PUBLIC ART IN THE PARKS
Minne the Lake Creature is on the move!
The beloved Minne the Lake Creature has returned and has moved from Brownie Lake into Lake Hiawatha, located on East 44th Street just west of 28th Avenue South.
For more information about the 13-foot sculpture formally titled _[ (underscore left square bracket) by creator Cameron Gainer, visit her website at www.lakecreature.com. While there, you can also submit photos and stories.
Minne has made so many friends over the past two summers, and has enjoyed surprising everyone as she moves around the lakes. There are many who have had the the delight of discovering Minne in their neighborhood lakes. She loves seeing the reaction of with the children who see her for the first time as well as the parents, grandparents, and young adults too.
Help celebrate Minne all summer long. You can enter the Aquatennial lake creature milk carton contest; sign your kids up for a writing class at the Loft or a clay class through the Northern Clay Center about the lake creature. Minne loves being the inspiration for all of these fun and educational summer activities. And don't forget to visit her often!
Make sure to also keep in touch with Minne on Facebook, Twitter, and on her website, lakecreature.com.
Read the press release here.
If you love Minne, the Lake Creature, please support her and The Minneapolis Parks Foundation!
Please consider making a donation to Minneapolis Parks Foundation to support Minne the Lake Creature, and all of the other projects of the Minneapolis Parks Foundation.
Thank you.
Your friend,
Minne the Lake Creature 
To make a donation to Minne, the lake creature, and for the other projects of Minneapolis Parks Foundation, please press this donate button.
Check out this video which shows how her friends welcomes her last year, and what they thought of her visit to Lake Harriet.
Minne, The Lake Creature, As Art
Cameron Gainer, an artist from New York City, who now resides in Minneapolis, is the creator of this unique piece of public art. His artistic expertise spans sculpture, photography, performance, and film and video; and his works explores aspects of human perception and cognition as well as the universal themes of time and space, life and death.
This particular sculpture, symbolically titled _[. is based on the iconic, “Surgeonʼs Photo” of 1934 that was presented as definitive evidence of the existence of Scotlandʼs infamous Loch Ness Monster. This photo was subsequently proven to be a hoax many years later but remains the universally acknowledge representation of the mystical lake creature.
Cameron Gainer has expressed his interest in the notion of “cinema inside out” where you encounter something in an environment and under circumstances where the view is not quite sure what they are looking at. “The viewer is surprised by the discovery, as they stumble upon it, and there is a momentary rupture in what is reality.”
Public art accesses an audience that isnʼt necessarily going to go to an art museum. Instead, they just come across the art in their environment, which “creates a moment of access”. This represents a “tremendous opportunity to reach an audience that didnʼt expect to see art”. In the case of the lake creature, the artist intentionally made the lake creature so that it has to be placed in a body of water, a natural setting, and not in an art museum.
For more information about Cameron Gainer, in his own words, watch his video below.