Old Hwy 12 Remains At Whetstone River
Watercolor, 2014 |
I create handmade paper combining plant science and art for various art mediums. I work at being a teaching/mixed media paper maker artist (MFA), and a Minnesota naturalist and have a studio designed for personal and collaborative art making and social practice. I focus on ecology, aesthetics, and creative potential for local plants and their environmental importance. I was born in Ortonville, Minnesota and come from families who settled in Big Stone County as early as 1876. Western Minnesota's water and land, and its people's creative potential are all rooted in my family history. I was influenced by spending time with my grandmother, who at the age of nineteen, took a train to Oregon, enrolled in art classes, and later came home with treasured landscape paintings. I've taught in high schools, colleges, a correctional institution, art centers, and communities since the early 1960s, Making art, teaching, and exploring connections between art and science drive my projects in community arts, healthy living, care for the environment, and popular education. I've always been involved in start-up projects. When I was a kid we had to make our own fun. I was in the first graduating class at the U of M, Morris. In Glenwood MN, Tucson AZ, Columbus OH, Morris, MN Duluth, MN, Ortonville, MN, and Marshall MN, I designed and implemented various beginning school programs and community projects. |