Debris from hurricane ends up in Minnesota art gallery

An exhibit of Mississippi art that is stopping people in their tracks in Minneapolis has quite a twist.\nHurricane debris brought from Hancock County, Miss., is incorporated into its gallery design, which showcases about 140 pieces of work by 30 Coast artists.\nBroken glass, a chandelier, a computer hard drive, one blade from a ceiling fan and shreds of material hanging in trees are some of what's on display. Plus, artists who arranged the display threw in some heavier things that would have been hard to haul, like chunks of concrete cement and bricks.\n"You're trying to haul it away, and we're using it," said exhibit organizer Mary Gray of Wayzata, Minn.\nThe debris is there to make Katrina's destruction more real to people who have not seen it firsthand, said Gray, who is CEO of MinnesotaHelpers.org. She formed Mississippi Art Share as a program of Minnesota Helpers in order to help the artists she saw struggling against all odds when she came to Hancock County as a volunteer after the storm.\n"The Art of the Storm: Nothing Can Destroy Passion" is on display throughout Aug. 30 at Hennepin County Government Center Lower Level Art Gallery in Minneapolis.\nThe exhibit has a twofold intent.\nOne is to provide a selling opportunity for artists who are creating their work in Katrina's aftermath but now lack their once plentiful hometown venues and audiences. One hundred percent of the show's proceeds from sales go to the artists.\nThe second is to rev up awareness of the Coast's continuing needs.\n"This is about so much more than art," Gray said in a story published Aug. 2 in the Minnesota Sun. "It needs to be kept in people's minds that the Gulf Coast still needs help."\nEarlier this year, Gray arranged exhibits for Mississippi Coast artists at three Minnesota-area galleries and coordinated transport of their artwork to Minnesota at no cost to them.\nThe art now on exhibit has both new work and work that remains from the earlier shows.\nEven without piles of debris at each end, the gallery is uncommon looking.\nIt is a very long, very narrow glass showcase, 113 feet by about 4 feet, that meanders along a heavily traveled indoor walkway. It's across from a popular restaurant and is the underground walkway to the Minneapolis City Hall.\n"It's really interesting how people respond," said LuAnn Schmaus, public affairs officer for Hennepin County.\n"Some people are walking briskly, obviously on their way to something. Suddenly they stop. The exhibit speaks loudly: that art doesn't die; that passion still lives."\nIt's a welcome opportunity for artists.\nFor Mark Buszkiewicz, who lives near Kiln, Miss., and does sculptural ceramics, "It was a good thing," he said of his sales at the earlier exhibits. \nHe's been unable to work since six weeks after Katrina when he fell through his roof trying to fix it and broke six ribs and his collarbone, but he expects his doctors to let him resume throwing clay by Aug. 29.