MPLSART

Scott Streble is a Minneapolis-based location photographer best known for his documentary photographs of people. Through more than thirty years honing his art, he is able to portray his subjects with beautiful realism, honesty, and the utmost dignity. His latest project, the Front Porch Portrait series, captures the&nbsp;the simple bliss of having your portrait taken - a moment to stand in the sun with your loved ones, to document joy within an otherwise tumultuous time. Our homes have all at once become our offices, our schoolrooms, our sanctuaries, our safe havens - symbols of the isolation, inequity, and resilience of this moment in history. It&rsquo;s complicated, like any family, and Scott is there to capture it. Scott is raising money on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottstreble/front-porch-portraits-staying-apart-together?ref=project_build" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a>&nbsp;to publish the series into a book. We interviewed Scott about the project to learn more. 
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What was the inspiration for the Porch Portrait series?

I was sitting on my sofa complaining about not having work due to Covid (I normally stay busy, shooting 5 assignments/week). My partner, Jessica, suggested I do these portraits. Doing Porch Portraits is not an original idea, but this sort of work was a great fit for me, so I started the next day. I want to show the positivity that people still possess in this uncertain time. It also gives people a chance to be part of something bigger, along with giving everyone a remembrance of this time. Lastly, it fulfills me creatively.

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As Covid-19 has many people not venturing far from their own neighborhoods, you were visiting many. Did you gain any insight into how different parts of the city were affected differently?&nbsp;

I was actually surprised at how similar things were within different neighborhoods. I think this is testament to the fact that all people are both resilient and hopeful. These photos gave them a chance to portray this. When I took photos in North Minneapolis, there were many who thanked me for including their neighborhood, as it is often overlooked.

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What draws you to Portraiture?&nbsp;

I like people as much as photography. Photography has given me permission or a license to meet interesting people and hang with them, even though it is often just a brief time. I&#39;ve photographed a wide range of people in a wide range of environments. Photography has allowed me to observe a huge range of life that would be hard to attain from anything else I can think of.&nbsp;

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How many Porch Portraits did you take? How did people find out about the project?

I shot over 500, and there will be room for about 230 in the book. These are selected-based on the photo, desire to show a range of people, and neighborhoods. Initially, I placed an ad on Nextdoor and then used Facebook and reached out to community leaders. The project is now self-sustaining. I get about 10 requests per week.

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How do you feel your role as an artist has changed through your career?&nbsp;

Early on, I thought I could be the photographer for everyone, but realized what I am best at and happiest doing. I then look for clients who want that sort of work. I want us to both feel like we are a good fit for one another. I&#39;ve also learned that photography is a good vehicle to help people, and I look for ways to do that. As a result, almost all my work is for non-profit entities. From a technical standpoint, the equipment I use has been drastically pared down. Having a lot of gear can get in the way of the types of sensitive situations I work in. The current gear has become compact and quiet to use, making it a good match for what I do.

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How did you approach the Porch Portrait Series differently from your regular practice?&nbsp;

The Series is much more casual as the photos are free to the people, and I need only spend a few minutes. Even on a paid assignment, I often feel the best photos happen early in the process in regard to expressions, but I&#39;ll continue on and shoot multiple variations, giving the client lots of options. There is zero pressure, which works great, as everything is relaxed. I will be carrying these experiences over to my commercial work.

<div> 
With so much art experienced online lately, what do you feel is the significance of physical photo book? 
Good Question: I do have a dedicated website of the work (<a href="https://www.mnporchportraits.com/" target="_blank">www.mnporchportraits.com</a>) Doing a book has a certain gravitas that online does not have. Holding the photos in your hand and seeing the quality can&#39;t be matched by looking at them on-screen.</div>

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For more information on the Porch Portrait series, <a href="https://www.mnporchportraits.com/" target="_blank">visit the official website</a>. To help make the Porch Portrait Book a reality, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottstreble/front-porch-portraits-staying-apart-together?ref=project_build" target="_blank">pre-order a copy before the Kickstarter ends August 20th</a>. You can also see more of&nbsp;Scott&#39;s work on his <a href="http://www.scottstreble.com/" target="_blank">website</a> and via his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/scottstreble/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.&nbsp; 
 
 
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Photographer Scott Streble reflects on portraiture, creating during a pandemic, and his latest project

Q&A with Scott Streble on the Front Porch Portrait Series

The Scene

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<div style="background:#eee;border:1px solid #ccc;padding:5px 10px;">This is the first in&nbsp;a series of articles encouraging you to help Juxtaposition Arts reach <a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/donate/capital-campaign/" target="_blank">their fundraising goal</a>&nbsp;before the end of the summer. <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;hosted_button_id=MUHFVF2XGR9KJ&amp;source=url" target="_blank">Donate</a> today!</div>

Juxtaposition Arts has big plans.&nbsp;And while&nbsp;Covid-19 and the civil unrest and collective grieving&nbsp;that followed George Floyd&rsquo;s murder caused the nonprofit to cancel their annual Move The Crowd fundraiser this year, JXTA&nbsp;is still moving forward with their&nbsp;ambitious capital campaign. The&nbsp;goal for this summer is&nbsp;$2 million&nbsp;from individual donors, part of a $14 million overall campaign to cement JXTA&rsquo;s place as a vital arts center in North Minneapolis. With the fundraiser, JXTA is making moves to create an extensive arts campus in North Minneapolis, one that will bring the work the organization has been doing in the community to the next level.&nbsp;

JXTA isn&rsquo;t just an arts education hub. The organization&rsquo;s model is about building up North Minneapolis&rsquo;s strength through the arts, with year-round learning opportunities for youth as well as its core JXTALabs program, where young people age 14-21 are paid a living wage as they build arts and design skills.

<h3>In the beginning</h3>

JXTA first came to be 25 years ago, when Roger and DeAnna Cummings, along with co-founder Peyton Russell, were teaching arts classes in different spaces around the city. They decided to form their own nonprofit in order to centralize the arts education programming they were offering, which included mentorship opportunities and training in mural painting and contemporary art.

In the 2000s, JXTA purchased three buildings at the intersection of Emerson Avenue and West Broadway in North Minneapolis, redeveloping the buildings as spaces for education but also re-imagining how art could build wealth by and for North Minneapolis communities. During those years, the organization shifted from just being about creating and teaching art to thinking about art as a tool in community development.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />A student taking a drawing class through JXTA&#39;s Visual Art Literacy Training (VALT) program. Photo by Rich&eacute;&nbsp;Effinger&nbsp;for Juxtaposition Arts.

&ldquo;I like being able to do art, and I like being able to do art in the community, but also, more importantly, I want to bring the community along so that they benefit not just from my art in general, they benefit from the financial opportunity,&rdquo; says Roger Cummings, JXTA&rsquo;s Chief Cultural Producer. According to Cummings, the vision for JXTA grew into something that was using art as a means to build capital in the community, where participants were gaining project management skills and had ownership in what was being created.&nbsp;

Cummings says the notion of using art as a way to build wealth came out of Intermedia Arts&rsquo; Institute for Community and Cultural Development, a program run by Bill Cleveland and Erik Takeshita. &ldquo;They showed examples of people&rsquo;s work from all over the country,&rdquo; says Cummings, including ways organizations were using social practice as well as using art to earn money.

Cummings calls it an Aha! moment. &ldquo;This could be something larger than what we are currently seeing,&rdquo; he remembers thinking. As part of the Institute, the JXTA leadership team studied what would work from other initiatives around the country.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We went to study and had a year to go visit all these places and really dig in to see what they were really about, and then what is our place in the whole mix,&rdquo; he says. The experience of being part of the cohort offered JXTA both the connections as well as the roadmap to take the organization&rsquo;s impact to the next level. &ldquo;That gave us the know-how, the credibility, the connections, to be able to bring this to fruition,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;

<h3>Artmaking as social enterprise</h3>

One big success was in 2004, when the organization began to re-imagine West Broadway as a corridor, which involved an exhibition that included models for what the corridor could look like. Staff from the Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development department attended the exhibition, which resulted in the city eventually unveiling the&nbsp;West Broadway Alive! Small Area Plan. &ldquo;I think that was a way that artists were beginning to be involved in the planning of communities in a more official, city-sponsored way,&rdquo; Cummings says.

Since 2010, JXTA has employed an apprenticeship model, where young people from the Twin Cities, prioritizing those from North Minneapolis, are offered paid positions as they learn art and design trades. The apprentices are paid an hourly wage as they work in areas of graphic design, contemporary art, screen-printing, environmental design, public art, and mural painting.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNTcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Photos: top row and bottom right by Justin Sengly for Juxtaposition Arts, bottom left by Rich&eacute;&nbsp;Effinger for Juxtaposition Arts.

Currently, JXTA is experiencing a leadership transition, as longtime CEO and co-founder DeAnna Cummings moves to her new position as Program Director of Arts for the McKnight Foundation.&nbsp;

According to Roger Cummings, JXTA is breaking up the Executive Director role into three separate positions: a Managing Director, a Financial Manager, and an Executive Assistant. The team, working with Cummings, are heading up the already underway capital campaign, part of a vision for JXTA&rsquo;s campus that goes back over a decade.&nbsp;

<h3>The Capital Campaign</h3>

This summer JXTA has secured over 1500&nbsp;new individual donors, many of whom had never donated to JXTA before, Cummings says. &ldquo;They were just random people that were just starting to donate twenty bucks, one hundred bucks, a thousand, and so that is great,&rdquo; Cummings said. &ldquo;We know our reach is getting out there.&rdquo;&nbsp;

So far, JXTA has raised $3.1 million over the past two years. Part of that money went into building a temporary skate park, as a way to have something both beautiful and functional that the community can enjoy during the construction phase of the project.&nbsp;And this month, they hope to build on that momentum.

&ldquo;We need another $400,000 to go and we&#39;ll get that $4 million mark,&nbsp;which would be huge,&rdquo; Cummings says. &ldquo;If we get this money before the end of August, we will start to break ground in the spring.&rdquo;

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<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNDgwMDAx/full.jpg" />Renderings of the plans for JXTA&#39;s expanded campus, including a new arts complex on Emerson Ave and renovations to two buildings on Broadway. Lizzo and Lil Wayne approve! Renderings by 4RM+ULA Architecture for Juxtaposition Arts.

If the fundraiser is successful, the new complex will be a three story building that is part of a larger campus. The new art center, which will be located on Emerson Avenue and include property previously owned by Urban Homeworks,&nbsp;will create room for JXTA&#39;s education programs, work labs, and an exhibition space, in addition to storage space, a new lobby, and administrative offices. The larger campus will include a mix of old and new, with some of the current JXTA buildings getting renovations, such as the building at 1108 Broadway, which will contain a new fabrication studio. JXTA plans to contract the&nbsp;demolition to a company employing people in the community, and the whole build has been planned with efficiency and sustainability in mind, from reusing materials to including solar panels, a green roof, and an innovative stormwater management system.&nbsp;Cummings says that having&nbsp;multiple buildings in addition to outdoor features like the skate park and a rooftop terrace&nbsp;will encourage people to flow between the different spaces.

&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s the special sauce within JXTA,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;being able to have specific disciplines in different places so that you can walk back and forth to these places just on one block.&rdquo;

<div><a href="https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=Q0sfpDk_ZpsJ7xZPLhS3IRh99n0TSL2uGozwVKlREj5ANENjBZ5gwcJrxhpNBnAo7xC3YW&amp;country.x=US&amp;locale.x=US" target="_blank">Donate today</a> to JXTA&#39;s Capital Campaign! And learn more about what they do at&nbsp;<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org" target="_blank">juxtapositionarts.org</a>. And stay tuned as we cover more details of JXTA&#39;s impact on students and the Northside in the coming weeks!</div>

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<div>All images courtesy of Juxtaposition Arts.</div>

As part of an ongoing capital campaign, Juxtaposition Arts is working to raise $2M from donors like you to expand their campus.

Building the Future of Minneapolis: JXTA Needs Your Help!

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NTcwMDAx/full.jpg" />The mural along Plymouth Avenue features the work sixteen different artists, organized by the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum &amp; Gallery. Photo by Georgia Fort,&nbsp;from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.maahmg.org" target="_blank">maahmg.org</a>.

<h3>What was your inspiration for your Black Lives Matter letter? What did it mean to you to be part of that group of 16 artists?&nbsp;</h3>

My inspiration came from thoughts about Black education. I based my letter &quot;E&quot; on the concept of &quot;Black Education Matters&quot; by highlighting books to symbolize education, an apple to symbolize complexities and knowledge, and African elders at the bottom to represent culture within Africa.

Participating in the Black Lives Matter mural felt like finally getting a chance to breathe a little. I was blessed to be a part of this experience and thank Tina Burnside and others from the Minnesota African&nbsp;American Heritage Museum for allowing me to contribute.

<h3>You&#39;ve been doing some other mural work&nbsp;over the past two months. How many have you painted so far? And how has working on large public murals changed your approach to painting in the studio?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>

I painted two murals. One with George Floyd&nbsp;and his daughter. The second of him in high school. Through painting these murals I was able&nbsp;to step outside my comfort zone.&nbsp;I&#39;ve&nbsp;never done any public art before, and enjoyed learning throughout this&nbsp;process of making&nbsp;with no strings attached.&nbsp;

Now I&#39;m back&nbsp;in the studio&nbsp;making new work,&nbsp;exploring everything&nbsp;I&#39;m feeling with a deeper sense of experimenting. &nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NTYwMDAy/full.jpg" />An example of Karpeh&#39;s previous studio work:&nbsp;American 9 to 5, oil and acrylic on canvas, 62 x 100&quot;, 2018.

<h3>You also recently coordinated a mural project for kids &mdash; can you tell us more about that?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>

The mural project was done with youth of color and immigrant backgrounds, titled &ldquo;Art Of The Times&rdquo; in response to the fight for social justice. We had 15 youth signed up to participate in painting murals on the looted CVS building near the Cub Foods in Uptown.&nbsp;

Participating youth were ages 7-18 and came from households of immigrant background.&nbsp;They all lived in the cities of Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, New Hope, and Crystal:&nbsp;areas with a high population of immigrant families and little to no creative outlets for youth to engage or experience. After the murals were completed we had a little showcase and invited their parents to attend. Some of the kids were recent graduates from Cooper High School taught by my friend/artist Claire, others were kids from my Liberian Youth Arts program. The project was amazing, and I am happy they got the opportunity to express themselves.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE1NTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Karpeh, at left, with a group of young muralists and their work. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>, courtesy of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">Karpeh&#39;s Instagram</a>.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI1MTYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>, courtesy of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">Karpeh&#39;s Instagram</a>.

What have you learned about yourself or about Minneapolis since the murder of George Floyd, especially through creating this artwork? &nbsp;

To be honest, I&#39;m slowly&nbsp;still processing everything.&nbsp;However, I think the&nbsp;most important&nbsp;thing I&rsquo;ve learned is the definition of community.&nbsp;Since the&nbsp;murder of George Floyd, I learned&nbsp;how to&nbsp;better value and observe&nbsp;the role I play in communities. Especially communities of color, I am learning how to show up, do the&nbsp;work, and ask questions later.&nbsp; When it comes to my art work, I&#39;ve learned the power of challenging and changing narratives in art. I now have a better understanding on art&#39;s ability&nbsp;to provoke, ask questions, answer questions, and&nbsp;explore answers&nbsp;that can be a formula for change. I am also learning how to&nbsp;use art to make a big impact on history&nbsp;during times like this,&nbsp;and how I must pay attention and create work encompassing much more than just my personal experiences&nbsp;alone.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzNDcwMDAx/full.jpg" />The artist with one of her recent murals. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/samweebee/" target="_blank">Sam Wiebe</a>.

To see more of Lissa Karpeh&#39;s&nbsp;work, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://lissakarpeh.com" target="_blank">her website</a> and follow her <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lissa.karpeh/" target="_blank">on Instagram</a>. Also <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pbENgHGEo/" target="_blank">check out when we visited</a>&nbsp;for #StudioVisitSundays last February.&nbsp;She&nbsp;is also a&nbsp;member of&nbsp;<a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/studio400" target="_blank">Studio 400</a>&nbsp;in Northeast Minneapolis. All images courtesy of the artist unless otherwise noted.

Painter and muralist Lissa Karpeh, who created one of the letters in the recent BLACK LIVES MATTER street mural, reflects on her public work, her studio practice, and what the past two months have taught her.

On Murals & Meaning: Q&A with Lissa Karpeh

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Well&hellip; this is gonna make a lot of people mad...

This is going to be uncomfortable, VERY uncomfortable. But I&rsquo;m going to be nice to you and ease you into this subject, not because I care about your feelings, but because it took me a long time to construct this article, and I&rsquo;d like you to give it your time to reflect on what I have to say.&nbsp;

First, let&rsquo;s start by differentiating the definitions of &ldquo;race&rdquo; and &ldquo;color.&rdquo;

Race: A human classification of a distinct population that is often based on the geographic location of that population&#39;s ancestry and/or that population&rsquo;s hereditary phenotype.&nbsp;

Color: As it pertains to human skin, color is the specific shade and tone of one&rsquo;s epidermis&hellip; I&rsquo;ve always wanted to use that word.&nbsp;

Now it&rsquo;s important to remember that race is a social construct. This in no way diminishes its effects on the lives of human beings around the world. In fact, it makes it even more important as social constructs govern how fluidly we are (or are not) able to move through the world in the name of survival. These colors used as human classifications were treated as science and given a great deal of accolade when, in truth, they were just white supremacy coded as fact.&nbsp;

SIDE NOTE: Race is NOT the same as Ethnicity or Nationality. These three are completely different. Also, one&#39;s skin color doesn&rsquo;t not necessarily determine one&#39;s race. I know, it&rsquo;s confusing; blame white supremacy.

&nbsp;

<h2>BLACK</h2>

The racial group with the most label variations within the American English language, black people began the conversation regarding which labels were appropriate in the 1950s and 1960s. Civil rights leaders of the time wanted a term that represented their systemically opposing relationship to white people, while also disassociating them from slavery, discrimination, and concepts of second class citizenship. The term &lsquo;black&rsquo; is translated from the Spanish and Portuguese word &lsquo;negro,&rsquo; which was introduced around 1442. &lsquo;Negro&rsquo; is derived from the latin word &lsquo;niger,&rsquo; which is likely derived from the Proto-Indo European word &lsquo;nek&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;to be dark,&rdquo; a word likely derived from the word &lsquo;nok&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;night.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<h2>BROWN</h2>

German pseudoscientist Johann Friedrich Blumenback was the first on record to invent and widely use the term &lsquo;brown,&rsquo; the racial classification that includes the largest number of people. The word &lsquo;brown&rsquo; in regard to racial classification has often been used as a neutral term to describe a person of color who is not dark-skinned African or light-skinned East Asian, and its usage varies from culture to culture with no fixed definition. The term &lsquo;brown&rsquo; gained popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries and included people from Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Pattani, Sumatra, and Taiwan. Polynesians and Melanesians of Pacific Islands, as well as Papuans and Aborigines of Australia were also included. In 1775 the label &lsquo;light brown&rsquo; was created to include Southern Europeans, Sicilians, Abyssinians, the Spanish, Persians, Turks, and Laplanders. Tartars, Africans on the Mediterranean, and the Chinese were added to the &lsquo;brown&rsquo; label. More, and more, and MORE ethnic groups were added to this category until these theories were scientifically debunked. In the 20th and 21st centuries, &lsquo;brown&rsquo; is no longer considered a scientific racial classification and is thought to be biologically invalid (as if they aren&rsquo;t all invalid in a biological sense), and is mostly used for sociological and interpersonal purposes.

<h2>RED</h2>

Native Americans and European colonizers didn&rsquo;t often mention the color of each other&rsquo;s skins (at least from what surviving histories maintain), so the origins of color terminology used to describe Natives in English is arguably unclear. While skin color labels are thought to have entered everyday speech somewhere around the mid-18th century, it was as early as&nbsp; the 17th century that similar terms were used in anthropological literature. Despite it&rsquo;s flimsy roots, the term &lsquo;red&rsquo; is used derogatorily and regularly in association with many sports team mascots that depict Native imagery.&nbsp;

<h2>YELLOW</h2>

Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply the word &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; as a means to specifically label East Asians (who, prior to this, had actually been labeled &lsquo;white&rsquo; by Marco Polo). At first, Linnaeus used the Latin adjective &lsquo;fuscus,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;dark,&rdquo; to describe the skin color of Asians. But in the tenth edition of his 1758-1759 Systema Naturae, he enhanced his terminology with the latin word &lsquo;luridus,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;light yellow&rdquo; or &ldquo;pale.&rdquo; &lsquo;Luridus&#39; also means &ldquo;ghastly&rdquo; or &ldquo;horrifying.&rdquo; Unlike the other color terms, &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; is considered a largely outdated racial descriptor and is rarely used anymore.

SIDE NOTE: As I&rsquo;m writing this, I&rsquo;m realizing how it might be indicative of light skinned privilege that, of all the racialized color terms used to describe people of color, that &lsquo;yellow&rsquo; is the one that is more or less retired due to its offensiveness. But I&rsquo;m getting ahead of myself...

<h2>WHITE&nbsp;</h2>

&lsquo;White&rsquo; is rooted in the Old English &lsquo;hwit,&rsquo; meaning &ldquo;bright, clear, radiant, and fair&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;morally pure.&rdquo; White, as it pertains to skin color, was first used in 1600, and in 1852 it was used for the first time in connection with white people specifically. The term &lsquo;white&rsquo; was used for the first time in 1868 in Dr. John H. Van Evrie&rsquo;s publication White Supremacy and Negro Subordination to reference both white people and their subjugation of non-white people.&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m really only giving you these definitions to broaden your thinking on the topic, but also to ease any confusion you might have regarding the history of the connections between race and color language. Because the awareness of these terms and their histories will make the task of following this article&#39;s weighted topic a bit easier.&nbsp;

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<h1>COLORISM</h1>

A discriminatory practice based on the color, shade, and tone of someone&rsquo;s skin, especially within the range of &ldquo;light to dark.&rdquo; The term is widely thought to have been coined by Alice Walker in an essay from her 1983 book titled In Search of Our Mothers&#39; Gardens.

Now, before we continue dissecting colorism, there is something you need to know that will affect how I&rsquo;m going to ask you to think going forward. And that is that whiteness (as it pertains to color, people, culture, and supremacy within the realm of race) is about PURITY&hellip; or rather the illusion of it. So much of how colorism functions has to do with how much proximity one&rsquo;s physical appearance aligns with the standards of whiteness, but being proximate to whiteness is not the same as being white.

And it never will be.&nbsp;

That being said, having white proximity comes with many privileges. People with lighter skin (especially if it is gained via white parentage) often see greater career success, social status, more relationship options, and more access to institutional space and resources than their dark skinned community members. For black people in the states, this has roots that go as far back as slavery, when lighter skinned slaves (who were the result of a slave master raping his female slaves) often got domestic positions working inside the master&rsquo;s home, whereas darker skinned slaves were forced to work outside. This was due to the fact that slave masters assumed that having darker skin meant you were more suited to hard labor, thereby perpetuating the idea that lightness (especially if attained via white parentage) is more delicate, fragile, intelligent, and worthy of protection. Granted, they were all still slaves owned by white people who would have happily killed or sold them on a whim. This is why it is also important to interrogate the fetishization of interracial relationships and the children who are a product of them. There is an ugly, painful history here, and no amount of biracial deification is going to erase that, it also puts a huge burden on biracial children to &ldquo;end racism&rdquo; by way of being born&hellip; like, WHAT?!?

SIDE NOTE: Hey white people reading this, just because you married, fucked, or have children with a person of color DOESN&rsquo;T MEAN YOU CAN&rsquo;T BE RACIST!!! It&rsquo;s 2020, get your shit together!

We expect this behavior from white culture, but what we still have yet to truly reckon with is how people of color have internalized these toxic ideas and turned them inward. See, the thing about white supremacy is that it has this way of infecting everything, from systems and institutions, to cultures, communities, and interpersonal relationships. That&rsquo;s what supremacy is; it&rsquo;s the dominant culture&hellip; and white supremacy IS a culture. For example, in the 20th century, many black churches, greek organizations, and nightclubs would instate the &lsquo;paper bag test&rsquo;, where members of these groups would literally HOLD A BROWN PAPER BAG UP TO SOMEONE&rsquo;S SKIN, and the lightness or darkness of their skin in comparison to that paper bag would determine their admittance to elite parts of black society. That is a learned behavior, and white supremacy teaches it even to this day.&nbsp;

Colorism&#39;s main goal is to distance people of color from blackness without allowing them to attain the power of whiteness, yet still encouraging them to strive for it. It&rsquo;s also a means to turn people of color against each other by creating resentment and competition for access to resources (because it&rsquo;s hard to start the uprising amidst infighting). Even if the people of color in questions aren&rsquo;t identified as black, colorism is a form of anti-blackness that can be found in every culture. White supremacy frames blackness as its opposite, and that brings us full circle back to the concept of &ldquo;binary thinking&rdquo; that has been the core of this entire series.&nbsp;

As I said before, white supremacy and whiteness in general is about purity. It doesn&rsquo;t give merit to halves and mixtures, it doesn&rsquo;t honor the nuances of racial identity unless it can market those nuances to propagate itself. This intentionally leaves no room to confront the dark histories of racial mixing and the continued realities of colorism as social capital that serves to protect and benefit white people. This puts all people of color in some precarious situations: if your skin is dark, then colorism marginalizes you; if your skin is light then colorism fetishizes and tokenizes you. Ultimately, white supremacy wins.&nbsp;

Every community is guilty of colorism. EVERY SINGLE ONE. People unspokenly use the paper bag test to determine admittance into friend groups. Lightness and darkness are used to denote masculinity and femininity when depicting women of color on TV and in movies and often determines the women who are considered worthy of romantic affection. And when white people seek to find a token to shield them from accusations of racism in the workplace, they bring in the lightest person of color they can find, knowing that most people aren&rsquo;t racially literate enough to question their true intentions. Colorism was invented so that white people could center themselves within the communities and narratives of people of color; they see themselves reflected in that lighter skin. It&rsquo;s another way for white people to make something about them, without taking responsibility for the damage it does to people of color. And while there are plenty of people of color who will lean into this for their own individual benefit, at the end of the day, they will never be white and will be discarded by the system as soon as they are no longer considered useful or if they step out of line.&nbsp;

So, what are the solutions? This can&rsquo;t be allowed to go on anymore, and it&rsquo;s a form of racism that often gets overlooked because it is just a tad too nuanced for anyone who doesn&rsquo;t know anything about it to wrap their heads around. The truly difficult part to overcome is that many people of color engage in colorism and are unwilling to let it go because it gives them power similar to white privilege. But nevertheless, what if it is something you want to combat within yourself and within your community? Listening to the experiences of people with darker skin is a good place to start, but some more proactive moves would be to take a hard look at the racial dynamics within your workplace and interpersonal relationships. If you notice colorism, call it out. If you are a person of color who discovers you are being used as a token for your skin color, call it out and refuse to participate in white supremacist systems that seek to use you and throw you away once they&rsquo;ve met their diversity quota. If you are being accused of colorism, take a good hard look around you and rebuild the systems in your life, not only to include darker skinned people but to make sure they are safe and comfortable in that environment. It makes no sense to integrate different kinds of people if a system of toxicity is still thriving when they get there. Remember, forms of marginalization, like colorism, affect the most vulnerable people within a community. Women, especially trans women, bear the brunt of colorism in every community of color. Lighter skin is associated with femininity, goodness, and beauty and is seen as something worthy of praise and protection. And as with all forms of binary thinking, the less privileged are met with violence, degradation, and hatred. Hell, if you want to see a contemporary example of this, watch Pose.

Colorism is one of the results of people literally &ldquo;not seeing color.&rdquo; And since we are now living in a time where we are contending with the consequences of a racist society, it is time to fully contend with this too. We have a lot of work to do, and if we go too fast without taking time to untangle ourselves from our own white supremacist conditioning, we will build a new world that looks very similar to the old one.

&nbsp;

This article is the fourth&nbsp;in a series. Check out the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-intro-to-color-theory">Intro to Color Theory</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-the-color-pink">The Color Pink</a>, &amp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/05/kaleidoscope-eyes-pride-flags-and-when-color-theory-falls-apart">Pride Flags and When Color Theory Falls Apart</a>.

Amina&nbsp;Harper is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Twin Cities. For more info and to see her work, visit<a href="https://aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper/" target="_blank">&nbsp;her website</a>&nbsp;or follow&nbsp;her on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amina.harper/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Banner image: Fred Wilson;&nbsp;Grey Area (Brown version); paint, plaster, &amp; wood; 20 x 84&quot;; 1993. Photo source: Brooklyn Museum.

In the fourth installment of her series on Color Theory, Harper unpacks the concepts of race, color, privilege, and how they have been weaponized.

Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Crazy Little Thing Called Colorism

According to one study, the average time a museum-goer spends looking at a painting is about fifteen seconds. Right now our city is covered in paintings &mdash; big, beautiful, tragic murals on the plywood windows of our commercial corridors &mdash; and, for the first time in decades, it feels like we&rsquo;re not looking away. Not yet, at least.&nbsp;

George Floyd returns our gaze in countless portraits across the city (and across the world): in minute detail, in colorful strokes and somber drips, in blocky stencils spray-painted one after the other. Each one is impactful, each one is galvanizing, each one is a reminder of the atrocity committed by the Minneapolis Police Department and the duty we have &mdash; as a city, as a country, as individuals &mdash; to meet that injustice and all those before it head on. It&rsquo;s a heavy burden to put on one man, but the burden is even heavier on us to get it right. Case in point: it turns out at least one of these murals &mdash; the most famous one in fact &mdash; is itself an act of colonization, for which the artists responsible <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CBJ7b_5nnC3/" target="_blank">are now apologizing</a>.&nbsp;

COVID-19 has had a compressing&nbsp;effect on time the past three months, flattening&nbsp;out our days until they seem to melt together. George Floyd&rsquo;s murder and the subsequent uprising has sharpened that flat surface to a razor&rsquo;s edge; time feels&nbsp;like a knife. It&rsquo;s now been over two weeks since 46 years of life were snuffed out in less than nine minutes. The fourteen days that followed were filled with marching, donating, organizing, burning, looting, sharing, posting, helping, shouting, crying. Sweeping up glass in the morning, and searching the bushes for gasoline at night.&nbsp;

And painting; lots of painting. Alongside the portraits of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter tags&nbsp;are dozens of names, an incomplete list of lives cut short by racist violence, painted onto the pavement of Chicago Avenue by Mari Mansfield and emblazoned across foamboard headstones in the makeshift cemetery nearby&nbsp;by Anna Barber and Connor Wright. They are striking works of public art, cathartic both for their makers and for the community. They help us to understand this moment, to contextualize our anger and grief and fear and shame. And they urge us to act. We three authors are already older than so many of those individuals ever had a chance to be, one of many privileges we&nbsp;must put to use in this fight.

This artwork has gone up fast too, alongside a whirlwind of institutional statements and official press conferences and social media posts. Alongside all that beauty and resilience and community, keeping pace, is something sinister and brutally familiar: a whitewashing that has already begun. You can see it along Lake Street, where the ACABs and Fuck12s have been painted over. We keep the pretty art and wash away the angry. The official memory is that the&nbsp;damage done is the work of agitators and outsiders and white supremacists, and while they are all to blame (none so much as the MPD), these explanations steal yet again, taking agency away from 400 years of legitimate rage. Time flattens out, like the map of a stolen continent.&nbsp;

Standing in the stillness of the cemetery, you can feel the earth moving, but it&rsquo;s hard to know which direction it&rsquo;s taking us. We like to tell ourselves that once you see something as momentous as this, that you can&rsquo;t unsee it. But we do it all the time. The excavators have started their work, razing the burnt out lots to the ground. Soon enough the plywood will come down, too, and the artwork with it. Work is being done to archive the murals in some way, just as work is being done to hold our government and our art orgs and ourselves&nbsp;accountable. It is work that will never finish.

If there ever were a time to slow down, to listen to Black voices, to follow Black leadership, and to help, it is now. We will do the same, to the best of our ability. 

We love art, and we love you, Minneapolis.

Yours,

Russ White, Blaine Garrett, &amp; Katie Garrett

MPLSART.COM&nbsp;

<h1> 
Support</h1>

Building a better future for everyone in the Twin Cities is a marathon not a sprint. Below is an incomplete list of publicly available links to resources and opportunities to help out; we are not affiliated with the organizations included on this list, except to be in awe of the work they all are doing.&nbsp;We will continue to update these resources. If you have addendums, please send them to calendar@mplsart.com.&nbsp;

<h2> 
Critical Health, Volunteering, and Drop Off Locations</h2>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://tcmap.org/" target="_blank">Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project</a>&nbsp;for volunteering opportunities and specific non-financial donation needs

	<ul>
		<li><a href="https://twin-cities-mutual-aid.org/" target="_blank">Twin Cities Mutual Aid Map</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KTBHcXuAUoa-ZevN1-Jq6LYpkmJWhwiJRBhLKRTU0AU/edit" target="_blank">Google Doc of Twin Cities Resources</a>&nbsp;- comprehensive list of donation, volunteer, outreach, and educational opportunities&nbsp;</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/testsites.html" target="_blank">Free COVID-19 Testing</a> for protestors, volunteers, etc - Appointment required</li>
	<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdAlOLU9hOKMjwX4W2sQKF69FAF3ow_fSPzjKC67_iyYDRLaQ/viewform" target="_blank">TC Queer and Trans Mutual Aid</a></li>
</ul>

&nbsp;

<h2>Visual Art Organizations</h2>

<a href="https://juxtapositionarts.org/donate/" target="_blank">JXTA</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://springboardforthearts.org/" target="_blank">Springboard for the Arts</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/studio400" target="_blank">Studio 400</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://publicfunctionary.org/support" target="_blank">Public Functionary</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://www.newrulesmn.com" target="_blank">New Rules</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Mural Resources</h2>

<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RnasTKwXZmQb4pwHpBve4ebZWc1tI2t_qUkeEgmbJwI/edit?fbclid=IwAR1iX6mgklgIt309VPC7Ig2okOqWR9BJOg77EmQfjFjlIu_YmN2Q35_p2uQ" target="_blank">Boards To Murals Resource List</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Pow1mBUaj7XDqKm8TdObzQCqFnfg1Yz/view" target="_blank">Radical Mural Making Manifesto for the Uprising</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Neighborhood and Business Organizations</h2>

<a href="https://www.lakestreetcouncil.org/" target="_blank">Lake Street Council</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://westbroadway.org/" target="_blank">West Broadway Business and Area Coalition</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://northsideachievement.org/" target="_blank">North Side Achievement Zone</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nacdi.org/" target="_blank">Native American Community Development Institute</a>&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h2>Specific Ongoing Fundraisers</h2>

<a href="https://www.sanctuaryhotel.org" target="_blank">Sanctuary Hotel</a> &bull;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://giving.onecause.com/public/02ad4737-2285-4ad2-91c6-95cd66b423bf/fundraisers/c60e5030-69ce-4853-8b11-4727da5054ad/donate" target="_blank">WBC/Northside Funders</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Aeh55g" target="_blank">St. Paul Chamber of Commerce</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Uf3tsf?fbclid=IwAR18Yb0dbYwRYA_N8-U0wJey4d-oTTzBnxREwtbmejKgM_KQk-H4Zd4Juwk" target="_blank">Frogtown and Rondo Rebuild Fund</a> 
<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/minnesota-poc-business-support" target="_blank">Du Nord Recovery Fund</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://www.givemn.org/story/Pelucg" target="_blank">Holy Trinity Open Doors</a>&nbsp;&bull; <a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/4omQDAR0oUiUagTu0EG-Ig2">Black Visions Collective</a> &bull; <a href="http://www.blacktablearts.com" target="_blank">Black Table Arts</a> &bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter (National)</a>&nbsp;&bull; 
<a href="https://www.paypal.me/mnpocpride?fbclid=IwAR3PHu9hFD9vjcHSakae0muvnjscS0AHinr5Iopwu00nrOPFuWWKCOsd3As" target="_parent">MN People of Color Pride</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Food Pantries</h2>

<a href="https://cesmn.org/help/donate-now">CES</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://northpointhealth.org/donate">Northpoint Health</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://masjidannur.org/about-us/newsletterbulleting-donate/">Masjid An-Nur</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.joyceuptownfoodshelf.org/donors">Joyce Uptown</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://simpsonchurchmn.org/789905">Simpson Church</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.capiusa.org/">Center for Asians &amp; Pacific Islanders</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://aliveness.org/">Aliveness Project</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.clchurch.org/">Calvary Church</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.diw-mn.org/">Division of Indian Work</a>&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.isuroon.org/">Somali Food Shelf</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Read</h2>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://www.mpd150.com/" target="_blank">MPD150</a>&nbsp;- A People&#39;s Project Evaluating Policing</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/" target="_blank">Black Visions Collective</a> -&nbsp;creating the conditions for long term success and transformation</li>
	<li><a href="https://lithub.com/letter-from-minneapolis-why-the-rebellion-had-to-begin-here/" target="_blank">Letter from Minneapolis: Why the Rebellion Had to Begin Here</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://www.rewire.org/are-you-experiencing-vicarious-trauma/" target="_blank">Are You Experiencing Vicarious Trauma</a> - Rewire</li>
	<li><a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@finance/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-223361.pdf" target="_blank">Minneapolis City Budget for 2020</a> (pdf)</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.change.org/p/city-of-minneapolis-declaration-racism-a-public-health-emergency-in-minneapolis?utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=custom_url&amp;recruited_by_id=479f79d0-9fa7-11ea-ae68-63e57f9d621f" target="_blank">Declaration: Racism is a Public Health Emergency in Minneapolis</a> - change.org&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Reflections and resources in response to the Minneapolis Uprising

Public Art, Public Rage, & Forward Motion

Blog

Okay, let me level with you. I&rsquo;ve been dreading this day for a long time now, and in anticipation for it I tried, I tried so hard to discern a language from our contemporary pride flags and I just couldn&rsquo;t do it. Simply put, the colors are all over the place, and the ones that aren&rsquo;t, are contradicting their intended purpose.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that pride flag color language isn&rsquo;t universal, and every country has their own variation of each pride flag. And when I say &ldquo;each&rdquo; I mean that there are so many pride flags that there is no way on earth any two flags with the same meaning, even from the same country, would look exactly the same. I really stepped in it this time.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUzNDYwMDAx/full.jpg" />Source: Wikipedia

First, let&rsquo;s talk about the flag, what it is and what it does. Aside from representing one&#39;s nation, a flag denotes ownership in the purest sense. When you plant or post a flag in the soil you are telling all those who see it that this land belongs to you. That usage and definition doesn&rsquo;t necessarily change because of the hand holding the flag. The flag and its functions are deeply rooted in colonialism, and it makes perfect sense that, in an attempt to assert identity and elevate representation, we use the tools of the dominant forces within our society (ie: colonialism). This doesn&rsquo;t mean that pride flags are tools of colonialism;&nbsp;it means that flags, as a tool of colonialism, are a confusing tool to use when showcasing the beautiful fluidity and diversity of the queer community. This is also perhaps a reason why the flags designs are so all over the place.&nbsp;

Now, there is a very sound argument in favor of the idea that pride flags aren&rsquo;t about colors at all, but about representation for the wide spectrum of LGBT+ identities out there and that each one deserves to be seen and the cultures they represent respected; and that is 100% valid and true. But we still got all these colors and symbols to contend with, and it&rsquo;s the colors that are doing the bulk of the representing, so it really benefits the community to have some kind of a language that is&nbsp;easily understandable so that the members of those communities can find the banner they feel best represents them, right?&nbsp;

So&nbsp;let&rsquo;s try. Let&rsquo;s try to uncover what pride flags are really communicating (or are trying to communicate), and maybe this will help us understand how the communities they represent see themselves.&nbsp;

First, let&rsquo;s start with the rainbow flag that we all know and love. Designed by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker, the first rainbow pride flag made its debut on June 25, 1978. It has been revised many times due to fabric availability, and the complexities with the hand dying and hand sewing process. The original flag looked like this&hellip;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIzMjYwMDAx/full.jpg" />

Source: <a href="https://gilbertbaker.com/rainblow-flag-color-meanings/" target="_blank">gilbertbaker.com</a>

What I think a lot of people don&rsquo;t know about the original pride flag is that each color represented ideas and values that the LGBT+ communities held both then and now.

PINK = Sex 
RED = Life 
ORANGE = Healing 
YELLOW = Sunlight 
GREEN = Nature 
TURQUOISE = Magic and Art 
INDIGO = Serenity 
VIOLET = Spirit

And I think it&rsquo;s this lack of knowledge of LGBT+ history,&nbsp;mixed with discrimination that happens within the LGBT+ community&nbsp;that causes a lack of representation of certain identities, that muddled up the meanings of the current flags we have now that are all offshoots of this original one. There now seems to be this reading of pride flags that suggest the colors represent, not community values, but genders, specifically male (often represented by blue) and female (often represented by variations of pink). You can see these readings in the trans*, lesbian, some interpretations of the bisexual, and pansexual flags respectively. The problem with these usages of color is that they are counter to the idea that gender and sexuality are fluid and therefore cannot, should not, and do not subscribe to binary ways of thinking.&nbsp;However, using two colors as they pertain to antiquated binary understandings of gender contradicts these ideas. Not only that, but binary language is, in general, dangerous as it places one of two terms in a privileged and dominant position over the other, therefore governing the definition of the less privileged term in its own context.&nbsp;

For example, you know what a​ WOMAN&nbsp;is by knowing what she is not:&nbsp;a&nbsp;MAN. Just like you know what GAYNESS&nbsp;is because it isn&rsquo;t &nbsp;STRAIGHT.​ This is how something culturally&nbsp;OTHERED&nbsp;becomes defined by the cultural &nbsp;DOMINANT​.

Pride flags use this color coded and gendered language because binary language is what we in the western world were conditioned toward. But today, we are slowly learning that such language is limiting and can&rsquo;t accommodate the nuance of human identity. Even when we aren&rsquo;t using it to directly harm, if we want to be free from it we have to deconstruct it in our culture and in our art. This includes the banners we make to represent ourselves. This does not mean that individual pride flags shouldn&rsquo;t exist, though it would be nice if we didn&rsquo;t feel we needed them.

Outside of blue and pink, the other color codes in modern pride flags are inconsistent. This is where I think the confusion really starts, because I realized that not only do people not know what the original flag colors mean, they started assuming the colors represented the wide and ever increasing spectrum of sexual orientation labels and/or gender descriptors. This didn&rsquo;t take potential overlap into account, so you have instances where the same color in two different flags don&rsquo;t share a definition, or where two different colors have the same definition.&nbsp;

For example, the bisexual flag suggests that the pink (representing gayness) overlaps with the blue (representing straightness) to make purple (representing the combination of gayness and straightness, equaling bisexuality). But there are many flags where straightness is represented by the color black and gayness (or queerness in general) is represented by the entire rainbow spectrum, excluding pink. Another example is the pansexual flags yellow representing non-binary people, while the white of the trans flag represents the same thing. You see how confusing and frustrating this can be for a color theory nerd?

Now, there is an argument to be made that would suggest that sexuality and gender are fluid, so doesn&rsquo;t it make sense that the colors used in their individual flags be fluid, too? On a surface level? Sure, that makes sense. But if that fluidity was truly present in pride flags, then why attempt to subscribe to color coded language in the first place? Why attempt to use a color to label an identity in the first place when said identities are so fluid?&nbsp;

You could also argue that the intensity of the colors are different and therefore represent different things. And yes, the pink and blue in the bisexual flag is very different from the pink and blue in the pansexual flag, but that would really only serve to prove that the queer community, as a whole, is more distant than we realize if there isn&rsquo;t even a conversation happening between subcultures regarding the color language and color history of the flags that represent us. Because I didn&rsquo;t know a lot of these things before I started researching them, and I would gather that the majority of queer people don&rsquo;t know them either.&nbsp;

I honestly don&rsquo;t know if this is &ldquo;okay&rdquo;, or not. But I do think it deserves thought and critique now that we are living in a time when we are getting more queer representation than ever. We shouldn&rsquo;t only ask questions about how others see us, but how we see ourselves in relation to the culture that bore us.

In the next article, we will confront the culture that bore us through a racial lens, and talk about how skin color moves us through the world, whether we like it&nbsp;or not.

This article is the third in a series. Check out the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-intro-to-color-theory">Intro to Color Theory</a>&nbsp;&amp; <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-the-color-pink">The Color Pink</a>.

Amina&nbsp;Harper is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Twin Cities. For more info and to see her work, visit<a href="https://aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper/" target="_blank">&nbsp;her website</a>&nbsp;or follow&nbsp;her on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amina.harper/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Banner image photo by George Becker&nbsp;/&nbsp;Pexels, altered for this article.

Continuing her series on color theory, artist Amina Harper unpacks the history and muddled meanings of Pride flags.

Kaleidoscope Eyes: Pride Flags and When Color Theory Falls Apart

With a new space now carved out for emerging artists in the Midtown Exchange Building, it has been up to&nbsp;Ahnali&nbsp;Tran to figure out how to fill it.

A senior at&nbsp;Perpich&nbsp;Arts High School in Minneapolis, Tran has spent the last four years thinking strategically about getting paintings off the wall &mdash; for example, by hanging work from the ceiling and asking visitors to circle it.&nbsp; However, an upcoming exhibition at the Creating Change Gallery will be her first time developing and promoting a solo show.&nbsp;

For the project, Tran has partnered with Ryan&nbsp;Stopera, one of four teaching artists working as mentors during the gallery&rsquo;s pilot year. Located in the John and Denise Graves Foundation office, the space was started by the nonprofit earlier this year with the goal of supporting young artists&rsquo; development. The opening of Tran&rsquo;s exhibition on May 8 will also be viewers&rsquo; first introduction to the gallery itself.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will take place virtually, with Tran bringing guests on a walkthrough of the physical space and answering questions via&nbsp;livestream. As she prepares to graduate from Perpich, Tran noted that the show at Creating Change is also a kind of culmination of her last four years of work &mdash; drawing largely on a portfolio entitled&nbsp;Healing the Halves &amp; Quarters.

For Tran, the &ldquo;healing&rdquo; in the collection&rsquo;s title comes from both the process of making art and the ideas she explores through her media &mdash; notably her experience of being mixed race and Southeast Asian American.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Putting things down through art is very powerful to me, especially the idea of creating a homeland away from homeland,&rdquo; said Tran, noting that this exploration has also led her to install work in a more physical way. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the idea of being mixed and not having a place that feels quite right.&rdquo;

She added that her work has also been a way to delve into intergenerational trauma, which she said she&#39;s seen manifest through language and cultural barriers within families. For people who came to the United States from Southeast Asia, Tran noted that a lot of this inherited trauma stems from the violence of the Vietnam War.

&ldquo;I grew up in a very assimilated family,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of untapped post-immigration trauma that can only be recognized through the progression of time. My grandparents have only recently begun to really open up about their own struggles with immigration.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ1MzcwMDAx/full.jpg" />In the Mirror this Morning, oil on mirror

<h3>Demanding a physical presence</h3>

Favoring two-dimensional media &mdash; including oil, acrylic and ink &mdash; Tran attempts to get creative with the surfaces that she uses and the way that she hangs finished pieces. With work that explores the creation of a new homeland, she has also focused on carving out physical space for her art on display. Painting often on plexiglass, she then hangs it from the ceiling as opposed to mounting it on a wall.&nbsp;

&quot;It demands a physical presence in a gallery,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the idea that, &lsquo;I need to avoid this hanging piece of glass.&rsquo; It captures the air inside the glass and around it, and there is a very literal feeling.&rdquo;

The thick plastic is also an interesting barrier &mdash; it can divide a room, while still leaving everything in view. Although it&rsquo;s transparent, plexiglass is thicker than traditional drawing surfaces. In one piece from the collection called&nbsp;In the Mirror this Morning, there&rsquo;s an almost complete portrait drawn in blocks of color with a few key pieces missing and the eyes two distinctly different styles &mdash; one heavily shaded, one drawn with as seemingly few lines as possible. Mouth, forehead, earlobes and heart are filled in by whatever happens to be on the other side of the plexiglass surface; the piece is automatically shaped by whatever room it&rsquo;s in.

<h3>Creating change in context&nbsp;</h3>

As with the portrait, the show itself is inevitably formed by its context. While the foundation made the decision to continue funding the gallery&rsquo;s pilot exhibition, and while Stopera and Tran opted to move forward with a virtual opening, COVID-19 played a large part in shaping some of Tran&rsquo;s newest works, which will also be included in the exhibition.

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m currently working on a piece with a tarot card theme &mdash; this one is around the Six of Pentacles,&rdquo; explained Tran. &ldquo;The card itself reads on themes such as charity and wealth &hellip; [the piece] captures the idea of wealth during the pandemic and who&rsquo;s getting treatment, whose lives are worth more than others.&rdquo;

Stopera added that a surge in anti-Asian racism fueled by the virus has been a factor in his regular discussions with Tran and the direction some of the work for the show has taken. Having recently produced a book centered on Asian-American stories, he said he was able to share some of his past work with Tran and use it as a conversation starter.

&ldquo;Having that shared experience, especially in the current context, has been really helpful,&rdquo; said Stopera, while noting that the work in the show is all Tran&rsquo;s. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t pushed too much, I&rsquo;ve just opened up those ideas and affirmed those things, so that she can work on what speaks to her.&rdquo;

<h3><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMxNTEwMDAx/full.jpg" />Ch&uacute;c mừng năm mới, watercolor on paper.</h3>

<h3>Intergenerational collaboration</h3>

Even after the duration of Tran&rsquo;s three-month exhibition at Creating Change, Stopera added that he hopes to be able to collaborate with his current mentee in the future. With Tran likely headed off to pursue a post-secondary art degree and Stopera continuing his work as a professional photographer, filmmaker, and educator in the Twin Cities, he noted that future collaborations could be an interesting way to work together across age and medium.&nbsp;

&ldquo;You just don&rsquo;t see as much intergenerational collaboration now, and I think it&rsquo;s important to have more spaces like that. I&rsquo;m learning from her and I think older folks don&rsquo;t always see what they can learn from people younger than them,&rdquo; added Stopera. &ldquo;This whole time, I&rsquo;ve had my eyes open to that.&rdquo;

Now, Stopera and Tran are also learning together while preparing for the virtual opening. Tran will give a tour of the space and host a question-and-answer via Facebook Live on Friday night, before looking ahead to the summer. In addition to wanting to do another virtual walk-through and artist talk during the show&rsquo;s run, Stopera said he hopes that by the end of the exhibition, there may even be the possibility to have individuals walk through the show in-person.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjIxNDUwMDAx/full.jpg" />The entrance to the&nbsp;Creating Change Gallery at&nbsp;the John and Denise Graves Foundation office in the Midtown Exchange. Photo by Ryan Stopera.

<h3>&lsquo;Almost more observed&rsquo;</h3>

In the meantime, the camera is adding one more dimension to the space of Tran&rsquo;s work. As a slight silver lining, she hoped that people would be able to see her pieces with greater clarity and focus from home &mdash; rather than in the midst of an opening &mdash; as she walks them through the new place she&rsquo;s created and communicates some of the physicality of the work.

&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an ability to have an ongoing and designated dialogue about the work and the space,&rdquo; Tran added. &ldquo;In a way, it seems like the work is almost more observed &mdash; since it has to be through a different lens.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The opening will take place on Friday, May 8, from 7&nbsp;to 8&nbsp;p.m. A livestream can be found on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jdgravesfdn/" target="_blank">John and Denise Graves Foundation Facebook page</a>. More information on Creating Change can be found on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jdgravesfoundation.org/convening" target="_blank">foundation website</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/creating_change_gallery/?hl=en" target="_blank">@creating_change_gallery</a>&nbsp;on Instagram.

More information on Tran&rsquo;s art can be found on her&nbsp;<a href="https://tranahnali.wixsite.com/arts" target="_blank">website</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/tranworks/?hl=en" target="_blank">@tranworks</a>&nbsp;on Instagram. All images courtesy of the artist.

An upcoming livestream of the Perpich Arts student's solo exhibition at the Creating Change Gallery will highlight her work and the space.

Off The Wall: Ahnali Tran at Creating Change Gallery

Ahead of their upcoming online discussion, two of the McKnight Foundation's 2018 Artist Fellows talk to us individually about their practices.

Through a Screen, Brightly: Profiles of Alison Hiltner & Mohamud Mumin

[instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/B_c-F-bJPdr]

MPLSART visits the studio of Reggie LeFlore as part of our #StudioVisitSundays series.

#StudioVisitSundays with Reggie LeFlore

I once heard a character in a movie say &quot;color is for children and whores.&rdquo;&nbsp;I found this ironic years later&nbsp;as the character who uttered this bizarre sentiment was a woman OF COLOR. But unintended media depictions of self-loathing aside, I digress.&nbsp;

Hatred of&nbsp;not only a select few colors&nbsp;but of color as a whole&nbsp;is a&nbsp;practice&nbsp;that is common but not widely discussed. Colors, especially in their vibrant, saturated, lush, and jewel-toned varieties, are often seen as tacky, gaudy, garish,&nbsp;campy, tawdry, and tasteless by those with more conservative sensibilities. And maybe this is my own bias speaking, but when I hear language like that I imagine some suitably conservative WASP passive-aggressively propagating verbal disdain for aesthetics that are rooted in black, brown, queer, and feminine cultures and communities that are not considered economically advantageous.

In other words, white supremacy.

I say this because as we are speaking about color hatred, it is a great segue&nbsp;into a discussion of Pink, the most widely hated color on the spectrum. Now, I personally LOVE the color pink. However, growing up I got deeply made fun of for my love of it, to the point where whenever I was asked about my favorite color I would lie and say &quot;red.&quot;&nbsp;Ever since the age of about five, I wondered why this was. For example, one of the main questions I had was why black Barbies always wore blue while the white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Barbies were always in pink. Even as a small child, I knew that binary color language was sending me messages about masculinity and femininity and what kind of women are allowed to inherit the benefits of that narrow depiction of womanhood. Granted, on the rare occasions I was gifted Barbies, I usually cut their hair and sent them on fictional lesbian adventure where questions of pink and blue gender hierarchy were never addressed. My childhood was amazing.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ3MjkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Pinking shears at work.

Historically, the word &ldquo;pink&rdquo; or &ldquo;pinking&rdquo; was a verb first used during the 14th century to describe the act of decorating by way of frilling, or creating perforated edges in material. Pink made its way into fashion as a color around the 18th century due to European monarchs&#39; appreciation for pastels, and fashion trends associated the color with sexuality and nudity (NOTE: White nudity). Lingerie in shades of pale pink became increasingly common; the color was also linked to clothing worn by prostitutes. Once the 19th century rolled around, it had largely become&nbsp;associated with women and children. There was a period in which pink was asociated with boys, but it was short-lived, and the cause for the shift back to pink in connection with girlhood was a simple one:&nbsp;marketing. Prior to the 1920s, men were associated with the aggression and power of red, and women with the tranquil docility of blue. (Blue was also deeply associated with the Virgin Mary.)&nbsp;It made sense to the ad men of the day to lighten the colors to represent the children of those respective genders: pink for boys, baby blue for girls. But in the 1930s and &#39;40s, they noticed that parents started buying pink items for girls and blue items for boys, and the 1950s cemented this gender divide via marketing. Pink became the color for sweet innocent young girls&nbsp;and mild-mannered and docile young women and mothers. Mind you, these were&nbsp;again&nbsp;color codes specifically geared toward white women and their role within white patriarchy.

At the same time, pink&#39;s association with queerness began during the Holocaust, when Jewish concentration camp inmates who were suspected of being gay or trans were forced to wear bands with pink triangles. Post World War II, the pink triangle has been associated with the gay liberation movement, and since then the color has made its way into multiple queer (LGBT+) movements and banners.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE3MzcwMDAy/full.jpg" />

After that, pop culture drove the message the rest of the way home with cultural icons, books, movies, and musicals associating pink with womanhood, femininity, and ladylike fashion. Then Barbie came along, but I won&rsquo;t bring that back up.

Now, nature seems to love pink. There are pink birds, iguanas, and elephants, and most of the world&#39;s flowers are pink.&nbsp;It&rsquo;s a color used to attract pollinators and is derived from natural pigments called anthocyanins, which are also found in raspberries. But pink is generally one of the most widely hated and avoided colors (with blue being the most beloved, as 53% of the world&rsquo;s&nbsp;population claims&nbsp;the color as their favorite).&nbsp;But why? Well, I googled it and the answers were pretty much what I expected.

Pink is a color typically associated with everything supremacy has built entire civilizations on the hatred of. Sex, queerness, femininity in all forms, gentility, compassion, vulnerability, love, sweetness, and playfulness. And while I am well aware that different cultures view colors differently, I am&nbsp;speaking from a very American, very Westernized filter because that is the country and culture that has had the greatest impact on my life, and likely on the lives of those reading this. Pink is a color that contains the passion of red mixed with the purity of white. It is almost exclusively used to represent girlhood and childlike femininity to the extent of almost symbolizing immaturity and childishness. Which is probably why it&rsquo;s a color you don&rsquo;t see often representing countries, teams, and organizations; it is not taken seriously.

But feelings about the color are shifting, with the love of colors like Millennial Pink, which is really just regular old pastel pink that is keenly marketed to improve the moods of depressed young adults who are watching helplessly as the world spirals into chaos. And as we are finally having conversations about how binary thinking is an erasure of the true fluidity of gender expression, the color is slowly losing the ingrained bias associated with cisgender,&nbsp;heterosexual women. We are in the process of moving away from viewing pink as a silly and frivolous color, but there are still some conflicting messages.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQzMzcwMDAx/full.jpg" />Janelle Monae (center) in the music video for &quot;Pynk.&quot;

For instance, while Janelle Monae&rsquo;s song and music video &quot;Pynk&quot;&nbsp;championed the sexualities of queer women of color, with queer black women at the forefront, the pink pussy hat symbolized a narrow-minded version of feminism that was empowering to only white, cis-het,&nbsp;middle class women. And as we expand conversations in an attempt to gain visibility and inclusivity, we want to be active regarding the colors we use on the banners we wish to fly. 
 
But we&rsquo;ll discuss that more next time.

&nbsp;

This article is the second in a series. Check out the <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2020/04/kaleidoscope-eyes-intro-to-color-theory">Intro to Color Theory</a> here.

Amina Harper is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Twin Cities. For more info and to see her work, visit<a href="https://aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper/" target="_blank">&nbsp;her website</a>&nbsp;or follow&nbsp;her on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amina.harper/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Banner image photo by Alexander Kovalev / Pexels.

From French royals to politicized pussy hats, Amina Harper unpacks pink, a color most hated but also most meaningful.

Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Color Pink

[instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/B_LQ_I2nK6k]

MPLSART visits the studio of Jodi Reeb as part of our #StudioVisitSundays series.

#StudioVisitSundays with Jodi Reeb

<div>
I love color. I can&rsquo;t say that I love it more than the average person, but I can tell you that my &ldquo;superpower&rdquo; is to see the difference between two seemingly similar hues that have a single degree of temperature between them. I can mix you any pigment you want with a basic description, I can see a color and replicate it without second thought, I can arrange a color story and place colors in descending order from lightest to darkest, warmest to coolest, hottest red to iciest indigo. This is not a hidden talent or a humble brag, I&rsquo;m just telling you how it is: I&nbsp;have kaleidoscope eyes.&nbsp;

When asked about my artwork, the first question that comes up is how I select my color palette. And the truth is, I don&rsquo;t select a color palette&nbsp;but a range of emotions I want the image to evoke;&nbsp;I select the colors based off of that. Because there are as many colors as the world is old, this is quite the task to take on. But in order to make a decision regarding what colors to choose, one has to see a wide variety of colors applied diversely, so that the options are made known.&nbsp;

Basically, the more color you take in, the more you can produce (or reproduce) when making art.&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m always looking at color, not just in my everyday life, but I make it a point to seek out opportunities to absorb everything from jeweled and highly saturated tones, to milky and muted hues. There are monochrome color palettes (where a specific color and its variants are chosen), complimentary color palettes (where two opposing colors and their variants are the core of the palette), and even palettes where you throw all the colors at the canvas to create a beautifully balanced technicolor acid trip that makes you want to taste the fucking rainbow.&nbsp;

But before you can play around in any of that. You have to know what feelings you want this image to get across; because colors are about feelings.

It&rsquo;s important to note that colors don&rsquo;t just make things prettier; they affect our mind and bodies. They make us hungry, turn us on, jog our memories and can even be linked to trauma. If you can control the color palette of an image, you have an incredible amount of power over your audience&#39;s reaction to that image. Having a basic understanding of color as a symbol is a great way to start this exploration.

Here are some examples.
</div>

<div style="color:#cc0000">
RED 
Emotional/Psychological: Passion, Romance, Power, Caution, Anger 
Social/Cultural: Promiscuity (Lust), Violence, Love, Alarm 
Symbols: Fire, Blood, Red Apple, Red Roses, Stop Signs&nbsp;&amp; Stop Lights
</div>

<div style="color:#ff9900">
ORANGE 
Emotional/Psychological: Warmth, Freshness, Youthfulness 
Social/Cultural: Fun and Amusement, Vibrancy 
Symbols: Sunsets, Fruit, Fire, Fall (Autumn)
</div>

<div style="color:#ffd966">
YELLOW&nbsp; 
Emotional/Psychological: Joy and Happiness, Warmth, Cowardice&nbsp;&nbsp; 
Social/Cultural: Optimism&nbsp; 
Symbols: Sun and Sunshine, Stars, Light, Summertime&nbsp;
</div>

<div style="color:#6aa84f">
GREEN&nbsp; 
Emotional/Psychological: Envy, Health (Both good and bad health), Safety and Permission 
Social/Cultural: Youthful Inexperience&nbsp; 
Symbols: Nature, Springtime, Hope, Life, Money&nbsp;
</div>

<div style="color:#1155cc">
BLUE&nbsp; 
Emotional/Psychological: Sadness (Emotions in General), Tranquility, Calm, Healing 
Social/Cultural: Intelligence, Wisdom, Sadness, Loyalty, Peace&nbsp; 
Symbols: Water, Sky, Winter, Uniforms&nbsp;
</div>

<div style="color:#674ea7">
VIOLET&nbsp; 
Emotional/Psychological: Mystery, Spirituality, Cosmic Energy, Magic&nbsp; 
Social/Cultural: Royalty, Wealth, Luxury, Vanity&nbsp; 
Symbols: Outer Space, Flowers&nbsp;
</div>

<div style="color:#e476aa">
PINK&nbsp; 
Emotional/Psychological: Love, Romance, Sexuality, Softness, Sweetness, Cuteness, Playfulness, Tenderness, Compassion, Femininity, Delicacy&nbsp; 
Social/Cultural: Girls, Young Women, Queerness, Gender Identities that are not considered Masculine&nbsp; 
Symbols: Girls, Hearts, Flowers, Sweet Foods
</div>

<div>
These are framing devices that give context to how color is often used in the world around us. This kind of symbolism makes its way into just about every form of cultural content, from the gold and yellow of wealth and death in The Great Gatsby, to the character color coding in 2018&#39;s Black Panther (more on that soon).

Now, you may notice I didn&rsquo;t mention the colors black and white in this list. And that&rsquo;s because black and white are associated with binary thought, which is a violent hierarchy in which one of two terms or ideas dominates and oppresses the other in an attempt to destroy the natural fluidity of human identity. This is where the stakes heighten drastically. In western language especially, we tend to define one object via its proximity to and cultural privilege over another. This is a problem because&nbsp;black and white specifically&nbsp;are terms often associated with people, and as we all know that when you privilege one kind of person over another, the consequences are catastrophic.

I will get into the binary and exclusionary language surrounding color and its usage in later installments of this series as it is important to examine these toxic views in order to shed them. Subjects like race, gender, and sexuality will feature prominently and I want you to keep these ideas in mind for later.&nbsp;Once you know what the rules are, you can break them entirely in favor of a new narrative that allows for more nuance and interrogation of larger, more impactful social structures. Hopefully, the tools I present in this series can heal some of the colonial conditioning we&rsquo;re accustomed to; art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed, after all.

For now, this is an introduction to something that will grow larger as we continue. It is the opening of the color rabbit hole that we&rsquo;re all going down together. But as a reflection of this I want you, dear Reader, to symbol hunt for colors in the creative content you take in. What are the colors around you telling you about the world you live in? What do the colors you gravitate toward say about you?

Until then.

&nbsp;

Amina Harper is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Twin Cities. For more info and to see her work, visit<a href="https://aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper/" target="_blank"> her website</a> or follow&nbsp;her on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/amina.harper/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Banner image: Adrien Olichon / Pexels
</div>

The first in a series of articles diving deep into color, thinking critically about their meanings, their emotions, and, in some cases, their cruelties

Kaleidoscope Eyes: Intro to Color Theory

[instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/B-5VoSznkvD/] 
 
Follow&nbsp;<a class="notranslate" href="https://www.instagram.com/jamie_owens_art/">@jamie_owens_art</a>&nbsp;on instagram.

MPLSART visits the studio of Jamie Owens as part of our #StudioVisitSundays series.

#StudioVisitSundays with Jamie Owens

I realized not too long ago that walking is a delusion. It feels calm, controlled, coordinated &mdash; utterly normal. But then, out walking my dogs one day, my toe caught on an uneven bit of sidewalk. I tripped, and for just an instant time slowed down: inertia carried me forward, but my foot was not there to catch me. My body lurched in a state of panicked instinct,&nbsp;my foot shot out, and I caught myself at the last moment. My shoulders flushed with acid adrenaline, and the dogs looked up at me like &quot;You okay, dude?&quot;&nbsp;Then it occurred to me: walking is an act of constant free-fall.&nbsp;

Our current crisis has reminded me a lot of that moment. This pandemic has caught our collective toe on the sidewalk and revealed the degree to which we&rsquo;ve been one step away from free-fall the whole time. The casual brutalities that are baked into our systems have been laid bare, pitting the health of the public against the health of the economy: who gets treatment, who gets protective equipment, who gets assistance, and who still needs to do our dirty work. One hope from all this is that we finally realize the word &ldquo;menial&rdquo; is synonymous with &ldquo;essential&rdquo; (and should be paid accordingly).

Now a few weeks into our isolation, many of us are back to putting one foot in front of the other, looking to regain some normalcy, some balance, and hopefully some income. We are working, baking, exercising, wrangling children.&nbsp;Bingeing Netflix, maybe. Some of these footfalls are routine but others are pivots, responding to the circumstances with new technology and new initiatives, like SooVAC&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.soovac.org/mnartmart" target="_blank">MN Art Mart</a> and Springboard&rsquo;s <a href="https://springboardforthearts.org/additional-resources/emergency-relief-fund/" target="_blank">Emergency Relief Fund</a>. Just last week,&nbsp;<a href="https://mrac.org/2020/04/03/mrac-announces-2020-next-step-fund-recipients/" target="_blank">MRAC</a>&nbsp;forewent the final round of Next Step Fund jurying and&nbsp;simply gave the&nbsp;award to all 72 finalists, putting unrestricted&nbsp;money&nbsp;directly into their hands. And despite having to cancel this year&#39;s&nbsp;Art-A-Whirl, <a href="https://nemaa.org/art-a-whirl/" target="_blank">NEMAA</a> is currently working to recreate the experience online.&nbsp;

On a broader scale, artist talks and studio visits have moved online, providing a real-time crash course in communication across multiple platforms. Some artists are exploring new opportunities for sales and service as well, cranking out homemade masks and hand sanitizers to meet the needs of the moment.&nbsp;Here at MPLSART, we&rsquo;re pivoting as well, working to rethink how an art events calendar can best serve a world without actual art events. (Towards that end, please keep us up to date on all your virtual events at <a href="mailto:calendar@mplsart.com?subject=Virtual%20event%20listing">calendar@mplsart.com</a>.)

There&rsquo;s no telling what new habits, methods, and innovations will stick with us beyond this crisis. Videoconferencing, remote working, homeschooling, hyper-hygiene &mdash; who knows if these will become our new normal? It&rsquo;s fascinating to wonder what of it will stay and what will fade into memory, years from now, as we recall those strange few months of doom &amp; Zoom.

In the meantime, here and now, we are looking for answers day by day. And in their absence, we&rsquo;re looking for comfort. No surprise, we are finding it in the arts. From the music of Bill Withers and John Prine to the gaudy insanity of Tiger King, art is here to help us get through this grief and this fear.&nbsp;

As the crisis continues, though, stretching out now over months instead of weeks, a lot of folks are realizing that this is a marathon, not a sprint. That the breathless output of quarantine content is unsustainable. For those of you still running ahead, I say good for you, keep going. The rest of us will catch up at our own pace. Some walking, some jogging, some stopped altogether, simply sitting with our existential dread. Some days are harder than others, especially when you take a moment to read the news. It&rsquo;s astounding, really, the vicious ineptitude coming from our country&rsquo;s highest echelons, and it can hurt your heart to see. Some of these assholes would charge admission to a life raft.

But there is still much hope to be found on a local level, from competent governors to tireless health care workers to the hand-drawn rainbows stuck in my neighbors&rsquo; windows. The hashtag AloneTogether still makes me chuckle, but if there&rsquo;s one thing that artists in the Twin Cities have taught me, it&rsquo;s the importance of community. Ours is tight-knit and fiercely supportive, even from a safe distance.&nbsp;

Still, the odds are stacked against artists financially. We&rsquo;re already the lowest rung on the ladder even in our own industry. Events have been cancelled, galleries shuttered, and sales opportunities postponed, but the bills keep coming. And, to add insult to injury, most of us have garbage health insurance. Artists, like many Americans, have always been running full-tilt, one stumble away from that free-fall face-plant.&nbsp;

At the same time, I can&rsquo;t help but think that artists are built for moments like this. We&rsquo;re scrappy: we&rsquo;re used to working against bad odds with limited resources. This social isolation that&rsquo;s so jarring to everyone else is a way of life for us, sequestered away in our studios. And, at the end of the day, we were going to make this stuff anyway, whether or not it was going to sell.

Perhaps most vital to this moment: artists imagine new futures. We&rsquo;ve had to adjust to a lot of &ldquo;new normals&rdquo; over the past three years, but the truth is that a lot of them were same-old same-old, just with the volume turned up. The COVID-19 crisis is certainly new and most definitely abnormal, but it has shined a spotlight on the cracks in our society that have always been there. It has revealed what a luxury it is to simply have good health to protect and a home in which to shelter. It has highlighted race and class disparities; even my metaphor of walking underscores the privilege of ability. No surprise again, the way we&rsquo;ve organized the&nbsp;world, that marginalized groups are bearing the brunt of this crisis.&nbsp;

It seems to me the greatest tragedy of all would be to learn nothing from this moment, to run full sprint back to that old normal. It&rsquo;s time to move forward carefully, thoughtfully, to build new structures on more solid ground. That&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re doing here, looking for sure footing with each step forward. It may be a long summer, now that the beaches are closed, but we&rsquo;ll get through it. Together, apart, however you like to think about it. In the meantime, stay safe, make art, buy art, and send memes.&nbsp;We could&nbsp;all use a good laugh.

&nbsp;

Banner image: Russ White, Fits &amp; Starts (one in a series), mixed media on paper, 10 x 8&quot;. For more, visit <a href="http://russ-white.com" target="_blank">the artist&#39;s website</a>.

How tripping on a dogwalk helped me understand this shitstorm a little better

The New Abnormal: Artists were built for this

[instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/B-nT6E0n2LD]

MPLSART visits the studio of Colee Recke as part of our #StudioVisitSundays series.

#StudioVisitSundays with Colee Recke

The local art community is struggling under the shadow of COVID-19. Galleries that are used to lively openings and in-person sales are figuring out new ways to adapt. Gallery owners may feel pressure to continue &quot;business as usual&quot; or to drastically &quot;pivot&quot; to do something totally new with the gallery. Regardless of how you navigate this time, you are best positioned to determine what to do. It&#39;s ok to be candid with your audience. It&#39;s ok to try new things and make mistakes. It&#39;s also ok to do nothing. 
 
For those with the means to be active during the crisis, here is a guide to help shape your efforts.

<h2> 
1. Start With&nbsp;Your Goals</h2>

Your goals as a gallery may look different than they did three months ago or they may remain&nbsp;the same. Either way, clearly define what your goals are now and write them down.&nbsp;Is it to sell art? Is it to&nbsp;cultivate future collectors? Is it to support your represented artists? Solicit donations? Educate? Entertain? You can have more than one goal, but be clear to yourself about your goals. Don&#39;t try to do too much and be cognizant of your abilities and capacity.&nbsp;

Related:&nbsp;There are several different goal setting frameworks out there&nbsp;such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thebalancesmb.com/goal-setting-2948135" target="_blank">SMART</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.newsteer.com/okr-goals-practical-examples-for-companies-and-startups-a1d2fbb037c5" target="_blank">OKRs</a>. These frameworks can help guide&nbsp;your thought process, but&nbsp;don&#39;t get too hung up on the frameworks themselves. The most important thing is to set goals.&nbsp;

<h2> 
2. Boost Your Online Presence</h2>

As most people are currently at home experiencing the world through the Internet, it&#39;s a good time to evaluate how you are representing your gallery online. Don&#39;t worry about creating epic viral campaigns that make the front page of Hyperallergic. Instead focus on&nbsp;clear calls&nbsp;to action to achieve the goals you documented above.&nbsp;Whatever your goals are, your online presence should be working to accomplish those goals.

Clear Calls To Action 
While people are spending more time online right now AND likely want to help support local arts, their attention is being increasingly divided. Make sure your calls to action are straight forward and easy to understand. For example, if your&nbsp;goal&nbsp;is to sell artwork, when promoting&nbsp;work for sale, make sure it is clear that is available for purchase and how to buy it.&nbsp;

Your Website 
You likely have a great website. However, it may have been&nbsp;designed for a different set of goals than you have right now.&nbsp;Evaluate the front page of your website. Are the calls to action clear and support your goals?&nbsp;Is it easy&nbsp;to figure out what artwork is available for sale and how to make a purchase? Does someone need to click on several links to find the page where to donate? How easy is it for someone to join your mailing list? A simple way to evaluate your website&nbsp;is to tell your goals to a friend or family member and ask them to use your website to accomplish a desired task (such as making a donation).&nbsp;If they have a hard time, evaluate if there are changes you can make to your website content to make it easier. Once you have made changes, try them out with someone new and re-evaluate. Don&#39;t focus too much on aesthetics. More so, focus on the calls to action, information clarity, and ease of use.&nbsp; 
 
Related: Evaluating your website in this nature is a part of the field&nbsp;of User Experience (UX).&nbsp;While this is a massive field of research blending psychology, sociology, design, and technology,&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/usability-testing" target="_blank">here</a><a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/usability-testing" target="_blank">&nbsp;is a practical&nbsp;guide</a>&nbsp;to start evaluating your own website.&nbsp;

Your Social Media 
Now is also a great time to evaluate your approach to social media. Not every post needs to be a sales opportunity, but the ones that&nbsp;are&nbsp;should have clear calls to action.&nbsp;Think about the platforms you use in the context of your goals to determine where to focus your&nbsp;energy. If posting on Facebook used to get a lot more&nbsp;foot traffic to your openings than posting on Twitter, it is likely posting artwork for sale or soliciting donations will work similarly. It is also a great time to explore the potential for other platforms such as LinkedIn or&nbsp;YouTube. If you are having trouble finding your voice on these platforms, pay attention to what others are doing and emulate them. Don&#39;t be afraid to experiment. Just as your goals might be different than they were before, your approach to social media may be different.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

<h2>3. Make It Easy to Purchase Artwork</h2>

If your current goals include selling artwork, make&nbsp;it&nbsp;easy. Previously, you may have not wanted to post all the work in an exhibition so to not spoil the opening reception. However, without feet in your physical gallery, you&#39;ll need eyeballs on your virtual one. If you do not have have your website set up to easily browse work for sale and purchase it, we&nbsp;highly recommend e-commerce platforms such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank">Shopify</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce-website" target="_blank">Squarespace</a>. Use your existing website, social media, and mailing list&nbsp;to drive traffic to these platforms. Contrary to popular belief,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-5-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-booming-online-art-market" target="_blank">collectors are increasingly buying online</a>. At the very least, using these platforms can supplement your current sales process and potentially generate new collectors locally or out of state. 
&nbsp;

<h2>4. Promote Artists</h2>

Artists are the reason we are all here and they need support for us to continue to exist.&nbsp;Even if you do not represent artists, now is a great time to help promote artists you have worked with in the past. Re-share their social&nbsp;posts. Offer to make their work available for sale via your online presence.&nbsp;Buy their work for your personal collection.&nbsp;Offer to facilitate a virtual&nbsp;artist talk.&nbsp;The artists you support now will likely return the favor in kind.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

<h2>5. Create Video Content&nbsp;</h2>

If you have the means, a great way to bolster your social presence is through video. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fCf3YanHw" target="_blank">Flanders &amp; Associates</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/KPAhH7k4isY" target="_blank">Studio Pintura</a> have produced some great video of their current&nbsp;exhibitions. <a href="https://vimeo.com/405948931" target="_blank">Groveland</a> has posted interviews with their artists.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/soovac/?hl=en" target="_blank">SooVac</a>&nbsp;is conducting virtual studio visits via Instagram Live. Others have been hosting virtual happy hours via Zoom and Jitsi&nbsp;Meet. There are lots of&nbsp;great options out there. Don&#39;t be overly&nbsp;worried about producing Oscar-winning films with professional lighting and make-up. We all are long overdue for a hair cut and even the local news anchors are having technical glitches broadcasting live from home. Your cell phone camera is just fine. This is new territory for everyone, and people are mostly forgiving. Remember your goals and use video as a means to support those goals.&nbsp;Some simple ideas&nbsp;for unique video content include: interviewing your artists over video conference, giving a video tour of your personal collection, or doing a personal video talking about how you started the gallery.&nbsp; Also, we highly recommend if you are doing live virtual events, <a href="/submit">let us know</a> in advance and we will get it listed on our calendar and share in our weekly news letter and on our social platforms. 
 
Related: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3wXwIIEbrw" target="_blank">Some simple tips for producing quality videos on your phone</a>.

&nbsp;

<h2>6. Find Your Voice</h2>

The world we&#39;re living in right now is like nothing we&#39;ve experienced before. There is no roadmap for how to navigate this time. That is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Galleries are a reflection of the courageous&nbsp;people who run them. Find your voice during this time and represent it through your website and social platforms. If you are trying new things, know that you will make mistakes and that that is ok. Mistakes are how we all learn and grow.&nbsp;

<h2> 
7. Help Us Help You</h2>

We love our local art galleries. We&#39;re in awe of the powerful and immediate gallery responses we&#39;ve already seen in this crisis. We&#39;re looking forward to what&#39;s next. We&#39;re going to get out of this together.&nbsp;

MPLSART is here with you, struggling and evolving to support the art scene in reaction to COVID-19. We&#39;re listening, sharing, and building new tools. We have great things planned and will be announcing more soon. 
 
In the meantime, our local art scene is active and vital. Our website traffic is strong. Our social media audience is growing. Various artist talks are keeping us all connected. Art sales continue from safe distances. And people are still looking for ways to engage with visual art. 
 
Let us know what you&#39;re struggling with and any ideas you have. 
Please continue to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/submit" target="_blank">submit your virtual art events</a>&nbsp;to our calendar. 
Tag us in your social posts and we will reshare with our audience. 
Send info to:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:calendar@mplsart.com" target="_blank">calendar@mplsart.com</a> 
 
 
Image Credit: <a href="https://www.nicole-l-thomas.com/" target="_blank">Nicole Thomas</a>

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