St. Joseph, my current hometown, and Benton Harbor, it’s neighbor across the river, have many, many incredible public art displays.

It’s kind of a surprise, because these are not big cities. They are so tiny that when people call them the Twin Cities I have to stifle the urge to say, “Yeah, but not the real Twin Cities.”

The real Twin Cities are Minneapolis/St. Paul.

I try not to say that very often, partly because it’s rude and mostly because people don’t actually care.
But despite the fact that St. Joe and Benton Harbor’s downtowns are only about five blocks long, sculptures are everywhere.

It’s mostly thanks to the Krasl Art Center, an art museum in St. Joe, though both communities have come up with displays of their own.

My boyfriend lives near the Krasl, so I park in their overflow lot all the time. A few weeks ago, this appeared.

Title: Camper Top
Artists: Alex Gartelmann and Jonas Sebura
Location: Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph

When you park in the same place every couple of days, you stop really noticing it. So when this showed up — not there one day, there the next — it was like it just grew.

I kind of love it. It’s so otherworldly and weird. Like a house from an alternate universe where everything is just like here except 50 percent more whimsical.

It’s empty and I really want to put things in it, like small brightly colored pots and bird figurines, or something else strange.

St. Joe is a small, pretty sleepy town most of the year. It’s a vacation town. But every time I see this weird little house I’m happy to be here.

But what’s that blue thing on the right in the picture up top? That’s one of those things that you stop noticing when you see it so often. And that becomes part of what’s delightful about it.

Title: Connectors
Artist: Micki LeMieux
Location: Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph

This strangeness is just another part of my background. How great is that? My life is so full of weird sculptures that they can become as familiar to me as my own house.

This next one is right on the sidewalk outside the parking lot. Whereas Connectors and Camper Top were part of the Krasl’s Biennial Sculpture Invitational, I think this one’s just on loan. The artist is from Japan.

Title: Construction of the Breath
Artist: Kanri Nakani
Location: State Street, St. Joseph

I think I’d like to make a regular feature of St. Joe and Benton Harbor’s art. Krasl has 26 new sculptures set up all over the place just with this latest biennial invitational, so I’ve got a lot of material to choose from. Just wait until I get to the giant metal hippopotamus.