We invited you to pick a favorite photo from the Walker People’s Archive and tell us what you love about it. This is the last in a series of posts reporting on what our correspondents say they see in this project, a crowd-sourced, online collection of photos and stories that celebrates the Walker’s 75 years as a public art center by capturing your most vivid Walker memories.
This favorite comes from Wing Young Huie, photographer and maker of people’s archives.
Wing writes: “This image records a loss and it haunts me. A quick search through the Internet offers no results for ‘Bryant Art School,’ and though this archive preserves these two faces, their names are nowhere to be found. Notice their fingers, her toes, and the distance between them that she crosses with her eyes.”
See Wing’s blog , find his gallery and learn about a recent project, Chinese-ness.
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Tom Cook, WPA contributor and Walker member, had an easy time picking a favorite WPA photo.
Tom tells us: “Leo loves the Sculpture Garden and I love Leo. He’s a living, miniature, soft sculpture balanced perfectly in mid-air like the 1200 pound cherry on the spoon! This photo captures the humor in Oldenburg’s sculpture and the joy that most of us feel when we visit the Garden. I love its composition, color and originality.”
See Tom’s WPA contributions and Mary Ann Nord’s appreciation of one of them.
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Rhonda Bonnabeau, Walker Tour Guide and member of “Team WPA,” the gang of tour guides who helped us get the word out, loves this photo.
Rhonda says: “This is such a great photo! I had the pleasure of speaking with Samuel as he entered a Walker gallery on a Free First Saturday. As a tour guide, my greatest joy comes from seeing how others experience the art. Samuel spotted this artwork by Alfons Schilling and immediately caught his own likeness through the T-shirt he chose to wear to the Walker that day. It was a great ice breaker. He told me this was his first visit to the Walker, and that he is an artist. His face really says more than I can put into words. Experiencing art is about connecting with art. It’s really simple. (Someone should put that on a T-shirt!)”
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Jan Kitchen, WPA Contributor and proud Art Mom, says, “there are so many photos I like, but I managed to narrow it down.”
Jan goes on: “I love the ‘some guy’ reference to Keith Haring in the selfie from Walktoberfest above, and the fact that the Lancials felt comfortable taking a picture while lying on the floor of a museum. Not many people have that free spirit in them. Most of us are too worried about what others around us will be thinking. I like this photo because of the freedom it expresses through loving art. And the photo below, of the Everharts?
It’s great. It’s what a ‘memory’ would look like if we could take photos of our memories. Surreal.”
See Jan’s own arty family portrait.
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Matthew Newton, Associate Editor at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art and editor of the CMOA Blog, is struck with this image:
As Matthew explains: “What interests me about Brick Chapman’s photograph of a simple handwritten sign announcing a silent vigil for John Lennon at the behest of Yoko Ono, is how it offers a candid snapshot of a tragedy that blindsided the nation. There is a solemn beauty in the idea of the vigil being observed at the Walker on December 14, 1980, the same day that thousands of Lennon’s grieving fans massed in Central Park—flooding nearby streets and sidewalks, corralled behind police barricades while holding signs attesting their love for the former Beatle.”
See Matthew’s work, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
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And, finally, Eric Asboe, artist, writer and cultural worker, formerly of Public Art Saint Paul, was captured by this photo.
As Eric reminds us, “Rafael, Junior Tour Guide, noticed that the two lights shining on David Smith’s sculpture ‘The Royal Bird’ make for interesting shadows. And, he said, ‘if there was just one light it wouldn’t be the same.’ Rafael ushers us through the doors, into the galleries, in front of a work. More importantly, he gives us the keys to unlock the Walker, to discover the endless possibilities it is and contains. He reminds us to enter the Walker with the open eyes of children, unclouded by our presumptions of knowledge and the stresses of our days. He urges us to experience artwork with minds that observe and are critical of the systems and structures of power that surround us. He models thinking outside of the boxes we can longer see.
Rafael also shows us that the Walker, the building that surrounds us, is as important as the art it contains. The walls, the lights, the pedestals, the people that surround us shape our experience of the work, are inseparable from our physical and emotional memories. The Walker is more than container; it is transmogrifier and transporter, magic lantern and magic carpet.
We are fortunate the Walker enfolds incredible artworks. We are lucky to have such a treasure. May we all see it as Rafael does, with minds ready to be changed and hearts open to be filled.”
Eric Asboe thinks and writes about art (sometimes at Bad at Sports), as he adjusts to a new home away from Minnesota.
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We’ll wrap up the WPA blog program next week with a final post about memory, photography and arts (and other civic) institutions. Until then, we give heartfelt thanks to all who have shared their stories with the Walker People’s Archive, and to all who’ve taken the time to write about their favorite photographs. You are the WPA!
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