By Katherine Boyce
A painter, a whittler and a punk rock photographer walk into Mojo Coffee—and the stories they tell paint a vivid picture of the artist’s life. John Vieno, Christopher Wunderlich, and Brian Garrity were students in the hard-partying fringes of the rising Minneapolis art scene in the 80s and 90s. All three felt out of place in the more polished, often exclusive art world of the Gallery District downtown. But they each found a haven at the California Building, in the very beginnings of what would become the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District.
The California Building was the first building in Northeast Minneapolis to become dedicated artist space when its current owners, John Kremer and Jennifer Young purchased it in 1991. Even before then, the big windows, high ceilings, and low rents were already attracting artists.
Vieno and Wunderlich both moved to the California Building in 1985; Vieno moved there in search of a reprieve from the punk rock lifestyle. Vieno, Wunderlich, and Garrity all recall the legendary punk rock houses in the South Minneapolis neighborhoods surrounding MCAD where artists and musicians lived, worked, and partied. Artists in these buildings were frequently visited by police and served eviction notices.
Artists were largely seen as drug addicts and weirdos back then. “We were just bizarre!” Vieno explained. They wore black and sported mohawks. So when more and more artists began to migrate to the quiet, working class, residential neighborhoods of Northeast Minneapolis, they were initially met with suspicion. “They wanted us to go back to South Minneapolis.”
By the early 2000s, tolerance had prevailed and the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District became home to many hundreds of career artists. Art-A-Whirl and other events helped bridge the gap by giving neighbors the chance to see artists at work. The community largely embraced the culture-making and creativity artists bring with them. In any case, tattoos and piercings no longer make one a misfit.
But no matter how much the community embraces them and the artists assimilate, a deeper economic rift remains. The life of the artist can be precarious. Vieno, Wunderlich, Garrity, and many other artists have experienced this their whole careers.
When Vieno was accepted into MCAD, his parents told him, “You’ve chosen the hardest profession in life.” They supported him, but they knew that making art and making a living are paths that rarely meet.
Vieno recalled a moment when a prominent gallerist downtown wanted to represent some of his work. But the gallerist wanted Vieno to produce more paintings in a certain style, a common dynamic that comes with commissioned work or gallery representation. To Vieno, this was a nonstarter. When he tried to make art from someone else’s direction, it didn’t work. The freedom to make his own work was paramount.
“I’ve had good decades, and I’ve had bad decades,” said Vieno; with painting sales unreliable, he’s taken a graphic design job to bring some stable income.
Garrity, a photographer working primarily in the music scene, started his career shooting in film. He shot for Rolling Stone, Spin, Interview Magazine, and Alternative Press among others. Despite his love of film, there came a moment when it was clear that the field was going digital, and he would have to make the transition to keep up with the commercial opportunities.
Even with commercial success, Garrity described how the bottom dropped out of the photographic market during Covid. The pandemic shut down music, theater, and live events, which were the majority of Garrity’s shooting gigs. This was compounded by the rise of the iPhone; everyone was a photographer now.
Wunderlich’s perspective is that an artist is almost inherently vulnerable to big societal shockwaves. He was involved with a heyday of scenic filmmaking in the 80s—right before a change in tax law sent the entire industry to Canada. Later on, he and many other artists he knew were laid off after 9/11. Yet again, he was on the cusp of being able to put a down payment on a house when Covid hit; he lost a stable job doing exhibit production for a children’s theater. “I lost everything.”
Even as artists face higher rents, they don’t feel they can raise their prices to keep up. “You know, we as artists, we’re sort of like the cream of the culture, where when you have extra money, you buy art,” Wunderlich said. “And when somebody’s doing well, that’s when that money gets spent on us.” In the individual consumer’s budget, art is understandably less essential than food, housing, and transportation—all of which are unaffordable to a growing percentage of the population.
But art is essential to a society; it shapes our culture, captures our stories, makes collective meaning, and connects people to each other. And it contributes mightily to the local economy. It follows that we should do more at a societal and political level to support the basic needs of artists. “The corporate system and capitalism desperately needs artists but is completely set up to push them out,” said Wunderlich. He has wondered how different his life and his art would be if there was something like a basic income for artists.
Wunderlich left his space in the California Building following a doomed relationship out west; he still misses his studio space. He said of all the places he’s been, Minnesota has more support for artists than most. He’s found himself back in his rural hometown, where he said he’s struggled in the absence of an artist community, but he can live more on his own terms without much money.
“Most artists I know aren’t really driven by greed”, explained Garrity. “I think we are just driven by the creative instinct and the need to create, whatever the cost.”
In the absence of a basic income for artists, the owners of many of the arts buildings in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District are doing everything they can to keep space affordable and stable for artists. Since they bought the California Building in 1991, Kremer and Young have been committed since the beginning to offering artists space that was clean, safe, and bright. Most artists aren’t looking for something fancy; they want somewhere they can make their art on their terms—and somewhere they can be misfits together. “I think that’s what this building was for us, early on,” said Wunderlich. An island of misfit toys.
[For a taste of the grunge-infused flavor of this era, buy Brian Garrity’s phenomenal book of rock photography.]
