Watershed Moments: Art for Water

October 10, 2023

My project with Art for Water, a program of the Minnesota Water Stewards and sponsored by Freshwater and Hennepin County, has reached its conclusion. My exhibition, Watershed Moments, opens October 10 and runs through November 7th at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The opening reception is October 26, 6 - 8 pm in the member artist spotlight on the first floor of the center.

The work is this eight-piece series composed of layers of handmade paper, painted and handwoven fabric, and embroidery. They form interconnected maps with each other and stand alone as well. My work has always had a theme of connection to nature. As a new Minnesotan, I have been thinking about what it means to be in relationship with the places and waters around me. There is imperative to care in this mutual relationship. The land and waters provide a home and life for us and we must do our part to care for them as well. The Water Steward program offered me a starting point of knowledge about how we as a community can protect our waters. This protection starts with our individual connections with places that we love.

*Watershed I*
*12" h x 12" w x 1" d mounted*
*Mixed media - hand painted linen handwoven fabric, machine stitched with hand embroidery on handmade paper.*
*2023*

This year has been marked by visits to water, forming new points of connection and researching what my Art for Water project would evolve to be. I began in the spring by visiting Lake Superior and even having a quick dip. This summer I visited the headwaters of the Mississippi River. This was a place that loomed large in my mind. My husband made a trip twenty years ago, before we met, and told me stories of that trip. It was in part what lead us to move to Minnesota.

The Mississippi has always been a presence in my mind. I remember vising the river front a lot as a child – the annual fair, the McDonald’s riverboat restaurant, and the many floods that impacted St. Louis. My husband and I were married overlooking the river at a park. I’ve been the river’s other end point in New Orleans. At each point along the river, it changes, but all the parts that I’d seen before had been large, turbulent and full of barge traffic.

The Mississippi River from Bee Tree Park, St. Louis, Missouri

The Mississippi River at the headwaters is quiet. It emerges from Lake Itasca where wild rice sways in the wind. The boundary between the lake and the river is marked by stones. Some tourists scramble over the rocks to cross the river to the other side while others wade. At the time of our visit the water levels were lower than when my husband visited so long ago. We waded into the water to cross. The crossing water was shallow, cold, and clear.

Lake Itasca with wild rice in background, Mississippi River begins

Lake Itasca State Park is about three and half hours from the Twin Cities. The dive up set the stage for the trip up. The farther up north you go, the move wild the landscape becomes and signs for cabins and resorts reveal where Minnesotans spend summer vacation days. Minnesotans often talk about “up north.”

Standing along the bank and looking at the river it was startling to see it as a narrow stream. It snakes along in the north and gradually becomes the river that I’ve known. At the headwaters, it is a place of quiet contemplation. I’d like to go back at some point and spend more time exploring the park and seeing more of Lake Itasca.

While on the trip we ventured to Lake Bemidji State Park and walked the bog. The walk is a quarter mile stroll along a wooden boardwalk. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this type of wetland before. It was a beautiful quiet place where land and water meet.

The lush growth of the bog, Lake Bemidji State Park

This summer I’ve had the chance to kayak the Mississippi River a few times. On one of the longer trips our guide ushered us into Lock and Dam Number 1. We grabbed onto ropes and dropped forty feet before paddling out to our end point. The River near the Twin Cities has been designated a recreation area and managed by a partnership of federal, state, regional, cities and private owners. The area has been managed to return the river to a more natural state and as a result birds, wildlife and the ecosystem have returned.

The shore along the Mississippi River - I collected a fair amount of trash. Leave no trace.

I have also spent a significant amount of time with my local lake, Shady Oak. It is a place that I visit often. Swimming season is at an end, but I still wade and enjoy the sunsets there.

Wading in the water - can you spot the fish?

Minnesota is such an easy place to love. Outside in the fall is glorius.

Impaired Water

July 27, 2023

I never really thought much about rag rugs until lately. So it is with some amusement that I have found myself drawn to making them. In the past, I’ve made a few functional rugs for my studio space, and I love living with them. I love that I can reuse textiles or use up fabrics that have been languishing in my fabric collection. Rag rugs represent a link to culture for me, on both my Swedish and Finnish sides. They are so common in homes of Nordic decedents. I have a book and a DVD on my shelf about the rag rugs of Finnish American weavers. My new preoccupation is using a rag rug foundation to layer fabrics and stitches to build upon the meaning of home, culture, and to reuse my maps of environments and places in nature.

I started by hand painting a linen warp to build colors of the warp with the colors of the rags that I’m using. I cut down remnant fabrics from other projects, overdyed textiles from the home, and perhaps my favorite, fabrics that were once pieces that didn’t work out, leaving the stitches in place and letting them poke out into the rug. I love seeing how color can be altered while the weaving is taking place.

Rag rug in progress on the loom with stitch remnants from a previous incarnation.

My latest work, Impaired Water, resulted from this experimentation. In this piece, I wove on a linen painted warp with linen fabric scraps and handmade paper. The paper is printed with the names of names of impaired waters found in the seven counties of the Twin Cities Metro areas. Monitoring water impairment and reporting findings every two years are requirements of the Clean Water Act. Impairments can include bacteria, litter sediment, and fertilizers. Storm water runs unfiltered off lawns, parking lots and roads and ends up in our lakes, streams, and rivers. Local and state governments are working to mitigate the impacts on our water. There is also a lot that individuals can do to improve water health in their neighborhoods and communities. To learn more, visit the Minnesota Water Stewards website at https://minnesotawaterstewards.org.

When I wrote my proposal for the Art for Water project, I proposed a group of eight pieces for exhibition in the fall. Since I have continued my research into the project, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be just a single project, but a body of work. Impaired Water is the first piece.

Detail of Impaired Water with the names of water weaving in and out of visibility.

I received news this week that Impaired Water was accepted into the Minnesota State Fair Fine Art Exhibition. I’m thrilled that it will be seen by so many at the state fair, bringing the message of protecting our water to many people.

Seasons Outside and in the Studio

June 7, 2023

When we moved last year, I unofficially gave myself a year to experiment in my studio to see what would happen. I felt the urge to bring something new to my work. I was in search of something with little clue as to what it might be and where I would find it. I trusted (most days) that I would find it by working. For many months I would make something, sample, sketch and then chuck the work aside. Nothing had legs to move me forward. I would get really interested in a material or a technique and suddenly that excitement would just die. I kept working and trying to find that compelling thing to take hold. A few weeks ago, I drug out a bin of handmade papers I made my first semester of graduate school. I loved making paper. The process was compelling for me, hands immersed in water, the feel of the fibrous pulp flowing through hands into sheets of paper and the resulting soft deckled edges. I kept a few of my paper supplies with the move. I’m so glad that I did. I was ruthless in my pre-move purge and I’m sad to say that I did donate a few things that I wish I’d kept. I really never imagined that I would work with paper again.

A variety of handmade papers - layers of ideas and samples that I made long back in 2015.

At the end of May, I opened that bin and selected a few sheets of creamy paper and tore them down to roughly 9” x 9” squares. I then selected a few pieces of handwoven linen cloth. This cloth was the first that I had painted as warp, woven in my new space, on my new loom and I had cut it up bent on an idea that died. I appliqued this fabric onto the paper squares and soon I was off into a new body of work and into a new series. I’ve been stitching one almost every day and so far I’ve completed six of the planned nine from this series. I love the interaction of paper and weaving. I plan to explore this combination more.

The sixth piece of the series. Once the series is complete, they will be mounted and framed.

One of the most difficult parts of being an artist is the uncertainty that sometimes lingers. There are so many questions that are hard to ask, let alone answer. Most of the time the answers are within. I find answers through working, even when it isn’t going well. I find answers in following urges.

One of the urges I’ve been feeling is to introduce seasonality into my work. I want to bring the strong flow of the seasons in Minnesota to my studio work. What could I mostly do in the summer? My first inclination is to make paper outside, where I can be as messy as I please. This summer, I plan to set up some papermaking spaces and experiment. I also plan to visit the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and perhaps take some classes.

This work that I’ve began will likely launch me into work for the Art for Water project. I’ve completed the training for the MN Water Stewards, and my art proposal has been approved. I’ll show the work at the members’ spotlight space at the Hopkins Center of the Arts in October. While that seems like a far-off deadline, my work is slow and filled with the unknown. In the meantime, I’m continuing my education about water issues, water policy and learning more about wetlands. As I’ve been thinking about my growing relationship to the surrounding lands, I discovered a podcast called The Watershed, production of We are Water MN. The podcast tells stories of water and people throughout Minnesota. It covers everything from the Mississippi river, how we use and enjoy water, how artists respond to water, and ways communities and cities are protecting resources. It is a rich resource for thinking and education. It is exactly what I’ve been wanting since moving here.

A ship heads out into Lake Superior from Duluth in the early morning light.

Speaking of waters, in early May, I climbed down a ladder into the cold waters of Lake Superior as part of a Nordic sauna and cold-water experience. Superior’s waters are very cold. My body reacted the way I was warned it would – a sharp intake of breath and then hyperventilating. I held to the ladder and slowly immersed myself, the took control of myself and regulated my breathing. I told myself aloud, you are okay. It is okay. When my breathing leveled out, I began to understand that I was immersing myself into the knowledge of my Finnish ancestors.

The ladder into Lake Superior at Cedar and Stone Nordic Sauna.

The world has recently discovered the benefits of cold-water swimming. It is everywhere – TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. They did not read it in a trendy magazine, or a short video, rather they took part of cold water because that was what our culture told them to do. Sauna and then cold. One of the few stories I was told of my Finnish family was how they would jump in the lake after a sauna or roll in the snow in winter. My first sauna experience was amazing, and I am so glad that I didn’t shy away from the lake dip. There are many practices that I have learned over the years to teach mindfulness and to be in the body. Going from the steam into the lake really honed into that practice. I was in my body fully and I am looking forward to the next opportunity.