Once upon a time, in the Willard-Hay neighborhood of North Minneapolis, there were grand and beautiful mansions owned by the captains of finance and industry. These mansions, stately and proud, sat upon a hill overlooking the more modest, yet still impressive two-story homes.
Once upon a time, the people who lived in these homes felt that they had a duty to the artists of the world, and became patrons. They augmented an artist’s WPA commission, or teaching job, by purchasing numerous paintings and etchings, sketches and scribbles, or hiring the artists to decorate the home in any number of inventive ways, from designing a bar fit for a four-star hotel or designing a bas relief for the basement walls. If they grew close to the artists, then probably they hosted parties and fed them at grand dinners.
Times change, as they always do. The industries that supported these highbrows became antiquated or simply went out of business. Some thrive to this day, but the neighborhood has ceased to become attractive to the very rich. These towering homes are falling apart, the plaster on their ceilings tearing apart, the concrete crumbling, the glaze on the windows falling away to allow cold drafts to shoot across empty rooms.
As for the artists, they have fallen into obscurity, their work vanishing into the dim memories of the old, leaving the children gaping at their parents’ and grandparents’ collections as they wonder to themselves, “Who drew these strange rabbit people?” Continue reading
