St. Paul Conservatory

This week I had the pleasure of going to one of my favorite spots since I was a very small child, the Como Park Conservatory. I have loved this place for as long as I can remember, and try to go at least a few times a year. It is beautiful, old, and always changing. When you are inside you feel that you are walking through something very special; and it really is. The conservatory is nestled in the very large Como Park area in St. Paul. If you have ever driven north on Lexinton Ave you have most likely gone through the park. The roads become narrow and winding as you go through, and the speed limit is greatly reduced. The whole area is beautiful with many more things to see and enjoy other than the conservatory. At the time of the park evolving it was doing so in the spirit of other large parks around the world. Specifically the naturalistic design of English parks. Over the decades there has always been debate about the design and direction of the park. Some want it more natural, where as others want more of a standard design that is artistic. I think that Como Park is a great space for all types off expression, and they do a great job with it.

The conservatory is a large structure, 60,000 square feet, that was designed and built by Frederick Nussbaumer starting in 1913. It is domed with two long buildings coming off the sides of the dome. All of it is wood and glass and painted white. Looking at it you feel the power and strength of the building, but yet it seems to be light and airy. Something so large feels powerful but is delicate. It is quite the contrast, which adds to the overall feeling of awe with the building.

Probably the first thing you will notice when walking inside is the moisture levels and the heat. If you go in the middle of the winter you will be peeling your jacket off almost immediately. When you are inside you feel that you are in a large airy space. The light that filters in through all the windows makes you feel like you are still outside. When I visited there was no artifical light being used, only the natural light from outside. It was so bright that some of my photos did not turn out because of the glare. All around you there are towering ferns and palm trees arching over your head. The path that you walk on is stone. You truly feel as though you are in a tropical garden in another part of the world. Another thing is the smell. You never know what you will be smelling. Sometimes it is gentle flowers and other times a stronger smell of mold and earth. Always though it smells fresh like spring.

At the time the conservatory was built St. Paul was in its heyday. Many new structures were being built and the power and wealth of the city was evident in many places. The conservatory was one part of this. Approved in 1913, it was a huge beautiful display of the wealth of the city. Around the same time, many other powerful cities around the world were building similar structures. The fact that St. Paul had the extra money to spend on this building is proof of how well the city was doing at the time. The conservatory truly is the "crown jewel" of the city.

My favorite spot inside of the conservatory has always been the sunken garden. This is in one of the long buildings off the side of the large dome. In here you have all of the flower displays. It is beautiful and is always featuring the flowers of the season. Currently there are chrysanthemums, swiss chard and decorative peppers on display. As you can see from the photo above there is a lot of color and it is all arranged very beautifully. The sunken garden is also the brightest area in all of the conservatory. Even though it doesn't have the huge dome over head, you still feel that you are in a very large open space because of the garden being sunken down into the ground.

The inside of the conservatory is truly beautiful. If you are ever feeling down, or just cold on a dreary day and need some cheering up I suggest you go to the Como conservatory. You will feel better after being in there for just a short while. However, the inside is not where the beauty ends. From inside the conservatory you have access to the outside Japanese garden. This was given to us by our sister city, Nagasaki Japan. It is a large area of paths and traditional Japanese pools and gardens. There are bushes shaped like bonsai trees and many sculptures. There is a little stone walk through a pond that you can walk on. Peace and tranquility are felt in this garden. My favorite time to visit it is in the middle of the summer when all the flowers are in bloom. When I went through there this week it was cold and damp, so it wasn't quite as amazing as I am used to it being. Again, if you want to feel that you are visiting a far away place, go to the Japanese gardens. It's like an instant trip to Asia, since we are all trying to save money these days going on "staycations".

I love the conservatory. Make sure that you go and see this local spot!

SOO Visual Arts Center and Intermedia Arts

.......also see Intermedia Arts site @ http://www.intermediaarts.org/

This week was a double whammy in my art world. I had to visit two gallery's, although thankfully they were both on Lyndale Ave within two blocks of each other. The first was SOO Vistual Arts Center and the second was Intermedia Arts. SOOVAC was more like a regular gallery where you are looking at the work of "classic" type artists. Intermedia Arts was different and unique though. They were featuring the work of 28 female hip hop artists and their take on women empowerment today. A lot of their work was in grafitti style, or as collages. Some of it was more classic looking such as paintings and sculptures. It was all very hip and modern looking.

I went to SOOVAC first. When you walk in it looks like a little store. You can buy unique items of the sort you would find a the gift shop Patina. But when you walk a little bit further in you see the two galleries. One is much larger than the other. The larger one was holding the work of Greg Gossel in a show that was called Broken. He's an interesting artist in that he likes to make large paintings of comic book scenes. They look like the small square pictures that you would see in a comic book, but on a much larger scale. He'll usually have two different scenes on top of each other, where depending on where you are looking you will either see one or the other. My favorite painting that he did was a large portrait of a baseball player called Hank In Yellow. It had that comic book look to it also, but without all of the other images in the back ground. I like that it was simple and straight forward. You could just look at it and appreciate it for what was.

The other smaller gallery space at SOOVAC held work by a woman named Amy Rice. She does smaller works of art on a wood back ground. Her work has an Asian flare to it, where you feel like your looking at an Asian country side scene. My favorite work that she did was called Paper Boat. It looks like a little fortune cookie made out of paper with a person sailing it around a lake. If I was going to buy any art from this place it would be from Amy Rice rather than Greg Gossel.

The next place that I went to was Intermedia Arts. It's a larger space than SOOVAC but from the outside you could more easily drive or walk past it without realizing it was there. The thing you would notice while walking or driving by would be the large mural just outside the door. Walking in you are able to go a variety of different ways. You can walk straight in and talk to the information desk, you can go to the left and see a screening of something, or you can go to the right and see the Mama Said Knock You Out exibit, which is what I was there to see. This exibit was put together to show female empowerment as portrayed by female hip hop artists. They all did a very good job. It was interesting to see the perspective of so many. Some seemed angry, others at peace with themselves, still other were just trying to get a message across........such as "Well behaved women rarely make history"!

There were two works that I liked the best at Intermedia Arts. Both of them were by an artist simply called Niz. The first one is Badu-Turn up the Bass! This is a painting of an African American woman who looks like she is sitting on a speaker. But rather than seeing the speaker you are seeing a bunch of speaker amplifiers all over her body. Not only did I like the look of this painting, I liked what it seemed to represent. To me I saw a woman who is letting her inner voice scream out. And not only is she letting it scream out, she's turning it up! I found it to be inspirational for all women.

The second painting by Niz that I liked a lot was New World Blues. This is another painting of an African American women but this time she looks more subdued. She is dressed in a more classic style of the sort you would see being worn during Cival War times. She looks sad with her face turned towards the ground and some sort of cigarette in her mouth. What is interesting is that across her chest is a sash that says Triumph. Again this painting spoke to me. In my own view what I saw was a representation of a people who have made huge progress in their struggle for equality, but yet are still up against a big wall. There is much work to be done still when it comes to racism and equality for all. To me she represents this.

On the outside of Intermedia Arts, as I said earlier, there are murals. They wrap all around the building and hide many different things in their colors. Some were peaceful and tranquil and others were screaming and loud. There was so much to pull on your eyes that I had to stand there for awhile just to take it all in. My favorite mural outside was of a woman coming out of what looked like a locust flower. This is a traditional representation in Asian religions of the beginning of life. The woman of course being the mother of all. It was neat how they had art not only on the outside of the building but on the inside as well. It was a totally different kind of art on the outside, so you could again see the many different layers of a womans emotions as well as the many different types of art that can be created.

Over all I would have to put these two galleries lower on the list of my favorites. They were interesting to go to, but I can't see myself going back to either of them. I like the art that was at Intermedia Arts a lot more than what was at SOOVAC, it just spoke to me more.

The Minnesota Museum of Russian Art

This week I got to go to a museum that I have been meaning to go to for years. I first drove past the Russian art museum back in 06. I remember thinking to myself, "what an odd place for a Russian museum". At first glance I just thought it was a church.....which it used to be. It is complete with a steeple and and very tall windows. That led me to think how sad it was that a church lost it's congregation, but that at least it can be used for something as lovely as art. But of course, like most busy people, I just never made the time to go in there. When I decided to take this class I was hoping that the Russian museum would be included in places to visit. Lucky for me it was.

When entering the museum you you first walk past a little information desk. I was lucky enough to be greeted by a museum staff member who was very knowledgeable. She told me all about the artists, their history, and some of the history of art in Russia. She sounded very excited while telling me about the museum which made my experience better.

After you go through the entrance to the museum you are able to go straight into the Russkiy Salon, down to a lower darker gallery where the Photographer to the Tsar exhibition is held, or up some stairs to an area that holds more art as part of the Russkiy Salon. I decided to go down into the Photographer to the Tsar exhibition first. This was a dark room where the only light was coming from behind some photographs that were illuminated. In this room there were 26 large photos, about three feet by three feet, that were taken by a man named Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii. He lived from 1863-1944, in the Russian empire. He was a man of science, being an inventor, chemist, and an artist. Prokudin-Gorski was also an artist. As an inventor and an artist he developed the first known process for taking color photographs. He did this by using a camera that he designed. What happened is that he would expose scenes onto a piece of glass using three different colored filters. Later on he would project the images onto a wall or a screen of some sort with a lantern projector.

With this "camera" Prokudin-Gorski made a voyage over all of Russia. He did this from 1906-1907 and again in 1911 with the support of the Russian Tsar at the time, Nicholas II. On these voyages Prokudin-Gorski took pictures of the many different cultures that made up Russia at the time. Mostly he stuck to the Silk Road and the Trans-Caspian Railroad as his route, and saw cities such as Merv, Bukhara, and Samakand.

The photographs that he took showed the land, the people, and many types of homes and buildings that people lived in. He took pictures of farms and all the animals of the areas. Also he was able to capture many cultural events of the areas; men on horses, women doing work at home and care of children, and places of worship. The photos are beautiful and seem almost to be more clear and crisp than a lot of the pictures that you see today taken by digital cameras. Prokudin-Gorski was ahead of his time, and did a great job representing the landscape and cultures of Russia in the early 20th century.

Next I went upstairs to the Russkiy Salon. There were many many paintings in this Salon, most of which were from before WWI. Based on what the woman at the information desk told me, many of these paintings were never seen in Russia. They were painted during a time when many art forms were being restricted, and therefor had to be kept a secret. There were three paintings in particular that I liked the most.

First was called Sunday in the Village. This was painted in 1884 by Nikolai DmitrievichDmitriev-Orenburgsky. The painting is oil on canvas and is a scene of a village celebration. You can see many people all together. Some are dancing, some are sitting on a hill watching, and still others are playing instruments for everyone. The detail in this painting was amazing. The colors were so accurate to a warm summer day that you felt like you could be right in there with them. In the background you see a church, many houses of the village, a large bay area and ships floating in the water.

Second is Gathering of Village Women which was painted in 1910 by Stepan Fedorovich Kolesnikov. The first thing that hits your eyes with this is the color RED. The whole thing is just red, red and more red. The picture is an oil on canvas of four women standing with each other outside of a church on a cold spring day. There is a church in the back ground and melting snow all around. The ground is muddy and the sky looks very gray. The women are dressed all in red, the buildings are painted red. The only thing in this painting that isn't red is the church. It is white with blue domes on it's rooftop. In speaking with the woman at the information desk again I found out that red was a very important color to the Russian people. It had many religious ties to it, and was in general a very old cultural representation of the Russian people.

My third favorite painting from 1986 was Unmade Bed by Mai Volfovich Dantsig. This was a very large painting that was on the third floor of the museum. This painter was interesting as he used bold colors and bold application in his paintings. He used this to pull a viewer "into the room". A plaque next to the painting stated that he liked to "romanticize the harsh reality of life" in his work. So what you are looking at in this painting is someones bedroom that has an open door out onto a balcony. You feel like this could be your own room. The bed is unmade, there are cloths laying around, and a cigarette burning in the ash tray. I like that this room feels so comfortable. I would like this painting in my own home.

My experience at the Minnesota Museum of Russian Art was a good one. I like how it used to be a church. I think that this really makes for an interesting presentation of the art. The long narrow area that used to be where the congregation of the church sat is the perfect place for art to be hung. You are able to walk through and see everything, but there is enough space that it is not crowded. What is neat is how they built the top floor around the perimeter of the church. The middle is hollowed out so that you can see down to the space below. In this way you feel that you are totally surrounded by art.

I liked this museum, as I have like all of the places I have visited so far. The normal price a person pays to go in is only $5. This is a very low cost for the experience that you have inside. I would recommend you go.

Northern Clay Center

I wasn't sure what to expect at this weeks location for art. Before going I did a drive by on my way to work. Conveniently it is located about two blocks from where I work. It really didn't look like much of anything from the outside. Just like many store fronts along a busy street, this one was there, but nothing to special was going on. So I was thinking to myself, "I hope this isn't going to be boring". When I went back the next day, in the pouring rain, I was able to see what was really happening in there. Let me just say that it is much much larger on the inside than it looks like it could be from the outside. An important thing I came to realize by going there is that there is art hidden EVERYWHERE in the Twin Cities. If a place looks that small from the outside, and is so large and beautiful on the inside, can exist in one place, it must exist in many other places as well.

The Northern Clay Center is what you would probably imagine it to be just from reading the name. It is a gallery that concentrates on art that is made of clay or some sort of earthen ware. When you walk in you are first in an area that is a little bit like a store. There is a lot of clay and ceramic pieces around that you are able to buy. Most of them are dishes or vases. There were a number of cute little tea pots that caught my eye, and I almost bought one of them. Problem the price is slightly beyond the reach of a frugal college student. So I just had to enjoy looking at all of it an imagining buying some items one day.

Going further back into the center you walk into the gallery. It is broken into two large rooms. First room had the works of artists Patti Warashina and Ron Meyers, and the second room was holding the College Bowl II/09. Patti Warashina and Ron Meyers are well known artists where as the College Bowl has items by local college students who are just getting their start in the art world. Most of these items can be purchased by an interested person. Just stop at the desk and speak to someone.

Patti Warashina and Ron Meyers are both expressionists. They like to represent emotion and "being alive" on their works of art. You can see this in all of the work that they have at the Northern Clay Center. Patti's art is vibrant and full of contrast. The figures she has shaped are mostly the same; female, and slightly Asian looking. This I believe is a representation of herself. She has an Asian family background. The figures are set in a pose that represents normal human activities. Their faces hold all the expression and you can almost tell what they are feeling. The odd part about her pieces is that they are in environments that would not be possible. The photos I have of my two favorite pieces of hers show this. The one is of a figure with a witch hat on and what looks like small moons floating over her, it is called Lunar Affair. The other is of a figure who is under water, called Bottom Feeder. You can tell by the way the artist has painted this that there is water flowing past the figure. There is also a fish swimming around her leg and her hair is flowing off to one side in the direction of the current. Patti also has some drawings at the gallery which are framed and on the walls. They also have a lot of contrast in them, but other wise look much different than her sculptures. These are drawings using mono print, copper sketching, and dry point techniques. She has a lot of depth and emotion in the drawings. There is one in particular that is called Eye of the Storm that shows a lot of emotion. If you look at the photo you will see that there is a person in the fore ground who is just an outline. Behind the person there is an oval with a scene of what looks like fire boats, like this is what she is seeing through her eye. This reminds me of a photo I saw of the fire boats that were at ground zero when the World Trade Centers were hit. I don't know if that is what she was actually drawing, but it caused me to have an emotional response.

There is an interview with Patti Warashina where she speaks about her life and how she came to do the type of ceramics she does now. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/warash05.htm In this interview she explains how she figured out how to "draw" on the clay without it dripping all over the inside of the kiln. This was very important as it allowed her to begin expressing her art in the way she really wanted to.

Ron Meyers seems to like to do a more natural looking style. His art is in natural colors and is of scenes that you could imagine happening. The way that he puts the images on his ceramics is through applied decoration. This means that after the piece has been fired he applies the color or other items and they are able to attach through the heating process. He "draws" images onto the ceramics in this way. From what I saw at the gallery it looks like he focuses mostly on human faces and the faces of cats, dogs, and whole fish on his pieces. They were drawn in a sketchy sort of way. So not all the lines are perfect nor does it have that finished look. The work he does had a very warm feeling to it, even though the faces on his work looked sad or confused. You could imagine finding work of his in peoples kitchens being used as casserole dishes or mugs for tea. I'm sure also that he has sold work to animal lovers that have used his bowls as water and food dishes for their pets.

As you walk back further into the gallery you get to the College Bowl II/09. This is the area where all of the college students have their art. The Norther Clay Center hosts this show each year. Right away I noticed my two favorite pieces. These two immediately caught my eye and I was able to see the beauty in them. My favorite of the two is called Endurance by Mika Negishi Laidlaw, a student at Mankato State University. She has designed two statues that look either like a number of different spheres stacked on top of each other, or two faceless pregnant bodies. I think she was trying to portray pregnant bodies. One of them is black and the other is white, and they are both facing opposite directions. I though of yin and yang right away, but you could think of many opposing things that this represents. The thing that caught my eye was the striking contrast. Please see the picture I have included.

The second piece that I really liked was a huge stone picture of what looks like a lotus flower. This is called Negative Space Gingko in Red by Gary Erickson who goes to Macalester College. This is a piece of large white earthenware. It has a red back ground with a huge yellow flower in the center. It looks like it is made of many pieces of stone fit together into a pattern. I have a picture here so you can see what I am talking about. I really enjoyed the contrast and beauty of this piece. I would love to have brought it home with me and hung it in my living room.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my visit to the Northern Clay Center. Again, this is a place I will go back to. Especially since it is right in the neighborhood of where I work.