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In this Issue: For the People, By the People

This month, we're looking into the issues that arise when you bring the arts out of individual studios and into the public square. To what extent is ensuring the health of a community's arts and "creative class" not just an artists' issue but a citizens' issue? Our case study: Red Wing and its neighboring towns, on both sides of the Mississippi, all of which lie on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. In recent years the area has seen a veritable arts Renaissance, home to a growing population of acclaimed artists, arts organizations, and culturally mindful entrepreneurs. The small cities at the heart of all this growth find themselves at a crossroads, offering very different responses to the question: to what extent are citizens willing to practically invest in endeavors which aim to draw this sort of cultural growth, and are they ready to embrace the diverse population of artists who'll come along afterward?

• ESSAY: "Is Red Wing the Artspot That Could, Or Will It Give Artists the Boot?" by

Sari Gordon

• MnArts Magazine highlights include: reviews of the new MCAD/Jerome Fellows Show and a production about Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl by Walking Shadow Theatre, a preview of ARENA Dances' promising collaboration Dancin' With ETHEL, and a behind-the-screens introduction to the All-City Youth Film Showcase
• An array of artist opportunities drawn from our daily updated list on mnartists.org
• A host of arts events to fill your fall days, from Halloween parties and festivals to hands-on workshops, loads of music and film, theater, new visual art shows, and much more

PLUS: Watch a representative sampling of episodes from a daily new videoblog covering the arts beat, 3-Minute Egg

Writer Sari Gordon reports from the bucolic environs of Red Wing and its neighboring towns across the Mississippi. As the area's arts scene takes off, residents find themselves at a crossroads: how important are artists to the health of the region's towns, and what are they prepared to do about it?

FIVE YEARS AGO I QUIT MY HIGH-PAYING CORPORATE JOB in Eden Prairie and moved to Ellsworth, Wisconsin, to write a book. I wrote and wrote and spent up my 401(k) and wrote some more. And then I sold some stuff on eBay and kept writing—until a squirrel moved into the ceiling over our bedroom and I stopped writing and started sitting outside with a .22.

Today, I’m broke, I have a manuscript somewhere on a hard drive, and the land around me is squirrel-free. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Red Wing is the nearest big town. I went looking for other writers, musicians, and artists to hang out with. It took awhile. If you walk around downtown Red Wing, you get the feeling that the cool part of town is right around the corner. While Red Wing has great arts institutions, the artists themselves are hard to find. In fact, I’d lived here three years before I found my pal David Culver, the amazing sculptor, living right down the road from me in Bay City, Wisconsin.

There should be a community. About twenty years ago, a tide of money washed over Red Wing. NSP built a nuclear power plant and paid the local Prairie Island Indian Community $2.25 million a year to store nuclear waste. Then the Treasure Island Casino opened, and is now the area’s biggest employer. Between 1978 and 1990, at least six major sites were rehabbed: The St. James Hotel (and $8 million investment), the Red Wing Pottery Place project, the Red Wing Armory, the T.B. Sheldon Theatre, the Riverfront Development Centre and the Red Wing Depot Renovation. Robert Hedin and his wife purchased the Anderson Center grounds and building outright from the Red Wing School District during that period and developed it privately. Down the road is a three-story barn with a poem on the side. Inside is one of the world's last harp makers, a global music instrument store, and performance space.

Today, Red Wing is faced with a challenge. According to a 2007 Comprehensive Plan, “[Red Wing] contains no major advantages relating to institutions, infrastructures, labor, incentives, and other such issues: quality of life comprises its primary attraction for businesses, residents, etc.” The report repeatedly states: “The City should promote other complementary businesses and organizations engaging in visual arts (galleries), music/entertainment, artisan-related uses arts-related development incentives."

Robert Hedin, the Executive Director of the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts told me that in the last fifteen years of urban renewal, the arts have undergone “nothing less than a Renaissance."...continue reading the full essay on mnartists.org

Click here to read Sari Gordon's engaging account of the complicated relationships brewing between art, artists, and the surrounding communities in this region, and about the revealing differences in the ways two towns are tackling the issues surrounding this sort of cultural growth.

About the author: Sari Gordon is a professional writer.

Credits: (Top left) "Wheels to Nowhere," photo by Sari Gordon. These 4-ton concrete boots, courtesy of civic boosters, are placed all over Red Wing. (Middle right) John Kerwin has big plans to turn the historic Maltery in downtown Red Wing into affordable artists' spaces. The jury's still out on whether he'll be able to get city leaders' support sufficient to see those plans through to fruition. Photo of Sari Gordon (bottom right) appears courtesy of the artist.

You Are Here event listings are drawn entirely from the mnartists.org calendar, so if you want to improve the odds that you'll see your happening linked here, you'd better start posting your events!

We've made it super easy to begin: here's a step-by-step guide that'll show you how to promote your own events on the site's arts calendar. Browse through more up-to-the-minute events listings or post a show of your own on mnartists.org's member-driven, DIY arts events calendar.

The mission of mnartists.org is to improve the lives of Minnesota artists and provide access to and engagement with Minnesota’s arts culture.