Sculptures to find Permanent Homes in Saint Paul, Vadnais Heights and St. Anthony Village

The Site Selection Process

The stone sculptures created by the artists through Minnesota Rocks! will be permanently installed throughout the City of Saint Paul and Vadnais Heights and St. Anthony. Keeping in mind the ideals and process of the Symposium, we developed a set of criteria that provides for artist choice and response to context, considers issues of public safety and responds to neighborhood goals.

Early in 2005, we met with members of the Saint Paul City Council to introduce the Symposium program and in August, we sent a letter to community organizations, offering the opportunity for a stone sculpture and asking them to propose locations. We were delighted with the enthusiastic response we received: over 40 locations were proposed, covering every corner of the City. These neighborhoods support the Symposium objectives and are committed to providing for on-going sculpture stewardship.

Saint Paul’s Artists in Residence, Steven Woodward and Marcus Young initially reviewed the proposed locations. Rick Person of Saint Paul Public Works and Mark Granlund of Saint Paul Parks and Recreation worked diligently with Woodward to visit and document each site: 28 have now been “pre-approved” by City agencies and the Saint Paul City Council as a menu from which the Symposium artists will choose.

We have asked the artists not to come with pre-conceived ideas about what they will carve. Fundamental to the Symposium idea is human ‘conversation’ with stone. Artists confront this ‘obdurate’ material and must come to terms with it—to let it speak to them of what is locked inside. That idea is compromised if artists come with a preconceived idea of what the stone will have to say in this ‘conversation.’

Until they meet together on the first day of the Symposium, the artists will not even know which stone they will work in—limestone, granite, and stromatolite are all available and they will sort that out among themselves. They will tour the city to see the sites proposed and by the end of the first week, we expect their decisions to be made. Sites not selected will be noted by Public Art Saint Paul as priorities for future public art development.

We are very grateful for the enthusiasm and generous spirit of those who have been involved with this process. Thank you!

Craig Amundsen, Board Member
Public Art Saint Paul