Walking in Air Sweet Air
By Rene Meyer-Grimberg and Thomas Haakenson
We authors decided to “go Facebook” for our post-interview discussion of the new St. Paul gallery space, Air Sweet Air. What follows is our Facebook exchange, with very minor editing.
Facebook post from Rene Meyer-Grimberg (RMG): I wanted to send you some pictures or video off the bat, but you have to be my friend first… I can only message you from my phone.
Thomas O. Haakenson (TOH):
Send away!
Thanks for meeting up with me at Air Sweet Air Gallery, Rene. It was nice to meet Cheryl and see her brand new space. The location in Lowertown is ideal, and I was impressed by Cheryl’s curatorial aspirations and entrepreneurial courage.
I posted a picture, but it landed on your wall… A little cryptic so it doesn’t matter that it is totally public…I have to go to my computer… Or dig more to figure out how to “message” the images.
Courage? Panache, elan, … I don’t know what I would call it. It is something else…kind of nurturing, if that doesn’t sound too kitschy.
Selfless? Naw, that sounds too missionary. She enjoys the connecting, the networking, the supporting of the creative process and exchange among artists.
Air Sweet Air does seem quite “nurturing,” if that word makes sense. Giving artists a space to live AND work, and the time to do both, sounds ideal. I’m not sure of another Twin Cities venue that does both — at least not in the same space, and in a venue this intimate in size. Do you know of one? And a related question: During our gallery visit, we talked a bit about funding, although more about the space itself would be funded rather than about how individual artists might fund their time at Air Sweet Air. Or do you remember discussing funding for individual artists, too?
It sounds like offering them the space free of charge is her goal…if she isn’t a non-profit she may have trouble applying for grants to help fund the whole endeavor. Maybe there are enough sponsors in the Twin Cities to keep ASA afloat.
The challenge will be to secure funding; however, Air Sweet Air is able to do it. If I remember correctly, the commission on sales of the work is still undecided, but Cheryl mentioned something in the 35% range for the gallery. It seems reasonable to me, compared to the commission rate at other galleries. But Air Sweet Air is still a very young gallery, having opened in September 2011. It sounds like the opening exhibit was successful. And now with Cheryl’s own work up — the pink and black prints with collages of circa 1950s clip art — the space has an open feel. I’m curious about the bear heads in her work, however.
The bear connects to Cheryl’s northern Minnesota roots, but also to the name of the gallery: Nature, freedom, open air, right? Rene, should we email Cheryl to confirm?
I’m on it!
From an Email Exchange with Cheryl Wilgren Clyne:
Okay so I told you about how the bears began and how I was a wild child in the woods and that I saw bears in my yard all the time and how much I loved and respected them. How I fantasized about being one and I drew them and studied them.
Now there are around 100 or so images that I have created in the series with bears. The newest drawings I am working on have more animals and more humans. All aspects are hand drawn but they are still collaged. I create the background as sort of a stage and then set up the narrative of the subjects within it. There is new talent for the bear / children to interact with.
I am really interested in the importance of nature in relationship to humans, especially those who are in urban environments. Also how we navigate / negotiate / survive in culture, society, in our day to day lives. At first these artworks were about children living in an adult world and figuring out what works to get by. Now I look at them and think it is about being human, and how those same things we have had to navigate as children continue to occur when we are adults. How we move through life, through situations that may be difficult or beautiful and finding humor and tragedy all in the same spaces. Nature and the elements come into it and play a part, sometimes unpredictable, and powerful.
Back to Facebook
The video running in the large screen television in the Air Sweet Air space also intrigued me. It was mesmerizing. Taken at dawn near a place called Rock 10 Recycling in St. Paul, it shows pollution entering the atmosphere from the facility’s smokestacks. It was a horrible and beautiful at the same time.
Tgus may be tmi about the bears, but I think she puts it very nicely.
I can relate…I wish some things could be more straight forward…And that I could don a bear mask and automatically get respect.
But can we ever bridge the gap between nature and society? It’s a question that the avant-gardes failed to resolve — or better, dissolve — the divide.
But Air Sweet Air does seek to address another divide, one that for me has greater potential: that between the local and the global. What did you make of the international ambitions of the gallery?
If you have asthma or allergy issues connected with the environment, you are constantly confronted with the relationship between society (industry), nature (unspoilt and possibly your safe haven) and your everyday existence (depends on clean air). I think the screen with the pollution cloud addresses that issue – maybe not bridging it, however.
Bridging the oceans around out continent is an ambitious plan that Cheryl mentioned. I think her space offers an unusual opportunity to have foreign artists experience the US arts culture. And the best part of it! Warehouse artist’s neighborhood, bring them on…and find ways to program them in to the local cultural and arts communities. I envy the contacts and parties she will be having in her gallery.
Do you think the Twin Cities, and in this case St. Paul, are — or really can become — key U.S. sites for international artists? I think Air Sweet Air, perhaps somewhat like Minneapolis’s Midway Contemporary Art, is challenged by the international lack or reputation of the Twin Cities’ art scene. Sometimes it seems that if international friends and colleagues even know where Minnesota is, all they know about us is how cold our winters can be.
Ok, we are not New York… But I think when you travel in the world, people have heard of Minneapolis (not St.Paul, but often the Walker, in my experience.) However, “opportunity is often the mother of invention”- doesn’t it go something like that? Or, build it and they will come….Places like ASA can create a buzz if artists come, have a great experience, and then circulate in the world.
Also, offer them a place to stay, in addition…maybe some kind of stipend…and anything can happen.
True. But the funding is going to be a challenge. Hopefully Air Sweet Air finds a non-profit sponsor, or wealthy donor. The commission rate at the gallery — was Cheryl thinking an 80 / 20 split — seems generous. I’m just not sure if the business model is sustainable.
I am not sure what her percentage will be in the end. I don’t think she is sure either. And I don’t think she sees it as a business. Although, the rent has to be paid somehow, I felt like she was /is still exploring the logistics.
So, ambitious idea. Time will tell for Air Sweet Air. Any final thoughts, Rene, or something we didn’t discuss that we should have?
So much more to talk / write about, but I think we’re out of space / time. So, that’s it!
Sounds good, Rene. Thanks a bunch. We’ll chat soon. Quodlibetica now gets to do the dirty work of cleaning up my spelling goofs!
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