic assortment of buildings and characters. He attended MCAD where he became fixated with narrative sculpture and, at the age of 23, secured a spot in his first group show, at the Walker Art Center alongside work by some of his heroes.

“The art world kind of just grabbed me. It’s my only vocation,” he tells me. “I mean, you tend bar on the side when you have to, right? Writers and artists. Don’t throw your bartender license away.”

At the age of 66, Moroni is uninterested in money, validation, or the competitive nature of the arts. Rather, he often asks himself, “Am I doing important work? Am I on course? Am I learning anything?”

He knows the answer, he says, “by the depth of the content you’re studying. It starts to feed you back, and eventually, the things you’re studying become you.”

Deeply informed by historical accounts, storytelling is embedded into everything Moroni creates — from small city sculptures to monsterous enterprises, like Tower of Babel and Broken Bridges.

“I don’t know why, history just bit me. It seems to explain a lot of things to me, and if I have a partial understanding of it, it seems to calm me down,” Moroni says. “From the tragedies we witness.

It serves that purpose.”

His most recent escapade, M.Ex, the Mesoamerican Experience, originates from his outright disgust at the Trump administration’s maltreatment of children and families at the U.S.-Mexico border. The sprawling sculpture calls on the meeting between Spanish invader Cortez and the Aztec Triple Alliance emperor

Above: Lisa Roy and Aldo Moroni share a laugh in the studio. Opposite page: Moroni’s studio overflows with miniature clay buildings, while the artist works steadily on another structure.

Montezuma (also spelled Moctezuma) which took place at the capital city of Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City). It tells an all-too-familiar story of colonization, war, and the attempted erasure of an entire culture.

“One of the things that always gives me real joy is to have big epic projects,” Moroni explains. “It overwhelms you; it takes over and gives your life meaning and fulfillment. Only an epic project can give you that, because it’s the only thing that’s got the meat.”

Now unable to see M.Ex through to completion because of his prognosis, Moroni and Roy are consumed in transforming the project into Blind Cortez, a social art endeavor. Confident in the community’s engagement, Moroni says, “I think the project can go on quite nicely without me.”

A few days after our visit, I linger on Sixth Avenue, where a number of Moroni’s city sculptures stand: real buildings recreated in miniature for posterity. I walk the block and observe nary a sharp edge nor a pointed corner. Instead, the bronze structures are soft and irregular in shape, cartoonishly accurate.

A thumbprint here or a knuckle there is a signature, a stamp in

time, and the familiar, mirage-like forms pull on my spatial and emotional experiences with these places. Referring to the past to illuminate the present, Moroni simultaneously filters his lived reality through his imagination. The paradox of it all is sweet satisfaction.

Moroni’s wishes for the Legacy Makers Place are ironically appealing as well. He and Roy run educational classes out of the studio from time to time, and they are working to turn the studio into a community space for artists to work, ideate, and connect with each other. While ensuring makers have a space to develop their lasting marks on this world, Moroni’s bronze legacies continue to exist, waiting for us to slow down, lean in, and take a closer look. Who knows? Maybe we find a bit of meaning, or solace at least, to ease us through our own realities.

“I’m always in the middle of my little fantasy world. It’s a key thing to be able to get yourself into that place where you have voice, where you’re learning and engaging with people, like David and like you, an influx of ideas all the time. It’s just the kind of life I would have designed had I had absolute…” Moroni hesitates in thought for just a moment before he turns to me and declares, “This is exactly how I would’ve done it.”

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the

Art of Mapmaking with

Hedberg Maps

Hedberg Maps have been guiding visitors through Art-A-Whirl for almost twenty years. Tom Hedberg and Nat Case reflect on what goes into mapmaking, how the craft has changed over the years, and why print will never die.

by Bridget Kranz

In an era of smartphone navigation, one of mapmakers’ main jobs is to create context. For example, how do you search for something if you don’t know what you’re looking for?

Taking cues from the tourists of yesteryear, Art-A-Whirl participants (at least under normal circumstances) often adopt an older strategy to find their way around the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District: pocket their phones and bury their noses instead in an actual paper map. Even after the festival comes and goes each year, the massive neighborhood map still hangs in the lobby of the Northrup King Building — with many passers-by perhaps not realizing that its publisher is located only three floors up.

After nearly two decades making the Art-A-Whirl guide, Hedberg Maps’ founder Tom Hedberg explains that new technology hasn’t gotten rid of his industry, only slightly altered its purpose.

“Very few people would use a traditional map to go find a particular street,” he admits. “But, they may use something like this to plot information and understand it in a contextual manner.”

When it comes to the Arts District, Hedberg says being able to get a big-picture view gives visitors a better idea of where galleries are clustered and can introduce them to spots they

30 In Studio Spring 2020

might not have known to look for. In terms of making the most important information also the most accessible, he adds that it’s all about balance.

“You don’t want or need every street because it’s going to clutter it,” he explains. “The craft is the selection of what information and the balance of how you show it, and I would suggest that a lot of that comes with experience.”

Hedberg, who used to own Latitudes Map and Travel Store, started his own company with wife Jennifer in the early 1990s after a customer came in looking for a map of area lakes. With none in stock, Hedberg decided to make his own. From that first project until 2008, business partner Nat Case also played a large role in the design process.

Coming to cartography in a slightly less serendipitous way, Case turned to the profession as the result of a career counseling session. Now heading up INCase, LLC, the Northeast-based mapmaker still does freelance work with Hedberg, as well as for clients like National Geographic.

Since starting in the field 30 years ago, Case explains that the form of the industry has changed significantly, as well. When he designed his first map for Hedberg in 1990, it was on a one-color Macintosh SE. Although he had references for certain colors, he

Banner image: Patrick K. Pryor, Streets and Blocks (detail), acrylic on canvas, 2018 • patrickpryor.com

couldn’t actually see them on screen while designing. During printing, imperfect registration methods made color choice especially important — trying to keep a small area white could prove to be challenging throughout the multilayer process.

“That negotiation with technology is a big part of what ends up really making map design,” explains Case. “I think that’s still true, even with people doing just online map design. They’re working on things like how fast it will render, and you have to make sure it’s legible on a mobile screen.”

Now, both he and Hedberg frequently use Adobe Illustrator to create their maps, and registration is often handled by computer controls. Integration between geographic information databases and design software has also improved vastly, allowing for a more streamlined process.

One of the company’s niches over the years has been mapping U.S. colleges, which has included plotting just community colleges or just historically black colleges and universities. This work has also opened up national markets for them around higher education campuses — the Minneapolis-based business has created numerous maps for clients in Berkeley and Boston, among other places. Reflecting the strengths of a traditional paper map, Hedberg says his clients are often seeking out isolated data points.

“In industries, there are people who only want to see five-star restaurants, or they only want to see bike trails, or they only want to see baseball teams,” he explains, noting that his maps come from both commissions and the company’s ideas of what might sell. “If I’m only looking at major and minor league baseball, I don’t need to see other information, as well.”

As with Art-A-Whirl attendees circling which places they want to visit, Hedberg adds that maps mounted on a wall or kept as a souvenir also offer a chance for viewers to remember and recount past experiences.

“My son took his Boundary Waters maps to college and put them up on the wall. He had drawn routes of where he had gone,” Hedberg explains. “That’s saying, ‘This mattered to me.

It’s part of who I am.’”

Mounted in the main entrance to the Northrup King Building, the map Hedberg’s business made for last year’s Art-A-Whirl has become a permanent tool for visitors to the area, as well as a reminder of one of the district’s biggest weekends of the year.

Although navigation is no longer the driving force in the map industry, there is still a continuing desire to contextualize and revisit the environment through imagery.

“It’s our world, it’s our geography,” Hedberg says. “It’s who we are and the places where we’re from.”

Learn more (and buy some maps!) at hedbergmaps.com

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There Goes The Neighborhood: An urban geographer (and arts enthusiast) explains gentrification in Northeast: our past, our present, and why you shouldn’t wag your finger at Art-A-Whirl for causing it all.

I

by Dr. Brenda Kayzar • Illustrations by Brian Brittigan

moved to Northeast in 2007, purchasing a home in a repurposed warehouse whose history, I later learned, progressed from manufacturing to affordable apartments to condominiums.

There were new investment clues peppered throughout the neighborhood supporting my own investment decision. Also, as a person on a relatively small academic salary to whom bus lines and proximity were a priority, Northeast was a good fit.

I weathered an immediate and lingering decline in property value during the downturn but now, in my fourteenth year, I’m experiencing the ascent. That ascent was slow, until it wasn’t, and the seeming acceleration in property demand and values runs in tandem with an increase in articles and conversations about the dreaded G word: gentrification.

34 In Studio Spring 2020

A recent Business Journal article notes that investor success in Northeast has “put some people on edge.” Yet although the volume has increased, the topic of gentrification has been a constant since I moved here — as much a part of the landscape as the stories of immigrant settlers from northern and eastern Europe. An equally recurring narrative accuses the arts for the gentrification of Northeast. Artists are the supposed catalysts of change and harbingers of high-rent doom. Journalists have linked the neighborhood’s fleeting affordability to Art-A-Whirl as well, but while it is provocative to suggest a three-day retail event for artisans is the primary basis for the factors and decisions associated with property owners, real estate exchange, and new development, it is also unsubstantiated.

Illustrations: brianbritigan.com • @brianbritigan

On Blaming Arts and the Incomer As an urban geographer, a former NEMAA board member, and a resident of Northeast, I was invited to reflect on this gentrification narrative and the condemning of the arts. Based on several decades of research into the topic, I offer these considerations about affordability, scarcity, investment, property ownership, and the arts sector with the hope that a bit of context might shift the conversation about gentrification toward more productive understandings and solutions.

GENTRIFICATION First, let’s define some terms. A neighborhood has gentrified when the existing lower-income population is replaced by a higher-income population. The process of replacement, driven by renewed interest and investment in a community, can take years — even decades — and some long-time residents and businesses will remain in place, especially if they are property owners. With time, however, successive waves of incoming residents and businesses will be of higher incomes, effectively pushing out the previous residents through rising rents and property taxes.

Yet it is important to remember that not all investment leads to gentrification and that most community members, regardless of income level, want to see improvements in their neighborhood.

Filling vacant storefronts, repairing streets, refurbishing buildings, and welcoming new residents and businesses have always enriched our sense of place and experience. Improved property values and government tax revenues benefit the local community as well. Nationally, however, decades of rising housing costs and stagnant wage growth mean the fear of gentrification now looms in every new restaurant and every construction crane on the horizon.

The new reality that equates investment with the threat of displacement rather than enrichment, also means we reactively apply the term gentrification whenever we see an unfamiliar face in the community. What I hope to demonstrate here is that gentrification is not the result of incomers, many of whom are struggling to pay their rent while working in a no-benefits gig economy. It is a result of property owners who perceive the opportunity to increase rents or sell to the highest bidder. While

NEMAA.ORG 35

“Gentrification is not the disease. It is a symptom of our failed housing and workspace development practices. The disease is our centuries-long failure to build to the needs of a diverse population of residents and businesses.”

it is the right of all property owners to realize positive gains, it is the pace and outcome of the rent increases and property sales that tips investment into speculation and dramatically reshapes communities both physically and demographically.

GENTRIFICATION: THE SYMPTOM NOT THE DISEASE It can take a decade or more of duplex remodels and new apartment construction, public upgrades and regulatory and policy changes, and shifts in area employment and demographics before it is clear if an existing population will be threatened by displacement due to rising rents. It can take several more decades to see if an existing population will be largely replaced by higher income residents and businesses. So, sounding the gentrification alarm over incremental changes is often premature, and the focus on the influx of supposed gentrifiers distracts us from understanding why we are so worried about the loss of affordability in the first place.

Put simply, gentrification, though invoked often, is not the disease. It is a symptom of our failed housing and workspace development practices. The disease is our centuries-long failure to build to the needs of a diverse population of residents and businesses. It is our old ways of thinking that continue to define how we build, remaining in place in our bricks, our mortar, and our institutional policies. The disease is not the hipster or the artist; it is the regulatory, finance, and development practices of government agencies, lending and insurance institutions, and landowners and builders that have left us with a standardized, monochromatic, and inappropriate inventory of residential and commercial buildings.

We’re left trying to squeeze into an inventory that was built for the benefit of risk-averse portfolios and imbued with a legacy of race, gender, religious, and class discrimination. Our inability to fit economically or socially is exacerbated by ongoing shifts in the global economy like the loss of manufacturing and changing demographic realities like aging Baby Boomers. The bricks, mortar, and wood of our built landscape, which lacks diversity and flexibility, outlives generational economic and social changes while retaining the inherent racial, gender, and class problems embedded in its initial design ideals. Put simply, the structures outlast the people.

36 In Studio Spring 2020

To say that this is a broad-brushed presentation of our housing and workspace development history is an understatement. I’ve spent entire semesters putting young adults to sleep as I dig into the economic, political, and social complexities of real estate development in our capitalist and highly regulated property marketplace. I offer this symptom and disease framework, however, because it is important to consider that while we rail against the symptom — gentrification — we are losing sight of the cause of our maladies. We need to focus on the disease — the “how we’ve built ourselves into unaffordability” disease — so that we can look for cures.

FITTING OUR DEVELOPMENT HISTORY INTO A LOCAL CONTEXT To demonstrate why unaffordability is so prevalent in our lives, let’s set some of the trends in Northeast within the context of the disease I just described. It begins with the industrial boom of the early 1900s and efforts to regulate the development of real estate. The acute housing shortage and health and safety issues resulting from that era of ad hoc development needed to be disrupted by the thoughtfulness and regulatory control of planning, but the shift to planning as a practice coincided with the development of new building technologies that transformed small-scale builders into larger-scale subdivision developers.

By the late 1920s, most cities moved away from ad hoc lot by lot building to each owner’s demands, and planning soon permeated and standardized land use regulation, finance, and insurance practices so that real estate was now “built-to-supply” in pre-planned and mass-produced neighborhoods and suburbs.

The expectation was that every household and business would “fit” the new planned and mass-produced ideal. Yet government regulations and financial tools were infused with discriminatory and biased ideological influences. Therefore the standardized suburban ideal did not reflect the reality and needs of the diverse population. Explicit and implicit racial, gender, and religious bias, from redlining to exclusionary lending practices, barred people from living in certain areas and from participating in home purchases. If the exclusion was not outright, it was implied in the design of the building. Social norms, for example, were embedded in the supply of housing and workspaces, dictating an expected set of household structures and roles like nuclear family, single male breadwinner, and female homemaker. Multi-

family housing was just your stopover until you could achieve the proper dream of a single-family house in the suburbs where you would live out your hetero-married-for-life-with-children existence.

Only a minority of households have ever adequately met and maintained the social ideal that was the basis for housing and neighborhood design throughout much of our development history. To acknowledge this fact is to look anew at our built landscape. Rather than a preference, the mass of single-family houses and dearth of multi-family units is just a legacy of social expectations. The design ideals dictating proper stages in life for men and women did more to exclude certain groups from many communities, deny the experience of homeownership to many more, and set us on a course for unaffordability.

Initially though, the planned and single-family dominant subdivision was introduced after a decades-long housing shortage which ensured the post-WWII success of (and ongoing argument for) this form or housing provision. Multiple generations of households had suffered through cramped, crowded, and technologically outdated living spaces built prior to electricity and indoor plumbing. They were enamored with this new ideal, and those who could benefit from VA and FHA financial tools and the support of union wages bought into the shiny new supply. Of course, those barred from the benefits stayed in older areas of the city, which in many cases were subject to lending restrictions that accelerated property decline and values.

A TRANSITIONING NORTHEAST In the late 1940s, when suburban single-family euphoria was taking hold, Northeast Minneapolis was one of those older neighborhoods. It was home to many generational families of Northern and Eastern European extraction whose ethnic history was reflected in the churches and business establishments that lend character to today’s landscape. Early Nordeasters struggled as immigrants in working class jobs, but they faced few housing constraints with the advent of FHA financing in the 1940s. Their children benefitted as well, and homeownership rates grew.

Yet Northeast was an ad hoc mix of development. The blend of rail yards, factory buildings, and residences, many of them multi-family, did not appeal to later generations. They looked to newer options in the planned suburbs. Over time the departing households and the wane in manufacturing jobs contributed to a perception of decline in Northeast, and interest in the area slumped. As older generations passed away, ownership passed to younger and now suburban generations who became absentee landlords and started renting their family properties to subsequently lower-income households. The new immigrant

incomers represented different origins like Central and South America and Africa, and combined with bussing, they changed school demographics and the look of businesses along Central Avenue. Affordable housing developers inserted new complexes into the landscape, taking advantage of the lower land prices.

The changing demographic and development mix likely made the uniformly white, middle-class suburbs appealing to more departing residents, resulting in an increasing level of white flight through the 1970s and ‘80s.

Departures made room for another incoming group to occupy space in Northeast. By the late 1980s, working artist entrepreneurs advanced into moribund commercial buildings.

Nationally, the trend to convert former industrial space for arts production was several decades strong, buoyed by lower cost upgrading, and the continually decreasing demand from the larger-scale manufacturing sector. Building owners saw an opportunity in these new leases, and artists saw opportunity in the cheap rents and rough spaces.

The newness and homogeneity of the suburbs may have lessened demand for aging Northeast for some populations, but it created affordability and opportunity for others. What differed in the 1970s and ‘80s was the opportunity of homeownership.

Many properties in Northeast were still owned in absentia by former Nordeaster families, and they were not keen on selling in a downturned market. Many new immigrant and lowerincome households could not afford to buy and may have faced discriminatory real estate and lending practices if they were so inclined. Some exceptions existed. Artists, for example, did achieve homeownership. Nonetheless, overall owner rates declined which set the stage for the displacement of renters when investment interest returned to the inner-city.

HERE AND NOW: BACK TO THE CITY Older inner-city neighborhoods like Northeast have continually played the role of sustaining generational communities, and they’ve been an ‘only-option’ refuge for households of color.

Most importantly, they offered affordability throughout the postWWII suburban boom for many households and small businesses while providing proximity to job opportunities. But increasing demand for inner-city neighborhoods has put pressure on older and more affordable housing and commercial stock.

The current “back to the city” movement started as a trickle in the 1960s when so-called urban pioneers sought the affordability, history, diversity, and shorter commutes of older neighborhoods. The term gentrification was coined in 1964 to describe the impacts of this unexpected reverse migration on some lower-income communities. By the 1980s, civic leaders embraced the renewed interest and developed public-private

NEMAA.ORG 37

partnerships and economic development strategies aimed at attracting a growing cadre of urban pioneers and downsizing Baby Boomers. They celebrated the tax base increases, and longtime absentee property owners celebrated the ability to increase rents or sell at higher values.

By the early 2000s, interest in downtowns and older neighborhoods was well underway. Younger generations now seek these areas of the city to be near entrepreneurial opportunities in a vastly changed job market. They also prefer experiences over material wealth, an ideal incompatible with much of what is still being built in suburbia. Overall, after a century’s worth of exclusively suburban-focused development, investment in the city is viewed as a refreshing alternative for many households, especially those that don’t see themselves reflected in the antiquated stage of life and discriminatory ideals embedded in suburban design.

So, what was once considered a determent — the ad hoc mix of houses and commercial buildings — is now the setting that appeals to Northeast’s latest incomers. The lot by lot, built-todemand assemblage lends aesthetic diversity and a diversity in housing and business property choices, which meets the ideological and fiscal needs of a succession of new residents and entrepreneurs. Even the 1980s commercial and residential projects along the river, once viewed as a failed redevelopment effort, are now fully occupied by employers and restaurants offering job opportunities and experiences. The progression of eras in Northeast’s properties, many ripe for adaptive reuse for arts and other entrepreneurial production, offer a host of culturally rich and diverse stores, restaurants, brewpubs, and living and workspaces that are attractive and would not have been possible in the cookie-cutter suburbs. Commercial occupants needed the diversity and flexibility of Northeast’s built landscape, and residents needed the options provided in the area’s duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, small houses, and apartments from every era.

SUPPLY, DEMAND, SCARCITY, AND SPECULATION A quick look at the inventory of housing and commercial space in the region demonstrates the uniqueness of Northeast’s mix of properties. Like Northeast, older communities in the US host the last small houses, duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, as well as the one-off storefronts and smaller-scale commercial buildings.

These types of buildings have not been constructed in any quantity in the suburbs for decades. This property mix forms the foundation of residential and business options that make older neighborhoods desirable, and because the properties are older, they tend to be more affordable.

Yet older properties age-out and are remodeled or torn down for new construction. As more and more of this inventory is lost, price

Illustrations: brianbritigan.com • @brianbritigan

pressures increase on the remaining inventory. This happens because they are a scarce commodity, a scarcity created by the decades-long standardized suburban development trajectory I describe in this essay. Much of our built landscape is masterplanned and dominated by a stock of single-family homes that average over 2,000 square feet. Yet while the suburban “supply” scaled up in size and price through the decades, the working people remained stuck with stagnant wages. Moreover, they’ve experienced shifts in employment toward lower hourly wage positions and the normalization of gig employment and contract work over salaried security.

So today we find that much of this housing stock is simply too big to be affordable to a vast number of households, and younger generations have been opting not to struggle to make the suburban “fit.” This is especially true in the foreclosure aftermath of the 2008 recession. The factors that led to the inflated property values and sudden market decline during the downturn are numerous, but the foreclosure outcome tells us an important story. Too many households needed risky and predatory loans to “fit” into the multitude of “2,000 square foot average” singlefamily homes, demonstrating the error of our on-going and unaffordable development practices. Another story is told in the growing demand for flexible commercial spaces in the inner-city.

Older commercial buildings offer configurations and adaptability that is not easily accommodated by suburban zoning codes, and unlike new spaces, they don’t require tenant build-out at scales exceeding an entrepreneur’s available capital. In other words, they are more affordable.

Therefore, the attention of the residential and commercial marketplaces continually turns toward older communities like Northeast, and this explains what is fueling developer confidence as they create new inventory like the recent round of mid- and high-rise apartment complexes. They see the demand for older neighborhoods, and they find absentee property owners willing to sell and capitalize on that demand. The question to ask is why does this investment activity result in fears of gentrification? Yes, new project developers demolish some of the existing inventory, but they don’t fully erase the diversity of bricks, mortar, and wood in the neighborhood. Is it not possible to have $1,600+ rents for brand-new apartments with heated underground parking within a landscape of $900+ rentals in depression-era triplex units with street parking?

Not in the larger context of marketplace scarcity. Scarcity, when met with demand, drives speculation. Speculation is all about what we think we can get for renting or selling, balanced against how long we can wait for the willing tenet or buyer to show up. So, while property tax increases and upgrades justify some increases, rising rents and sales prices are more reflective of a property owner’s decision to charge what they think they can

get. The construction of new units will drive up the “average” rental rate for an area, and many landlords will perceive of this new average as the going market rate, even for units that haven’t been remodeled for decades! Demand, scarcity, and speculation work to drive up sales values in the same way, and values are the basis for property tax increases. Put simply, this demand/ scarcity/speculation cycle I describe accelerates pressures on the limited supply of older properties.

The more properties change hands, are remodelled, or are torn down, the more likely it is that a renter will be displaced.

Because the supply of older, and thereby more affordable spaces is limited, displacement can have dire consequences since there is nowhere to go. While this makes any and all change in a community suspect, what I also hope it demonstrates is that the focus on the incomer, like the artists and the hipsters — and even more tangentially, the focus on a three-day open studio art event like Art-A-Whirl — in an attempt to mete out gentrification blame is misguided, especially if we intend to have a robust discourse about causes and solutions. We need to focus on property; its development, its cost, how it is exchanged, and how we can undo scarcity and make room for affordability.

UNDOING MYTHS TO MAKE WAY FOR GROUNDED CONVERSATIONS NEMAA’s annual surveys suggest less than 20% of artists earn a full-time wage as artisan producers. Most compile a living wage through several gigs and the tenuousness of this projectbased work necessitates low overhead. Traditionally, artists have sought out affordable places to practice their trades and have been embedded in basements, garages, and backrooms of businesses in communities throughout the US. Their tenure of occupying underused industrial space, for example, dates to the 1920s. This practice gained exposure in the 1970s when artist concentrations grew in the empty lofts in SoHo. Art buyers visited and admired the transformed spaces and eventually bought them, transforming them again into chic offices and lawyer’s lofts. This is the genesis of the arts-as-gentrifiers myth. Unpack the myth, however, and you’ll find the much less sexy details about regulatory and economic development policies, boredom with the suburban lifestyle, and yes, property redevelopment and exchange.

The details tell us what really set the stage for gentrification in the SoHo district of NYC: the ability of property owners to speculate on the moribund industrial loft-style buildings once the institutional and regulatory supports were in place to make them viable for non-artist occupants. Those underutilized lofts could have been occupied by any type of business that, through their innovation, transformed the spaces in ways that had not been previously imagined. Yet myths are hard to shake, even when the narrative about the arts as harbingers is not born out by impact studies. Those studies suggest artist impacts differ

NEMAA.ORG 39

“A proper reframing acknowledging that artist entrepreneurs are simply small businesses would be a good place to start in debunking the link between the arts and gentrification.”

little from those of any new retailer or restaurant that — through entrepreneurial capital and effort — makes improvements to the property and brings new interest to a storefront, building, or commercial corridor. Certainly, Northeast has been the stage of an ever-changing cast of entrepreneurial actors, from Kramarczuk’s in the 1950s, to Holy Land in the 1980s, to 612Brew in 2010s.

A proper reframing acknowledging that artist entrepreneurs are simply small businesses would be a good place to start in debunking the link between the arts and gentrification. I like to point out that the Northrup King Building once housed a business with about 250 employees that put seeds in packages and shipped them all over the world. Their departure made room for the 300+ small business entrepreneurs who now lease workspace in the building. Most of those small businesses have been making products for you to view (and buy) at Art-A-Whirl and other events throughout the year. Suffice it to say these small businesses have invested in the Northeast community through their leases and patronage of local businesses in the same way the small accounting firm and hair salon owners do, and their precarity, like any other business, was recently demonstrated when the Northrup King Building was up for sale.

It is understandable that as change increases so does nostalgia, causing disdain for incoming populations and alterations to the built landscape. Incomers are necessary, however, to keep places vital and replace those that depart. Northeast has never been stagnant, as the diversity of steeples, domes, and places of worship attest. And each succession of incomers, over time, will claim their part of the neighborhood’s history. And lest we forget, while new residents influence change in some storefronts, they frequent long-established businesses as well, and pay rents to new and long-time property owners alike. In the main, the conversation is not productive here. Instead, I hope to propel a substantiated conversation about the pressures, opportunities, and motivations being presented to property owners in the context of this high-demand marketplace of scarcity.

To understand how and why the existing stock of residential and commercial buildings changes hands within a market of unaffordability and overall scarcity is to find solutions that mitigate rental increases, ensure preservation of property diversity, and solicit the kind of development the community wants.

40 In Studio Spring 2020

Can more investors like Artspace, who bought the Northrup King Building, be invited in to secure sustainability for certain economic sectors? Can more affordable units be built, like Hook and Ladder, to offset market rental rates? What are the ways we can preserve the stock of affordable multi-family unit properties?

Can we provide financial support to individual buyers and small-scale developers, so they are more competitive with larger-scale investors? Should we be talking about land-trusts, co-ops, or better property rehabilitation programs? And what if there were more options in other areas of the city and region to lessen scarcity and take the pressure off diverse communities like Northeast? Could some of those “too grand” single-family homes found in the suburbs find new configurations as multifamily complexes to better serve more household types?

Minneapolis’ 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which accommodates duplexes and triplexes in other areas of the city, offers a starting point for the wider region to consider, although the plan raises many questions about equity in the development it promotes.

Ultimately, we need to focus on the root causes of our residential and workspace unaffordability. Haranguing the artist and the arts festival, while providing provocative headline fodder, does not get us closer to a brick, mortar, and wood solution.

I encourage you all to shop locally among our artist entrepreneurs’ offerings during this year’s online 25th annual Art-A-Whirl. Much has changed since I initially authored this essay, but despite the current COVID-19 crisis — and maybe even more, because of it — this discussion remains relevant. It is within the disruptions to normal practices that we are able to see and seek better solutions to a host of inequities that are not new or newly discovered, but were largely absent from the narratives of daily life.

We’ve all witnessed the veracity with which the normal practices of development and property exchange returned, within a decade of the recent recession. So, let now be the time to dispense of myths and consider our inventory of housing and business space options, the realities of property ownership, and the true inequities present in this non-fiction story.

Brenda Kayzar is collaborative strategist, owner of Urbane DrK Consulting, and lead author of the 2018 Minneapolis Creative Index. She holds a PhD in Geography from UC Santa Barbara, affiliate faculty status at UMN, and served NEMAA as both a board member from 2009-2016 and Interim Executive Director in 2016. For more, visit urbanedrk.com.

The new face of 1325 Quincy St NE Leasing: Chad Blihovde Cbilhovde@R2.me 612-554-8423

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Making Room for Art

at Rafter Through commissions, purchases, and a residency program, one of Northeast’s new apartment high-rises works to build art into its bones

by Russ White n your way into the Arts District from downtown, Rafter Apartments are hard to miss. At 26 stories tall, the black and white building at Hennepin and 4th Street towers over the neighborhood, one of several residential high-rises to go up in recent years. Interestingly though, once you’re inside Rafter, it’s actually the Arts District that’s hard to miss.

“I’ve lived in Northeast for fourteen years,” says Jill Kiener, VP of Development for The Excelsior Group, the Minneapolis-based real estate firm that worked with Golden Valley-based Mortenson to develop the building. “When I got to work on this project, I said if we’re going to do something in my neighborhood, I want it to connect back to what I love about Northeast.”

It’s a tricky set of questions facing Northeast right now: will more condos and apartments contribute to rising rents and continue driving working class residents like artists and immigrants out of the neighborhood? Can we develop new housing options, scaled to the perceived demand, that won’t displace the people who made this neighborhood so desirable in the first place? At

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the same time, could an increase in population mean an increase in arts audiences? To put it crudely, could more wallspace mean more art sales?

For their part, Kiener and her team wanted to craft an arts program at Rafter that would help tie the building’s success to that of local artists and businesses. Kiener reached out to arts organizations, including NEMAA, for help in finding ways to incorporate (and compensate) local artists and artisans, and in the end, the building now boasts over 90 commissioned pieces from 23 makers, almost all of whom are NEMAA members as well.

“We quadrupled our typical art budget,” Kiener says. Highlights of the collection include murals throughout the building by Top Seda Studios (Emily and Abbey Quandahl), individual pieces by Shelly Mosman, Kim Heidkamp, Hilary Greenstein, Aaron Wittkamper, and Ashley Mary, as well as a collaboration between Patrick Pryor, Jodi Reeb, and Nicholas Legeros, not to mention the 30’ tall mural by Chuck U on the building’s exterior.

Above, left: Christian Hastad, Teal Deep [Pantone330C], oil and chalk on canvas, 48 x 48” • christianhastad.com • @christianhastad Right: Barret Lee, Neon Sky, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 30” • barretpaints.com • @barret_lee Images courtesy of the artists.

Opposite page: Hilary Greenstein’s paintings on permanent display in the Rafter’s 7th Floor Common Area.

Photo by Farm Kid Studios, courtesy of Rafter Apartments. • hilarygreenstein.com • @hilarygreensteinart

But the bulk of the building’s artwork was created by Rafter’s two current artists in residence, Christian Hastad and Barret Lee. Chosen from a pool of close to thirty applicants, the two artists each exchanged around twenty brand new original works for a year of free rent in the building. Both Hastad and Lee also ended up making further sales and securing commissions because of the residency, which comes to an end this August.

Their paintings, however, will hang inside Rafter for years to come.

“It was a fun, hard two months of cranking out a ton of work,” says Lee, “but after that, living here has been great. I get to process the next steps of my career and use this time as a boost living rent free.”

Hastad agrees about the complexity of the situation.

“Gentrification and artwashing are being used [in cities across the country] to make it okay for a high-rise to go up,” he says.

“But I also think [this kind of art program] is super essential for a building like this to do. It’s not only that they brought in artists to do work, and compensated artists for their work very, very well, but it’s also that they’ve been very gracious in allowing spaces like this to serve the community.” While the ground-level restaurant space gets built out, the two artists have been able to use it to host pop-up group exhibitions, open to the public.

“And that shows the commitment that is essential when you’re building a building like this in an artists’ community,” he says.

Kiener says that Rafter is happy that the residency program proved mutually beneficial, adding, “We also feel lucky to partner with these artists at an early part of their career.”

As the pilot year of Rafter’s residency program concludes, Kiener says her team is working on ways to expand it, to create longer term opportunities for artists that can incorporate their skills and knowledge into the tenant culture within the building.

It’s also a chance to workshop methods for future development.

“I would like to use my role within the development community to further innovative strategies to support artists and maintain the creative culture of our neighborhood.”

As the neighborhood continues to “develop,” it’s worth remembering that that word sounds like progress to some and destruction to others. The key is to do that work mindfully, as so many owners and developers did in years past when transforming Northeast’s abandoned factory buildings into a home for the arts. Rafter, at least, seems to have taken that lesson to heart. It’s true, these new structures loom large and cast long shadows. But it’s important for the arts community here to remember: so do we.

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612-588-9411

neighborhoodhealthsource.org

Two primary care clinics in the heart of Northeast.

Private insurance accepted. No insurance required.

Central Clinic 2301 Central Ave

Sheridan Clinic 342 13th Ave NE

Drawing design inspiration from our neighborhood. rsparch.com

NEW BOOK

LOCAL AUTHOR

wintercraft.com

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Art may be in NEMAA’s name, but traditional craft is also at the heart of who we are. When you can combine the two, though, as these four Members do, the results are next level. Enjoy this small collection of artists and artisans who are doing big things with a needle and thread.

Created by Benjamin Kelly, Dinosaur Hampton is a design brand that takes a thoughtful and thorough approach to embroidering, mending, and accessorizing our clothes. With a focus on sustainability, Kelly produces everything in house, often with repurposed vintage materials, Shop online for some dope jackets and patches, or work directly with the artist to commission a customembroidered piece! dinosaurhampton.com • @dinosaurhampton All images courtesy of the artist.

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Interested in where art and science can overlap, artist Karen Gustafson has created a series of over fifty “drawings” of plants using thread on organza. Inspired by the 6th century Vienna Dioscorides manuscript, which details the medicinal and nutritional properties of over 400 different plants through painted scientific illustrations, Gustafson’s plants float off the wall, intricate but ethereal, a modern update on the tradition of needlework samplers. karengustafsonstudios.com • @karengustafsonstudios Northrup King Building #3 4 Pictured, clockwise from top right: Turnip; Tree House Leek; Rosemary; & Garland Chrysanthemum; thread and organza, each approximately 14.75 x 11”, 20172019. All images courtesy of the artist.

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Originally from North Dakota, Ingrid Restemayer draws inspiration for her minimalist grids of hand-stitched dashes and knots from the calm of the open Northern plains. Incorporating intaglio printmaking on handmade artist paper alongside her embroidery, Restemayer creates large patchwork scrolls that hang over four feet tall, as in the piece at right. ingridartworks.com • @ingridartworks Northrup King Building #401-B From left: Stare (detail) and Revolution, etching & thread on handmade paper, each 50 x 20�. Below: a work in progress. All images courtesy of the artist.

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If you’ve cruised through any local art fairs or holiday pop-ups in the past few years, you will surely recognize the brilliantly crass crossstitch work of Third Daughter, Restless Daughter. Sisters Wone & Youa Vang offer a barrage of pop culture references, dirty jokes, and hilarious insults for sale, each one stitched lovingly, one X at a time.

Inspired initially by their grandmother’s Hmong embroidery, the Vangs have built a portfolio that ranges from silly Simpsons references all the way to the massive, gorgeous piece at right, hanging in Northeast’s taco hotspot Centro at Popol Vuh. Find them at Art-A-Whirl Online — you’re guaranteed to find the perfect gift for all the snarky nerds in your life.

3drdcrafts.com • @3drdcrafts Photo at right by Kevin Kramer. All images courtesy of the artists.

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We’re proud to support Minnesota’s vibrant creative community.

2422 Central Ave NE

Dine In or Take Out 612-781-3046

UCare has health plans for everyone.

Get started at ucare.org.

our Greetings fronmew home at...

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS

262 UNIVERSITY AVENUE W. AT GALTIER ST. IN SAINT PAUL

Now open!

UCare team at Franconia Sculpture Park

“We Move Still”

by April Martin and Jordan Rosenow

Workshops, jobs and more at SPRINGBOARDFORTHEARTS.ORG

Virtual Art Crawl

Connect with our member artists on our website and at the St. Paul Virtual Art Crawl now and anytime all year!

Calendar of Events

Check in for updated information about shows, open studios and events.

Annual Directory See it on our website and in print.

www.stpaulartcollective.org Facebook @StPaulVirtualArtCrawl Facebook @StPaulArtCollective Instagram @StPaulArtCollective

Collector’s Items • with Cassie Garner

As Gallery Directory at Gamut Gallery, Cassie Garner knows a thing or two about buying artwork. She gave us a peak at her personal collection (which includes several NEMAA artists) and shared some thoughts on why buying art — especially from local artists — is so important.

54 In Studio Spring 2020

Photos by Russ White

your own displays can help collections • Curating come alive. Here Garner has paired works by Jeremy Nealis (top) and Krista Bramm (bottom left) with babydoll heads from a swap sale.

“P

• A work of embroidery by Athena Jones that Garner acquired from Gamut, highlighting the breadth of media in her collection.

“There are so many different ways you can look at being a collector.”

eople think collecting is such a scary thing,” says Cassie Garner, “but if you have two of something you’re a collector.”

Garner has been building her own art collection since the early 2000s, when she started out buying collectible toys from local shops Ox-Op & Robot Love. Now that she’s made a career out of connecting artists with audiences, Garner finds herself bringing pieces home straight from the gallery. “Through working at Gamut, it’s hard to not buy artwork,” she admits happily.

Making a personal connection with each artist is important to her. “It’s not just a piece of art on the wall anymore, it’s not just something to tie the room together. Instead it’s an opportunity to connect through storytelling. You’re collecting stories, you’re collecting memories.”

She also mixes and matches art, craft, and personal memorabilia in her collection. “That’s why that wall upstairs is so important to me, because it is artwork by people that I know, but it’s also photos of my family. So when I look at that space, I get to reminisce about everything all at the same time. It’s good for people to incorporate parts of their own story into their collections, to weave them together.”

• Three tabletop sculptures by John Foster, who had a solo exhibition at Gamut Gallery last summer.

In the end, she says, it’s easy. There’s no wrong answer. “Buy what makes you happy.”

Visit gamutgallerympls.com to see more works for sale, & follow Cassie on Instagram @mplsartbabe.

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Artist-run gallery in South Minneapolis Memberships available Shop hand-crafted works Gallery shows

vineartscenter.org 2637 27th Ave S Minneapolis MN directors@vineartscenter.org

Logan Park Neighborhood Association Meetings 7pm • Logan Park Rec Center • Third Wednesday of every month

Randy Walker’s Collection Point, a truly impressive piece at a gateway to the NE Arts District.

(Photo credit: Randy Walker)

No Meeting August or December Childcare Provided

612.516.LPNA (5762) loganparkna@aol.com loganparkneighborhood.org Find us on Facebook!

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

—Albert Einstein It doesn’t take a genius to see it took some smart people to conceive of Art-A-Whirl®. After 25 years, you still shine brightly in Minneapolis. Here at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, we’re inspired by your passion. That’s why we’re committed to keeping the creativity and the fun alive year-round. When the party winds down in Northeast, why not give us a whirl? We’re open daily (just minutes west of downtown) and our galleries are free and open to the public.

Hopkins Center for the Arts 1111 Mainstreet • Hopkins, MN 55343 hopkinsartscenter.com

First Ward Council Member

Kevin Reich 612-673-2201

kevin.reich@minneapolismn.gov

MN State Representative

Diane Loeffler

A Remembrance Remembering a public servant, colleague, friend, and avid supporter of the arts, who passed away in 2019

by Senator Kari Dziedzic Illustration by John Vogl Art-A-Whirl was always the last week of session. Diane and I would commiserate that we couldn’t hit every gallery — which we both would always do before elected to the Legislature. Even though we couldn’t get away from the Capitol for long hours to truly appreciate and purchase all the art we wanted to, Diane was always optimistic that she could stop by a gallery on her way to the Capitol, and she always shared her exciting victory when that happened. Diane made it a point to promote Art-AWhirl during announcements on the House floor, letting members and the public know about all the different galleries and shows they could visit in our community.

Since we couldn’t always make Art-A-Whirl, Diane and I always relished the opportunity to go to the Fall shows every year, and always enjoyed strolling and chatting our way through all the galleries.

Diane understood that aspect of showing up for the arts community in Northeast better than anyone.

It wasn’t enough for her to just advocate for the arts at the Capitol; she walked the walk and was everpresent in the community, always personally supporting artists and promoting events happening in our district. Diane would always proudly display her art purchases in her office for others to enjoy and learn about the arts community in our district. From the beginning, she understood the importance of the arts community to our district, the city, and the state. She helped lead exploration of an arts education center (just before the 9/11 recession), and even served as a volunteer for the first Art-AWhirl. She also fought so hard at the Capitol to make sure artists and Art-A-Whirl had the resources needed to thrive by doing things like authoring the Legacy Amendment, which has provided dedicated funds for the arts.

Arts were such a valued part of Diane’s life that she even took some art classes from the artists. She said it was fun and a great diversion from the nitty-gritty details of Healthcare policy. She even tried to get me to join her at one of them, and now I regret I didn’t make the time to do so.

In these challenging times, take the time to take care of yourself. Call your loved ones and try to channel some of Diane’s hope and optimism. If we all focus on our shared values and goals for a better future, we will get through this. Arts will help get us through this together.

Illustration: johnvogl.com • @notjohnvogl

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Maria Robinson, Quality Time, oil on canvas, 48 x 48” Northrup King Building #400 • @maria_epiphany

In Studio Spring 2020

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