The Northwestern Casket Company, May 17th 2007, all photos copyright © 2007-2010 by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved.
I went over to the Casket Arts Building on Thursday to help my friend, Gail, hang her show. She recently joined the rain collective, a confluence of artists who moved into the building this week.
I took my camera along and the pleasure was all mine. The exposed brick had been restored, the studio floors had been sanded and polished to their original luster, a stunning mix of maple and pine.
The oldest portion of the former Northwestern Casket Company, which served as a casket factory until January of 2006, dates back to 1887. It’s one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city of Minneapolis.
I met owner, Jennifer Young, and we stood in the door of Gail’s studio and chatted for a while about what kind of shape the building was in before they bought it – and what it looks like now (a photographer’s dream).
The former owner of Northwest Casket Company, Robert Berny, rose from clerk to president and spent 6 decades with the company until his death in 2004. He was buried in a custom cherrywood casket.
Yesterday, the building was bustling with artists preparing for an annual Northeast tradition, Art-A-Whirl. This is the 12th Annual Art-A-Whirl; I remember the first. I had a studio in the Northrup King seed building back then.
When artists come together, the energy is palpable – vibrating and alive. I felt like I was standing in pockets of calm when I captured these images – silent spaces between the buzz of hanging oil, acrylic, and canvas on freshly painted white walls, and lunch at Emily’s Lebanese Deli .
Exit, May 17th, 2007, all photos in this post copyright © 2007-2010 by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved.
Saturday, May 19th, 2007
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