Year: 2007

“History dead-ends Holly Avenue,” says Michael Koop. The preservation specialist at the Minnesota Historical Society is talking about the way in which a neoclassical giant, complete with Ionic columns and a massive pediment, rears up in the middle of the avenue, disrupting the neat street grid characteristic of St. Paul’s tony Historic Hill District. Location isn’t the only commanding feature of the building, which was built around 1908 as the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and this month becomes the new home of SteppingStone Theatre.

Constructed in an era when local church styles tended toward the Gothic, First Methodist made a statement from the start. It’s not a modest building—and, according to Paul Clifford Larson, that is precisely the point. “The church was built during a movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasized the importance of social ministry—what we call social justice today,” says Larson, who chairs the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission. Because the church ministered to the larger community, not just its own congregation, the exterior was designed to reflect the humanistic ideals of the Classical era rather than a specific theology. Muted religious icons made it easier for people from all faiths to walk in without heresy; the church’s lone cross (now long gone) was effectively camouflaged within a circular frame. The building’s height—one must climb twelve feet of steps just to get to the front door—stemmed from the same impulse. The church leaders “weren’t looking for the highest hill, like the Cathedral,” explains Larson. Instead, he points out, their building “was always intended to be a community building. Methodists had been designing some churches with raised basements so you could enter directly into the garden-level meeting rooms” and thus avoid the sanctuary altogether.

The architectural firm that followed that design directive was Thori, Alban and Fischer. Although this partnership was short-lived, the men had individual influence throughout the state. Martin Thori and another partner, Diedrik Omeyer—“the mad Norwegians,” chuckles Larry Millett, the architectural historian who includes the church in his 2007 AIA Guide to the Twin Cities—are responsible for many of St. Paul’s intricately baubled Queen Anne residences; while Larson credits William Linley Alban with bringing a wave of neoclassical architecture to St. Paul. Alban was also dominant as the sole partner with academic training, graduating from the Chicago School of Architecture. “He was almost certainly the chief designer” of First Methodist, says Larson.

Like most churches, First Methodist changed along with the demographics of the neighborhood. In 1964, it became Saints Volodymyr and Olga Ukrainian Orthodox, and later, Grace Community, a church whose progressive theology eventually proved unpalatable to its African-American congregation. So much for the inclusiveness of the original church: Reverend Oliver White’s outspoken advocacy for gay rights left him with just eleven congregants in 2001, barely enough to fill a pew, let alone tithe for the staggering monthly utility bill.

By this time it would have been kind to call the place a fixer-upper; estimates for repairs topped a million dollars and the tiny congregation went looking for a savior. A highly original developer offered to raze it and build condominiums. Word hit the street—on the eve of a city council meeting that would decide the matter—and guerrilla war ensued. Within hours, neighbors gathered more than a hundred signatures, enough to block the church’s sale and demolition. Another developer proved more acceptable, with plans to rent the church to a charter school. The deal was inked, but then the school moved elsewhere. The developer, David Kabanuk, was stuck with a million-dollar treasure, a locally designated landmark, a leaking, cracking, teetering entry on the National Register of Historic Places.

Meanwhile, a bid by SteppingStone Theatre to buy the Highland Movie Theater had fallen through. The phone at the scrappy company—the only children’s theater in St. Paul, and a poor cousin, relatively speaking, to the Children’s Theatre Company across the river—started ringing. It was the Preservation Commission, it was former City Council Member Jerry Blakey, and it was dozens of the church’s neighbors. Thus wooed, SteppingStone bought the building. The city of St. Paul pitched in half a million. Corporate donors and foundations big and small, including Bush and McKnight, all wrote checks, as did hundreds of individual supporters. Ultimately, the $5.3 million gut rehab didn’t just restore the structure, it also revitalized the old church’s community spirit. Just as First Methodist did, SteppingStone’s artistic director Richard Hitchler plans to open the doors to the neighborhood, starting with a grand opening celebration December 1.

Today the theater is a beguiling blend of old and new: both stainless steel elevator and creaking staircase climb to the balcony. Repaired walls pop out in pleasant primary colors; the original maple woodwork is buffed and gleaming. And even though the 430-seat house is outfitted with plenty of technological gadgetry, there are stained-glass windows that are cracked and popping, awaiting repair. Like any old house, the to-do list never ends.

A white-haired man in a finely tailored suit is breezing through the lobby of the Chambers Hotel with three black-garbed hotel employees, including the general manager, at his heels. He glides past Subodh Gupta’s stainless steel sculpture that evokes Animal, the wild-man drummer Muppet. He cruises by the bull’s head suspended in a formaldehyde-filled tank, a work by British bad-boy artist Damien Hirst, without blinking. What stops him is a throwback from the days before smoking bans. “There’s a cigarette machine in here?” he asks.

The machine at the Chambers is a true antique, but there are no Pall Malls for sale. As Minnesota’s first Art-o-mat—one of about ninety such contraptions in the country—it has been retrofitted to dispense original artworks for five dollars—not much more than a pack of cigarettes.

The man who founded Art-o-mat ten years ago, Clark Whittington, is in town to officially introduce the machine and to present a slide show about Artists in Cellophane, the collective of more than four hundred artists who create cigarette-pack-size artworks for the machines.

The crowd of three dozen is made up of mostly curious onlookers, but Whittington is a rock star to a few. There’s a middle-aged woman from Minneapolis who enthuses about her collection of more than thirty Art-o-mat artworks, and Laura Gentry, a pastor, “laugh therapist,” and resident Artist-in-Cellophane member, who drove four hours from McGregor, Iowa, to meet the self-titled Art-o-mat National Bureau Chief.

Whittington, forty-one, is playful and approachable—he’s an artist, but also a dude, with a military-short haircut, hipster glasses, and grease-monkey shirt with embroidered patches above each pocket that say “Lucky” and “Clark.” Fresh from the Van Halen reunion show with David Lee Roth in Greensboro, NC, he’s proudly sporting a gold VH necklace.

Art-o-mat was launched in 1997 as a one-time installation, but Whittington now cultivates the project full-time. The range of offerings is impressive, from the crafty (handmade beaded earrings, or the tiny ceramic eggplants that Gentry makes) to the political (“Bad Boy Pincushions” that feature the smirking faces of Bush, Cheney, and other politicians).

Whittington says he was influenced by Fluxus, the ’60s art movement described by one founder, George Maciunas, as “a fusion of Spike Jones, vaudeville, gags, children’s games, and Duchamp.” Fluxus was a kind of slapstick movement that snubbed the idea of gallery art, juried shows, and exclusivity in art—Dada without the nihilism.

Jennifer Phelps, the curator who oversees the Chambers’s cutting-edge art collection, agrees, calling it “Fluxus for the twenty-first century.” She especially likes the arcade-like aspect to Art-o-mat: insert token, make your choice, and pull the rusty lever. That carefree act creates a bond between artist and buyer, even at the five-dollar level, and the artists play that up. Christian Andrew, who makes tiny modern houses from paper, will catalog the sold artworks as “[owner name] residence” on his website. Gentry posts photos of people with her cheeky ceramic aubergines in her online “Eggplant Owners Gallery.”

Fluxus, wrote one critic, “happens when one feels that life and art must be taken so seriously, that it becomes impossible to take life or art seriously.” In that respect, Art-o-mat’s sense of democracy—and its price point—may be right on cue. Christie’s, the famous auction house, set an all-time record for single-week art sales this June: a jaw-dropping $485 million. No one better embodies the mania of the current art boom than Hirst, notorious for displaying various animals in formaldehyde; this year he created a platinum cast of a human skull, covered in 8,601 diamonds, which reportedly sold for $100 million. He titled it For the Love of God.

At the same time, some 25,000 pieces of art are selling each year via Art-o-mats located in community centers, cafés, and even supermarkets. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most successful machines are at places like the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

On this night, at Ralph Burnet’s $30 million art temple masquerading as a hotel, a swarm of people has gathered around the Art-o-mat. A student who wandered down from the nearby Art Institutes International happily snaps onto his backpack an R-rated key chain, featuring an artsy photo of a nude woman. Another agonizes over whether to choose a Styrogami, a miniature Styrofoam sculpture by J. Jules Vitali, or a Bar Code Tattoo by Omaha artist Scott Blake.

A U of M freshman is interviewing Whittington for a research paper, while Phelps gingerly opens a ceramic ArtBar, a sort of anagram game. (If the pieces spell A-R-T-B-A-R you win one of the artist’s larger works.) “Darn it!” she says, when she doesn’t win.

Whittington, standing off to the side, is documenting the night with his camera. He laughs when Gentry hands him a tiny eggplant stamped with the words “Gimmicky Bastard.” “Yeah,” he says. “That’s about right.”

A tall man in his mid-forties with long wavy hair, a full beard, and round glasses, Richard Griffith has something of a troubadour’s air about him, which is appropriate given his status as a full-time lutenist. Since live lute music is no longer the draw it was five hundred years ago, Griffith has added a few extras to his act: poetry, prose, and prestidigitation. To the extent that the Upper Midwest has a market niche for a lute-playing illusionist, Richard Griffith owns that niche.

On a crisp evening a few weeks ago, the musician/magician was at the Mad Hatter Tea House in St. Paul for one of his usual gigs. As he sat tuning his lute—a plump, bent-neck instrument that Griffith has heard described as “a broken guitar”—his wife Ann walked around arranging chairs. A grandmotherly soul named Fran Gray was pouring tea, and the dozen or so middle-aged patrons conversed amiably. “This is good tea.” “I like tea.” “Oh, I do too!” Shortly after seven o’clock, Griffith launched into one of the greatest hits of 1611. His audience sat in rapt silence; later, they ooohed appreciatively when he introduced a twelfth-century story about a werewolf.

After several more lute pieces, Griffith asked, “Now, would you indulge me by letting me abuse your eyes and judgments?” A giggling volunteer chose a card from a deck he presented. The audience burst into applause when, after some theatrical maneuvers, Griffith produced a red cloth bearing the image of the card his volunteer had chosen. Then it was time for musical requests. “You know what I want to hear!” one fan exclaimed. “Yes, I do,” nodded Griffith as he played the first notes of “Kemp’s Jig.” Listeners’ desires aren’t always so transparent. “Beat My Wife” was a shouted request at one show. “Um,” Griffith ventured, “do you mean ‘Whip My Toady’?” The fan shrugged. “I knew whipping was in there somewhere.”

Griffith’s skill in working a crowd dates to the early ’90s, when he worked at Treasure Island Casino as a sleight-of-hand artist—one who performed in a sequined pirate costume. “There’d be days when someone was losing big, and they’d come over and yell at the guy in the sequined suit,” he recalls. “Definitely not wanting a card trick at that time.” A guitarist since childhood, he acquired a lute on a whim in 2001, and within a few years was playing Renaissance fairs. Initially he didn’t get quite the reception he expected—he recalls that it was as if he were sitting there teaching algebra. “You would think playing Renaissance music at a Renaissance festival would be a no-brainer, but I have not found that to be so. A group out at the Fest last year was playing Jethro Tull covers, and I thought, OK, no room for the lute guy here.”

Still, over time, Griffith has cultivated a base of devoted fans who appreciate both his proficiency on an obscure instrument and his willingness to indulge in just a little of the old razzle-dazzle. A year ago, he left his longtime desk job at an HMO to make a go of it as a full-time lutenist on the coffee-shop circuit, doing the occasional wedding gig on the side. His income from tips is sufficient to make the performances worth his while, and his wife is enthusiastically supportive. “It’s been good for him,” she says with an affectionate smile.

Griffith’s most dedicated followers proudly refer to themselves as “the Usual Suspects.” There’s Steve Lelchuk, who sat with a book at the Mad Hatter performance, having attended another the night before. When Griffith mentioned his CDs for sale, Dan and Brandy Gergen joked that having one in every room of their house was sufficient. They discovered Griffith one day at the Olde World Renaissance Faire in Twig, Minnesota, where they were impressed enough to listen through several of his sets.

Other Usual Suspects have done serious time in the mead-and-wenches milieu. Janet Davis, the ebullient card-trick volunteer, attends every single day of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival—in period costume. Indeed, a performance by Griffith is something of a mellow little Renaissance festival unto itself. He brought magic tricks into his act in part as a hook for crowds, but his ultimate goal is to complement the music with illusions incorporating mentalism, alchemy, and other supernatural preoccupations from the golden age of the lute.

After Griffith closed with a sprightly dance number, several fans stayed to chat and rearrange the chairs. “Once you’ve been to a few shows,” explained Griffith as he packed up, “you’re one of the Usual Suspects and you’re going to get a hug when you leave.” With an instrument whose heyday is ye olde, Griffith appreciates his avid following. “Honestly, can the Rolling Stones say they’ve got that one guy who comes to see them play every time?” He paused. “Of course,” he acknowledged, “I don’t charge three hundred dollars for tickets.”