The PASPider Made Her Debut
on Saturday, July 25
in Saint Paul’s Western Sculpture Park
Eek! They came to see the PASPider hatch in Saint Paul’s Western Sculpture Park . Public Art Saint Paul’s mobile art center that is also a kinetic sculpture made her debut and cast a web for artmaking! Saint Paul City Councilmember Melvin Carter presided over the debut, joining PASPider’s creator Christopher Lutter-Gardella and a young neighborhood resident in tossing the first fly into the art web!
“This is so much fun,” exclaimed Carter. “Public art is so important to our city and we are doing everything we can to light imaginations and encourage creativity. On days like these, we are all artists!”
Proving Carter’s point, artist Kathleen Matamalaki and storyteller Josette Antomarchi led a public art workshop for kids and families, making recycled bug artworks and spinning tales throughout the park.
The PASPider will appear throughout the rest of the summer in Western Sculpture Park, crawling in on select Tuesdays and Saturdays from 12:30 – 4:30. Preliminary Public Art Workshops held in June and July under a traditional tent drew large and lively crowds of young artists.
PASPider promotes sustainable art making: all art-making materials are environmentally friendly, organic or collected from the waste-stream. Each 4-hour workshop consists of interactive art making activities with professional teaching artists from the Saint Paul area. The workshop content and medium vary each Art Day: bridge and cardboard yurt construction, pot decorating and planting, metal stamping and, of course, spider marionettes!
The workshops are free and open to children and families. Special efforts are made to serve children of the Western Sculpture Park neighborhood just west of the State Capitol, on Marion Street between I-94 and University Avenue.
Photos by Andy KingThe PASPider is made possible with generous support of the Elmer and Eleanor Andersen Foundation, the Constance Otis Fund of the Saint Paul Foundation, the R. C. Lilly Foundation, the Sage Cleveland Foundation, contributors to Public Art Saint Paul’s 20th Anniversary Fund, and Scamp Trailers.
Western Sculpture Park is located on the west side of Marion Street, between I-94 and University Avenue.
