Art Round Town (A’RT), a Cook County non-profit, began documenting and researching public art last fall. The organization’s mission is to “promote public art by chronicling its past and facilitating its creation and preservation.” Their plan was to collect images, information and stories about a variety of public art so that it could be shared with the community and visitors. Virginia Danfelt has been working diligently on this project and has collected information on over 30 pieces of art in the community.
However, she’s come up against a mystery. No one knows the original artist who made the bear and the voyageur that are mounted on the stone wall on Second Avenue West and Highway 61, in front of the Grand Marais Public Library. The stonework was completed in 1940 and the figures were added later. But who added the figures, and when was that done? What is the story behind these figures? The bear has been replaced several times and the voyageur repainted and repaired. Danfelt has discovered a few things about this artwork, but the main questions remain.
If you have any information about this former gateway to the Gunflint Trail, please contact Virginia Danfelt at 218-475-2274.
A’RT was originally formed by a group of people that tried to save the exterior student-made co-op murals. In 2012 the Cook County Whole Foods Co-op decided to rebuild, and an ad-hoc group formed in an effort to save the mosaic murals on the north wall of the building. When this proved unfeasible, A’RT was born, and funds collected for the previous effort helped create the mosaic “Our North” mural on the west side of Johnson’s Grocery Store.
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