A Day at the Fair: Weaving Memories and Weathering the Storm

 The Minnesota State Fair is a bittersweet time and marks the end of summer for Minnesotans. Nestled within the Twin Cities metro area, the fair attracts a diverse crowd from the city, across Minnesota, and neighboring states. It’s a big deal in our state, with many folks upholding annual traditions they revisit every year. For artists, it represents the largest juried art exhibition in Minnesota. The competition is fierce—this year, there were 2,821 entries, with only 333 works making the cut. Despite the overwhelming number of pieces, the display space is expertly arranged, providing enough room to breathe between works—a delicate balance indeed.

Studio space for the day.

My one-day residency at the fair was on Monday, August 26th, which turned out to be a beastly hot and humid day—the hottest day of our summer. I joked with many visitors that it felt just like a typical summer day in St. Louis. Despite the sweltering weather, I had a great time working on my studio projects and chatting with the crowds. The day concluded with severe storms rolling into the area. We were evacuated to the 4-H Building under some of the eeriest orange skies I’ve ever seen. Thankfully, the walk from the Fine Arts Building was short, but it was quite an experience with blowing debris, dust, and sand instantly sticking to our sweaty skin. The police and fair staff guided us to shelter, where we waited out the storm. The 4-H kids seized the moment and entertained the captive audience with a musical production—they were fantastic! While we sheltered, 4-Hers walked through the crowd, offering water and checking on everyone. The storm passed quickly, and the day ended much cooler, though the fairgrounds required quite a bit of cleanup.

With the help of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota, I borrowed a loom to work on during my residency. It took most of the day to find the time to sit down and start a piece, but I managed to get a decent start on a new work.

Working in an art gallery is pretty great!

This piece will always remind me of late August. It began at the state fair and was finished in my garage, accompanied by the summer cicadas’ song. In many ways, works made on the loom become time capsules for me. I often remember what I was thinking during particular sections of the work. This piece holds the conversations I had with fair visitors, as well as the chats with neighbors passing by my garage. I suppose seeing someone weave in their garage isn’t a common sight—I highly recommend it.

I vividly recall the curiosity of folks and their questions: How does the loom work? Do I work from a sketch? And, of course, the ever-popular, How long does it take?

At the fair, I had a notebook on my table with the prompt: "What do you love about Minnesota?" While many people were happy to engage with me directly, others quietly approached the book and wrote their thoughts without speaking. I expected plenty of comments about nature, state parks, and the lakes, but I was delighted by how many mentioned the people as their favorite part of Minnesota.

I want to extend a big thank you to Jim Clark and the staff of the Fine Arts Center for making me feel welcome, cared for, and for giving me the opportunity to share my work with visitors. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Thanks also to the state fair transportation crew for making it easy to get where I needed to go. A heartfelt thanks to the Weavers Guild of Minnesota for the loan of the loom and to all the members who stopped by with curiosity and support. Finally, thank you to everyone who braved the weather to come out and visit with me.

Reflecting on Two Years in Minnesota: Transformation, Healing, and Joy

When my husband and I first began planning our move to Minnesota, I often wondered how it would change my work. What I did not anticipate was how deeply Minnesota would change me. As I reflect on our second anniversary here, I'm struck by the profound impact this move has had on my life.

Shortly after we moved, I realized that the chronic pain I had endured since 2011 had vanished. It happened overnight. My neck, shoulders, back, and arms were pain-free. I woke up one morning and realized that for the past several nights, I had slept through without waking up multiple times due to numbness, tingling, or stabbing pain. It was simply gone. The pain didn't return, even as I unpacked and repacked boxes for our final move. I heard a quote: "You only know how much pain you are in when it is gone." This resonated deeply with me.

 Over the years, I had sought help from various experts and doctors, who tried different treatments without lasting relief. Looking back, I wonder how I managed to get through grad school with such a demanding workload while dealing with this pain. My high pain tolerance muscled me through, but it came at a high cost. Despite numerous trips to physical therapists, relief was always temporary. It wasn't until after grad school that I read "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel van der Kolk. The book's thesis—that our bodies hold memories and trauma, manifesting as physical pain and illness—made sense to me, though I didn't fully grasp its meaning until my pain returned alongside old memories.

With the pain gone, I had more mental space to settle into a new state, new routine, and learn my way around. This relief lasted about six months before the pain slowly began to return, accompanied by resurfacing memories from my prior career in education and childhood. Moving away from a place filled with both wonderful and painful memories was freeing. There are no ghosts from my old life in my new home. Starting over was unexpected, but I am grateful for the opportunity.

Last summer, I began working with a therapist to better understand what was happening. We discussed my heritage, past events, and how they have carried forward. This work has been hard, painful, and rewarding.

Reflecting on my past five-year plans from college and art school, I realize that none of them came to fruition as expected. Things turned out better or worse, but ultimately, I made it through. I've had moments of regret for wasted time or missed opportunities, which is such a human response. Recently, my therapist mentioned that much of human development focuses on early years, as if we stop developing past a certain point in adulthood. Nothing could be further from the truth. We continue to grow, learn, and make leaps forward in later adulthood. I don't wish to return to any earlier age of my life.

One of the best changes brought by our move is how physically active I've become. I've always liked walking, but now I've added lake swimming, kayaking, and biking to my routine. There are countless opportunities to get outside here. The osprey, loons, and swallows have all returned, and it's like greeting old friends. Recently, my husband and I sat by our local lake, listening to the loons calling to each other. It felt magical, like encountering mystical creatures.

Back in January 2023, I wrote about a Finnish proverb I found on artwork in Duluth: “Minä istun iloissani ja annan surun huilata,” translated as “I sit here contented while sorrow catches its breath.” Finnish scholars later told me it was mistranslated and should be something stronger, like "delight." I've finally embraced those stronger, deeper feelings. My new life is filling me with endless delight, and I'm learning to stop anticipating the other shoe dropping. Sorrow is part of life, and some of us have walked with it for a long time. But now, in Minnesota, I'm learning to embrace joy and let sorrow catch its breath.

Minnesota’s Many Delights

Going Slower and Sharing Joy

Happy New Year!

I had a nice two week break over the holidays. I did a lot of cooking, reading, watching programs and reflecting on my studio practice. I’ve been feeling burned out and a little out of focus. During our break, I looked at a list that I had made in a sketchbook of things that I wanted to do. I picked one and started to work. For years I’ve added weave with my handspun to this list. I pulled out a wheel and set to work spinning up some wool to use with some tapestry experiments that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It seems my inclination is to slow my process down even more and to spend even more time engaged with the work and idea. Since we are still hip deep in the pandemic, it isn’t like I don’t have the time to go deeper. I need to finish up some bobbins of a wool, silk and mohair blend that has been lingering a long time. I’m working at plying them up and clearing some bobbins for tapestry spinning.

One of the few things I miss during the pandemic is traveling and going to hear live music. I’m not the only one as many musicians turned to various platforms to share livestreams performances.

 Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn began to host Banjo House Lockdowns in March on Facebook and continued to present a live performance each Friday. The performances were low tech, intimate, charming, and often featured their two children. My family would wrap up work, make dinner and then sit down in front of the TV to attend the concert. The episodes are now available on Béla’s Youtube channel in a Banjo House Lockdown playlist

I highly recommend it. We had the pleasure to see Béla and Abigail live in 2017. It remains one of my favorite concerts of all time.

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, I wondered to my husband why he wasn’t playing music more. Sometimes you get busy and the thing you love seems to be the first thing to go in the race to keep up with the grind. He began to play more after that, and it has brought us both a lot of pleasure. We spend some time each day watching so music related content on Youtube. We stumbled into guitarist Rhett Shull’s channel

 and have been enjoying his Backstage Live concerts. There are five past livestreams available currently and the next on is scheduled January 30th. We watched our first one in November and it honestly felt like we had gone out for live music. The band does covers, original music, jams with guest performers and it is just what I needed. I hope when the pandemic ends, we can see the band live.

 Another Youtube channel recommendation is Baumgartner Restoration. Julian Baumgartner is a fine art restore based in Chicago. He shares his studio and his work through videos on Youtube. You can watch to see paintings get brough back to life under Julian’s careful hands and it is a bit of magic. The highlight for me – when he makes his custom swabs out of sticks and cotton and removes old discolored varnish and the painting’s true colors are first revealed. It is oddly soothing. There is something about watching someone highly skilled in their craft that just makes my heart happy. The process of conservation and restoration is a behind the scenes activity. Julian shows just how much labor and training go into making it happen successfully. Don’t miss his studio tour that was just released in early December. I love seeing an organized workspace!