Project with a Capital “P”

Andy Sturdevant—bon vivant, raconteur, interlocutor, chairman-elect of the Medicine Lake Gentlemen’s Research Society—sat down one wintry Wednesday evening to talk about history. I had last seen him perched atop a handmade shack on the frozen shores of Medicine Lake, horn-rims steaming, cheeks aflame, hollering into the wind like Buddy Holly in a one-piece snowsuit, one whose embroidered label read “The Aristocrat.”
Sturdevant had planned to offer a walking tour coupled with a rambling, discursive history of Medicine (née Mdewakan) Lake—part of the festivities surrounding the Art Shanty Projects, the annual undertaking whereby dozens of artists invite the public to visit their creative takes on ice fishing shanties. But the temperature of the air and the fortitude of the tour group were plunging fast. So he took pity on the crowd and shaved several hundred years off the history; as we huddled around him in a loose horseshoe, he let loose a volley of historical grapeshot: “You are standing on the site of a mid-century Methodist mission camp! ‘Mdewakan’ is Dakota for Lake of the Spirit! This lake was the childhood home of director Terry Gilliam!” [Editor’s Note: Mdewakan is literally translated as “sacred” or “mysterious” Lake.] With a flourish, Sturdevant corralled the crowd out of the wind for a “Battle Hymn of the Republic” sing-a-long. We sang hallelujah, said hallelujah, and with that, the tour was over.
By the time we met at the Clicquot Club in south Minneapolis, Sturdevant had swapped his lambskin for a long, red-and-white striped Dr. Who-style scarf. He grasped a grilled panino imperiale with one hand and flipped through some of his historical research, a series of nineteenth-century advertisements, with the other. The ads were designed to persuade Minneapolitans of the 1890s to settle near “Medicine Lake Park,” and Sturdevant read them aloud with glee. “Do not suppose that THE PARK IS A WILDERNESS,” he intoned. “The shrewd investor will be quick to GRASP THE OPPORTUNITY and purchase now, while prices are low and terms easy.” Wiping a few crumbs from his chin, he moved on to describe his next curatorial endeavors, including a sprawling twentieth-anniversary exhibit on the history of No Name Exhibitions and the Soap Factory, the art space near St. Anthony Main that occupies a special place in Sturdevant’s heart. “It’s dank and weird,” he says. “Everything a gallery should be.” It’s also where he once exhibited a project titled Dead Flying Minnesota Liberals: images of Hubert Humphrey and Gov. Orville Freeman strung up between the gallery rafters and spotlit from below like the ghosts of politics past.
Indeed, a deep appreciation for local history permeates Sturdevant’s work—all the more impressive as he only recently set foot on local soil. An artist by training, curiosity-seeker by nature, and gentleman historian by night, he moved to Minneapolis two years ago on a wing and a beer. He’d spent a cool quarter-century on much-loved home turf in Louisville, Kentucky, where “You pay $180 in rent,” he says. “You make $600 a month and live like a king.” But the city’s elixir of torpor and plenitude threatened to choke his chi, so he sat down one night with a Sharpie and a Sterling and made a list of possible new hometowns—Philly! San Francisco! New York! Milwaukee!(?) Chicago is where most Louisvillians go for a swig of big-city life, but Minneapolis became the frontrunner by dint of its mystery. Sturdevant arrived in February of 2005 bearing copies of a home-made book called Everything I Knew About Minneapolis Before I Moved Here, all his worldly knowledge occupying a dainty twelve pages.
Any newcomer will tell you that the social fabric of the Upper Midwest is as impermeable as lefse left in the snow, but Sturdevant approached Minneapolis as a Project with a capital “P”: He scoured the local papers for arty happenings, scribbled notes, and attended precisely one zillion gallery openings. He said hello. And hello. And hello. He switched from Sterling to Grain Belt. Being from the South gave him a lot of social leverage, he discovered. “Ah just moved here from Kintuckee two weeks ago”: like a hot knife through butter.
He quickly found a number of conspirators and cohorts among other Twin Cities artists, began volunteering at the Soap Factory, and exhibited Everything I Knew at Creative Electric Studios in Northeast. He made artwork for (full disclosure) this magazine and designed programs for The Electric Arc Radio Show. At the moment, Sturdevant’s gig as a secretary at the University of Minnesota Medical School pays the rent while his multifarious projects feed the head. Not to mention the vocal cords of anyone who comes within singing distance. Speaking of which, any sing-a-longs in the foreseeable future? The gentleman makes no promises—except that he’ll personally serenade any interested party with the 1961 hit single “A Little Bit of Soap” by the Jarmels. The shrewd investor will be quick to grasp the opportunity.