Kate Zambreno

"Grueling. Mayhem." Thor Alwald is describing the past two weeks he's occupied the storefront in the Page Brothers Building on State. Part of a city program to allow the public to view the process of making art, the mixed-media practitioner has been billed as the skateboard artist--"I'm an artist. I skate," he says--and has opened up the studio for his artist friends to display their work alongside the wares of Uprise skate shop. It's a chaotic scene, an urban skate shop crossed with an after-school art program. As one of his friends adds finishing touches to a painting, punk rock screeches in a stereo dumped into a grocery cart, and a skateboarding video plays. "I just really wanted it to look like something was happening in here," he says.

The 30-year-old artist, gangly and scruffy, wearing red and yellow skater gear, takes a break in a wheelchair. Thor--"Hippie parents. I was almost called Thunder"--lives in "the middle of nowhere" in Southern Michigan. The rush-hour crowd glances in the windows as they hurry past. No one's really purchased any of the art, like Thor's "3-D sculpto-pictoramas," although they've picked up five T-shirts in the past two weeks.

A black-haired skater boy looking tough with his board ventures inside. "Hey, you used to skate downtown when you were a kid," one of Thor's friends introduces himself. Thor looks bemused and quips, "He's still a kid."

(2003-07-23)

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