The Precious Object

This week I took a trip to the new Minneapolis library. It is downtown Minneapolis, very near where Nicolette Ave and Washington Ave cross. This is a beautiful building and is a piece of art unto itself. It is four stories tall and is made mostly of glass.

You would never think that a library would have an art gallery inside of it, but this one does. They have an area set aside called Cargill Hall. The exhibit that I visited was held in this area and was called The Precious Object. From what I could see this was a collection of local artists who were basing their art off of the things that you could find in your home. Also, very few of the works are what you would call traditional. They are put together from all sorts of different mediums. Cloth, metal, paper, string are all things that are used to make the various pieces of art in this exhibit.

There were four pieces of art that I liked the most when I was in there. My favorite was called Painting Painting (with van der Weyden) by Margaret Wall-Romana. This was a large painting that looks like the forest on a spring day. Cool greens and dark browns, flowers, trees, and fog are all the things that make up this painting. There is nothing clearly distinct in this painting, but you can find meaning in it. It is very lovely.

Next I looked at a piece that was hanging from the ceiling. This was called 54847 and was by Ginny Maki. What she did was go and visit a small town with the zip code 54847. She had the people in the town draw pictures of all the buildings they were most familiar with. She then took these drawings and put them together into her view of the town. She made houses, stores, schools, and churches which she held together with many pieces of thread. This whole thing was strung up to the ceiling and was hanging right at eye level. It was neat to read about the history behind this piece and it became one of my favorites based simply on that.

The next piece I saw I liked because of how much work it looked like it took to make. This was Implosion by Beth Burron. Basically it was a quilt, but with very tiny pieces of fabric. I would describe it as a fabric mosaic. Also, the fabric was tie dyed. Anyone who has ever done any quilting or tie dying knows how much work both of those are to do. So to see something that has both, plus the pieces of fabric are very small, to me is impressive and artistic.

The last one that caught my eye was It could have happened yesterday or it could have happened today by Andy Ducett. It looked like he took everything that was just laying around in his bedroom, or some kids bedroom, and glued it all together. It was the most random piece of "art" that I have ever seen. I don't think I would really classify it as art, but each artist has their own vision for things so who am I to say it's not art. It was strange to say the least.

So as I was leaving the gallery and walking back through the library I couldn't help but notice, as I was saying above, how beautiful the building is. It's size is immense and the amount of glass in there makes you feel like you are walking through a big window. Even though it is so large and tall, all the light streaming through the windows make it feel light and airy. Another cool feature is the way they have the walk-ways set up. The glass goes right down to the part you walk on, so when you see people walking up there it looks like they are walking on air.

I actually liked being in the library better than the gallery. The architecture, the people watching, the cup of coffee I got from Dunn Bros all made me really like just being in there. I felt relaxed and was contemplating how I could work that place into my normal study routine. I think it would be great to go there and do school work.