The Cactus Blossoms on stage at the Turf Club, photo by author

A casual passerby could be forgiven for assuming the Turf Club is a country bar. After all, the venerable Saint Paul tavern has a horseshoe as its logo and its east wall sports a lovely cowboy-themed mosaic mural by local artist Angela Talle. Despite that rustic exterior, the Turf traffics primarily in various shades of rock. Every Monday night, though, The Cactus Blossoms take the stage to find the country in my little corner of Midway.

The Cactus Blossoms are a five-piece country-western combo fronted by baby-faced brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum. Together with the highly pedigreed roster of fiddler Mike “Razz” Russell, upright bassist Lizz Draper and steel guitarist Randy Broughten, they create a sound that’s rooted in the past but never stodgy. This isn’t what the radio calls “Today’s Hot Country,” nor is it hipster-approved “outlaw country” of the Johnny Cash/Waylon Jennings ilk. This is Grand Ole Opry music that your Hank Williams-loving granddad could get down to. The band’s repertoire includes a blend of original songs and old-time standards. It’s a point in the band’s favor that I usually can’t tell the difference, and I listen to a fair bit of classic country.

Aside from the cactus cut-outs adorning the stage, Turf Club’s Monday night atmosphere is still more hip than honky-tonk, but that doesn’t mean the crowd is any less appreciative. Scruffy twenty-somethings in Western shirts rub shoulders with head-bobbing baby boomers and curiosity-seekers drawn in by the crisp tunes and $3 cover. Near stage left, couples dance two-steps as The Cactus Blossoms finesse their way through another set of bold but understated sounds from a bygone age. It’s more than just a nostalgia show; it’s a reverent yet rollicking scene unto itself. That’s a pretty tough act to top on a Monday night in Midway.

Turf Club mural by Angela Talle, photo by author

Turf Club signage, photo by author

About the Author: Ira Brooker is a writer and editor based in Saint Paul. He blathers about pop culture at A Talent for Idleness and also maintains an archive at irabrooker.com.

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Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

Thomas Lowry Park on a warm March afternoon, photo by author

The first truly warm day of spring makes everyone in Minnesota a little crazy. Local news stations report the weather from the beach of Lake Calhoun. And everyone grabs for t-shirts and shorts as the temperature pushes 60 degrees, forgetting that were this October, we’d be shivering in sweaters and coats.

I took a walk around my neighborhood on Wednesday, ending up in Thomas Lowry Park. The change of seasons is nature’s art. Melting water and mud everywhere. The snow has reduced to small frozen blobs on the sidewalk and vague crusty ridges scattered throughout last year’s dead grass. There are no leaves yet, nothing sprouting, but it’s coming soon. This is the metamorphosis stage. And it’s that feeling of possibility that overwhelms you when you walk outside this time of year. The feeling of hope.

The endurance test of winter is nearly at an end. During Minnesota winters — even milder ones like this year’s — all you can do is survive, one day to the next, and dream of spring. We’ve almost made it.

And really, it’s just nice to be outside again without having to wear four layers.

About the Author: Sarah Howard is a freelance writer living in Minneapolis.

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Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

As a lifelong nerd about all things pirate, complete with skull-and-crossbones motif decorating my apartment, I was thrilled to hear about the Real Pirates exhibit that opened at the Science Museum of Minnesota in February. I put on some skull paraphernalia, gathered up some friends, and headed over to St. Paul to check it out.

Whydahbell, the bell recovered from the Whydah, photo by author

Real Pirates tells the story of the Whydah, a ship discovered off the coast of Cape Cod in 1984. After an introductory movie, you follow the Whydah on her journey from slave ship to pirate ship to sinking ship in a 1717 storm. As you walk through and learn about the ship and crew’s history, there are many quality artifacts to be seen; cannons, swords, and a whole room of pirate treasure are just some of the highlights. There are hands on exhibits as well where you get to hoist the Jolly Roger, learn to tie knots, and look through a spyglass. And to add extra fun, there are actors portraying pirates wandering around. The moment I saw a young woman posing as legendary pirate Anne Bonny sitting on the floor tying a noose, I knew I was truly among my people. At the end of the exhibit you can learn about the process of recovering artifacts from the sunken Whydah, which continues to this day.

Real Pirates is a great experience for kids, adults, and pirate-nerds alike. If you enjoy adding some high seas adventure to your history, I’d highly recommend visiting before it closes September 3.

About the Author: Sarah Howard is a freelance writer and pirate enthusiast living in Minneapolis.

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Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

Last Thursday night I had the pleasure of attending Architecture MN’s  Videotect 2 Awards.  Held in the Walker Cinema as part of Target Free Thursday Nights, the second annual video competition culminated in this screening event complete with audience participation, giant checks, and even Jason DeRusha.

This year’s competition theme, sustainable transportation, elicited a variety of short video entries that explore, harpoon, criticize, and raise questions about the broad topic.  While the Grand Prize Winner Saddlebag is excellent in its effortless blend of visual appeal and effective messaging, I personally found one of the Honorable Mention winners slightly more intriguing.

A Fistful of Asphalt, entered by moviemaker John Akre of Sloppy Films, plays homage to the 1964 Clint Eastwood classic, A Fistful of Dollars.  Equating a busy street to the Wild West, anthropomorphic automobiles act as villains that ruthlessly rule the road while paying no mind to innocent pedestrians.  Akre brings a hero to town, ‘The Man with No Car,’ who is boldly armed with bike lanes, traffic circles, and streetcars.  Narrated like a movie trailer, the video concludes with a playful and poignant, “Coming soon to your town.”

Croaking Collaged Cars

The Man with no Car

All of the Viewer's Choice Nominees

While the message of this short is clear and clever, I was more blown away by the creative method of delivery.  The mixing of multiple forms of animation blended with the unique soundtrack of layered voices stood out from the larger group of entries.  From the claymation Clint look-a-like to the croaking collaged cars, the combination of techniques proves to be both strangely endearing and interestingly entertaining.

All of the videos are worth watching. They are funny and thought provoking at best and slightly nauseating at worst – beware of the very centripetal force of Centripetal!  It may be too late to vote for viewer’s choice, but it is never to late to consider a relevant topic from multiple artful perspectives.

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Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)

A recent visit to St. Kate’s campus allowed me a little window of wandering time during which I was delighted to encounter Everyday Epic – The Wild, Weird, Wacky World of Amy Toscani. Nestled between the grey walls of the Catherine G. Murphy’s West Gallery, I found giant abstract objects balanced by soft, wall-hanging compositions.  Bodies tend to react to floor-seated sculpture; Toscani’s works do not alienate as minimalist, manufactured object would. Nor do they look ‘junky’ like assemblies of shapes and found remnants. Toscani uses forms that are related to everyday objects and techniques that use the language of craft-store projects, but are employed on a grand scale and amongst refined fabrication. One hybrid form marries the crafty-kitsch of nylon-loop-pot-holders with what looked like an asphalt-coated base, the base itself could have been repurposed sports equipment or a landscaping berm.  These surfaces already exist in my memory as lawn chairs, projects for Mom and a hot parking lot I may have wiped out on in my youth.  A nearby sculpture could have been a three-dimensional rendering of a child’s drawing of the sun and is adorned with string art, an activity taught at summer camps and hung in cabins. The string art continues on wall-hanging works where it creates recognizable line drawings of factories floating over embroidered pillow-y substrates. Friendly, obscure and playful, Everyday Epicruns through March 31, 2012.

All artwork by Amy Toscani, all photos by Jehra Patrick

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Viewfinder posts are your opportunity to “show & tell” about the everyday arts happenings, interesting sights and sounds made or as seen by Minnesota artists, because art is where you find it.  Submit your own informal, first-person responses to the art around you to katie(at)mnartists.org, and we may well publish your piece here on the blog. (Guidelines: 300 words or less, not about your own event/work, and please include an image, media, video, or audio file, and one sentence about yourself.)