I'm sitting with Jack Becker in the office of Forecast Public Art on University Avenue in Saint Paul. Open umbrellas hover over our heads, suspended from the ceiling and decorated with bold designs by local and national artists. Donated for a fundraiser, they're also a thank-you to Becker and his four-person staff for years of inspiration and support.    
Forecast is, well, an "umbrella" organization that administers foundation grants to artists who want to work in the public realm--and because doing art in the public realm is a complex and ever-changing enterprise these days, Forecast offers other kinds of support too: it advises artists; it publishes Public Art Review, which was the only magazine in the world solely devoted to public art until a modest Japanese competitor showed up last year (full disclosure: I write a column on local public art for the magazine); it houses one of the country's best collection of books on public art; Becker consults on public projects all over the city, state, and country; and he's got big plans for Forecast's web site: ultimately, an online clearing house for projects near and far.

Jon: Public art: it's evolved way beyond bronze sculptures in parks, hasn't it?

Jack: Well, one very cool thing about public art is that it isn't limited by discipline. It can be sculpture, murals, mosaics, but also performance, conceptual work, whatever--as long as it is public in some way. And when communities approach us for help, as they are doing now at an increased pace because of the sales-tax money being made available for art under the recent Legacy Amendment to our state constitution, they often ask a broad question that's very pertinent to public art: not, How can we have a mosaic or more sculpture? But how can we get artists involved in the community? Today public art isn't just what the artist wants to do in public. It's about connecting with community needs and values and offering fresh solutions.

Artists As Problem-Solvers

Jon: Solutions to concrete problems?
 
Jack: Why not? Artists are multi-talented, creative problem-solvers by nature. They're willing to daydream as part of their job description. The agencies and groups that are trying to better the world for all of us need creative thinking, and my philosophy is that artists should be at the table in all of these groups--community development organizations, charities, governmental bodies, corporations, you name it, whether they're working on urban planning, the environment, education�really, name any subject and I think there is probably a role for an artist in it, bringing in poetry, theatre, photography, working with kids, or something else.

Jon: Have public artists been  addressing those kinds of issues in those ways here in the Twin Cities?

Jack: Sure. Education is an example. We know that people learn in different ways, and the arts are one way to give young people access to learning--Juxtaposition Arts in North Minneapolis has been doing that. The Family Housing Fund here has commissioned artists to create works on what home means--to promote their work on low-income housing, of course, but also to get people thinking about housing in ways that they wouldn't otherwise. The University of Minnesota, which has a Public Art on Campus program, commissioned the sculptor Amy Toscani to create this funky-looking molecular structure outside their Bioengineering Building.

Jon: I read that some students argue about whether those sculptures are possible molecules or not.

Jack: That's right. Public art tries to engage you in a conversation.

Legal Graffiti With Light

Jon: What are the major trends in public art in the Twin Cities right now?

Jack: Both locally and nationally, there's a strong emphasis on working with young people. Juxtaposition Arts is a good example, and so is the project at Intermedia Arts called B Girl B--hip-hop arts focusing on young women. Another trend here in Minneapolis and Saint Paul is high-tech, interactive combinations of performance and projection. Minneapolis Art on Wheels, with the artist Ali Momeni, have this generator on a bicycle that allows them to go out and do laser and projection projects at night on any building they choose: perfectly legal temporary graffiti art. And mosaics are coming into their own, because in the last few years the technology for the grouts and the glues has advanced. Now outdoor mosaics can withstand the changes in temperature here in Minnesota.
    
Overall more public artists are going DIY--instead of competing for the big commission from the government agency or the corporation, they're coming up with their own projects, often temporary. And to take some credit, Forecast has helped that trend.
    
Public art is a kind of barometer of the cultural climate, and if you look around the Twin Cities and see all of the things that are going on outside of traditional  venues, you get a sense of the vitality and the diversity of our artistic "ecosystem."

From Mushrooms to an Umbrella

Jon: Jack, Forecast had some pretty modest beginnings, as I recall.

Jack: Yes. It grew out of a one-year federal jobs training program under CETA--the Comprehensive Education and Training Act--in the late Seventies, which paid artists to work half-time in their studios and half-time in the community. I was just out of college, green as could be. I had a desk and a phone at the Minneapolis Arts Commission, right in City Hall, and the title Gallery Director.

Jon: But there was no gallery.

Jack: There was no gallery. My job was to organize exhibits by artists at the library, in parks, in plazas, on buses. I loved it. With nothing but a desk and a phone I could make these connections between artists and public spaces, between institutions and audiences. It was kind of like computer dating.

Jon: Then after that program ended you did start a gallery.

Jack: I came across a vacant space in the Warehouse District. I called up some of my artist friends from the CETA program and for ten months we ran it as the Forecast Gallery. But we soon realized that nearly all the money we were supposedly raising for cool art projects was going to rent!
    
So we started looking for public or semi-public spaces where we could do temporary projects. Our first one was in a vacant storefront on Loring Park. We did an "electric art" show honoring the hundredth anniversary of Edison's light bulb. Big lights on the roof, neon art, and an interactive sculpture that beckoned people in.
    
We realized we could get grants and go project by project, popping up like mushrooms, using empty storefronts and outdoor venues. Pretty soon we were launched as a public-art institution.
    
From mushrooms we grew into this umbrella-like institution to which you can come for support and help with your project. We amassed a database of artists with public-art experience, along with lots of experience and information  of our own on how public art gets done. I know quite a lot--I've made every mistake you can make!
    
People started calling us for help and they still are. "Can you help us find an artist?" "We want to do a plan for our neighborhood streetscape and want art to be part of it. Can you help us?" These days we're also doing workshops and training for artists and creating an online public art tool kit.

Jon: How many organizations like Forecast--nonprofits dedicated to supporting public art--are there across the country?

Jack: Not many. Today there's Creative Time and the Public Art Fund in New York, the Chicago Public Art Group, and a few others. When we started, there was nothing going on!

Jon: What do you like best about your job?

Jack: The fact that I can lift a finger, dial a number, and people get connected and art happens. It's exactly the same thing I loved about that job I had at City Hall in 1978.

Jon Spayde is managing editor of The Line.