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Region’s transit system inspires sculptor

For most people, Metro Transit’s bus and rail maps and schedules serve as simple tools to determine how they might get from one place to another.  

To R. Justin Stewart, these tools are a platform for exploring how humans perceive and make sense of the world.

As a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidate at the University of Minnesota, Stewart has created a sculpture inspired by maps and data from the Twin Cities region’s transit system. Using a half mile of copper wire and an estimated 6,000 wooden balls, he built bus structure 2am-2pm.

“I’m building an architectural structure out of time and movement,” Stewart explained on a March day in his studio. “I’m physically manifesting time. I find that really interesting.” Like much of his recent work, bus structure 2am-2pm explores networks, systems and structures.

Each vertical wire represents a stop on a Sunday bus route. Each horizontal wire traces a particular route. And each wooden ball depicts a particular stop at a particular point in time. In total 42 routes, 47 intervals of time and 296 bus stops are represented.

The sculpture is “very physical and very real in one way, like a bus,” Stewart said. The materials used are fairly simple. At the same time, the intricacy of the structure makes viewers “have to work hard to perceive what is in front of their eyes,” he said.

“Because the materials are limited, we are unable to filter out any information because everything presented to us is ‘the same,’” Stewart explains in an essay about the piece. “This simultaneous flattening and confusion challenges the normal way that we see the world, an approach of ‘I see, I understand’…The resulting structure shows how difficult it can be to understand anything in all its complexity.”

An experienced bus commuter

For Stewart, the transit system is not an abstraction. As a resident of downtown Minneapolis, he takes the bus every day. A year after moving to Minneapolis from Kansas City three years ago, he and his wife sold their cars. Together they paid $200 a month just to park them.

“I like to be able to say I’m someone who doesn’t own a car,” Stewart said. “For me it’s a financial statement more than about going green. Taking the bus saves you money.

“It takes a little longer sometimes to get places, but the financial rewards are great,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer.” Stewart spends his time on the bus reading, listening to his I-Pod or catching up on sports news. “It’s a time when I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to be productive.”

For the few times he really needs a car, he gets one through Zipcar, a service offered through the University of Minnesota’s Parking and Transportation Services.

Second work explores daily commute

The complexity of bus structure 2am-2pm is in stark contrast to self-portrait (bus October 6th-November 5th). In a set of 31 prints, Stewart recorded his daily bus travels with simple white lines on a blue background. The shade of blue of each print is determined by the number of times he rode a bus that day. 

“What is literally left for the viewer is a section of my life simplified to the ‘how’ (on the bus), ‘when’ (day of the week), ‘rate’ (frequency of usage) and ‘where’ (relative geographic location),” he described.

Stewart’s transit-inspired works are part of an exhibition called “[ ] Scapes” at the University of Minnesota’s Regis Center for the Arts, running April 2-24. Stewart will share the gallery with five other MFA students.

Once he graduates, Stewart and his wife are headed for New York City to live, where they have many good friends.

“We really like big cities,” Stewart said, “and this will solidify our ability to never have a car again.”