Category: Letter

I was glad to see Cathy Madison’s “look back at a gritty underappreciated decade” of the Minneapolis art scene in the 80s. I’m pleased that she acknowledged that the “first-gallery bragging rights went to the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota,” WARM Gallery, as it was then known. I was disappointed that the rest of the article didn’t mention any of the women artists who were very visible and active during that time. I would like to invite Cathy Madison to see what was happening at WARM in that lively decade by going to see the current exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum—WARM: 12 Artists of the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota. [Editor’s note: the exhibition runs through September 17.]

Thanks for the great revisit of the art scene in 1980s. At first I thought it was just another nostalgic article, but it got better as I read through it. Then I remembered that someone (Churchill?) once said something about studying history. If we don’t know our history, we are destined to repeat it. (That’s what I remember of the quote.) So that got me to thinking a bit more.

A couple of things popped into my head. First, what happened to the women artists from WARM gallery? Several male artists were mentioned by name in that article. So, did the women die? Are they still around here? Who are they? Second, are we learning from history? Does anyone realize why it is important to have artists? What specific things about an artist’s lifetime of work makes her art important? Does anyone have a larger answer beyond obtaining grants and selling to General Mills? I do appreciate that you once again covered the 1980s. There are so many twentysomethings who don’t know how hard the artists from that era worked to get attention for the arts.

Having lived through and worked through the era, I appreciated Cathy Madison’s “We went crazy for a decade” and would have liked to have seen specific reference made to Butler Square. As a designer I officed there during the late 1970s into the early 1980s and the place uniquely reflected an aesthetic hybrid bridging the creative/artistic and “yuppie” sensibilities that Madison writes about as separate sensibilities.

Although not typically considered a “fine art,” I would have also appreciated more elaboration about or reference to the then-emerging Twin Cities graphic design scene. Also of note: As a writer and editor (Format, the Advertising Federation of Minnesota’s magazine) Cathy Madison’s role in shaping this era and communicating about it is also memorable and significant.
Thanks for publishing her piece. It brought back, even if for a few pages, a unique era in the Twin Cities creative community for those familiar with—as well as for those unaware of—this history.

Rake columnist Clinton Collins states that I failed to answer a young law student that queried me about legacy admissions at elite universities [Free the Jackson Five, July]. In all fairness to Collins, there was quite a bit of cross talking during the discussion he recounted, so it is possible that he did not hear my response.

It is an odd game of absolutism Collins plays. He takes the position that all forms of discrimination are equal and that any preference given is therefore equally pernicious. Reason suggests this is untrue. Our society has rightly decided that among the varying and unequal forms of discrimination, racial discrimination is particularly abhorrent. As a result our laws prohibit such discrimination. There is, alas, no such law barring the practice of colleges admitting the children of alumni.

Further, the academic qualifications of legacy students generally match those of non-legacy applicants. At Harvard, Collins’ alma mater, the average SAT score of legacy students is just two points below the school’s overall average. Middle-class black students, on the other hand, score a combined two hundred points below their white and Asian peers on college admissions tests.

So Collins’ contention that the issue of preferences is not a question of brainpower is also wrong. It is precisely the question: Can black students compete academically with their white and Asian counterparts? Dear as my friend is, he and other race-preference supporters advocate a system that screams “black academic and intellectual inferiority.”

Collins also asserts that we need racial preferences so long as there is any hint of race prejudice in the world. Collins, however, is not a latter-day Coalhouse Walker and current affirmative action policies haven’t a thing to do with race prejudice; they are instead an effort to orchestrate diversity. Black students are not being denied entrance to universities due to race. Universities are bending over backward to enroll black students. Finding a paucity of eligible black students, they must lower standards in order to get a critical mass of black students on their university campuses. “Critical mass” is what the Supreme Court defined in Grutter v. Bollinger as “enough minority students to provide adequate opportunities for the kind of interaction upon which the educational benefits of diversity depend … ”

Rather than address the lack of competitiveness among black students during the discussion, Collins offered politically correct phrases like: “Not lowered standards; different standards.” What remains unclear is this: Where there is no evidence of racial discrimination in admissions, and if there is no shortage of brainpower, why must our students be evaluated using different standards?

Black youngsters achieve excellence in athletics, dance, and music through practice, dedication, and the high expectations of their family and peers. Shouldn’t we demand a similar dedication and hold equally high standards when it comes to academics? If I became frosty during the discussion, it is because I am admittedly angry that we can so effortlessly embrace the notion that black inferiority is perpetual and that our academic success is impossible without help. The one thing Collins got right is that both of us were raised to know better.

I used to sit around late at night, mulling and wondering, and watching dark things scuttling through the long shadows on the floor. I would try, try, try to get the story straight, my story, but the thing was no longer capable of running anything but crooked, and it ran through some thick patches of brush and fog. I would lose it for months at a time.

I more than once saw that story disappear into a cold, black river in the moonlight, and watched as it climbed right back out on the other side and rambled off into the darkness. One time I surprised that son of a bitch as it was sitting in front of a campfire, but the instant I sprung out of the woods it dove directly into the flames and disappeared in a shower of sparks and smoke.

It was months before I managed to catch up to my story again. I’d received a tip that it was holed up in a trailer on the Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, but by the time I could get there aboard a Greyhound bus it had already pulled up stakes. I did, though, find an address for a motel in East Memphis, scrawled on a grocery receipt on the kitchen table.

In Memphis, I barged in on the damn thing while it was asleep in bed. After a strenuous wrestling match I was able to climb back inside the story and inhabit it for eight months before it once again slipped away from me. I guess folks would say I’ve been lost ever since.

Linda Hempel writes from Edinburgh, Scotland: “After an exhausting day of golf at
St. Andrews, walking across that enormous bridge at the 17th, this vacant crypt at the ruins of the local cathedral was irresistible so I decided to take a break to read my favorite publication, The Rake.”

An article in the July issue about Robyn Waters [“The Lap of Paradox”] stated that she worked at Target for thirty years. In fact, she worked there for ten and a half years. (She worked in the retail business for thirty years.) We regret the error.

August 2006 cover illustrator Kyle Webster can be reached at www.kyletwebster.com. Note the addition of the T in the URL. www.kyletwebster.com

He’s a convicted felon with many priors and not a U.S. citizen. He should be deported. We have enough criminals that are U.S. citizens and do not need to pay for non-citizens to go through the court/prison process. Convicted felon with priors—that says it all.

IN PRAISE OF SECOND CHANCES
My husband is very good friends with Moek. I feel that it’s very unfair to not give a person a second chance. I wonder if there is anything that anyone can do to help a person in this situation. I understand he maybe should be put on tight probation, but at least this will give him a chance to prove them wrong—to prove that people can change, especially at Moek’s age.

If I had some sources to go to or ideas on what I can do, because I’m a very outspoken person, I would fight this. The U.S. didn’t give him a second chance. When they took Moek away from his family, he had to leave behind a son and that’s heartbreaking. Moek was young and he made a huge mistake. They really should have given him a second chance, at least for the sake of his son.

As a resident of Lakeville I’d like to make a couple of corrections to the article in your June issue on the last metro Ben Franklin [Rakish Angle]. We only have nine elementary schools and three middle schools—not twelve and four respectively. We also have an Area Learning Center, Community Education Building, and Family Learning Center.

The road from McStop doesn’t exactly wind either. It’s a straight shot with one long curve passing a couple of open fields soon to be taken over by yet more sprawling single-family home sites and townhomes.

Lakeville covers a huge area and still has vast, open, rolling hills. I like the fact we can drive a couple of miles and be surrounded by farmers’ fields—the occasional whiff of cow manure in spring confirms the ground is thawing in spring.

Lakeville’s downtown still has a tranquil small-town feel far away enough from the rushing traffic of Interstate 35.