Little-known fact: I was a drama nerd in high school! Our advanced drama class was a pretty tight group. With only about eight of us, we put on small shows and played theater games to improve our timing and delivery. We all adored our drama guru, Russell Taylor, and our guru had an idea to host an awards day in class. The awards would be from us to each other, which wound up being a lovely exchange.
I remember my award well, as it was one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever been given. As we passed around the awards, my friend Jon handed me a picnic basket. “What?! A picnic basket?” I asked, a little confused. He explained: “You said last year you’d never been on a picnic. Now you can go!” he responded. I opened the picnic basket to find a coloring book with my award on the inside, which he gave to me to describe how he saw my approach to most things both in class and in life. “Coloring Outside the Lines.”
This went on to fuel ideas later. Back to Altered Esthetics, as we set the schedule for our exhibition season for an upcoming year, creating something for the kids in our audience was tossed around excitedly. Curating an exhibit for our younger audience members would not only be fun but also go a long way to encourage the young artists in our community. It’s great to see art on fridges and classroom walls, but seeing art at a professional gallery space is special.
Many of our regular artists had children who were burgeoning artists themselves, and they responded quickly to the idea. Sue Christensen, my BFF from the aforementioned Art of Sin exhibit, stepped in as a guest curator for the exhibit. She helped with everything from connecting us to local schools to preparing a variety of kid-friendly food for the opening. The first children’s art exhibit went up in March 2008, entitled Coloring Outside the Lines, inspired by my memory from years back. The kids had a blast, and we had fun curating some really impressive and creative children’s art! We decided to make this an annual event, and over the years it would evolve.
We shifted to include not just children’s artwork but also art by grown-up kids that children would enjoy and appreciate, with themes like Dinosaurs, Puppets, and Forts! and Blast Off ! With each exhibition we’d include a day of fun Erin Flathers, curatorial intern, at the children’s art exhibit activities and had puppet shows, crafts, and more—all free for families and kids. It was fun to watch this develop at the gallery even before I had kids of my own, and fun to watch as the gallery continued to shape itself with the community and become more inclusive in a variety of ways.
After the first show closed, Avery—the daughter of one of our regular artists, Lupi McGinty—was reluctant to pick up her work. As she left with her works in hand she called out: “I want my work to stay in the picture museum forever, mommy!”
This post is adapted from It’s Never Going To Work: A Tale of Art and Nonprofits in the Minneapolis Community. Book includes illustrations by Athena Currier. ©2019 Jamie Schumacher.
It’s Never Going To Work is a light-hearted, illustrated book that offers real-life insights on founding a community space and nonprofit. It provides tools, tips, resources, and camaraderie to community organizers and anybody attempting something new.