Friends,
This last weekend, Lindsey was out of town with friends, so I decided to take myself on a two-day art field trip in Minneapolis. It was so full that I’m still struggling to metabolize everything I’ve seen. I’m sure you’ll see some of this in future Still Life letters, but for now here are a few things I did:
I joined Tibetan nuns as they ritually destroyed a sand mandala at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and poured the sand into the Mississippi River.
I heard the artists Leslie Smith III and Dyani White Hawk discuss how community and reimagining social structures inform their artworks at a Bockley Gallery opening.
I listened to a lecture by the conceptual sculptor K.R.M. Mooney on history, material, and making art out of leftover materials as Midway Contemporary Art remodeled.
I visited In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater for Bread and Puppet Theater’s “The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus”—a deeply moving, silly, heartbreaking celebration of being human despite all the injustices that surround us.
First, it’s worth saying that it’s a privilege to wander around town like this. To have a full weekend without obligations, a car to use, free time to spend. Not everyone has the time and space to engage the arts like this, and I don’t want to take it for granted. Years ago in seminary, I remember walking to class and lamenting to a friend about how we thought churchgoers’ music taste seemed so bad. A professor walking in front of us whipped around, stopped us, and said, “Don't ever dismiss what people like or don’t like. You have time to develop your interests and explore what’s out there—that’s a privilege that not everyone has.” We stammered some response. I have no idea what we talked about in class, but I’ll never forget that hallway conversation: the arts are a gift, and it’s a privilege to have time to enjoy them.
Second, I was really struck by how critical community is to bringing art alive. The conceptual sculpture lecture was very good, but when I was at the Bockley Gallery, there was food and drink and family and old friends and a real sense that the art emerged out of a network of people. As Dyani discussed “Visiting,” her new towering sculpture covered in traditional Lakota beadwork, she made sure to point out the dozens of people made it possible, especially her own community who helped her with the labor-intensive beadwork. She made sure that everyone knew that she wasn’t a solitary artist, and she told us to talk to anyone there wearing a corsage, since they helped create the sculpture. I love that: the artist isn’t at the center of the artwork. Instead, the artwork radiates outward into larger layers of community.
Third, I think I’m really recovering a sense of place. When Lindsey and I first moved to Minneapolis from Los Angeles during the pandemic, it felt like nothing changed. There was a lag time there, a sense that where we lived was inconsequential since we were on the same zoom calls, chatting with the same friends, scrolling the same social media feeds. Years later, I can still catch myself pining the art scenes of bigger cities, but there’s so much happening in a few mile radius that I’ll miss if I’m constantly looking elsewhere. A few weeks ago, I was asking how do you cultivate a multicultural life? Paradoxically, we don’t have to stretch our eyes and ears and minds to distant shores to answer that question. There are all sorts of diverse communities and art forms all around us if we know where to look. Beauty happens here—whether “here” means Minneapolis where I’m writing or wherever you’re reading this.
So, to summarize: the arts are a real gift, they can come alive when they’re rooted in local communities, and they’re waiting for us to discover in our own backyard if we have the time and desire to explore. I hope you click around and discover some of the art I experienced, but more importantly, I hope this letter inspires you to explore your own town in new ways. There’s so much more to say, but for this week’s letter, I’ll let Bread and Puppet Theater’s poem-manifesto have the last word: Hurrah!
Take care,
Michael
Tableside make intimate space for creative communities
Public Functionary builds an “abundant community of practice” for artists