From the Artist: Through my time working with Highpoint Editions, I fell in love with the photo lithography process. The image this print is based off is from a photo taken on my birthday in 2020. Depicted are two of my friends posing at the St. Louis Park roller rink, the Roller Garden, at a time when they were closed to the public but renting the whole place on an hourly basis to small masked-up groups. There was birthday cake, we got to play our own music, and everyone showed up in style.
I began rollerskating with some frequency back in 2017, but in 2020 the recreation took on a whole new meaning for me. “When the reality of racial injustice became too taxing, skating was the revolutionary way to reclaim their joy,” said Amanda Alcantara in the article How Black and Brown Women are Reclaiming Rollerskating Culture. Skating was not only a safer activity to do in the height of Covid, but it allowed for a physical release of the built up anger, anxiety, and pressure.
Some of my favorite childhood memories include school field trips to the Roller Garden. I returned to that beloved rink over the years with different friend groups, and at different points in my life. It always had that same smell, same greasy food, same dinosaur and mural that greeted you in the entryway. It was one of those places that you could lose time, and lose yourself.
After that October 2020 birthday, I only got to skate at the Roller Garden a couple more times. Like many businesses, they struggled to stay afloat during the pandemic, and after 52 years in operation by the Johnston/Sahly family, the Roller Garden closed its doors in May 2021. The place wasn’t perfect, and had a complicated history, but it was heartbreaking to see it go. Skaters poured out their memories and desires to save it on social media, but in the end we all came to the realization we’d have to forge other spaces. As the 2018 documentary United Skates says, “You can take the goddamn building, but you can’t take the spirit.” — Leslie Barlow
Courtesy of Highpoint Editions.