Mill City Museum
Architectural Background |
Contacts |
Film "Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat"
Museum Artists
Woven throughout Mill City Museum and its exhibits are unique works by the following local and regional artists:
Daryl No Heart, Rapid City, S.D.
A landscape artist and Lakota Indian, Daryl No Heart shares his interpretation
of the St. Anthony Falls area as it looked in its pre-industrial state,
before the mills. No Heart painted an original piece, which he reproduced into
a 10-foot narrow panoramic. The panoramic will be installed on Mill City
Museum's observation deck overlooking the Mississippi River. The two views,
past and present, will interact with each other, allowing museum visitors to
see how the riverfront has evolved over the past 150 years.
Tom Maakestad, Marine-on-St Croix, Minn.
Landscape artist Tom Maakestad painted a panoramic image of a wheat field
and sky to serve as the backdrop for a late-19th century traction engine,
a major fixture in the Harvesting Wheat exhibit. Maakestad's original
artwork will be reproduced on a larger scale (10 feet by 20 feet) to
create a context for the traction engine and suggest the vastness of the
wheat growing fields in Minnesota.
Kim Lawler, St. Paul, Minn.
For Mill City Museum's Promoting Mill Products exhibit, scenic painter and
muralist Kim Lawler produced a 15-foot, freestanding Bisquick Box with an image
of the packaging as seen in 1931 on one side and 1981 on the opposite side.
Visitors will be invited to step inside the box to experience signature
advertising campaigns from the past and present through TV and radio commercials.
Lawler also produced a 6-foot stack of pancakes for a hands-on activity area
where children will be encouraged to design their own mill product packaging.
In addition, Lawler designed a three-columned, freestanding structure for the Wheat Emporium, an exhibit that explores how wheat imagery has been used as a potent symbol throughout the ages. Topped with a copper wheat structure, each column is actually a case that displays everyday objects, such as paintings, currency, clothing and dishware that incorporate wheat as a decorative motif.
Kathleen Richert, St. Paul, Minn.
A textile artist and accomplished designer and seamstress, Kathleen Richert
produced fabric and felt sculptures of food to be used on the harvest table in
the Harvesting Wheat exhibit. Set to look like a table used by threshing crews,
Richert's sculptures demonstrate the immense quantity of food needed to sustain
the crews. Visitors will be invited to sit down at the table and connect with
farmers of the past and present.
Paul Wrench and Becky Schurmann, Minneapolis
Through sculpture, husband-and-wife team Paul Wrench and Becky Schurmann brought
characters introduced throughout Mill City Museum to life. Both working artists,
Wrench and Schurmann hand-carved 13 figures from salvaged timber from Humboldt Mill,
a neighboring mill of the Washburn A Mill. Carved from white pine, they have
been stained and finished and some still contain old nails.
Each sculpture represents individuals integral to the milling empire in the late-19th century. The sculptures include William de la Barre, an Austrian engineer who designed Washburn A Mill; Jean Spielman, a labor organizer; Mary Dodge Woodward, an author; as well as laborers and other prominent figures.
