Jessica Stölen
Editor
jstolen-jacobson@cherryroad.com
At last weeks meeting of the Granite Falls City Council, MNPAiR artists Tamara Isfeld and John Sterner were in attendance to provide the council with an overview of the work they have been doing towards an art installation that will be housed in Memorial Park.
The MNPAiR program is a collaborative project between the Minnesota Department of Natural resources Parks and Trails Division, the Metropolitan Council Metropolitan Regional Parks, the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission and Forecast Public Art. The pilot program is taking place in parks across Minnesota with Minnesota-based-artists-in-residence who were selected to research and engage with a park, trail or park system and the community surrounding it before using the research to develop new work. Forecast Public Art says the program “focuses on how artists can serve as partners to and ambassadors for the parks and contribute not just art, but ideas”.
Isfeld and Sterner were selected as the artists in residence for both Granite Falls Memorial Park and Lake Brophy County Park in Alexandria. The project is funded through the states Legacy Funds, held through Forecast Public Arts, and has a set budget.
“This project started this summer when John and I first applied. There were about 300 artists that applied from around the state for nine different parks. Four which are out in the greater Minnesota area and the rest are in the metro area. It’s a pilot program, so that means we don’t know exactly how it’s going to go,” said Isfeld. “The goal is not to just create a cool piece of art and hang it up somewhere. It’s about including community and making people feel welcomed, a sense of belonging. Looking at the whole 100 year history of Memorial Park and looking it it being on Dakota land and how do we honor that and looking at how we move forward in a way that feels belonging and welcoming and maybe get people to go to that park that otherwise wouldn’t go to that park.”
Sterner introduced himself, saying that he grew up in Marshall and spent a lot of time in Granite Falls. “I am Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and can trace my lineage to the Dakota people here too, because my grandmother grew up at Little Crow Camp on the Rosebud. My dad was Mike Sterner, he taught at Southwest for almost 40 years, so I’ve been in this area for a very long time,” Sterner said. “I grew up here, and have always been an artist for as long as I can remember. I’ve been practicing art, teaching art. I taught at Marshall Junior High for a number of years and now I’m at Lakeview in Cottonwood for almost 15 years. I was the head wrestling coach at Southwest as well and I make art. This current project will put me at 16 public sculptures or privately owned sculptures that I have made that are throughout the state and in South Dakota.”
Sterner says he was excited about the project in Memorial Park, along with the idea of creating interest in being in parks. “One of the things my mom and dad always instilled in my sister and I as a family was that parks are our connection. My dad always reminded us that our parks are our church and not just the church and we could praise God at the park and being in the parks was important to him. He’s in dementia now so he doesn’t remember saying any of this but when we take him to the park he changes and becomes a happy person again and so we’re reminded of the value of the parks so when we got this opportunity to be at this park it was something that at the core of my being I felt was an important part of what we should be doing,” he said.
The program started in the fall and will continue through August. “Memorial Park for me, too, has always just been a place to regroup, a place to clear my head or just go to some place where I think it’s absolutely gorgeous. There’s only nine parks in the state that were selected and it’s because of the upkeep, because of the artist community that it felt like one of the parks that should be chosen,” she said.
Throughout the winter, the two have been gathering information and reaching out to various community groups to share initial thoughts and ideas, and gather feedback. “We didn’t want it to be like here’s what we did, do you like it? We wanted to be really intentional about that and make it good communication,” she said.
That work led to the initial plan for the idea that was presented at the council meeting. Isfeld noted that they have been meeting with various organizations, students, and communities. “We’d like to have a lot of elders in the community share stories about Memorial Park with teh 100 year anniversary and create QR codes where you can go up to a QR code and hear the story or see a video or that type of thing. We’d like to get some of the students involved with that too, so they can grasp what it was like 50 years ago going to the park. In some ways maybe it hasn’t changed at all, in some ways it’s vastly different. We’re looking at how do we make a park feel like you can belong there and that you feel welcome, while not making it feel intrusive and feel like art has taken over the park,” she said. “We wanted something that could blend in, bt not blend in, something that relates to all people.”
Sterner brought a prototype of the resulting idea to show the council. While displaying the large carved wood piece, he explained. “The idea came when we were talking. I was doing a wood carving for a church in Northfield and looking at techniques for wood carving. This lady had a picture of wood spoons she had made, and instead of them being normal size, she made them two to three feet tall. When I looked at the photo I thought that looks like two people standing there. This lady was from England and she makes wood spoons. I know Norwegians use wood spoons and the Swedish use wood spoons. The Dakota people used buffalo horns to make their spoons. We all eat soup and so it crosses all the boundaries. So we came up with this idea that we could take these spoons and make people out of them, and the people could represent the four elements – earth, wind, sky and fire. From a distance, these spoons will look like people. When we group them together in groupings of three or four, it will look like a group of people of various heights and it kind of invites people to walk down the trail and see what they are,” Sterner explained.
The prototype brought in was six feet tall, but will be of varying heights. The two have also managed to source wood that includes some logs from trees cut down in the park. “We’re going to be using all wood that has been cut down and dried already, even if it cracks. They’re not going to be wood colored, so to speak, we are looking at doing them in the earth colors – like the air ones would be blue, the earth ones could be yellowish or reddish, we’ll have fire ones that will be related to the sun. The plan is to drill to put a steel post inside of them, so there will be a post in the ground and we’ll slide them on top so they can be moved if needed,” Sterner said. The locations discussed for the groupings include along the trail and near the amphitheater that would form a path that Isfeld explained would bring people along the path to where the Eagles nests are, along the lake and back to the amphitheater.
“We’re not to the point where we have everything done, by any means, but we definitely have a direction that we want to go with it,” said Isfeld.
In addition to the work in the park, there are some mosaic mural pieces being made in representation of the park that will be hung in public areas around town to pique interest in the park. They are also working on creating a few public events throughout spring and summer to bring people to the park.
