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We looked down the garden path, and there it was — "Spoonbridge and Cherry," the iconic sculpture by the husband-wife team Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
I had seen the massive fountain sculpture reproduced so many times on postcards, Flikr and the covers of promotional brochures that some of the wow factor had worn off. But the reaction of my preschool-age daughter restored its punch.
"I love cherries!" she yelled as she ran down the path toward a grassy expanse where the cherry loomed out of a duck pond in front of the Minneapolis skyline. She stared up at the mist spraying from the tip of the huge black stem.
"I think it's smoke," she finally pronounced. "If it was raining over there, it would be raining over here, too."
With its tree-lined walkways and more than 40 sculptures, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a great place to explore with children. They can yell and run and even climb (on certain sculptures) and do all those things that would draw withering looks and worse from docents in an art museum.
My daughter and I decided to focus our wanderings by picking up one of the family activity bags revamped last summer in honor of the garden's 20th anniversary. You can find a WAC Garden Pack in the lobby of Walker Art Center. (Just ask for the red tote bag at the desk.) The activities are designed for kids ages 5 and older, but my nearly 4-year-old daughter was able to do many of them with help.
We started our
The game required us to slow down and look at sculptures we might otherwise have walked past without a second glance.
For instance, consider "Ampersand" by Martin Puryear, two cone-shaped columns that flank the main garden entrance. We studied the magnetic discs with their different images. Is there a reason Puryear's sculpture would be associated with a bundle of sticks? A factory smokestack? A pencil? Why, they do look like pencils! They look like someone stuck a huge block of granite into a pencil sharpener and shaved it into a smooth point, which is basically what Puryear did, except he used a large machine lathe.
We wandered into the glass Cowles Conservatory, where we found Frank Gehry's 22-foot glass fish rearing out of a lily pond. We matched it with the disc showing a fishhook. Then, my daughter begged for coins to toss into the water.
When my wallet was empty, she said, "Let's
WHERE PRINCESSES PLAY
I found the sculptures formed a backdrop for imaginative play, much richer than the slides and monkey bars at our local playground.
My daughter pretended "X With Columns" by Sol LeWitt was a castle. A preschool-age boy was climbing in the window openings of its cinderblock walls, and my daughter begged me to lift her up, too.
"I'm the princess standing on the window ledge! Now, I'm jumping down onto the back of a bird," she said as she jumped to the grass. "... and now I'm floating away."
A giant bronze horse sculpture by Deborah Butterfield became the princess' steed.
"I'm going to feed my horse," my daughter said, as she scooped handfuls of gravel and leaves from the path.
Next to the horse, we found a bench designed by Minneapolis artist Kinji Akagawa. It's a lovely, understated piece made from a slab of cedar, boulders and a polished granite cube.
The Walker Web site says the materials are combined to create "an elegant whole that invites us to rest, read and reflect." But that description must refer to grown-ups. The pleasing blend of materials induced my daughter to jump off it, while I rested and reflected across the walkway on an ordinary bench splattered in bird poop.
WHERE PUBLIC IS WELCOME
The last time I had been to the sculpture garden was nearly two decades ago, and I was surprised by what a different experience it is now that the garden itself has matured.
Linden trees have branched out to shade the walkways, and the once small hedges of arborvitae have risen into dense walls that enclose separate outdoor rooms.
We ducked into one of these roofless enclosures and discovered "The Living Series" by Jenny Holzer, seven stone benches arranged in a square. Each bench was inscribed with a provocative message, such as: "It takes a while before you can step over inert bodies and go ahead with what you were trying to do."
My daughter can't read, but she still had a good time making rubbings of words by placing a sheet of paper over the letters and rubbing them with a piece of red graphite.
At the end of our tour, we stopped by the garden's most recent addition, a small wood and steel house set on a wrap-around deck. The one-room Flat Pak was designed by Minneapolis architect Charlie Lazor and was on display at the Walker in 2005 as part of an exhibit on prefab houses.
Last year, it was retrofitted as a visitor and education area and installed in the garden. It's open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
We sat down on the deck of the house and took in the scene. There were mothers and toddlers breaking out snacks under the trees, herds of summer camp kids in matching T-shirts, downtown workers strolling on their lunch break, teenagers sprawling on benches.
It's impossible to imagine the blank playing fields that occupied the space in the early 1980s. I'd say Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Parks fulfilled their dream of creating a true garden for the public.
THE SCOOP
What: Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Where: 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis
Information: 612-375-7600 or garden.walkerart.org
Hours: Garden open 6 a.m. to midnight daily. Garden conservatory open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Cost: Free
Target audience: People who want to climb on art
Crowd pleaser: Making three tons of steel sway when you swing on Mark di Suvero's "Arikidea" sculpture
Avoid: Trying to cram it all into one visit.
Tip: Focus your exploration with a WAC Garden Pack family activity bag (pick one up at Walker Art Center's front desk, which is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and extended to 9 p.m. on Thursday).
Special events: Superheroes are the theme for Walker Art Center's next Free First Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. this coming Saturdayin the Sculpture Garden. The Walker offers free garden tours appropriate for older children at 2 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
