In support of mnartists.org Field Day, which took place on August 27th at the Walker, I decided to rally some colleagues to form a kickball team. We were scrappy, made up mainly of education and new media folks with some help from membership and visitor services. Our name: Spherical Propulsion Ensemble (SPE). Our mascot: the subject of Angus Fairhurst’s The Birth of Consistency, a gorilla. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm for propelling kickballs didn’t match our ability, but we had a raging good time attempting to topple a talented Walker marketing team. A team, by the way, that somehow managed to recruit three especially nimble players who were each roughly fourteen years old. Not fair! Luckily, we avoided a shutout thanks to the kicking talents of Robin Dowden.
I was happy to see that despite our loss our mascot ended up prominently displayed on a number of screen-printed shirts being cranked out at Calpurnia Peach’s Remake, Revamp.
SPE mascot with name
SPE gorilla with alternate text
Truth be told, we as a team never got around to getting our mascot on our shirts prior to the fated game, so it wasn’t exactly clear to Field Day goers that the sporty ape had a kickball connection. I had actually commissioned my husband, former opera singer and current finance professional/guerilla sketch artist (pun intended), to bring our team name to life. The gorilla’s colorful (re)appearance at field day was a fun surprise. Wear him with pride Minneapolitans.
