Meet Allen Christian

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allen Christian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Allen, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Looking at my life, this is a three part answer.

First, I am the sixth of nine children from a lower to middle class family. In order for our house to function, we all had a job to do and in order to make any money, I figured out how to create work that would put money in my pocket.

The second part was working on my aunt and uncles farm for three summers picking sweetcorn. Up at dawn and working till dusk taught me a wonderful work ethic and really amplified my self-esteem.

Third, was joining the military. It taught me equity and working as a team. It also reignited the artistic side of me that had lain dormant for many years.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am one of the rare artists that has a public studio.

In 1986, I fell into a space that was on the ground floor and looked up the Gateway of Minneapolis. It was one room with one wall being all windows. An incredibly formative space as I began my career, it had no place to hide and I had to produce in order to begin to think of myself as an artist. It was there that I began a series of interactions with the public so that they could be involved in my process.

When I left there after eight years, I realized I couldn’t give up the access and found another storefront where I resided for 20 years.

10 years ago, my wife and I bought a building on 1/3 of an acre and it’s allowed me to change the scale of my work. Now the sky is the limit, or at least the platform lifts height.

I work with waste material and when people come in, the conversation is about how do we re-value the valueless in our lives. How can we deconstruct the way we look at the world and reconstruct it in a currency that gives our life meaning.

The one question I ask those that cross the threshold is “What do you do for a life?“. Most people respond by telling me what they do for a living, but what I want to know is how do they express their uniqueness.

How do you?

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There are three things that have really helped me as an artist.

The first one is not to do it for money. An artists job is to look at the world, see what’s happening in it, and create a visual landscape that tells the viewer what you see.

Secondly, try to remember what it’s like to be four years old, before you became part of a system of control. You need to remember how to play, but you also have to remember how to do it seriously.

The third, and most important thing to try and overcome is your own self judgment. It’s one thing to worry what somebody else might think about you, but the most debilitating is what you think of yourself. Love what you do and it will show through.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

My biggest area of growth over the last 12 months, and extends back for the last three years, has been to work with, and in, the community where my studio resides.

It is in a neighborhood of Minneapolis that has always been ground zero for immigration. 100 years ago, the Swedes where the population.. 50 years ago, the Hmong resided here. Right now, the vast majority are East African and Somali immigrants.

I’ve done a number of projects with the youth, teaching them hands-on fabrication skills and trying to get them to think creatively. I’ve also installed a lot of public art, from bike racks to security screens for businesses that now pepper the neighborhood.

I’m hoping it continues for many more years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Houseofballs.com
• Instagram: Houseof2balls
• Facebook: House of Balls
• Linkedin: Allen Christian
• Yelp: House of Balls

Image Credits

Photos by Allen Christian