Category: Letter

Whenever there’s an article purporting to describe the 80s art scene, in which I participated as both an artist and a critic, I brace myself for a “here we go again” reaction. I’ll admit I have low expectations. I anticipate someone interviewing a handful of the same, old players and treating their recollections as gospel truth, while skimming over the contributions of so many others. So I was pleasantly surprised at what a good job Cathy Madison did. It’s a nicely balanced summary. Sure, Aldo Moroni and Dick Brewer have pretty much become the official media spokespeople for that era, but since they do such a good job in their capacity as community historians, I’m happy to let them.

However, I’d like to throw out another perspective about the relative merits of that era. Here are some of the things I really miss: venues for good critical writing, and a close-knit community that lived and worked in proximity to one another—and that thrived on such criticism. What I’m referring to is two now-defunct regional art mags: Vinyl (which became New North Artscape) and Artpaper, both of which published critical essays, longer articles, and numerous reviews of local shows. And a good two pages of Letters to the Editor—probably the most important part of the periodical, from the perspective of its readership. For a period of time, the offices of these publications were located within a two-block radius of the New French, and served a large community of visual artists, theater companies, and musicians also living, working, and performing within several blocks of the New French. What was the result? A lively, stimulating dialogue that invigorated the community, as well as a place to meet and conduct business. After Artpaper hit the stands, you made sure you were at the New French to talk about it. (Don’t ever underestimate the power of a good magazine to build a community, or the power of escalating real-estate costs to fragment a once-thriving one … )

Here’s what I think is better now: exhibition opportunities for younger artists and the opportunities to see more innovative and experimental work that just wasn’t visible in the 80s era. Why? Well, if you own a so-called “for profit” gallery that is by nature both a business and a reflection of your aesthetic perspective, it’s certainly both your objective and prerogative to show work that you personally believe in and that might also stand a chance of being sold. Nothing wrong with that, it just sets certain parameters for who and what gets shown. Oddly, I think it placed a strange burden on gallery owners like Tom Barry, Dick Brewer, Todd Bockley, Jon Oulman, and Bob Thompson. Everybody wanted to show with them because they were the players who had the “It” galleries that were selling work to the collectors, but of course not everyone’s work fit with their individual visions. I think they were greatly relieved when other spaces emerged on the scene. Everyone benefited.

Like Medium West—the brainchild of Jon Marc Edwards and Paige Mankin, and the first gallery specifically established to provide visibility to artists using what they considered to be cutting-edge interdisciplinary approaches in film and video, as well as painting and performance, frequently with an emphasis on the then-de rigueur familiarity with Roland Barthes, Baudrillard, and semiotic/deconstructivist theory. Basically, if you weren’t familiar with the concept of The Other, you’d best be showing your slides to an “other” gallery. That’s why public reception of the Rifle Sport Gallery was so enthusiastic.

I think the Golden Age of Minneapolis Art is happening now, and that it started many years ago with the rise of spaces that took on interesting and innovative work that was often experimental, media-based, installation-oriented, and not necessarily easily consumable. Work that made you think, often made by artists just a year or two out of school; work by artists that never went to school; and work by artists relegated to the periphery of society. Spaces begun by artists who took the reins and created venues that reflected the perspectives of their peers. And now we’ve got some pretty darn nice professionally managed spaces, staffed almost entirely by volunteers, where you can always count on seeing thought-provoking shows: spaces like the Soap Factory, SooVac, Franklin Art Works, Midway, Intermedia Arts, Rosalux, Rogue Buddha, the list goes on. (Forgive me, as I know I’ve failed to mention so many … ) The word “alternative space” seems hardly relevant anymore, as alternative is the norm.

So what do we need now? An art magazine that publishes four to eight reviews monthly with a couple of longer topical articles. Also, somebody to fund it, and a sufficiently masochistic individual with no need for personal time or disposable income crazy enough to be the managing editor. (Any takers?)

Oh yeah, and a bar to hang out in where we can all bitch about the articles.

Melissa Stang, Minneapolis

During one of my semi-annual visits to the Twin Cities last spring, an old friend put me onto a copy of your fine magazine. As I leafed through it, I was instantly impressed. I retired from teaching six years ago to my old home state but still find myself missing the many cultural amenities afforded by the Twin Cities area. Your magazine afforded a cure for my occasional bouts of cultural withdrawal. I was impressed by its breadth of coverage and the fact that, unlike many city magazines of its type, there is more pure content than any other that I had read. It echoes in nice ways the structure and content of its ancient sister the New Yorker—a magazine I have subscribed to for thirty years. Even so, it is distinctly a pure product of the area and captures its ethos beautifully. Also, unlike most city magazines, it is not ruled by advertising and its articles are not thinly disguised promotions for local business and commercial ventures. Keep on printing fiction, the more markets there are for that the better.

After reading a second issue graciously sent to me by my friend after my return, I was compelled to subscribe. I look forward to more of your varied coverage and fine writing.
Ken Warner, Johnstown, PA

It’s not often that I read something that moves me to write in with praise. Peter Schilling’s article on Fits-Overs [Rake Appeal, July] was so damn funny I couldn’t see straight. His willingness to wear the huge sun-blockers brightened my day. Please pass this along to him, and keep up the good work.

True, the erratic boundaries that mark “east,” “west,” “north,” and “south” St. Paul are forever confusing the Minneapolitan editors at this magazine. Mr. Frame and several others wrote and called to check us on this point—Jerabek’s New Bohemian, the neighborhood café featured in our August issue, is not on St. Paul’s East Side, as the story suggested; it’s on the West Side. And, of course, West St. Paul is its own city entirely … Anyway, we regret the error(s).

Also, our August issue’s Table of Contents page incorrectly listed the web address of that month’s cover illustrator, Kyle Webster. The correct URL is: www.kyletwebster.com.

Here’s a shot aboard the Royal Caribbean vessel, the Navigator of the Seas and from the beach of Labadee, Hispaniola (aka Haiti).

Thanks for the great issue- it made wonderful reading on the trip!

I was on Poipu Beach in Kauai last week and made sure to have my current issue of the RAKE with me! Thanks!

Ladies and Gentlemen, our very own Cindi Barthel!

The Hunky Dory resort sits atop a small knoll overlooking Lake Clare, in Balsam Lake, Wisconsin. It’s changed little since 1902, when it first operated as a working farm called the Hunky Dory Farm Resort. Brochures advertising the place look exactly the same as they did in the 60s. Nor have the kooky cabin names been updated: “Rest a While,” “BonEcho,” and the favorite “Kozy Knook.”

Matriarch Marvel Nielsen runs the resort with her daughters, Marly, Julie, Lori, and Joy, and an assortment of grandchildren and in-laws. Her husband Al died in ’88, leaving the silver-haired and aptly named Marvel to command this tight ship. While similar hand-hewn Midwestern resorts have gone under, Marvel says Hunky Dory remains vital due to her family’s home cooking. “What brings them back are the good swimming and the food,” she said of her guests. “You don’t have to have a fancy place, just have it clean. Cook good food and you’ll have a full house.”

“When I first married Al in ’55,” recalled Marvel, “there was a full-time cook here, and I only cooked one day a week. She died in ’84 and I’ve been cooking ever since.” Growing up in North Dakota, she learned to fry and bake from her mother, who perfected the art in order to feed and inspire the farmhands.

For ten weeks in summer, three square meals are served each day. All are made from scratch. “We don’t use anything from a box, no microwaves here,” Marvel said, carrying a bowl of flour-dusted chicken to a stove. Her two Vulcans, a six-burner oven and a grill oven, are vintage 50s, and they’ve typically got chicken frying on their stovetops, hams and turkeys in their ovens.

The day for Marvel and family begins at 6:00 a.m. They’re in the kitchen by 6:30, when they turn on the grill, brew coffee, mix pancake batter, and fry bacon. Breakfast is served at 7:30. When the lodge bell rings, as it does three times each day, guests come running or walking at a brisk pace.

It’s difficult to reserve a Hunky Dory cabin. Some of those guests are from families that have been coming to Hunky Dory for four generations; many have never missed a year. “Mom has a running list of people in her head who say ‘If someone cancels, call me up,’ ” said daughter Julie Grimsley. Otherwise, tough luck. There’s a great deal of jockeying for position, behind-the-scene intrigue over who gets which cabin, or which families may be forfeiting their cabin.

My three brothers, now with their wives and children, have been Hunky Dory regulars for years. Each July, they succumb to the lake’s velveteen waters, which have the ability to soften hair, skin, and soul. The affinity for the resort runs deep. When we were kids, our family didn’t stay at a Hunky Dory cabin; we used to rent an old hunting shack across the lake. From there we’d row over to Hunky Dory to get gas for the boat. On hot nights, there would be ice cream, and back then there were horses for rent, too. And when my mother, exhausted by bats, ticks, and children, had had enough of life in the woods, my father would treat us all to Marvel Nielsen’s famous fried-chicken dinner.

A few weeks ago, on a stifling Sunday morning, I watched the fried-chicken ritual that’s taken place every week since 1902. As soon as breakfast was finished at 9:00, Marvel and her daughters began working on the lunch. “I don’t want to know how hot it is, that’s why there’s no thermometer in here,” explained Marvel, tending four cast-iron skillets filled with chicken pieces that spat grease into the air.

Typically, the system works like this: Marly flours the chicken, Julie cuts and cleans it, and Lori oversees the baking-powder-biscuit operation. But on this day, Julie shouted across the kitchen, “Mom, I think I’m going to start the biscuits.” She’d taken over for Lori, who was in the Twin Cities that day. But Lori later called her sister. She was so worried about the biscuit-making that she hopped in the car and drove the two hours back to Hunky Dory.

It’s that kind of commitment, to the rituals of cooking, and the rituals of summer, that is vanishing. I’ve watched helplessly as the fixtures of my childhood from the 50s and 60s have been sold off and remade by big-box retailers. But Hunky Dory remains suspended in time, a little like an insect in amber. Still, Marvel can’t cook and work forever; like me, she worries about Hunky Dory’s future. “It’s not easy to answer,” she said, when asked about it. “This is 2006, and people automatically sign up for 2007; they don’t question it.” She knows that someday it will have to end. “And I’ll know when it will have to end.”

“But,” she added, “the lake will still be here.”

So will Marvel’s daughters, and in-laws, and grandchildren who want to protect Hunky Dory’s legacy. And the generations of families willing to fight for a week in the run-down “Kozy Knook.”

Cathy Madison’s “We went crazy for a decade” [July] was a truly pleasurable trip down memory lane—a guilty pleasure, at that, recalling for me the days of fashionable poverty and gallery internships. I spent my student loan money on trips to Chicago and New York, bounced back and forth between the U’s fine arts department and MCAD, and generally frittered away my time surfing the already-waning synergy of the late-80s and early-90s art scene.

Probably to conserve length, Madison blurs the distinctions between what was and is the commercial gallery sector versus the huge number of non-profits: a spectrum shift seen over the past twenty years that has real bearing on the future of the Twin Cities art scene. A respected and established framer and exhibition designer in the Northrup King complex recently made his feelings plain: Non-profit galleries don’t exist to make a living for their artists, and they’re ruining the art market. They sponge up grant funds while cultivating “presence,” making stars primarily of their founders, and keeping local prices artificially low. I’ve worked for WARM, for No Name Gallery in its day, and for more contemporary “art centers” as well as having been a for-profit dealer. Commercial galleries still struggle to survive in a pinched urban market, competing with art centers while the cash is increasingly concentrated in the Republican suburbs (a desert of flat-screen TVs, fund raisers and NIMBYism). Local and national foundations have bounced back since September 11th, and the urban non-profit art centers vie hungrily for their attentions, with curatorial efforts increasingly built around “fundable projects.”

At the same time, a top-down ethical hollowness that mirrors the corporate culture of our times results in margin over mission: non-profit organizations that are opposite to the “of, by, and for” alternative art spaces we used to enjoy. The Soap Factory is the lone exception. Artists, bottom line, are still very much on their own in this town. While Madison ends her tour on a hopeful note, I tend to side with Scott Seekins (minus his fondness for fishing): Between the anti-intellectual penury of the suburbs and a city saturated with non-profit art sponges, this town cannot nurture a viable market for most visual artists.