Must Love Trains

This post is from my artist residency- finally here in New York Mills after a lot of preparation and build up. The train reference is to my first big accomplishment here- sleeping through the night while staying two blocks from a very busy railway line. Since that waited until day three, I was ready!

I started this venture with a couple of days in Minneapolis, staying at the home of my long ago college roommate. While there I enjoyed walking Lake of the Isles, a visit to Birch Bark Books, and meeting up with my nephew and his family to take in some of Art-a-Whirl. Quite fun to visit, see all the art and be jealous of so much wonderful studio space for artists.

From there to New York Mills- somewhere between Minneapolis and Fargo with a lot of wide open space and a lot of small towns. Minnesota has shown it’s ease at changing temps- when I landed it was 86 degrees, on Tuesday it was 40 with a “feels like” temp of 29. Having said that, I’m seeing Spring and it’s various stages and thinking about that while I observe the progress of the lilacs blooming. Ours in SF had finished blooming a couple of weeks ago, Minneapolis was a riot of blooms and here they are just about to open. And temps were perfect for the outdoor event I took part in last evening: A Celebration of Cultures. Lots of different sorts of music, food and art related activities in the Sculpture Park here. The community was engaged and enthusiastic which made it fun to show what I was up to.

And just what is that? So far, lots of photos, a couple of not-so-successful collages and an almost complete tapestry sketch. The weaving is based on colors noted in a walk through the local cemetery and experimenting with a Finnish weaving technique: Raanu. My hope is that I might get a collage and a woven sketch that combine well together, but if I do nothing more than a lot of learning, that won’t be a bad thing.

Where I am staying

The Celebration of Cultures

Tapestry sketch in progress