(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.

Welcome to "Prairie Mosaic," a patchwork of stories about the art, culture, and history in our region.

Hi, I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll meet a multifaceted artist, visit a Civil War museum, and listen to a musician who's making her mark in the Twin cities.

♪ You gotta testify ♪ The Buxton in Bloom Grue Church Project is a community wide effort to restore a 19th century Lutheran church in Buxton, North Dakota in hopes that it can someday serve as an arts center hosting community events and music performances.

[church bell rings] [guitar plays softly] ♪ ♪ (Bobbi Hepper Olson) As an architect I've always had kind of a soft spot for the historic rural churches.

I know we can't save them all, but I feel we need to save some.

This one became most interesting because we had a family connection.

It's not very big.

It only seats about 100 people on the inside, 120.

So it's not overwhelming or daunting to save the church.

So I just feel we do need to save part of our history.

I'm going to architecture school and I got really into kind of the architectural history, kind of the vernacular of the area with the churches and the old schools and the university buildings and stuff like that.

I just think it's important to keep that history.

(Bobbi Hepper Olson) On March 17th 1879 53 individuals started Grue Church.

They came here from Norway, and they have a sister church in Norway called Grue.

So that's where it got its name and got its start.

In 2020 they were down to very few active families, probably 4 to 6 active families in the church here.

They decided it was time for them to close the church.

One of the gals that lives close by here in the summertime heard that they were talking about burning the church.

Her family is buried out here so she has a connection to the church.

That's when she became interested.

Her name is Nancy Friese.

She called me and asked me if I was interested because she knew I was an architect in Buxton, but what she didn't realize when she called me is I love to do historic preservation work, but me and my husband were also married here, and my in-laws are buried here.

We've been to a lot of activities.

My mother-in-law played piano here for almost 40 years.

Both of my sons, Koy and Jason were baptized here, so we all had a connection too.

So when she was interested in saving the church and doing something with it, I jumped on board.

The Buxton in Bloom, the board of directors, we got together, and we said, "Yes, we're in!"

Challenges are always finding the funds to do the work, and finding those people that are willing to donate and also finding people who are willing to donate their time too.

There's no running water, so anytime we need any sort of hot water it's drive over to our farm which is a couple miles and load up the plastic storage container that we fill full of warm water.

That's always been a struggle as far as keeping it clean.

I used to clean with my grandma here when I was younger, and the same issue there-- you get your bucket of hot water so you can mop the floors from 2 miles away which sounds kind of insane.

(Bobbi Hepper Olson) We plan on having 2 events here every year.

Last year we had an event in July; we did fresh lefsa on a Blackstone grill.

My mom, my sister, and one of my sisters friends, we made lefsa and lemonade, and we had kind of a closing ceremony.

The other event is, we received a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts and we had Waddington Brothers.

They're from southwestern North Dakota, and they came and performed a concert here the last Saturday in October.

That's going to be another event we want to do yearly, kind of an end of October fall concert.

(Koy Olson) It's been used for weddings probably since it's been built, so it's continued in that use, but also I envision kind of the future concerts.

It creates kind of an interesting acoustical setting with all the tin surrounded by it.

The previous concert we had, we had a pretty good turnout.

Since the pandemic we're seeing people just wanting to have more of those type of events close to home.

We used to have to travel to do those type of events, so having some cultural events closer to home right here in North Dakota and western Minnesota, it's just a perfect spot.

Our thought is to maybe have visiting artists, traveling artists to probably come and stay here for a couple weeks at a time and do some of their artwork at this location and maybe we can have an art exhibit too.

We would like to see it done in 3 to 5 years; that's kind of our goal.

Our main goal this year is to get the roof redone.

We do have a grant from the North Dakota State Historical Society.

We're still looking for some grant funds for matching so we can keep the water out.

We're going to be painting the outside.

So we're just really excited and thankful that we have other groups that are interested in being part of our project.

(Koy Olson) There's definitely some nostalgia.

Sitting in the pews when I was younger, I used to sit there and shuffle my feet back and forth because they never touched the ground.

So I get some memories like that, or watching my grandma play the organ here.

There're been a couple times where I've played the piano for Sunday church service.

The second I walk through that door it just kind of floods my memory at times like that.

(Bobbi Hepper Olson) I feel calm when I come to Grue Church.

It just has this pleasant, calm, peaceful feeling.

It's quiet, it's serene, it has the nice backdrop of the Coulee with the evergreen trees, and you can see it from the highway when you drive by too.

It's a little off in the distance, but it still has that nostalgic look.

Dawn Rossbach is a visual artist from Menahga, Minnesota.

Her talents and experiences include artistic mediums such as painting, printmaking and stained glass, all of which can be seen at Studio 176, in Park Rapids, Minnesota.

[rhythmic electronic music plays] ♪ My name is Dawn Rossbach, and I am now a full-time artist and co-owner of a small gallery in Park Rapids.

Studio 176 started with friends of mine, Jeremy Simonson and Laura Grisamore and Tiffany Bethanan was another person who started off the gallery with us, and that was in August of 2019.

This year it seems to have taken off really nicely for us.

♪ Sometimes when people come into the gallery, a lot of times there's an audible gasp like [gasps] wow, I didn't know this was here!

And they just, you can just see them light up.

I think that's a really cool thing.

I've always been into art ever since I was little and took all the art classes in high school and kind of continued it, but then my opportunities were not really there.

When I was 34 I went back to school to college, and I was going to become an English teacher but then switched over to art.

Then after teaching for a bit it was like, you know, I need to be doing this as well-- working as an artist and teaching it.

Now I'm a full-time artist.

I think one of the things with teaching art is, I always was learning right along with the kids.

There was no doubt about it that I always wanted to learn new processes, new techniques and share those with the kids, but at the same time, I was growing right along with them.

So I don't really focus in on one thing, and I think that I'm sure that comes from my teaching.

But my personal ones I'm probably mostly in painting, printmaking, and stained glass right now.

Some of the themes in my art are definitely food.

I have a series of recipe prints that I call them.

It's recipes that are like ones from our family like my mom's spaghetti.

So then I create that visually, you know, and the coconut cream pie, chicken ceasar salad, her vegetable beef soup, so those are all visual recipes, so to speak.

Some of the figures that I do are kind of these plump people.

I've done quite a bit with figures, but they're not cartoonish but they're not super realistic either.

Oh, how could I forget-the tree!

The spirit tree which has been a muse of mine for I'm not even sure how many years.

It's a tee that's located on highway 71 about 5-1/2 miles south of Park Rapids.

It's this lone white pine that sits very close to the highway.

It's just one of these landmark trees that everybody knows, so it became kind of my muse, and I've done, I don't know, 50, 60 versions of the one tree.

I do really, really like oil painting, and I just returned to that maybe a year ago or so.

Sometimes I will sit right down at the canvas with no intention and just start working with the paints and seeing what happens.

The reaction of the paint is really enjoyable, and I can get really lost in that.

Stained glass as well.

How I got into stained glass is, my dad did it first, then when he passed away I was the only one that could take the equipment and the supplies because I was the only one that had room for it.

So then I just started creating my own works.

I call them "The bevel made me do it."

They're abstract kind of pieces, panels.

What I'll do is, I'll start with the actual bevel.

The reason it's called a bevel is because these edges are beveled down, meaning at a slant on the edges.

I'll start there, then I'll work around that, then I'll start selecting the glass.

Mostly I start working with colors that work together.

Then I'll throw in something that's got texture to it, so I've got those components to make a really good composition.

From there then I'll grind the pieces, then I will foil them, then solder them, then patina, then polish, and then it's pretty much ready to go.

But it's a long process, you know, a small piece like 4 by 14 inches, that's kind of the shape I use a lot.

It's probably going to take 8 to 10 hours total because there's much more technical process with the stained glass where you have to pay attention to what you're doing.

Same with printmaking, there's a lot of similarities between those two in that they're both so technical and there's so many things that can go wrong.

♪ So I've been doing printmaking for 30 years.

So I do linoleum blocks, I do etchings, I do woodblocks, woodcuts, wood engraving, copperplate etchings, I do monoprints, there's a whole variety of printmaking methods under the guise of printmaking.

I think when I design, one of the things that I go for, especially with the block printing is, I'll look at the composition, then contrast, then creating patterns.

So no matter what it is, but each print, successive print, because you can do multiples of it is considered an original print when they're hand-pulled because the artist's hand is involved with it.

Ray Bradbury from "Fahrenheit 451" has this quote, and I know I won't get it right-- "Create something so that your soul has a place to go when you die."

So I think for me it's kind of that little bit of creating something so then if it's in somebody's home, it's kind of there.

It's an honor to know that your work is good enough to be on their walls.

Visiting the Prospect House and Civil War Museum in Battle Lake, Minnesota is like taking a step back in time.

Join proprietor Jay Johnson as he recounts his long family history and shares historical artifacts.

(man) ♪ When Johnny comes marching home again ♪ ♪ Hurrah Hurrah ♪ ♪ We'll give him a hearty welcome then hurrah hurrah ♪ ♪ The men will cheer and the boys will shout ♪ (Jay Johnson) People have asked me what I would say if the place was going to get destroyed in a fire what would be the most important thing to me?

My thought it would be the letter with my great grandfather's blood on it.

How does it get any more personal than that?

My great grandfather Captain James "Cap" Colehour started this place in 1882 when he built the first house in Battle Lake, then he added this building here to it in 1886.

It used to be the first resort in the area, it was a resort hotel.

That's what they had before they had cabins.

Then in 1929 when my grandfather Ernest Wilkins inherited some money-- he'd married this Civil War veteran's daughter-- he completely remodeled this place inside and out in 1929, so this is the way it looked like in 1929.

[fife & drum play "Yankee Doodle"] My mother left me this property when she died 14 years ago.

She'd spent most of her life trying to preserve her family home that she was born and died in.

I was the last of the family, so it was up to me to sort out 200 years of family stuff and figure out what to do with it.

I just felt after going through all of these things it really needed to be a museum.

The yardwork alone is a lot.

It's probably 4 or 5 times as big as anybody's yard in town.

We've got 10 times as many trees, and the flower beds all take work.

It's a large collection.

Originally I found a chest with nearly 200 Civil War letters in it on the 3rd floor.

Then I started to find things all over the house.

One of the first things I found was the sling to his Enfield rifle.

I didn't know what that was.

Then after a while we got his rifle, a Spencer repeater, his sleeves to his uniform with bullet holes in each one, there were 200 Civil War letters, there's at least 14 original Civil War documents that were from the state of Illinois during the war, and his diaries, his notes and books-- he made sure his story of his Civil War experience was well-documented.

And if it wasn't for me, it probably would've been all lost.

[marching band plays "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"] Cap was born January 28th, 1842.

His father was born in Valley forge, Pennsylvania, and I think he already had a strong sense of patriotism and history interest right from the start.

When the war started in 1861 he was in Philadelphia working in his brother's grocery store, and that's when he decided he wanted to join up.

He was certainly a true patriot; that's why he enlisted.

He wrote "Union Forever."

He wanted to preserve the Union, that was his whole idea, and he and his brother enlisted together in the summer of 1862.

Turns out he was part of one of the 3 most famous brigades in the Civil War-- Wilder's Lightening Brigade of Mounted Infantry.

I wanted to plot out his footsteps in the Civil War, so I got out this 1862 map of the Civil War, United States.

The summer of 1862, that's when Cap and his brother enlisted together right here in Mount Carroll, Illinois, just down the river from St. Paul and right next to Galena, General Grant's hometown.

Cap and David went to Chicago and got on the train and headed east, got off the train and marched south on foot, got on the riverboat and rode down the Ohio River on a boat, went by Fort Donaldson where General Grant had just had his first major victory.

They both made it to Nashville, Tennessee where David died of typhoid fever, and Cap nearly died.

He was in the hospital for 3 months, made it to Chattanooga, the battle of Chickamauga, "River of Death," where he was shot through the right shoulder.

Chickamauga is the bloodiest 2-day battle of the Civil War with 35,000 casualties in 2 days!

When he recovered from being shot through the right shoulder, he was shot through the left shoulder at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, then back on the horse, fighting all the way, made it to Savannah, Georgia by Christmas of 1864, had his last battle at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, got on the train and headed home.

Got back home almost exactly 3 years to the day when he volunteered to fight in the Civil War.

Some vacation!

People absolutely love the museum.

We get about 1500 people here through the summer on the average, then we get another 500 or more on group tours and stragglers and tour buses and whatnot.

We try and do a lot of school tours for the schools.

We've had 27 different school groups come through the museum so far, and I'd like every school in the area to send their kids here.

This is a great learning experience.

This is his diary, and the song they were singing there is "Who Will Care For Mother Now?"

If you survived the Civil War it was because you were lucky.

My great grandfather was mayor of Battle Lake and justice of the peace.

He was a public servant, he started the First Baptist Church in town and started the cemetery.

He probably was dog catcher and took care of everything else you could think of too.

It definitely is the history of my family, but I feel that it's representative of your family and other families in the area.

This is our history, it's not my history.

Annie Mack was influenced by the rich Twin Cities music scene when she first started her music career.

Today her soulful blues sound has garnered attention from some of the top clubs, art centers, and rock venues in the Midwest.

[playing in blues-rock rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well that old devil ♪ ♪ He went to Jesus too ♪ ♪ He said how you gonna eat ♪ ♪ If you ain't got no food ♪ ♪ Now Jesus said ♪ ♪ You better keep moving on ♪ ♪ I stay mighty full ♪ ♪ On the word alone ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You know she suffered ♪ ♪ She was sick and tired too ♪ ♪ Well you know the blood wouldn't stop no ♪ ♪ She didn't know what to do ♪ ♪ She lost all her money yeah ♪ ♪ Didn't have no friends ♪ ♪ Her very last hope ♪ ♪ Was this healer man ♪ ♪ She was trembling ♪ ♪ Sho nuff afraid ♪ ♪ He said daughter by your faith ♪ ♪ You've been healed today ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ Well I've searched real high ♪ ♪ And I lived down low yeah ♪ ♪ ♪ Stumbling around ♪ ♪ With nowhere to go ♪ ♪ I've been out my mind ♪ ♪ And my hope all gone yea ♪ ♪ ♪ But for the grace I'm here ♪ ♪ And I'm pushing on ♪ ♪ Pushing on ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock ♪ ♪ Of what He did for you ♪ If you know of an artist, a topic or organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment, contact us at... (Barb) You can watch this episode and many others on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and please, follow Prairie Public on social media as well.

I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

Thank you for joining us for another edition of "Prairie Mosaic."

[guitar, bass, & drums play in bright country rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.