Retired couple turns to artwork

VADNAIS HEIGHTS — They have seven kilns downstairs and another in the garage.

And with two artists in the same household working in multiple mediums, each oven gets regular use.

“Anything that deals with fire and changing things from one form to another we like,” said Kim Bakken-Parr.

The other half of the “we” is husband Lee Parr. The retired Vadnais Heights couple make and sell a variety of mostly three-dimensional arts. They also teach their crafts at several arts centers, including the White Bear Center for the Arts.

Bakken-Parr’s primary art is jewelry made with the relatively new medium of metal clays. After it is sculpted, the malleable gold, silver, bronze and copper is fired in a kiln. She often incorporates glass, stones and other items into her wearable art. With the economic downturn, her current material of experimentation is less expensive leather.

While Parr also has earned certification in metal clays, he is firstly the “glass master.” He works in both stained glass and fused glass, making components for his wife’s jewelry, and stand-alone glass art pieces.

Both dabble in a variety of other mediums. Parr is an award-winning painter of miniature military  figures. Bakken-Parr once made Vikings-themed pins and sent one to then-Vikings owner Red McCombs who requested she make one for each of the players’ wives.

They call their business Cah Ching Unique Creations (named in homage to a favorite pastime of the ladies in Bakken-Parr’s family: shopping).

It’s not a lucrative profession but it is a pleasurable one, the couple said. “You do it for the love of teaching and the love of art. You don’t do it for the money,” Bakken-Parr said.

Bakken-Parr’s first profession was an educator at area secondary schools. She taught chemistry at Hill-Murray School and was a principal at St. Anthony Village High School before multiple sclerosis forced her to give up her full-time career. She had been selling and teaching a bit of art on the side and it became her focus.

Husband Lee’s first art was photography. He owned a photography business, shooting mostly weddings, horse shows and commercial work. A varied career followed, including social service work, airplane parts buyer and airport security supervisor.

They sell their pieces at juried art shows across the state, especially in the summer. The other months their schedules are filled with teaching.  Typically they develop the course curriculum themselves and bring the supplies.

They almost always teach together. “We play off each others’ strengths,” Bakken-Parr said.

Bakken-Parr leads the group instruction; she said she strives to present material in multiple formats to accommodate the varying learning styles. Parr provides the muscle for set-up and tear-down, runs the kiln or glass-cutter, and said he is best at helping pupils one-on-one once the project is underway. 

Their pupils are both adults and children. With the adults, they teach mostly metal clay and glass courses. With children, they teach a variety of arts from painting to jewelry.

Their classes are growing in popularity, according to White Bear Center for the Arts Education Director Danielle Cezanne. The center has added additional sections of some classes. The teachers “encourage a great artistic experience by bringing so many tools, gadgets and high-quality materials,” Cezanne said. Bakken-Parr “has also done amazing work adapting adult classes to kids,” Cezanne added.

Teaching to both ages of pupils have unique strengths and challenges, the couple said. The youngsters have shorter attention spans but they listen more intently and dig right in. The grown-ups have longer attention spans, but they tend to socialize with classmates instead of listening to instructors, and some are intimidated by a blank canvas or the need for perfection.

According to Bakken-Parr, a good class for beginning adults is a nature-inspired jewelry class in which pupils mold metal clays  with objects such as a leaf or acorn. “It’s not intimidating because nature determines the shape and clay is forgiving,” she said.

Perfection isn’t attainable nor should it be the goal in handmade art, Parr said.

“Sometimes that’s the hardest part to explain to people,” he noted. “Not every line is going to be perfect. This is you. This is what you feel. This is going to have character.” 

© 2012 Press Publications/Kanabec.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.