SAINT ANTHONY FALLS TOUR

The second day of our class was jam packed with activities. We started with a fantastic workshop led by urban planner and artist James Rojas and ended with a tour of Saint Anthony Falls with Mill City Museum historian Dave Stevens.  The tour gave us a good base of knowledge starting Native history, the establishment of Fort Snelling, the industrialization of the Falls, the rivalry between St. Anthony and Minneapolis and construction of the Hennepin Avenue bridge and the Stone Arch Bridge (built by hand in the span of a year and a half!).  Our Monday tour will fast forward us to recent history with the development of the Gateway district and downtown. Jokingly, the group proposed building a bridge across the Mississippi...we'll see where the next couple months leads us.

DRAWING ON THE STONE ARCH BRIDGE

Today I packed up the Mobile Tracing Unit and took it to the Stone Arch Festival. Our summer interns Ricardo, Kya, and Lydia joined us and made some of their first drawings for their projects.  The bridge was was bustling with pedestrians, so we got to talk to tons of people passing by. Lots of people had good words to say about the redevelopment of Saint Anthony Main and were proud that the mills and silos in the area have been preserved. The first hour was nice, but we got some rain and to shut it down early.

WELCOME INTERNS!

Here's the awkward day one photo.  Hopefully by the end of three months, we'll see a close knit crew.

DRAWING ON RIVERSIDE PLAZA

Mischa and I went to the Brian Coyle Center to drum up some interest in the internship that we are offering as a part of the Creative Citymaking project. Had really good participation and got to talk about Riverside Plaza. I asked some of the kids whether they liked it. Some of them hated it, until we talked about it being preserved by the city...then they liked it. Can wait to be back at Coyle in July.

SEN YAI SEN LEK OPENING

After the Drawing on Central event, Mischa and I spent many hours in the studio pumping out prints. Our original idea was to source historic photos of buildings on Central and mash them up with the drawings that people made.  We deviated a bit from the original concept, but I am really happy with the way that the prints turned out. 

To celebrate our first round of prints, we had a celebration at Sen Yai Sen Lek.  It was a great turnout and we got to reconnect with many of the community members that drew with us at Drawing on Central Ave. I enticed the participants back with the promise that I would give them a print of their drawing. The bribe worked - 16 of the 20 people that we drew with hung out with us at the opening!

Super excited that the show will be up till mid August.  The show is a good excuse to see what we made...and snarf down some delicious Thai food.

DRAWING ON DOWNTOWN

Every Tuesday I make zines and do art projects with young adults at Youthlink, a drop-in social service agency near downtown.  Today I took the opportunity to blend my Creative Citymaking project with my Youthlink gig. We made several drawings of downtown, talked about their relationship with some of the buildings (IDS building, Salvation Army Harbor Light, and Target Field), and made a zine with all of the things that we drew.

DRAWING ON CENTRAL AVE

Today was the maiden voyage of the Mobile Tracing Unit. Couldn't have asked for better weather. I was somewhat worried that no one would show up, but tons of people involved in the neighborhood came out to draw with me. At a certain point, we had too many people - a good problem to have. The mix of people was incredible - we had Council member Kevin Reich and lots of northeast artists, but the best part is we got to interact with the people on their way to the laundromat or grocery store. It was a incredibly rewarding day and I'm looking forward to the next drawing event.