A Tale of Two Parks

Most likely, you’ve been to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, adjacent to the Walker Art Center. Even if you haven’t, odds are you’re familiar with Spoonbridge and Cherry, which sits smack in the middle of the space. Chances are just as good you haven’t been to Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, just outside the idyllic river town of Taylors Falls, or to Caponi Art Park in Eagan.

Though fundamentally similar to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden—all three green spaces embrace the role of art as a creator and a feeder of community—Franconia and Caponi are very different from their city cousin and from one another. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden functions as an outdoor gallery in which the vegetation creates open-air rooms. In contrast, Franconia and Caponi are integrated into the landscape in such a way that you are pulled into the environment—and into the creative process. Franconia and Caponi have their own distinctive feel, but both provide a compelling reason to leave the city for an afternoon. So, what are you waiting for?

Anyone who’s ever dreamed of an art utopia might think they’ve arrived when they step out of their car and into the alternate universe that is Franconia. It’s the sort of place that exchanges pretense for free-spiritedness, as evidenced by the park’s blue crane that’s emblazoned with the phrase “Makin’ art and breakin’ hearts.”

John Hock, Franconia’s artistic director, is the hub around which swirls a rotating landscape of resident artists, sculptures, and curious onlookers who stop by the park every day of the year. Hock spends part or all of every day at Franconia, chatting with visitors and working with the artists-in-residence to physically shape the park. His near boundless energy always keeps him moving onto the next thing, whether it’s looking for an artist bio, asking his assistant a question, answering his cell phone, or lighting up a cigarette.

Originally from Washington, D.C., Hock came to the Twin Cities in the early nineties after working in New York City. Like many midcareer artists, he was looking for a supportive environment in which to make art. In 1996, Hock, with friends Fuller Cowles and Tasha McNutt (who eventually married Hock), leased a sixteen-acre plot of land in Shafer and wound up developing just such an environment. Initially, the focus of Franconia was on creating a place for artists to work, but it has evolved into a place for sharing the experience of creativity and the process of art-making with others. “I believe we’re here 75 percent for the community,” says Hock. “I hope we provide a broader experience not just in the arts, but in whatever humanistic thing we’re portraying here.”

Franconia is constantly evolving physically too. It is a collaborative environment where emerging and midcareer artists from around the region and beyond can work in residence for as short as three weeks and as long as three months. Experimentation is the rule rather than the exception. Not only do the sculptures change throughout the season as new work is completed—thirty-five of the seventy or so pieces on display at any one time rotate out—but the whole operation is moving this fall to a larger, twenty-acre location nearby, with the plan of expanding an additional forty acres over the next five years. “What we’re trying to do is give as many artists as possible an opportunity to make new work,” says Hock.