Speaker 1 00:00:15 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber. And tonight on right on radio, any Harvey talks with Croda Wilberg about her graphic novel draw, stronger self care for cartoonists and other visual artists, a comprehensive self care guide for artists interested in preventing repetitive stress injuries and sustaining a pain-free lifelong drawing practice.
Speaker 2 00:00:41 And I'm Annie Harvey in the last part of the hour, Liz OLEDs talks with Jamie Schumacher about her book, butterflies and Tom bicycles. The history of the west bank of Minneapolis Schumacher worked closely with community members in Minneapolis to support the burgeoning Northeast arts district. She became the head of the west bank business association in the nineties, and she continues to speak at seminars and workshops, sharing insight about cultural districts, creative leadership, and rough transitions, all of this and more so stay tuned to write on radio
Speaker 3 00:01:12 Three FM and screaming live on the web at KFA I dot board. This is Annie Harvey with right on radio, and I'm here today talking to Creo to Wilberg author of draw stronger, um, which is out now it's a self care and body care book for illustrators and cartoonists. Thank you so much for joining us. Carota
Speaker 4 00:01:31 Oh, my pleasure. I'm so glad to be here. I love to talk about self care.
Speaker 3 00:01:36 They'll need, could you briefly describe the premise of the book and what it does for those who haven't read it yet? Sure.
Speaker 4 00:01:43 So, uh, drug draw a stronger subtitle that says it's a self care guide for cartoonists and visual artists, and that's essentially exactly what it is. The book focuses on injury prevention and physical maintenance for people doing like work on the small scale. Um, but I have to say, you know, although it was created for artists, I also know a number of writers and other people who work on small scale media, who, um, also really rely on the book to just stay comfortable throughout their Workday or their work week. So the book is gaining traction like in different media and it's also, uh, become pretty popular with animation companies. So that's kind of fun. Okay, excellent.
Speaker 3 00:02:31 Yeah. I can also endorse it for people with office jobs. Um, I do a lot of drawing and art outside of work, but I also have a desk job during the day and yeah, I definitely found it useful for that also.
Speaker 4 00:02:44 Well, and you know, another thing is, uh, well, one thing I talk about in the book that I also talk about in workshops when I'm like, you know, giving presentations for different groups is I often talk about, um, work time and playtime because now that, you know, phones and portable di digital devices have become such a part of our recreational play, the postures that we assume when we're working on a small scale are also yes, exactly. Everyone assumed the position. You know what it is, those postures are also the postures that we end up using for rest periods. And that can be very, uh, detrimental, right? Because we're essentially overstretching and imbalancing muscles in a number of joints and our necks or backs, you know, whatever. So, you know, there's the, the principles that we're talking about in terms of like good posture and injury prevention can really be transposed into a number of disciplines and a number of instances. And, um, again, yes, with portable devices, you know, being, becoming constant companions, uh, yeah. It's like things are kind of ramping up that way in terms of, you know, chronic pain, repetitive, repetitive use injuries, things like that. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:04:15 So this is the first graphic novel that gives a how to about personal care that I've ever read. I don't know there might be others, but could you tell me about how you decided to write this and how you research the material to make this project happen?
Speaker 4 00:04:29 Sure. So I've been a massage therapist since 1987. Oh, cool. Um, yeah, and I, my specialty essentially is orthopedic injury and rehabilitation. Um, and you know, I used to work with a number. I used to be a sports massage therapist. I worked with the New York giants, like in the early nineties, I've worked with artists, you know, it's like, I have a very broad experience with, you know, orthopedic injury and rehab and what that means. And I've also studied, um, fitness and like basic exercise prescription. Although we don't teach that I do have a certificate in that. And so that's also been very useful in my practice. So the book is essentially kind of like a standard practice guideline or what injury prevention is. And I do give some resources in, in the back of the book for like, you know, different websites and things you can go to for reliable information on different types of like soft tissue injury.
Speaker 4 00:05:35 But essentially the book is a synopsis of things I've been telling patients to do for like decades, you know? So it was just like, I know what I'm doing. I'm just going to take this out. You know, so it's essentially the conversations I've been having for a long time, but, um, the, the impulse to make the book was about, I guess, in 2012, my spouse and I are SoCore reac. He's also a cartoonist, we were guest faculty at the center for cartoon studies. And, um, I was teaching drawing classes to first year students. And on the very first day, you know, I realized there were a number of students who suddenly were going to be drawing literally like eight hours a day, at least five days a week, you know, and they had not yet done that before. Um, so I was kind of concerned about, uh, concerned about, you know, tendonitis, other types of repetitive stress injuries, and then to compound my fears, um, even though the classroom would have desks, drawing horses and easels in it, some students would still just take their sketchbook and put it on their lap and then like roll themselves into a ball, could like draw on their laps.
Speaker 4 00:07:02 And, um, so I could kind of look around the room and make predictions about who would get injured, where, and what would happen and you know, how Ballou they didn't, it didn't all come true. But lo and behold, there were some, you know, some people were like starting to feel it because, you know, physically their bodies weren't adapted to like that kind of rigorous drawing. So I started teaching a physical warmup in my drawing classes at the beginning of class. Um, I also started to teach a, uh, exercise like a weekly nighttime exercise class where we would do cardiovascular work, strengthening, strengthening, and stretching. And it was essentially done designs specifically for artists. So my students were a real inspiration to me. It was, they were just, they were so great. I, you know, I, it was really a golden time and they were my Guinea pigs.
Speaker 4 00:08:09 So, you know, over the course of the school year, I actually saw like some physical change for the better in some of the students like of color improved. Yeah. It was really, it was really great. Like, and if I didn't show up for a class, for some reason, someone else could like take over and run the warmup, you know, it was like, I was able to kind of like ingrained a sense of, um, a sense of like physical practice as a part of professional practice. Um, and I also looked for, uh, references for them online. I was looking for a conference comprehensive, singular reference with like reliable information that would also kind of like give you the logic or explain like the mechanisms of injury, things like that. And I just couldn't find it. And so there was no book out there, so it was like, okay, I guess I'll just go. And since we were at a, you know, cartooning school, obviously, how else was I going to do it? So I made a series of mini comics. The first mini comic was 60 pages. The second mini comic was like 35 or 40 pages. And then I started on a third one, but ultimately, you know, I talked to, uh, Tom at uncivilized books and then it became 125 page, you know, injury prevention guideline, you know yeah. With a real publisher and everything else. So, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:09:49 Why is it having worked with everyone from the New York giants to cartooning students? Why do you think that it is the art world that doesn't really talk about the body and its needs, discomfort, rest, preventive care, stuff like that kind of get left out of the conversation. Um, why don't you think that conversation is in the art world currently?
Speaker 4 00:10:10 Well, I feel like, and some people are going to disagree. This is only my opinion, but know I've got one. So I'm going to talk about this, you're
Speaker 3 00:10:19 The guest today.
Speaker 4 00:10:20 So I get to say what I think, and this is what I think, you know. Um, so when I, you know, as a part of like American culture and also some European cultures, you know, in the eighties, when I was in my twenties, you know, there was a phrase going around for many different types of things, which is no pain, no gain. Also, historically speaking, you know, artists are expected to suffer for their art and that's going to make them better. Right? So like even though self care is becoming more of a priority for younger generations of artists, there's still like entering a culture where the expectation is that discomfort is a normal part of the creative experience. And for some people, they have this like, idea that the more uncomfortable you are, the better, uh, an artist you are, which fortunately is not true.
Speaker 4 00:11:27 But, you know, there are, there are a lot of ideas like that. And, you know, as a concrete example, a minor example, but yet, uh, as an example of that is, you know, I've seen like cartoon is comparing calluses on their fingers and the ones who have big calluses on their fingers are kind of like, look, look how good look, how hard they work, look at these calluses. And, you know, as a massage therapist, specializing in orthopedic injuries, which also include things like arthritis is, and other chronic things, you know, large calluses indicate to me that someone is gripping their stylists a little too tightly. So yeah, it's, you know, people can be drawing for the same numbers of ALIS hours as the callous person have calluses. If they're like holding their stylists in a more relaxed position, you know? So, so like proof of suffering does not prove your like ability or technique, but it's still, you know, there are still bragging points associated with that kind of thing. And, um, yeah, I'm on a bit of a crusade to disavow that like, you can be, you can be comfortable or actually feel good and still be a genius. It's like, that's, that's what I'm really trying to like, get people to understand and, you know, kind of adopt is there, is there, you know, goal professionally
Speaker 3 00:13:01 And I'm sure that'll benefit them in the long run because then you will have two functional hands for longer or have less spinal paints. You can draw a longer.
Speaker 4 00:13:11 Right. Right. So, you know, like in the 18th century, you know, people, some people thought you had to have tuberculosis to be, oh, genius poet. That's what, that's just not true. You know, essentially we're looking at calluses as the contemporary equivalent of tuberculosis. So thank goodness. It's not as extreme, but still the idea is it's like, no, you don't have to have like these other things going on in order to be a genius, you can still wear the flowing blouse, you know, and like, or a Baret or, you know, whatever you want. You could like put on, you can dress the part any way you want to, but you know, no calluses, no suffering if we can help it. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:13:57 Yeah. So digging in on the pain a little bit, um, so there are a lot of ways you visually depict pain in this book since the comic things are visually depicted and there are wiggly and zigzag lines, you sometimes use color to indicate it. Um, sometimes there are some cartoony depictions. Like I remember there was someone with like a ripped off arm or someone was a big swollen hand. Um, how did you conceptualize, um, illustrations for certain types of invisible pain?
Speaker 4 00:14:28 That's the key, like a lot of pain is invisible. Yeah. Um, a lot of repetitive stress injuries, invisible. So the motivation by altering my line using different colors or like, you know, making literally impossible events happen is to try and draw the body parts from like the patient's perspective, how the body part feels yes. As opposed to how it like objectively looks. Yeah. You know, because again, like people can have, you know, people can have like really debilitating hand wrist or neck pain and their hand wrist or neck will look just fine. You know, the orthopedist can, you know, a doctor can do an examination and find out what's going on, but you know, to your friends and neighbors, you don't look any different than you did before. So the idea was, you know, to, I would literally draw a neck tied in a knot, you know, it's like I do, I draw a swollen hand that looks like a baseball Mitt someone's hand keeps falling off.
Speaker 4 00:15:39 And it's also, um, I got, uh, I got a review. Um, someone, someone mentioned that I used a lot of like dad jokes and they are correct. And I do consider like these visual puns, you know, there's, there's, um, there's one, you know, there's one scene where someone's hand is fallen off, you know, and the doctor, I think, is saying something like are, you know, are you in pain? And the, and the cartoon is the saying, well, my hand doesn't hurt, you know, because it's literally off her body. And when I'm trying to educate people, I like to make like a lot of obvious and kind of silly jokes because humor is a great leveler. And, and so some people will be reading my book and just be like, oh, silly. Croda she, you know, she's not very witty. She's just writing these obvious things. And it's like, yes, I am. So, you know, that puts us, like, I have knowledge of injury and they have knowledge of what the humor should be, and that puts us on equal footing. So like, I, I try not to be clever. I just tried to use really blunt humor because I think it's accessible to more people. And also it kind of rebalances the power shift. So like, I'm not, I'm not lording it over anybody. Like we're in this together kind of thing
Speaker 3 00:17:12 That ties really nicely to the narrator of this book, who is an anthropomorphized jolt of pain, who looks like a little, a little frowning lightning bolt decided to make anthropomorphized pain, the narrator of the book.
Speaker 4 00:17:29 I, I felt like I needed get an order to give some kind of consistency to the, to the narrative because it is, you know, there are a lot of pages with essentially individual isolated bullets of information. And so I felt like I needed a mascot of some sort to like help give us consistency to the whole thing. Yeah. And mascots are great for being the irreverent component. So, you know, the doctor and the people can be doing the right things and then the mascot can be acting out. That's probably got a theatrical name, you know, playwrights do that. But I can't, I don't remember what it's called, you know, because of the qualities of pain, lightning bolts are also very popular. They're more contemporary. And it was like, okay, like everybody will know what this is. Yeah. So I, I just decided to make, you know, pain the mascot and create it as a lightning bolt. Cause people would pretty much immediately get that. Yeah. Get that jolt of pain. Yes. A jolt of pain. Exactly.
Speaker 3 00:18:37 So the illustrations in the book really felt to me like a combination of, uh, Scott McCloud, understanding comics kind of descriptor page, but then also maybe a physical therapy, how to worksheet. Right. How did you, how did you create the visual style for this book and
Speaker 4 00:18:59 Right. Well, I kind of inhabit both worlds. Yeah. You know, professionally, I, you know, it's like, I've worked with a number of physical therapists in the past. I've also seen a number of physical therapists as a patient myself. I'm very familiar with exercise manuals and I've taught anatomy for years and I occasionally do freelance anatomical or medical illustration. So getting that kind of reference together was actually very easy. And almost second nature understanding comics, I think is, you know, something that every aspiring cartoonist reads. And certainly I read that book as well. And I, you know, certainly there's an influence in it. You know, like then I also spent a lot of time at comics festivals, buying mini comics and just sampling the ways people would self publish work that communicates ideas or like educates readers. Yeah. Um, so certainly I kept graphic ideas in mind thinking like Scott, about graphics and how this works.
Speaker 4 00:20:10 A lightning bolt is a nice, simple shape. Also a lot of mini comics don't rely on panels, you know, they'll take their narrative and, you know, like maybe do a page by page illustration without that much text. And it still can sit at a comic book and not like an illustrated text. Yeah. You know, I was, I was really just kind of borrowing from everywhere. So I would use some official sources, including Bob, my spouse ideas about like how, how best to create the visuals. What's going to communicate the most efficiently. Um, but then, you know,
Speaker 3 00:20:52 Have, have your career interests in the physical health and healing space and the illustration realm always overlapped and tied together, or are they time they're times when they felt separate or even oppositional?
Speaker 4 00:21:08 Well, now they're essentially a blended thing, but until my mid forties, I was a dancer and then choreographer. Yes, I know, right. I had a dance company, it was called dura mater. We did concerts. I made dance films, you know, and my day job was as a massage therapist. So if you ever want to spend incredible amounts of money, just get a dance company. If you want to spend more money, start making movies, which I did, I've made dance films. And I had always drawn and I drew as a hobby, but you know, my dance career and my massage therapy career were separate. People would be like, oh, well, dance is all about the body. And massage is all about the body. And that's kind of like telling a chef that, oh, well you serve food on China, on porcelain plates. So, you know, really your work is all about porcelain, but you know, it's like, yeah, there is a small commonality there, but they're not really the same thing.
Speaker 4 00:22:11 So I spent, you know, I spent a long, long time with two separate careers, like my arts career and my massage therapy career. And then in my mid forties, I started to develop a pretty bad hip arthritis. So, um, you know, I got a new hip when I hit my fifties, as many of my friends have also done. Um, so I stopped dancing and I was trying to decide what to do with myself. And I swore that whatever I did, gosh, darn it. It was kinda like it was going to blend. My guy was going to find a creative practice that would like incorporate my interest in health and healing and medicine and the body, everything was going to just focus in the same place. So I ended up going back to grad school and getting an MFA as an interdisciplinary artist. So I could go in with a dance degree and I could like write papers on the intersections of medicine, feminism, and needlepoint from the 17th century to the present day.
Speaker 4 00:23:18 And like, none of my professors would question my interests, you know? And I started like, you know, I started making comics. I began to have an active interest in graphic medicine and graphic medicine was still very budding. It was, it was showing promise, but it was a very budding field. So Ian Williamson started the graphic medicine websites, MK Cheric was working him. And I was thinking, I was kind of like if I start doing graphic medicine now, even if I suck 10 years later, I'll be a little bit better, you know, 15, 20 years, like way in the future, I'll be better. And even if I'm still terrible, as long as I'm making work and I show up for meetings or fast or whatever, then I'll be a pioneer in the field when I'm in my seventies, people will respect me just because I've been doing it for so long, whether it's any good or not.
Speaker 4 00:24:20 So I was like, okay, this is great. I'm, you know, I can combine these areas and it really, you know, it really worked for me and draw stronger. It was my first book and it literally combined my interests. And now I got a book deal with a publisher. I don't want to talk about the project because it hasn't been announced, but it is a big enough project that I was actually able to quit my day job as a massage therapist and Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center. So I literally got to spend the entire shutdown, just drawing pictures and writing, you know, writing a script for a 200 page book that I'm working on the graphic novel book. And it's been very exciting. It was like, why, why was I a dancer? I should have been doing this from the beginning, but that's probably not true because I wouldn't have had the advanced career in massage therapy if I had started it earlier.
Speaker 4 00:25:17 So it all worked out all of this, all of this stuff. It's like, how is this possibly going to come out the other side and be a hireable skill. But, but it just so happens that, you know, the tightest swung so that it's working for me now. So I'm also, I'm the artist in residence, in the master of scholars program of humanistic medicine at NYU Langone. So yay. And I'm working on this graphic medicine book, this 200 page behemoth, which is really exciting. And I really enjoy the challenge of being presented with like two or more ideas that seem to have no common ground and then finding a way to combine them. And I think a lot of humor works that way too. Um, and I like to use a lot of humor in my work. So that's also another reason it works for me, I think.
Speaker 4 00:26:14 Cool. Yeah. Well, that's great. It's been so much fun to talk to you. The thing, the thing that artists need to understand is that their most important drawing instrument is their body. We still don't have the software that will just let you draw a picture with your mind yet. So until that time, you know, like you have to use your body in order to generate, you know, generate your creative practice and generate your art. And so you really need to think like an athlete and train your body to be able to like do these things, you know, when you're younger and you're not feeling any discomfort now, it's like, it's still a good time to be training yourself. So when you get old like me, I'm 58. So when you get to be 58, you're going to be on the verge of a lot of having done, whatever you've been doing for, you know, decades at a time. So it's a good idea to like, you know, already, already have a lifestyle that will like help you just keep pursuing your interests, you know, your creative interests. Absolutely. Well, thanks so much. You are very welcome. You are listening to KFAN.
Speaker 5 00:27:32 This is Liz Olson. I am here with Jamie Shoemaker, uh, author of butterflies and tall bikes, Westbank stories of community creativity and change. Hi Jamie. Hi. Welcome to write on radio.
Speaker 6 00:27:48 Thanks. Thanks for having me. You bet. Why
Speaker 5 00:27:49 Don't we start out with a brief synopsis of what the book is about and then you're reading it, you have for us.
Speaker 6 00:27:56 Sure. So the book is a, um, it's a narrative non-fiction, it's a collection of stories and interviews, and also personal experience with the westbound community. Um, through the past work that I've done here over the past 10 years, um, the interviews are with, uh, folks from the community that have worked here, um, over the past 10 years, some predate the past 10 years, but it's really like a snapshot of the Westbank community and snapshot of the neighborhood
Speaker 5 00:28:23 Go. Okay. Um, and you're reading.
Speaker 6 00:28:26 So I'm going to do a reading, um, from the book. So the book is a mix of interviews and personal narrative and personal experience and a little bit of history mixed in there as well. Um, and it's written vignette style. So there's little digestible chapters in there and mixed in with the interviews throughout the book. Uh, the first reading I'm doing tonight is called sacred spaces, and it's about a very special place on the west bank on Cedar avenue where Daniel Hall wants stud the remains of vacant grassy. Lot. This area across the street from Cedar cultural center is a long rectangle, a conspicuously open and empty space in an otherwise packed neighborhood. It's currently outlined by tall fence in the back, the long white edge of a building on one side, the bace courts apart Wolf on the other side, and a broken gated fence lining the front wind blows freely into the lot, carrying with it, bits of paper and other trash that collect along the edge of the wall and the back fence adorned by the spikes at the very tip top at the front of the space is an obelisk graced by mosaic on all sides.
Speaker 6 00:29:28 It uses pictures to share community stories and values built in 80 18, 86 as a social space for society. Danielle, Danielle Hall became a gathering place for many immigrants in the community, a beautiful tall building with a large theater music hall and its grand main room. It was a vestige of a former time. It withstood the west banks evolution into the Bohemian area era through the sixties and seventies though the sixties and seventies saw the space plagued by infrastructure problems while it remained standing for many years, despite multiple fires, a final extensive blaze in 2000 wiped out, wiped it out completely the neighborhood more than the loss of his beautiful communing space and commemorate a Daniel with posters, the obelisk, and a promise to make positive community use of the location for anything that comes next. When talk of what should happen with Dana, it comes up. It seems like the collective goosebumps rise for the community and the hair on the backs of everyone's neck stands on it.
Speaker 6 00:30:21 When one business owner pitched the idea of turning into a parking lot, they were met with the protest complete with picket signs, a solution very nearly arrived around 2012. When a local developer began work in another part of the neighborhood. I historic tied house stood in the way of its new construction plans. A tight house refers to a saloon that was tied to a particular beer company only serving that company's beer. Often the interior from the tin ceilings to the tiles would have a consistent design. The concept was used rollers to move the tide building to the Daniel Hall, lot making use of the space and keeping the historic building in the neighborhood. The developer would sell it to a local nonprofit for a nominal fee and the building would just have to be moved. A panel held off the bulldozing lawn enough for the nonprofit in mind to do the math on the purchase of the lot and transport of the building, the cost just shy of half a million dollars, not including any interior pair once moved.
Speaker 6 00:31:13 None of the local ed organization could swing it in the end of the building was raised. What are the spaces you love? Have they been there for some time or are they new? What makes them homey to you or comfortable like a family settling into a home and breathing life into the space? I think buildings retain a palpable energy when they've been occupied by so many people over years and years, our buildings happier when their space is used, when building is empty, does it sit like a worried parent waiting for its children to return? And when we tear a building to the ground to make way for another space, even when that arguably makes better use of location, what of that building's energy? Does it dissipate into the air as the demolition occurs or does it settle into the ground where it wants to it? And if people make a place, what energy do they bring and leave as they interact with the environment around them? Daniel Hall was a sacred space for the community and a space for comfort and comradery. What will go in its place is still to be determined, but it should certainly be something special.
Speaker 5 00:32:09 And that is, uh, Jamie Shoemaker was a greeting from butterflies and tall bikes. Um, what inspired you to write this particular book?
Speaker 6 00:32:21 I think I think of it as a love letter to the community. And so I think it's inspired by the people that I got the opportunity to work with in this neighborhood that welcomed me and that I got to work with for so many years. Um, and then there's that fine line between passion and obsession. Whereas you get this creative idea in your head and you want to do this thing and it's like, there's no choice. It's like, I think I have to write this book. So there's a little bit of all that mixed in.
Speaker 5 00:32:48 And who do you want your audience to be west bankers or everybody?
Speaker 6 00:32:53 I think a little bit of both. I think that I hope that it was written in a way that's very accessible and that people from any place that, you know, love their neighborhood can find something in. Um, but it's definitely, you know, what written with my friends in mind, uh, written to represent and have other voices in. I was really deliberate with the interview process. It was an iterative interview process. They got to review their interview, review the full text to make sure it was a part of, they were a part of a story that they wanted to be a part of. Um, so that was really important to me. So I think it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 5 00:33:25 Um, what I thought I would do. You asked many questions to your interviewees and I thought that, uh, tonight I might ask you the questions that you asked your interview and turn the tables have turned my God. Uh, and I know some of this, but, uh, and we've already talked a little bit about it, but, uh, talk some more about your connection to the west bank, uh, uh WBBA and so on. Okay.
Speaker 6 00:33:55 Yeah. So that was, you know, I, I should say that the Westbank business associations where I worked for 10 years, but my connection to the west bank predates that by a long time, I moved here, um, from Southern California in 2003 and the west bank was actually one of the places I visited before moving. Um, once I moved here, you know, the west bank is where I would hang out after shows it would, where I would go to see shows. And it's where I'd go to breakfast at triple rock. You know, I I'd go bouldering at Midwest. And then when I went to, um, back to school to finish at the U, I would study at hard times and I would eat on the west bank. And so there's so many aspects of my life that are fundamentally stitched into the west bank that it's hard to pick any one thing. It just kind of, it is a part of my Minneapolis, Minnesota home.
Speaker 5 00:34:38 Uh, what do you feel like the important changes have been over the years? The Westbank, a big and little and important whether they're bigger little?
Speaker 6 00:34:48 Yeah. I mean, there's, there's been so many changes. I think that, you know, there's some, I think positive changes and that we've, you know, the community has worked to make it more pedestrian friendly, make the sidewalks accessible, put in, bump-outs put in some safety crosswalks. So, uh, you know, get the bike lanes ready. So that's been really important in a positive change. I think something that resonates with me as one of the sadder changes is just the loss of venue space, um, throughout the twin cities, but especially on the west bank losing so many iconic venues that were really fundamental to the twin cities music scene, I think is a big loss just for the state.
Speaker 5 00:35:26 Yes, yes. I would agree with that. Um, I have a friend suggest that I asked you this question. She said, she's actually, uh, a programmer here at KPI. She suggested that we think about all the different immigrant communities that have lived in the west bank. And there've been many, there've been many over the years and sort of think of them all being at a dinner table together and, you know, what would their conversation be like? What would the food be like? What, what kinds of things would they share or have be different in terms of their lives here on the west bank?
Speaker 6 00:36:06 The food would be great. So it'd be a really amazing dinner. Um, you know, that makes me think of the multicultural dinner that they do at Brian Coyle, where they really like to have lots of different parts of the neighborhood represented. Um, but I think if you had folks from all those different areas, I, I mean, I wasn't obviously here, like in, when it was like snooze Boulevard, but, um, most of the neighborhood was very welcoming. It was the immigrant community, it was a Bohemian community. And, um, that's what I heard from the interviewer. Uh, the people I interviewed over and over is that, you know, if some of the folks that worked here in the eighties, nineties, the arts, it was just a welcoming community and it was very diverse in terms of age and, uh, you know, ethnicity and religion. And it was, it was a rarity that people did not feel welcomed in the neighborhood. And I think the dinner would hopefully have a lot of that, you know, vibrant conversation, political fighting, but with love and a boisterous conversation, but one that was like really just about community and about people coming together. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:37:10 Yes, KFA while I was being here. Um, parking questionable. Yes. But, uh, it, uh, uh, we feel like we're a part of the neighborhood and people seem to, um, resonate with us. Absolutely. Um, you've been here several times, right. You've worked with bihi slump from Somali link, right?
Speaker 6 00:37:31 Yeah. And be, he was great. Anytime we do a neighborhood cleanup, he would try to promote it. I mean, he was great with, about getting the moms to come out and help with cleanups too. And we'd timed cleanups for after, um, you know, after services on Friday after prayers. Um, and then the mom would come out and get people to help with the cleanups. He was just very engaging throughout that he would, you know, use KPI to help those community events and activities and just get the word out about them,
Speaker 5 00:37:55 Something about the festivals, it's Palm Fest and there's other, they used to be a theater festival and a lot of them have gone away now, but it was certainly vibrant for many, many years.
Speaker 6 00:38:08 Yeah. So Cedar Fest was before my time. I think it might've been before my time of being allowed to go to festivals. Uh, we had, it was definitely before my time in Minnesota, but Westbank festival, Palm Fest, things like that. And Palm Fest is still, I think in a COVID safe iteration, that's still happening. Uh, but Westbank music festival, you know, when they started it, it was with that Cedar Fest mentality in mind is like this community celebration. But I think what you saw shifting when you saw the, a lot more festivals happening over the years and where they used to be kind of, fewer of them you'd have weekends over the summer where there's three or four different festivals across different neighborhoods. So there's that volume aspect, but then it also got so much more expensive to run a festival, the street closures, um, you, uh, up until last year, if you're going to do a festival, you had to hire off duty for security security. Otherwise you couldn't get a block event permit. Um, and that shifted the policy shifted with the city of Minneapolis, but that was the biggest thing for our Westbank music festival was the huge, huge cost of putting on an event like that.
Speaker 5 00:39:12 And what kind of things do you feel have remained the same? Like you say, how long you you've sort of been a 15. Yeah, but, uh, uh, w what has remained the same over time? I know the welcoming nature has remained the same, but what other things are remaining the same?
Speaker 6 00:39:30 I think I still see that community pride, like people wanting to be here. I'm small business owners are people wanting to start entrepreneurial that entrepreneurial spirit of people wanting to come to the west bank start a business. I know that there there's folks trying to find retail space. They really want to have a storefront on the west bank. And that neighborhood pride, I think there's, that still continues. And the immigrant spirit, I think it continues to be an immigrant great way. And that's really important for the fabric of the neighborhood.
Speaker 5 00:39:58 Um, it was a question I was going to ask him, went right out of my head. So I'll look on my list. Oh, gentrification. That's what I wanted to ask about what is going on with gentrification in the west bank? Is it ruining the neighborhood? Is it kind of bringing good stuff's in the neighborhood, but how's it working for us here?
Speaker 6 00:40:17 Um, yeah, I think that's an interesting question. And it's like, you know, is gentrification, it's a pretty loaded term. And I think people think of it different ways, but, uh, that's something that we were working on with a business association is like, for us, it was, uh, the aspect of it we concentrated on was the displacement factor for small businesses and where, um, we worked with less, less of the resident side though. We were pretty connected to the resident organization. Um, so for us, we really focused on, you know, the side that affects businesses who want to stay in the neighborhood and they were priced out. We didn't see that as much. Um, we saw a couple of businesses that lost their space due to some transitional ownership. Um, but I don't know that we've hit the, like, it's more expensive, but that a lot of the businesses that closed it, wasn't the cost of rent.
Speaker 6 00:41:06 Some of them were owner occupied spaces. So what was other, you know, retirement or just life changes that caused that? So I couldn't definitively say, like, just looking at the figures that gentrification has been, why we've seen that business over. I think that's just the chain, the change in nature of the community where I start to see things. Um, I dunno if I want to say worrisome, but, uh, where I think there needs to be a dedicated source for, um, businesses and residents that want to stay or retain ownership in the neighborhood. Um, I think that's where, when we see new developments coming in, uh, and we start losing that space or the prices start going up Westbank. Um, I can't, I don't remember the actual statistic it's in the book. Um, but it skews rental for both property, uh, business owners and for residents.
Speaker 6 00:41:54 And it's like, if it's some obscene figure higher than the national average of rental, it's like, I want to say it's like 90, 95% rental. So when that's, uh, that I think puts residents in really vulnerable when you have elders who want to age in place and stay where they can walk to their mosque and walk to their grocery store, that's where we start worrying about gentrification and how it affects people's quality of life and their lack of they'd like, it becomes out of their control to be able to stay or a business owner that wants to stay in the neighborhood. They've built up their audience there, but they don't have an opportunity to own the building that they're in and they could just not afford the rent increases and they could be priced out. That's where I start worrying about gentrification and the impact that can have on a neighborhood that is still fiercely local. And like over 95% of the businesses are independent.
Speaker 5 00:42:42 Yeah. We don't have the, uh, the big box stores yet. We hope. Yeah. We hope we don't. Um, how about, uh, talk that we've talked some about this, but talk a little bit more about the nightlife and the venues that we still have and the venues that have gone away and, and what people are doing here with music, especially, there's still like the Cedar cultural center. There's still venues for music. Amazing kind of, uh, some international music and, and, uh, uh, some folk type music. Uh, it's still kind of here. I mean, we used to have the coffee house extemporaneous. That's no longer with us, but, uh, talk to them about, but about the nightlife and what's going on with music and the venues,
Speaker 6 00:43:30 I, that's still a big part of the neighborhood. And you mentioned Cedar cultural center, and that's something that it's hard to find anywhere. Like you've got this great, great cultural cornerstone in the neighborhood that, um, I think needs to be supported now more than ever with COVID and like all the restrictions. And that just, it's been really hard for local venues. Um, and I think that, you know, Palmer's is still doing live music and they've been really trying to do it in a way that's really safe for the musicians that are coming to play the guests that want to see it. And, you know, they want to stay in support local music. They want to stay open. So it's, uh, with all the complications COVID has brought to venues that you've got two really great venues here that are doing so much for local music that, you know, it's really important to support them right now and go out and see shows and support the musicians as well.
Speaker 6 00:44:14 Um, something I thought was interesting that came up in the interviews is like, we talk about nightlife and we think about like bars and music. Uh, but there's the restaurant nightlife here as well. And, um, my friend, Abdu, who I interviewed, he talked about how he would come here for late night food, late night community. And even when he would go back to Africa, that's not something that he would necessarily have access to, but here on the west bank, he could go and get a meal middle of the night and be with community. And the nightlife is that's part of nightlife as well. Hard times is part of that as well. Being able to go sit, read a book, have coffee in the middle of the night and find your community space. It doesn't necessarily have to be about drinking. It's just the community
Speaker 5 00:44:51 I talk about. Um, what do you think, uh, you mentioned COVID and the venues and I'm thinking was winter coming on. Thanks. You're going to change again, uh, in terms of how we're gonna have. I mean, I know a lot of people do the music and outdoor spaces, and I'm wondering how that's all going to change with the winter coming on.
Speaker 6 00:45:14 I think that, um, Palmers and Cedar, and a lot of, you know, even first out there, the venues are trying to be really responsible even before it was going into winter. They're doing the COVID testing, they're, um, you know, requesting masks inside and they're really trying to be responsible and pretty safe about, um, those experiences. And I think that that'll continue into the winter. Um, I know people are starting to get their boosters and stuff now, and bands are being really careful as well. You know, they have one case of COVID. Uh, I think Dave Seminole was talking about this too. He was getting some flack for their COVID safety procedures and he's like, look like we want to do live music. We want to keep bringing music to you. But you know, if one of our crew members gets sick, that's it, the tour is over. Like, we don't be mad that we're putting these things in place. We're doing this so we can keep playing music. And I think that's, you know, that's, that's what it is.
Speaker 5 00:46:03 You asked people what their west bank story was. What's your west bank story?
Speaker 6 00:46:08 Um, I think a lot of them are in here. Um, a lot of them are in here and, uh, you know, if it got some ghost stories in there, um, I think something for me is just, you know, my kids grew up here. Like I, I got to bring my daughters with me to work and I have all these memories of like going up and doing business outreach with my babies on a carrier. And, you know, they would, you know, once they got old enough to go into daycares and stuff, uh, the businesses would ask like, you didn't bring the baby. And I think they were more excited to see my kids than me, and that's fine. Uh, but I think that's probably just, I there's all these great memories there's memories before I had kids are going to see shows and, you know, dancing on broken glass at the triple rock from people's like Bob bottles that had been crashing all those great memories too, but just that there's something formative and foundational that'll, that's just like going to be seared into my brain about this is part of where my babies had their formative memories and they're imprinted here.
Speaker 6 00:47:11 And so this is always going to be a big part of their childhood.
Speaker 5 00:47:13 Yeah. I was really touched by the short, uh, story about you and your daughter eating fried rice together. Yeah. Yeah. It was me with my mother. It was French fries and ketchup.
Speaker 6 00:47:28 She likes us do. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:47:29 Oh, well, okay. I was going to say she's pretty healthy fried rice. That's what she likes. So what do you think is next for the west bank? Where, where, where are we going?
Speaker 6 00:47:39 I mean, this is a great question, especially with COVID and the shift. Um, one thing that I'm working on that I've been really excited about is, uh, so part of my new role is working with the cultural districts and, um, that's, the city of Minneapolis has been rolling out an official policy for cultural districts, but I think getting some support for the aspect of the west bank, I think that's kind of fragile is, you know, the small businesses here are the cultural, um, cornerstone businesses here and having some infrastructure in place, um, and hopefully maybe getting some funding. So places like Cedar cultural could maybe get an infusion to help with their building and, you know, places like KFA can be a part of the community culture. I'm kind of excited about that. That's definitely speaking to my bias and in my line of work, but that's, that's part of what draws me to that is just making sure you asked about gentrification earlier.
Speaker 6 00:48:28 And I think you see that throughout history and all these creative cultural districts where, you know, the artists will come in, you know, or the, um, cultural district come in and make it cool. And then it becomes trendy and expensive and there'll be, can afford to live there or work there anymore, or have their business there. My hope is that if we roll out this cultural districts policy and do this right, that we can help preserve what makes the cultural aspect of the Westbank awesome. And get some funding and support to help with the things that otherwise are gonna, you know, dwindle. And like, I think of things like we've got the facade grant from the city of Minneapolis where we can do frontage of buildings. It's like, yeah, but if they need the bathroom redone, or if they, if the roof is crumbling, like the facade, isn't gonna do much of the, the building until hopefully this will find us ways to, um, ways to infuse funding and support into that.
Speaker 5 00:49:17 Yeah. And a lot of the buildings are aging. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, we're coming close to the end here. I'm wondering what you're going to be writing next and what's next for you. And even in terms of your, your life and your business work life and writing life,
Speaker 6 00:49:34 Um, I've got a project that I've been actually starting to interview for, um, and tentatively working on, which is really focusing on that cultural aspect. It's tentatively titled on culture, but I'd been, um, interviewing and speaking with other leaders in the community and other friends of the community that, uh, work in as culture bearers and, um, folks like me or immigrant families like mine, how they have worked to preserve aspects of their family culture, um, how they have been supported in community and doing that. I'm just really curious about how people have been able to, um, kind of PR prevent or stop that assimilation. Or if that assimilation is already happening, how they've been able to reclaim their culture in ways that are really important to them. Um, so I don't know what that's going to wind up looking like it might turn into another book, but that's what I've been interviewing and really kind of digging into recently.
Speaker 5 00:50:21 One last quick question. When was the last time you saw a tall bike?
Speaker 6 00:50:25 I got just the other day. I got to go to the bare bones, um, day of the dead, um, festival <inaudible> festival. And I got to see lots of tall bikes and puppets, and it was beautiful. It made me miss Mayday all the more. Um, but I got to see one very recently.
Speaker 5 00:50:41 Cool. Well, we've been speaking with Jamie Shoemaker, author of butterflies and tall bikes, Westbank stories of community creativity and change. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful interview. I really
Speaker 6 00:50:55 Enjoyed this.
Speaker 5 00:50:56 Thank you. And now this
Speaker 1 00:51:18 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber. I'd like to thank our special guests tonight. Croda Wilberg and Jamie Schumacher. Plus our listeners without your support and donations KFI would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at cafe.org/right on radio. Plus listened to recent episodes on a recently launched podcast, found on Spotify, iTunes, Google podcast, and anywhere podcasts can be found. Now stay tuned to <inaudible> Minnesota.
