Twin Cities Habitat Commissions Local Artists to Celebrate Home

A beautiful part of our new home includes four commissioned original art works that reflect Habitat’s work with families and our community. Partnering with arts organizations Springboard for the Arts and the Textile Center, we held competitions to select local artists that would create the final pieces for Habitat's new home. In keeping with Habitat’s community-building mission, the artists engaged with Habitat partner families and volunteers to create their pieces. 

For the three works in the first-floor* Cargill Gathering Hall, Twin Cities Habitat chose proposals from Springboard’s Irrigate Artists, who have been trained in creative place-making and who live or work in St. Paul’s Central Corridor. Springboard provided further training and assistance to the artists as they designed the community engagement component of their process.  

Artist team Ericka Dennis and Janet Groenert are making an interactive Tyvek quilt comprising images and recorded stories from Habitat families and volunteers. The design is inspired by patterns suggested by Habitat kids.

Susan Solarz is building a message machine sculpture that will provide answers to questions about the Habitat experience. Messages from Habitat families are engraved onto wooden balls that wend their way through the paths of the machine.

Kao Lee Thao uses the motif of the keyhole in her hand-carved wooden relief mural that touches on themes of new home, putting down roots, and building prosperity. Colors and textures are inspired by Twin Cities Habitat families’ traditions, and many children from Habitat families contributed elements to the project.  

For the  third floor**, textile artist Susan Hensel is creating “Raising the Roof on Home,” a fabric hanging decorated with fabric paints, dyes and machine embroidery. Habitat families and volunteers contributed to the pieces at workshops held at the Textile Center. Adults and children participated, and they were filled with pride, optimism and hope as they helped build this “crazy quilt” of home.

All the stunning artwork is set to be displayed in Habitat's new building by the end of this month. Thank you to the artists and volunteers who helped to create these works of art. We'll be sharing more photos once they are on display in our main office!

*The first floor art is financed in part by the City of Saint Paul Cultural Sales Tax Revitalization Program and the Boss Foundation.

  **The fabric hanging is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

(Photo above courtesy of the Scrapbook Album Susan Hensel created for Habitat for Humanity)

About Springboard for the Arts
Springboard for the Arts is an economic and community development organization based in St. Paul and Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Springboard for the Arts’ mission is to cultivate vibrant communities by connecting artists with the skills, information, and services they need to make a living and a life. Our Community Development Program supports, organizes and empowers artists to build reciprocal relationships with their communities, resulting in vibrant, creative, and equitable places.  We believe artists are agents of change and assets to their communities. Learn more at www.springboardforthearts.org/community-development/

About Textile Center
Textile Center, a national center for fiber art, celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 2014. The organization was formed by a group of fiber artists and patrons and incorporated in 1994. Textile Center's facility is a central place for artists, guilds, collectors, youth and adults to gather, meet, study and participate in fiber art exhibition and education programs. It is the only facility in the Midwest that represents all fiber art forms. Fiber art is broadly defined to include a wide range of forms including weaving, quilting, knitting, sewing, dyeing, felting, needlework, lace making, basketry and beading. Textile Center’s mission is to honor textile traditions and promote excellence and innovation in fiber art.