Saint Paul Art Crawl Fall Round-Up (Round 1)
Published September 25th, 2024 by Russ White
The Crawl is packing October 4, 5, and 6 with a whole city map's worth of art venues to visit; here, we highlight just a few in our first of two.
Banner image: Ziba Rajabi, Tear and Blood (detail), acrylic on muslin and canvas, thread, 48 x 60"
The Saint Paul Art Crawl is coming up October 4, 5, and 6 in venues all across town, so if we're going to see it all, what we need is a plan. We reached out to a few of the many, many spots on the Crawl map to see what they had happening so we could help you (and us) plan accordingly. I kid you not when I say there are over two dozen locations across ten neighborhoods, featuring hundreds of artists — what you see below is a mere smattering. This week we're starting with folks on and around both University and West Seventh Aves — next week, we'll zoom in a bit closer on the denser conclave of artists in Downtown and Lowertown.
But for now, let’s start on the west side of town and work our way across, like true Minneapolis folk crossing the river for a look around.
Gallery hours vary by location, but the official Crawling hours are Friday, 5 - 9 pm; Saturday, 12 - 8 pm; and Sunday, 12 - 5 pm.
Okay, first stop:
Spatial Effects Gallery
1759 Selby Avenue
Spatial Effects • @spatialeffects
“Spatial Effects Gallery showcases Furniture by Third Street Studios and Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Ceramics, Metal Work and unusual crafts such as Carved Gourds and Fused Glass works, all by Minnesota Artists. Besides our beautiful artwork we'll have refreshments and a special sale.”
Photo courtesy of Spatial Effects Gallery.
Midway Clay
1708 University Ave
Midway Clay bills themselves as a community ceramics maker space, offering studio, kiln, & gallery rentals along with classes on wheel-throwing and tile-making and of course, during the Crawl, work from several local ceramicists.
Pots by (clockwise from top left) George Moore, Prairie Olive Ceramics, Lei Washington, and Wade Scheel.
825 Arts
825 University Ave W
Formerly the Victoria Theater Arts Center, 825 Arts serves Frogtown and Rondo with community-focused arts programming, from theater to visual art to Minecraft meet-ups.
"Stop in on the crawl for zAmya Theater Project's A Prairie Homeless Companion and artist exhibitions in our Flex Space alongside our regular programming. Explore our space, enjoy some cool art, and experience a great show!"
Performances:
Oct 4 - 6:30pm • Registration encouraged
Oct 5 - 4:00pm • Registration encouraged *ASL interpreted*
Tickets are sliding scale from $0-40. Pay what you can. No one turned away. All ages are welcome but parental discretion is advised. Content includes mature themes such as substance use and domestic abuse.
825 Arts is wheelchair accessible. (A full accessibility document is available on their website, or by emailing communications@85arts.org). For questions about accessibility accommodations, please contact zAmya's Company Manager, Esther Ouray, at esther@zamyatheater.org or 612-760-4804.
Schmidt Artist Lofts
900 West 7th St
Schmidt Artists • @schmidtartists
West 7th Ave has a lot to offer: Great River Gallery, Friedli Gallery, and The Schmidt Lofts, which are the biggest draw on the block by volume — over 70 artists will be showing work, along with food trucks, live music, and Open Palette on the Rooftop, which is “like an open mic for visual artists. New art is created each hour.” Artists can sign up for a time slot here.
We talked with a handful of artists at Schmidt to get a preview of what they’re showing:
Tony Santoyo
tonysantoyo.com • @tonz.santoyo
"I am Tony Santoyo, a Mexican-American from St. Paul, MN. I enjoy movement and many times that is in the form of dancing. My artwork is a dance, with ceramics, painting, and paper. It is a conversation or storytelling that mirrors the way I communicate; movement follows form or form movement. In 2023, I finished a fellowship at Penland School of Craft in the mountains of North Carolina and this fall will be my first time showcasing my pottery and craft at the St. Paul Art Crawl at Schmidt!”
BriiNoir - Briauna Williams
briinoir.com • @briauna.williams
“I will be at The Schmidt Artist Lofts within the Brew house Clubroom. I will have my original acrylic paintings, prints of both digital and other works, I will be doing henna all weekend as well as having my handmade shea butter and oil. Visitors can expect an awesome host of creatives, good energy, time to flow, connect, and recharge.”
Aisling Jelinski
aislingjelinski.com • @aislingjelinski.art
“I'm thrilled to be participating in my first art crawl since moving back home to Minnesota. The Schmidt Artist Lofts will have a wide array of things to enjoy, including live music, demonstrations, food trucks, and as many visual art mediums as you can imagine. My table will have a variety of original paintings, hand pulled lino prints, and giclee prints of murals and paintings available for purchase/order – I will also have some work at the Northern Lights Art Studio downtown!”
Ron Brown
@afroanimeillustrator_ronbrown
Also look for guest artist Ron Brown, an amazing painter, illustrator, comic book artist, and collage artist, whom we profiled during the 2020 Sketchbook Project and who will be working a table creating zombie portraits live and in person.
Solidarity Street Gallery
967 Payne Ave
Solidarity Street Gallery • @solidaritystreetgallery
We're going to end on a Must-See for sure: for one weekend only, ArT@967 Payne is turning Payne Avenue into an outdoor art gallery featuring a ton of work from a ton of great artists, like Addis Alemu, allison anne, L’Andrae’ Bradley, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Nhat Dang, Carmen Gutierrez-Bolger, Meher Khan, Moira Villiard, and many more.
“65 visual artists respond in very powerful and personal ways to our theme of ‘Migration and Memories’ – showcasing works that capture their unique migration stories; portray the place and culture the artists and their people are from; commemorate their cultural heritage; and speak to the resilience and adjustments in the new homeland.”
Stephan Kistler, the artist who runs ArT@967 Payne, passed along a selection of some of the work on display with the following descriptions:
Addis Alemu
ታሪክ (Tarik). @addiiiissss"The pieces on display in the exhibition explore the journey of Addis’ family through migration and adaptation to the United States. Central to this collection is their mother’s transition, illustrated through key moments in her life, including her senior year photo and the milestone of gaining U.S. citizenship. These works vividly recount the shifts and transformations that have defined their family’s story, and, by extension, Addis’ own."
Marvin Wise
Strength and Endurance, oil on Canvas, 40 x 60". @wisemarvin55
"Marvin Wise's pieces deal with his ancestors, who were enslaved cotton-pickers in the South, and all the burdens they carried over the years, to make his life possible."
Ziba Rajabi
Tear and Blood, acrylic on muslin and canvas, thread, 60 x 48" @zibarajabi
"Ziba's work echoes the theme ‘Migration & Memories’ as it revolves around the desire to reconcile a relationship with two distinctive spaces: Iran (her native land) and the US (where she resides now)."
Penny Kagigebi
Anishinaabeg Descend, Contemporary Ojibwe basketry with porcupine quillwork and appliqué beadwork.
"Penny uses her contemporary approach to birchbark basketry, carefully evolved from traditional, endangered art forms and teachings, to draw her audience into conversations about how her Anishinaabeg ancestors descended from the stars – and the stories and memories of migration and the presence of people here back to time immemorial."
Woo, that was a lot! Don't let its elbow-patch image fool you, Saint Paul's got a ton of funk if you know where to look. Start planning your Crawl now; we'll be back next week with even more from the big studio buildings down by the river. Stay tuned! ◼︎
The Saint Paul Art Crawl happens twice a year and is presented by the Saint Paul Art Collective, a network of creatives first started in 1977. This is the second in a series of articles promoting the Fall Crawl; the first is a Q&A with SPAC's new Executive Director Mariusz Kujawski.
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