Editor’s Note: A version of this story originally appeared in Saint Paul By Bike on September 23, 2024, and is reprinted with permission.
July 1, 2024
Macalester-Groveland, Summit University, Downtown,
15.6 Miles
In 1967, urban renewal threatened the one-time Federal Courts Building at 5th and Market streets. In disrepair, the Richardsonian Romanesque-style edifice faced the same fate as many other “outdated” or underused buildings around Downtown-demolition.
Upon completion in 1902, the building housed space for the Federal Courts, Postal Service, and other governmental agencies, but by the late 1960’s, little besides a post office remained inside. However, Mayor Thomas Byrne and some preservation-minded folks realized how devastating the loss of the building would be, so they mounted a furious campaign to save it. That effort got the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the “Old Federal Courts Building” in 1969. An elaborate renovation took years—fundraising for the arduous restoration and construction were slow—but was finally completed in 1982.
Today, a mix of nonprofit organizations and small for-profit businesses occupy the spaces that, decades ago, were courtrooms and government offices. Among the assorted tenants is The Gallery of Wood Art, a tucked away, overlooked treasure of a museum.
The Gallery of Wood Art is a part of the American Association of Woodturners, or AAW, a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing woodturning through education. The gallery and AAW share space on the second floor of Landmark Center.
Tib Shaw is the curator of The Gallery of Wood Art and also Arts Administrator for the Association. She added, with a laugh, “I also dust, and not very well.” Tib possesses a dignified enthusiasm and pride for the AAW and the Gallery of Wood Art, as well as extensive knowledge of the organization and woodturning.
Photos by author.
After touring the museum, I can tell you her admiration for this local treasure is justifiable. The exhibits appeal to people with far-reaching interests, from the obvious —wood workers, turners and other artists— to the not so obvious —lovers of history, science, biology, math and tinkerers—. Not only that, the Gallery is free (although donations are very gladly accepted). Finally, the gift shop features a unique collection of hand-turned works.
Tib has worked for the AAW since 2006. She spotted a newspaper want ad for a person with data entry and desktop publishing experience. At the time she was caring for a family member and knew desktop publishing, so she applied for the job “I just needed something where I could walk in and walk out and not too many hours a week. It seemed ideal.”
She accepted the position. “The Gallery at that point was kind of beige-colored and all of the signs were done with Microsoft WordArt and all of the pedestals were lined up like little soldiers.” In other words, Tib recognized some obvious ways to improve the gallery.
Tib gradually tackled improvements, asking the director if she could redo signs and rearrange pedestals. Through this deliberate, measured approach to improving the museum she effectively worked herself into a full time job. “Because things kept looking better and better and working better, [the then-director] trusted me to do more and it became a full-time position.”
The AAW’s journey to Landmark Center in Saint Paul was, to borrow a line from The Beatles, a long and winding road. It began in 1986 at the Arrowmont School of Arts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee when some woodturners got together to create an organization to share ideas and support the art of turning. Tib described its fledgling years as “a kitchen table organization,” meaning it was so small it operated from someone’s home. The AAW shuttled from Tennessee to Texas, and then to long-time woodturner Mary Lacer’s kitchen table in River Falls, Wis. There, its membership grew enough to necessitate an office, which landed in Shoreview, Minnesota. Finally, the traveling days of the AAW ended in Saint Paul at Landmark Center.
The AAW’s 13,000 members live on every continent but Antarctica, though most are from the U.S. and Canada. It is among the largest single-craft organizations in the world with more than 450 chapters. Like most organizations, the AAW is actively trying to expand its appeal. Younger turners, those who are women and people of color are featured regularly in American Woodturner. A women’s mentoring and awareness program is part of a recruiting push.
Early in my visit to the Gallery of Wood Art, I used the expression “woodworking” in reference to the craft. Tib quickly, but politely, corrected me, explaining that “woodturning” is the proper term. Turns out I was in good company as Tib admitted that she was unacquainted with the distinction when she was hired. “It wasn’t a term that was familiar to me. So I actually came in not really knowing what woodturning was. Because it’s a subset of woodworking that has a very distinct set of rules and skills, it’s very, very different than flat work. And so that’s why there’s an association just for turning.”
Woodturning, Tib explained, shares characteristics with throwing pots, but instead of a wheel, turners use a swiftly spinning lathe and shaving or cutting tools, usually made of metal. “The tool is an extension of your hand, basically. It’s not something you’re moving wood towards. Every turn of your hand, every adjustment of your tool changes the shape of what you’re doing, and you are working with wood in all of its dimensions.”
“Turning can be more improvisational. It can be much harder to master,” added Tib. “All good woodworkers understand wood properties and how it shrinks and expands and shifts. For turners, they have to think about that in a 360 degree way because what they’re creating is round.”
I was absolutely floored to learn that woodturning is at least 3,000 years old and perhaps older! Tib led me to the back room where a timeline lays out the history of woodturning. She explained, “This is 320 BCE. We know that there are items much older than that that were turned, and how you can tell is by the tool marks, whether the object’s completely symmetrical. So here, 1200 BCE, is an object that we know was turned by the tool marks. And there’s archeological evidence of turned pieces from before that.”
I had assumed, wrongly it turned out, that woodturning had always been an artistic expression. “Woodturning has been beautiful forever,” said Tib. “People have made decorated objects that are extraordinary. They just generally still had a function.”
Woodturning began the transformation away from the practical and toward the artistic in the 1930s. “That had a lot to do with not needing functional woodturning so much. Things that used to be produced in the hundreds of thousands, millions, no longer needed to be made out of wood,” Tib pointed out.
A good example, she said, are bobbins that were used in textile mills. First made of wood, bobbins held yarn and thread that were mechanically stitched into cloth. Cardboard replaced wood and later, plastic did the same to cardboard.
In the pursuit of their art, many turners pushed the capabilities of the lathe, while some changed them altogether. “They came up with new techniques or they used old techniques to do new things. And that’s part of the excitement is you give an artist limitations, they’re going to figure out how to overcome them.”
The Gallery of Wood Art draws 7,000 or so visitors every year. They come from many places, including schools, river cruise ships, guests staying at the St. Paul Hotel, even people who stumble across the gallery while wandering around Landmark Center (which is how I found it.) “We get people who are interested in the lathe, interested in the history, interested in wood, people interested in art and also just folks who are curious. So it’s a really, really wide range of people.”
Tib educates visitors about conservation of endangered tree species, in part because she often gets questions about woodturners’ use of precious or endangered varieties of wood. “We could do a lot of turning before we made any dent compared to the furniture industry. But, many, many turners are very, very conscious about precious woods, about not using endangered materials, reusing materials.”
One of the three galleries, called Touch This, features exhibits where handling the pieces is encouraged. “This is tactile stuff, said Tib. “And to not let people touch would deprive them of a huge part of the experience.”
Tib prompted me to handle some similar-sized blocks of balsa wood to compare their characteristics, and she offered a small container that held a wood sample and asked if I could identify it by smell? “Cinnamon that you [get] at the grocery store comes from bark usually. This is actually cinnamon wood, so the wood has an aroma. Different woods have different smells, they have different oils.”
Another fascinating thing I learned is the broad assortment of colors of wood, from the white or ivory of holly to very dark brown or black of ebony. “It comes in all these different forms and there are different things that you can do with it. Where it comes from in the tree, how you position it.”
The Gallery offers demonstrations at least once a month, which Tib feels is important. “Part of what I love here is we have demonstrations so people can see human hands can make a wood bowl. Human hands can do this. And making is important to our humanity.”
“My own favorite pieces, tend to be really about wood itself,” Tib said. One of those is called “Skeleton Tube” by William Luce. “This is Douglas fir, which people usually think of as two-by-four wood. Part of why I love this is because it’s made out of a material that people usually go ‘Ish.'”
“Wood that grows in the spring, it’s fast growing. It’s spongy. As the year goes by, that second color, the dark color, is late wood. And it’s hard and firm with Douglas fir. The difference is like concrete and styrofoam. And so this is sandblasted and he [artist William Luce] hasn’t designed any of these rings. Those are all just removing that spongy growth.”
Gallery exhibits, Tib explained, come from different sources. The Professional Outreach Program exhibition, or POP, adheres to a theme and features pieces no larger than six inches by six inches by six inches. “Usually I pick titles that are really open for interpretation, give people room to play around and think,” Tib said.
Twice, for example, the theme was “The Sphere.” “What was exciting was it was like looking into the artistic mind because there was so much variation and it was an incredible show. And to watch people go through it and think about what their perception was of what a sphere could be.”
Another repository is from the Gallery’s permanent collection. The permanent collection contains work by artists at the pinnacle of the field, most with work in major museums. The tops exhibition is not part of our permanent collection, but several tops in that display—on loan from retired programs director Linda Ferber for whom it was mad—are by artists with work in our collection.
Combining works to create exhibitions is an art form in itself, Tib stated. “Whether I’m creating an exhibition to show the range of turning that is being created, or focusing on very specific types of themes, I’m combining pieces to encourage interest, curiosity, and making connections.
If you were wondering whether Tib is a turner, she declared that she’s dabbled in the hobby “I have turned wood. I’ve taken lessons; basically learned enough to have an empathy for the piece.” Then she elaborated. “When I started, I was like, ‘Well, I’m surrounded by this beautiful stuff all day. I am not going to like anything I turned. [I] made my first top. I was like, ‘Oh my God! Look at this top!’”
Looking ahead, Tib is delighted that the AAW’s International Woodturning Symposium will return to Downtown Saint Paul at RiverCentre in June 2025. Billed as the world’s largest woodturning event, attendees can enjoy demonstrations, experience the woodturning trade show and several exhibits, including the unique Instant Gallery. “Everyone who is a registered attendee can bring three pieces. Everybody puts their stuff on these tables. It is so cool because people with tons of experience have their work right next to people who are just beginning. And you really see that whole range here.”
More Downtown Parking Ramps
After Landmark Center, I pedaled over to 4th Street East and Minnesota Street and the Capital City Plaza Parking Ramp. It seemed like a good time to resume my vertical exploration of parking ramps (something I started a couple of years earlier.)
The Second Ramp of the Ride
Weaving west through the heart of Downtown, I checked out a second parking ramp. The structure at Smith Avenue and West Kellogg Boulevard is called the Smith Avenue Transit Center-Lot #151.
While palatable, the views from the top of the Smith Avenue Transit Center – Lot #151 are not as impressive as those from the Capital City Plaza Ramp. Part of the reason is the former is just six levels versus the 10 at Capital City. However, the real culprits are the concrete expanses of Interstates 94 and 35E that wind past two sides of the ramp and really dampen the aesthetics of the area.
My feelings about this visit to Downtown are mixed. The Gallery of Wood Art is extraordinary for many reasons, including the quality, variety and educational aspects of the exhibits. And there’s always something interesting to see wandering around Landmark Center. On the other hand, it’s disconcerting to see the number of vacant storefronts and nearly empty buildings in parts of Downtown. A vibrant city center is necessary for its health. Governmental and business leaders, and residents need to work together to develop creative ideas and usher them to reality to expand upon the strengths of Downtown.