From High Risk to High Hopes – Public Art

A few months ago I engaged in a project at work that was like nothing I’ve ever done before. It was completed this week and I thought I’d share a bit about it here. I’m not sure it will have much interest for anyone but me. But its something that has moved me and I hope the end product will be a lasting legacy and testament to the small ways we have tried to change a few lives in this town.

But first, a little background. Most of you know that I work for a non-profit agency who’s mission is “to work with families and the community to redirect youth who are starting to get in trouble at home, at school, or with the law.” We do this in an urban setting where too many kids live in a darkness created by poverty, racism, abuse, domestic violence, crime, and drug addiction (to name just the most obvious). Many of them make mistakes that too often lead them into being criminalized for life. Our task is to try and enter their lives early on to both hold them accountable for their behavior and support them in taking a different path.

After 30 years of renting space for our operations and moving on average once every three years, in 2006 we bought a building. That’s been a whole interesting process, but not the heart of what I wanted to write about. The building was originally built by the 3M Corporation (whose international headquarters are just up the road from us) as a community bank. The interior is perfect for our needs – wide open spaces with lots of natural light that sooths the tensions that are so present in the work we do.

But the outside of the building was anything but warm.

I have no idea what they were thinking when they built that ugly concrete wall in the front, but it reminded me of the barricades that were put up in front of federal buildings after the Oklahoma City bombing. I HATED it.

A few months ago, we decided that our capital campaign to raise $1.8 million to pay for the building and necessary improvements was going well enough that we could take on a project to “warm up” the outside of the building. Since it wasn’t feasible to take down the concrete wall, we asked artists what they could do to soften it up.

In the end, we chose to work with a local artist Craig David, who creates beautiful public art working mostly with various types of stone. Craig had most recently worked on creating four stone murals telling the history of Neighborhood House, a community agency on the West Side of St. Paul that is now the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center.

We commissioned Craig to do a similar mural for our building and, given that he has also worked as a landscape artist, to build a garden. He constructs these murals out of stone floor tile that he cuts into these massive jigsaw puzzle murals.

So, here are a couple of pictures of the mural he designed and installed for us.

The movement of the piece goes from right to left. It starts with faces in the darkness, followed by several scenes of nurturing connection and leads to the light on the left.

You simply cannot imagine the work that goes into creating and installing something like this until you see the process. Here’s a picture of Craig and his friend Bob who helped him with the installation as they’re getting started.

And the transformation.

What a blessing its been to work on a project like this! And now, every time I enter or leave the building, I’m blessed with this wonderful work of art.