Soap Factory

On Thursday I walked up to what looked like an old abandoned brick building. What I was looking for was an art gallery. The address that I was looking for was 518 2nd St. SE in Minneapolis. I drove by a few times before realizing that I was looking at the building I was supposed to be going into. After squinting into the shadows for a few seconds I finally noticed the sign that said Soap Factory. Finally.....my destination.

So what is this place your wondering? The story is long. Almost as long as the history of the Twin Cities. Back in 1892 this building was owned by H.R. Carpenter's Union Railway Company. It was used as a storehouse for the railway. Originally built as a one story building, after only a year H.R. Carpenter was able to add two more stories because of the power and wealth of the railroad. However luck was not on Carpenter's side. In 1907 J.J. Hill and his Great Northern Railway was able to buy out Carpenter. He ran the warehouse until the power of rail started subsiding. Through the 1910's and 1920's the building was run as the Grant Storage Battery Battery Company and the Whaler-Barnes Food Products Manufacturing Company. In 1924 it finally became what it was longest known for, a soap factory called National Purity. This company made all things related to cleaning cow milking products. They stayed in business until the 90's and then moved to another more modern facility.

In 1987 there were two people who were looking for a space to house art that was not the refined gallery that most artists aspire towards. They wanted a spot for the starving artist. The ones with the biggest ideas and the smallest budgets. These two people were Jim Tittle and Laurie Muir. They had their little galley, called No Name Gallery, at 100 1st St. No in Minneapolis but were looking for something bigger and better. One day Jim overheard a realtor talking about a building that he was trying to sell. It needed structural and electrical work and needed an updated fire sprinkler system. Jim took the idea back to Laurie and they decided to go for it. They moved into the the building in 1995 and changed the name to Soap Factory right away. It took awhile to get cleaned up and repaired. They had to hold shows before they even had the heat working. But finally they had a large enough space to use for all the beginner artists out there, or the artists who just wanted an alternative space to a fancy gallery.

Walking up to and into the building is fun, especially if you haven't been there before. You have no idea what to expect. It's dark and looks dingy, but you know your going into a historic place. It has a lot of little rooms and a lot of big rooms. Feels like nooks and crannies. The floors are wood and are uneven, but in some places the floor is stone. And then you look at the walls, you would expect them to look just as run down as the floors but they are not. They are nicely finished and waiting for new art to be put on them.

One of the first things that you see when you first walk into the building is a cloud of white umbrellas. At first I thought this was just a decoration that the gallery had put up so you knew you were entering, but soon found out that it is art greeting you at the door. Adam Parker-Smith is the artist behind this idea and it is called Umbrella Cloud. He has these clouds of white umbrellas in various different places around the Soap Factory building, usually near a window or light source. It really helps to brighten up the dark corners. I like how he was able to take such a simple object as an umbrella and turn it into art. They are practically piled on top of each other so you cannot see through the mass of nylon.

After getting through that first cloud of umbrellas you have to cross an art barrier. A two inch wide and many many feet long pile of white items line their way across the entire gallery. It appears to go through walls in a never ending line. The miniature junk yard items in this work of art are everything you could imagine. Old tires, parts of fence, oil barrels, refrigerators, and cars are stacked and stretched so that you have to step over this in order to go further into the gallery. Brett Smith is the creator of this piece and he rightly calls it Barricade. This was my favorite artwork in the gallery because I had just never seen anything like it before. It left me wondering "who thinks of this stuff and why"?

My second favorite was called Memory Eternal by a woman named Lauren Herzak-Bauman. She made a very large piece of art that is 10x20 feet. It is set in a large room that is mostly dark. There are only a few dim sources of light. This is four large circles laid out on the floor formed of broken pieces of white porcelain. The edge of each circle touches the others. So you have this large organized mess on the floor that some how makes a lot of sense. The artist had a description of how she deals with depression and she was trying to represent how her thoughts run together. How she is fine in one area and another, but on the edges those issues touch and chaos happens.

I really liked the Soap Factory. I liked how it was laid out and that it wasn't a clean space where you needed to be quiet and well behaved. It seemed to bring out the real meaning in the art and how the artist was feeling. It was comfortable and used feeling. Kids could run around in there and it would be okay. A bum could wonder in, and it wouldn't matter. Also, it can be inspiring to a person who maybe isn't a mainstream artist. They have a space to express themselves without worry.


I wish I could have taken more photos, but wasn't able to. The ones I have here are of the outside, and give a bit of an idea how the inside looks. If you click on this photo and look very closely in the windows you will see the words Soap Factory spelled out.

Open Book

On Friday September 18th I went to a little art show hidden inside of a coffee shop. There can be no better setting for art than this, in my humble opinion. What could possibly be better than sitting with a cup of joe and looking at an artists interpretations of life. So I did just that. I was also able to squeeze in a bit of people watching as well.

The Open Book gallery is in one of the many buildings that line Washington Ave, right near the Metrodome. It is in between some other little shops and below what appears to be apartments. It has a wonderful store front to look at if you are just walking down the street.

Walking into the gallery you almost don't know what to do first. Should I get some coffee and sit for a bit, or should I walk around and see the art? Both are pulling at you, so a compromise must be made. Get coffee and then browse the art.

The floors are hard wood and the walls finished off. The ceilings are very high, so you have a sense of being in a very large space. This is the perfect setting for art. They seperate this area into three parts. The first is for art, it is the Rosalux gallery. Second is the coffee shop and some tables to sit at. Third is a larger art space that is called Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA).

The Rosalux is used mainly as a display area, as is the MCBA. However, the MCBA also has a larger part of it that is dedicated to making screen prints and books. You can also walk through this area and see how the work is done. Classes are taught quite often on how to make your own books. The other part of MCBA houses work from local artists.

There were two seperate shows I looked at. The first was called None of the Above at MCBA and the other was Praise and Punishment at Rosalux. Rosalux is a small space holding a small collection of art of about eight pieces. Even though you are in a smaller space with low ceilings you still feel that you have room to look and ponder. There are two main artists filling this space. The first is Joel Starkey and the other is Toni Gallo. I found myself drawn more to the works by Joel Starkey than Toni Gallo. My favorite in particular was one called All The Things I Meant to Say. This is a large black and white drawing of the artist himself. It looks like he has the guts of a cassette tape coming out of his mouth. In my mind it looks like it is supposed to represent all the things he had been thinking about and then never said. The other piece that I really liked in the Rosalux space was Walking Stars Crowded Self. This one is an oil painting by Toni Gallo. Here we have five people walking around on what looks like a blustry fall day. They all look deep in thought while they are wondering around. It was an easy painting to imagine yourself in.

Over in the other area where art is shown, the MCBA, was a display where artists needed to try and make something that would fit in an 11x13 envelope. It was interesting seeing what everyone came up with, but mostly there were just small paintings. Some people made what looked like invitations while others had small games or political satire. All of these were hanging in celophane sleeves and hung from a wire along the wall.

I like the Rosalux space better than MCBA. It has many windows, the ceiling is high, and there are display cases that you can see the art in. Some of the display cases are towers, tall and skinny. Also, there are a few chairs to sit in and look at the lovely art.

I didn't really like the different works of art in the MCBA as much as Rosalux. Most of them were just small pieces that most people could put together. For example one of them was of different types of currency from around the world. This is called The Bank of FUN by Casidy. It was interesting to see the different types of money, but didnt' really come off as artistic to me. Another was a collection of rubber stamps by Jeff Berner called Making A Life. I can see how this may be artistic to some, since he did have to carve the images on the rubber, but again to me just wasn't a major wow moment.

Overall I liked my trip to Open Book. It was a nice space to be in and made you feel relaxed. I think the next time I go back will be in the evening. I would like to see how the lack of daylight will change the way the art looks. I would recommend this to anyone who is an art lover and would like to see it in a unique space.

Minnesota State Capitol

This week I had the pleasure of visiting our state capitol. A very large and beautiful building to look at from the outside, I hadn't been inside since I was a child in elementary school. I drive past the capitol quite often as it is very near my current school and on my drive home. I like how it is sort of a reflection of the Cathedral of St. Paul, which is literally just down the street from the capitol. The street is a straight line from one to the other which you could walk in about 15 minutes time. The two buildings both have large dome structures and a look of the Renaissance period.

The Minnesota state capitol looks like a building from the Renaissance period because Cass Gilbert, the man who designed it, was paying homage to Michelangelo and the classical buildings he designed and built. Cass Gilbert spent much of his time training in Europe to be an architect, and most of this time was concentrated on the Renaissance period. The capitol dome is the second largest in the world, second only to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, which it was designed after. The designer Cass Gilbert knew that the design for St. Peter's was on the verge of being unstable so he decided to make a smaller dome. But never the less, we still have the second largest marble dome structure in the world right here in Minnesota. Buildings of this type were built to convey power and wealth. Minnesota had both of these at the time the capitol building was built. At the time it was built 4.5 million was spent, in todays currency that would be over a billion dollars. Minnesota has no where near that type of budget these days, but 100 years ago we had no problem spending that kind of money on our capitol.

Going inside the building is a wonderful experience. You suddenly feel as though are in a very serious and important place. When you walk in you do not immediately see the rotunda, you need to walk around a few columns first. When you stand in the middle of the rotunda and look upwards you are immediately hit with a sense of wonder and power. It's like looking up into the sky at night with a large star in the middle. What your really looking at is a blue ceiling with a large spherical crystal chandelier in the center. Around the sides of the dome, below the blue, are murals of what look like greek characters. These were painted by Edward Emerson Simmons. They are in various scenes that imply hard work and family, and also the struggles of life and the benefits. I believe that when the architect was designing this building he wanted to portray power and a tribute to our past ancestors who worked hard to get us where we are now.

Edward Emerson Simmons, the painter of the murals in the rotunda, wanted to portray justice and democracy, the two main pillars of our state government. This goes hand in hand with the the quadriga which is on the front of the capitol. It is made up of our horses that represent earth, wind, fire, and water. Standing between the horses are two women that symbolize civilization. There is also a man standing on the chariot representing prosperity. All together this represents what our state of Minnesota is known for.

Two of the main types of paintings hanging or displayed in the state capitol are realism and allegory. Realism trys to convey events as they happened and allegory conveys ideas or possibilities. I found two that were great representations of these types of painting. The first, which is a representation of realism, is the Third Minnesota Entering Little Rock. This was painted by Stanley Arthur and hangs in the governors office. It shows a young drummer boy leading the army into Little Rock, AK. The second painting, which represents allegory, is of three women sitting in a semi-circle on stone benches.. One has wings, another a book, and the third is holding a bridle. I believe that this represents the importance of education, religion, and the farming industry to Minnesotans. This painting hangs in one of the main staircases at the capitol, just off the rotunda, and was painted by Kenyon Cox.

My visit to the capitol was a great one. I had a nice time learning about some of Minnesotas history. I am hoping to go back to the capitol in the middle of October when they will be hosting a guided tour in the evening called Shadows and Spirits at the Capitol. This is a guided tour in the evening after dark where they use all the original lighting in the capitol, including lighting the large crystal chandalier in the rotunda. Also the tour is led by the night watchman who dresses in early 20th century costume. Should be a very interesting and fun night.

MN State Fair

I also took a trip to the Minnesota State Fair today. This wasn't on the list of places that I am supposed to visit for my class, or even blog about. I think that there are many different art forms in the world, so I wanted to share a few photos I took out at the fair. I hope you enjoy them.

Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art

Today I visited the Weisman museum on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a beautiful day to visit a museum. There were no big crowds at the museum and because of that I could wonder around and look at the different pieces as long as I needed or wanted too.

Walking up to the museum I was very impressed with it's outside appearance. It sort of feels like you are going to walk into a large crumpled up piece of tin foil. With the sun hitting its exterior at the right angle, the glare could blind you because it is so shiny. I loved it instantly. So many strange angles are jutting out of the side, but there are also curved areas which give it a softer look. I like how the entire outside of the museum is a piece of art itself.

The two main displays that I was there to see was the Somali Dispora and Au Courant: Robert Raushenberg's Currents. Both were very interesting and gave a perspective that you wouldn't normally think about.

There were two photographs in the Somali display that I liked the best. One was of a girl, who looked to be about 13 years old, practicing her saxophone. Her brother, who looked about 11 years old, was sitting behind her and watching. I thought it was very interesting to see what a different life style that this girl and her brother are living compared to the home they had back in Somalia. There were many photos showing both life at home in Somalia and the new conditions here in the United States. The second photo that I really liked was a group of five women, standing in a circle, doing some sort of traditional dance with their hands decorated in henna. If you don't know what henna is, it is a paste made up from ground roots. You apply the henna to your skin and allow it to dry. After it is dry a stain is left on your skin. This is a very beautiful art form that many cultures use for celebrations.

The next display that I saw, the Au Courant, was very interesting. I liked how Robert Raushenberg took articles from local papers and arranged them in a way which makes you think about what is happening in the world around you. Of course he was taking these from news papers quite a ways back, so the "current events" are now things in our history books.

I've included a few photos from my visit to this museum. I hope you enjoy looking at them.