Stephen Farley's Favorite Places Project

Contributed by Terry Mayer

My favorite place in the Twin cities is divided between the river and Northeast. I live in Seward and I am a river rat. I am an eastender and my friend who lives in St Paul, right across the river from me, jokes that we are border-line cases! I find I use the River Road and Parkway system an awful lot. My "border-line" friend calls driving on the River Road, "going down the rabbit hole." You leave the noisy traffic congested city and cruise along the river. I visit several friends on its path, my community garden at Dowling School, and my art collective, Artamotive, off the Broadway Bridge next to the Grain Belt Brewery. When I need a breather I go "down the rabbit hole"! This ties into my new favorite place, on 13th and 13th! Northeast, I recently discovered, is my home away from home. It's a most incredible art community. My art collective, Artamotive, is collaborating with other art groups and shops and is a center for education and information. Every 13th we are a part of a mini art crawl that involves studios, art shops, and restaurants along 13th Avenue. Often we have music and demonstrations, and talks at our gallery.



			Going Down the Rabbit Hole: River Road and Artamotive
		Contributed by Terry Mayer My favorite place in the Twin cities is divided between the river and Northeast. I live in Seward and I am a river rat. I am an eastender and my friend who lives in St Paul, right across the river from me, jokes that we are border-line cases! I find I use the River Road and Parkway system an awful lot. My "border-line" friend calls driving on the River Road, "going down the rabbit hole." You leave the noisy traffic congested city and cruise along the river. I visit several friends on its path, my community garden at Dowling School, and my art collective, Artamotive, off the Broadway Bridge next to the Grain Belt Brewery. When I need a breather I go "down the rabbit hole"! This ties into my new favorite place, on 13th and 13th! Northeast, I recently discovered, is my home away from home. It's a most incredible art community. My art collective, Artamotive, is collaborating with other art groups and shops and is a center for education and information. Every 13th we are a part of a mini art crawl that involves studios, art shops, and restaurants along 13th Avenue. Often we have music and demonstrations, and talks at our gallery.





		The collaboration between artists I meet is inspiring, supportive, and invaluable! I feel I can relate to the artistic people and in this neighborhood, I feel I'm around my kind. I comprehend them and they understand where I'm coming from. It's like you have been away from your homeland and suddenly you are around people that understand your "radical ways" of thinking. For example, you don't have to explain yourself. Seward is another wonderful place I live and I do a lot of community-building in, but Northeast is a larger neighborhood and the opportunities for art collaboration are greater because of the huge population of artists residing there. Seward is also a small wonderful neighborhood, it's like a small town, and I am glad I am able to live there. Politically, Seward is right up my alley and I feel comfortable there. I guess I'm happiest being a river rat!