The Minneapolis Institute of Art

Today I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minneapolis Sculupture Garden, Loring Park, and a couple other places in downtown Minneapolis. 

I took a lot of photos of artwork in the museum, so I'll dedicate this blog post to the museum and create a second blog post to cover the Sculpture Garden and the other places I visited today.

On my way to Minneapolis, I stopped at the "Finnish Bistro Coffee & Cafe" in St Paul and ate one of their pulla rolls with lingonberry. Pulla is a type of Finnish cardamom bread. A pulla roll looks like a cinnamon roll, but it has crushed cardamom in the bread, and no cinnamon. I had a plain pulla roll yesterday and enjoyed it, so I tried one with lingonberry today. Both were delicious, but I liked yesterday's best because the cardamom taste seemed stronger without the lingonberry.

-- Minneapolis Institute of Art --

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has a lot of artwork that I liked, for various reasons. I took photos of some of the pieces, and will explain what I liked.

The speckled trout on this clay jar by Jodi Folwell are beautiful. She titled it "T'ah p-ah sa' was (Dad's Fish)" because it brings back childhood memories of her father, who liked to fish.

This next piece is actually a full-size coffin shaped like a lobster. It was created by Sowah Kwei, of Ghana. He titled it "Fantasy Coffin". It is made of wood, plaster, and acrylic paint. I also took a photo of his contact information, in case anyone reading this blog wants to commission a custom coffin. ☺

The museum has a Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room filled with Tibetan devotional obects collected by Alice S. Kandell. The room is setup as a meditation room.

Below is a Tibetan prayer wheel. Inside a prayer wheel is a tightly wound paper scroll with prayers written on it. As the person holding the prayer wheel flexes their wrist, the weight suspended from the wheel causes the cylinder to spin and symbolicly release the prayers to heaven with each revolution of the wheel.

I am used to seeing Buddhist figures having a big belly, but this Indian Buddhist statue of Indra, "King of the Gods", has a much slimmer physique. A placard says Indra was originally Hindu but is revered by both Hindu and Buddhists in Nepal.

This statue by Japanese artist Kondo Takahiro of a Buddhist holy man has very unusual texture. The piece is titled "Reduction 1". The "silver mist" glaze on the cobalt blue porcelain figure is in response to the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011, and represents that the released radioactivity may "drench" the Japanese people.

I think the following two Japanese block paintings are beautiful. The first, titled, "Morning of Abuto", is by Yoshida Hiroshi. The second, simply titled, "Pansy", is by Tanaka Ryohei.

The following three facial paintings caught my attention. I liked the colors and the eyes in the oil painting titled, "Frankie", by Joe Solman. 

I was surprised how well the colors of green and purple work together to create the shadows in the following oil painting titled, "Portrait of Fanette Reider", by Morton L. Schamberg. I don't normally think of those colors when I think of a face.

I like the deep contrasts and stark facial features in the following oil painting titled, "Young Woman", by Alice Neel.

Something about the eyes and expression on this man's face caught my attention. The oil painting is titled, "Portrait of Diego de Agreda y Martinez de Tejada y Cabezon, 1st Conde de Agreda", by a Mexican artist.

I like this color screenprint, titled '"The Beautiful Ones" May Have Arrived', by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, because of the designs that seem to blend into each other. The girl's dress seems to blend into the quilt on top of the bed, and you have to look closely to see where one ends and the other begins.

The oil painting of a landscape scene with a carriage, titled "L'Avenue de Neuilly on a Winter Day", by Luigi Loir, is peaceful. 

The oil painting titled "Laksefiskere pa Nesoya (Salmon Fishers at Nesoya)", by Hjalmar Eilif Peterssen, depicts a relaxing pause in a day of fishing.

I like the way the colors emphasize the three wise men in the oil painting titled, "Journey of the Magi", by James Tissot. 

I also like the colors around the pheasants' necks in this oil painting titled, "Still Life with Pheasants and Plovers", by Claude Monet.

The following marble sculpture is simply amazing. The veil looks very realistic. It looks like the marble head has been covered by a cloth veil, but the veil is actually carved in the marble. The effect is totally amazing. The piece is titled, "Veiled Lady", by Raffaelo Monti.

I find the color and contrast appealing, as well as the flowing robes, in this statue titled, "Saint Benedict of Palermo", attributed to Jose Montes de Oca. Saint Benedict of Palermo was born in Sicily, and is the first Christian saint of African origin to be canonized in modern times.

The following 3-dimenional work, titled, "Partition 81", is quite captivating. It is an archival pigment print on photographic paper, cut and folded, by Christiane Feser. I took a photo of the complete work, and a closeup, taken at an angle, of some of the folded paper.

I am intrigued by how the artist drew the texture of the tree in the oil painting titled, "Banyan Tree", by Joseph Stella. The closeup shows the great detail he added to create the tree's texture.

The following oil painting, titled "Quiet Seascape", by William Trost Richards, simply reminds me of the beach. The scene looks so realistic that I feel like I'm back at the ocean and can hear the waves.

The style of this acrylic painting titled, "Lake Superior Landscape", by George Morrison, is a lot different than the above seascape, but I like them both. I like the bright colors and the abstraction in the Lake Superior painting below.

The next three oil paintings have regional significance to the Minneapolis-St Paul area. I like the shape of the tornado in "Tornado over St. Paul", by Julius Holm. The painting titled, "St. Anthony Falls as It Appeared in 1848", by Henry Lewis, shows how St Anthony Falls, here in Minneapolis, looked before the bridges and power station were constructed. The scene looks a lot different today! "Steamwheeler on the Upper Mississippi", by Ferdinand Richardt, is another nostalgic look at the mississippi river of yesteryear.

I took a photo of the Minneapolis skyline from the third floor window of the museum. I enjoyed the art museum, but I was ready to go outside after walking the three floors of the museum.

The following sculpture of a head is on the lawn outside the museum. It is titled, "Eros Bendato Screpolato", by Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj. Eros is the God of Love. I don't know how to interpret it. You can draw your own conclusions.

 

St Paul, Minnesota: Wabasha Street Caves, Como Park Conservatory and Zoo

-- Wabasha Street Caves --

This morning I took a tour of the Wabasha Street Caves in St Paul. I didn't know beforehand what to expect, but a friend of a friend recommended the tour.

The caves are actually tunnels from an old silica mine dug into the side of a sandstone hill in the 1800s, rather than natural caves. The silica from the sandstone was used for making glass. The tunnels are all at ground level. Their notoriety comes from being a speakeasy and gangster hangout during prohibition. Gangsters such as John Dillinger, the Karpis-Barker gang (aka Ma Barker gang), and others, are said to have hung out here.

The red sedan parked in front of the caves is similar to one John Dillinger used to drive. (I don't know if there is a connection between the caves and the white limousine... the tour guide just said it is the same model as the limousine used for passing the bottle of Gray Poupon in the old television commercials.)

The seven tunnels are all connected. We entered the first tunnel through the doors under the Wabasha Street Caves sign, on the left, below, and exited the last tunnel throught the brown doors on the far right. 

The tunnels have served several purposes over the years. The marks from the silica miner's tools are still visible on the walls and ceiling in some of tunnels. Other tunnels have been plastered over and painted.

After the silica mining, the tunnels were used as a mushroom farm because the rooms were cool and dark. The caves became a restaurant, nightclub, and speakeasy during the prohibition era (1919-1932). After prohibition, the caves became the Castle Royal nightclub, with chandeliers, oriental carpets, a stage for musical performers, and a gambling room in back.

Below are photos of the entryway, seating area, dance floor and stage.

The city of St Paul had a reputation as the "sanctuary for criminals" during the early 1900s. A corrupt police chief named John O'Conner had an unofficial agreement with criminals. It was known as the layover agreement. In order to keep crime out of St Paul, O'Conner allowed criminals safe refuge within city limits if they agreed to three things: commit no major crimes within city limits, pay bribes to police and city officials, and let police know when they were in town. It was okay to commit crimes in other cities (even Minneapolis) -- just not in St Paul. Subsequent police chiefs kept the agreement going, to keep crime down and profit from the gangsters. This drew criminals such as John Dillinger, Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde (Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow), and the Karpis-Barker gang to frequent St Paul. 

Legend has it that a triple murder occurred in the fireplace room in 1934. Four gangsters were playing cards in the fireplace room, when a man holding a case told everyone to leave. The room cleared and the waitress went to the kitchen. She heard what sounded like machine gunfire from a tommy gun. She came back into the room and found three men dead on the floor with gunshot wounds -- the other two men had fled. 

The waitress immediately called the police, who went into the room without her. When they returned, they accused her of filing a false police report, as they found no bodies, no blood, and no evidence of a crime. The waitress insisted that the bullet holes in the right side of the fireplace were evidence of the crime.

The nightclub was closed down in 1940. The caves later became a mushroom garden again until 1965. At some point were used to store Land O'Lakes cheese. The upside down benches used as potting beds for the mushrooms, and holes in the walls for beams that held cheese are evidence of those uses.

The caves were abandoned for several years, became a disco in the 1970s, and are now used for cave tours and Thursday night swing dances. The tour guide believes the caves are haunted. At least it is a pitch for their haunted caves tour. 😏

-- Como Park Conservatory --

The Marjorie McNeely Conseratory in Como Park has a great collection of plants!

Outside the building are ponds of water lilies. Some of the leaves look like deep dish pizza pans!

Other plants look like typical water lilies.

The conservatory also has carniverous plants that attract and digest insects. These pitcher and venus fly trap plants are the two carniverous plants I saw.

Inside, some of the rooms have beautiful orchids and other tropical flowers.

There are several rooms with tropical plants, including spice trees such as cinnamon, and allspice trees. I have used neem oil to control aphids, and the room with spice trees also has a neem tree. Other trees incuded orange, macadamia nut, and cocoa.

-- Como Park Zoo --

I liked the zoo. I had forgotten that gorillas are vegetarian. This gorilla was pulling and chewing on grass.

I didn't know that gorillas have unique noses. The sign said that gorilla nose and nostril shapes are unique and can identify an individual gorilla in a similar way that fingerprints can identify a human. Good luck getting a rogue gorilla to let you take its nose print, though!

I like that the zookeepers recognized the personalities and tendencies of individual animals. One example is this sign that describes their cats.

And this sign talks about the likes and dislikes of two of their giraffes.

The zoo has a good variety of animals. I liked watching the sloths.

The Tasmarins look like they have a mustache!

Here are a few more photos of animals I liked watching.

The animals seemed well cared for, although I still felt sorry for the gorillas because they seemed the most conscious of people watching them, and would walk away.

I returned to the College Grove Walmart parking lot tonight, since I slept well there last night.