Making space at Second Shift

The majority of Jovan C. Speller’s 15-year visual arts practice has been rooted in photography and film, often using traditional photographic processes. That means she uses a dark room a lot, something that got quite a bit more complicated when she had a child just over a year ago. 

“Being a mom, I need a safer, more kid-friendly practice,” she says. Speller has been exploring ways to expand her medium repertoire, including in the areas of sound and installation. 

An opportunity came along through Second Shift, a new studio space and residency program on the east side of Saint Paul. It’s a nonprofit organization founded by artist Chris Larson and his wife, Kriss Zulkosky, a nurse in the Birth Center at Regions Hospital. Created to provide space and resources to women and nonbinary working artists in the Twin Cities, the organization’s new residency program provides workspace, mentorship, as well as a stipend. 

Larson says he and Zulkosky chose to create a specific focus toward women and nonbinary artists to counteract an unlevel playing field active in the art world for a long time. 

“I have male privilege,” Larson says. “I’ve seen who gets recognized in museums. The scales seem to be off, and have been for a long time.”

Besides studio space, Larson says Second Shift also has a mentorship component, providing professional development and networking opportunities. Through Larson’s connections with a Walker board member, for example, the fellows were invited to a dinner with the Walker Art Center’s new Director, Mary Ceruti. 

Jovan Speller, installation view of ...and I shall call you Home, 2016.

The four current resident artists come from different levels of experience. Some are more established, like Speller, who has had a number of high profile opportunities including grants and curatorial projects on the East coast. Others are more at the emerging level, and Larson has been able to offer some resources such as helping with writing grants. 

Speller initially heard about the fellowship through Larson, who mentioned it at a meeting for the McKnight Artist Fellowships, where they were both fellows. Later, a coworker forwarded a call for applications. 

“I thought it would be perfect,” Speller said. “I have a 15-month old now, so working around chemicals all the time is not ideal.” Speller said her coworker knew she was looking for opportunities to have time and space to figure out new options for how to create art that wasn’t quite so dangerous when you have a little one in tow. 

Speller says the experience so far has been “mind-blowing,” even in ways she didn’t anticipate. Not only does she appreciate having the space to lay out her work and see what she has, she also has been able to professionally photograph the work she has and arrange studio visits outside her home. 

“It hasn’t felt professional,” said Speller of inviting curators into her home studio. “Now it removes that anxiety from the picture— not like I’m playing hostess at my house. It can really be 100 percent about my work.” The quality of her studio visits has improved, she says. “It’s upped my ability to think through a lot of things.” 

The newly built-out space, a former linoleum shop on Payne Avenue.

Second Shift has mostly been a labor of love for Larson and Zulkosky, who embarked on the project as a response to the rising costs of rent in the Twin Cities, with artists getting priced out of areas that previously had been havens for artist studios. 

According to Zulkosky, the couple found inspiration from a show artist Jim Hodges did at the Walker in 2014, called Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take. “From that we created the motto for Second Shift,” she says. “Our motto is Work, Make, Give more than you take. Today more than ever we feel it is important to give more than one takes if one has the means to do so. Our world is in dire need of giving, giving with no strings attached.” 

They took out a second mortgage of $75,000 to get Second Shift up and running. They’ve also received some donations, as well as a STAR grant from the city of Saint Paul. In addition, the widow of Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart provided funding for the Con D’or Grant Hart Artist Fund, which provides each of the residents a $5,000 stipend for the 2019-2020 cycle. 

While not an artist herself, Zulkosky says she’s seen for years how hard artists have to work to get by. Larson himself was at one point juggling multiple adjunct positions in addition to his own practice before landing a more stable job at the University of Minnesota. Together, they wanted to support other artists in the community. “People are getting priced out,” Zulkosky says. “It’s frustrating to see artists struggling. We knew we wanted to try to do something— how can we help the community grow?” 

“If we have the means to be able to do something, and that’s economically feasible, let’s do that,” she says. “We are trying to give people a leg up.” 

Heather Lamanno's studio space at Second Shift.

Heather Lamanno, a recent graduate of MCAD’s MFA program, says in the last year she’s looked at space, and found it to be exorbitantly expensive, not to mention very difficult to even find a space. “You almost have to know someone that is leaving their space,” she says. 

Living with three kids at home, plus two who are older and living elsewhere, Lamanno says it was hard for her and her husband to justify putting money into a studio space. “It really means everything to me,” she says. “I wouldn’t have a space. I’d be trying to work out of my house, which has gone down in size to where we were living before.”

Second Shift is located in an old linoleum shop, previously owned for three generations by the same family. The first order of business was cleaning the place out, because it was packed with garbage and old linoleum samples. “We spent the majority of our budget on garbage disposal,” Zulkoski says. Plus, it took a while to get approvals from the city. 

By the time they got all of their paperwork in place, artists from around the Twin Cities were ready to step up to help. “We had all these people volunteering,” she says. “It was cool.” 

Second Shift is currently set up as semi-private studios so that there’s potential for conversation and collaborations. There’s also a kitchenette with a long table that works as a break room and a meeting space. 

KB Lor, Kuv Niam Txoj Kev Npau Suav – My Mother’s Hopes and Dreams

KB Lor, another Second Shift resident, says that while the artists are all working in different forms, she likes being in a shared space. “It’s interesting to see how they work and the process they go through,” she says. “For me, it’s always about the process.”

The residency is the first time Lor has been able to work outside of her home. She previously lived in Woodbury and had a studio space, but recently moved to the East Side of Saint Paul to downsize. 

Being able to work on a painting and leave it in place without having to put everything away makes a huge difference in her practice. “It cuts down the time that I have to set up and take down,” she says. “Then, whenever I come in, I’m able to reflect on it. If I were to take it back out, I lose that focus.” 

In addition to the residency program, Second Shift also has a curatorial arm. Last spring, Larson and Maria Cristina Tavera curated Thirty Three Views Plus Two, a group exhibition that took place at the Swedish Bank as well as Second Shift and other locations along Payne Avenue. According to Zulkosky, around 500 people came to visit the installations, and 22 curators from different Twin Cities art institutions visited the work as well. 

On September 7, from 12-7 p.m., Second Shift will host an inaugural open house, featuring the four resident artists — K.B Lor, Jovan Speller, Heather Lamanno, and Angela St. Vrain. Each of the artists will be sharing recent pieces and works in progress.

Angela St. Vrain; A Strange Form of Home; fabricated steel, vinyl screen, cotton yarn; 2017.

Second Shift is located at 1128 Payne Ave. in St. Paul. More info at secondshiftstudiospace.org.

All images courtesy of the artists and Second Shift. Banner image: Heather Lamanno, Between You and Me, acrylic on panel, 2018.