The Walker Art Center‘s gift shop has long been one of my favorite places to buy gifts—I freely admit that sometimes they are gifts for myself—and now it’s gotten one notch cooler, in my eyes.
Starting November 17, the Walker Shop will have a shop-within-a-shop, called the MNArtists.Marketplace, co-curated by the Walker and MNArtists.org. Besides the shop offerings, there will be a twice-yearly juried call for artists to design limited-edition items for the shop. The first of such calls is a set of pint glasses. The darling illustration of Babe the Blue Ox was done by one of my favorite local artists, Christy Johnson, and will appear on one of the glasses in the set. Bonus: The glasses also come with a gift certificate for two brews at the museum’s restaurant, Gather by D’Amico. Besides all that, I’m just thrilled that local artists have a permanent spot set for them in one of the finest museums in the world—how cool that they can say they’ve “got pieces at the Walker.”
I was in the shop last week, and between the pop-up shop that complements the latest graphic design exhibition and new offerings in the shop proper—you must get over there. I could have spent hundreds of dollars in just a few minutes. (I did plenty of damage in the short amount of time I had after getting a fun preview from the shop curator and press people.)
It will be a must-stop on my holiday shopping tour. I fully recommend it becomes one of yours, too.
