(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 listen to native storytellers, visit a county history museum, and listen to a group of musicians who become a common sight in the Red River Valley.

[playing in folk/country rhythm] An exhibit at the Heritage Center in Bismarck celebrates Native American storytellers from across North Dakota.

"On the Edge of the Wind: Native Storytellers and the Land" invites people to watch these stories, chronicled in videos, and to learn about the importance of the land and the first peoples of North Dakota.

(man) Grandfather we thank you for this beautiful land that's given us life.

All our brothers and all our sisters, we thank all of those who come to listen.

May we walk away with a good feeling of this land and a new understanding of our story.

[wooden flute plays softly] If you think about who you are, you are your mother, you are your father.

We are the land.

Our ancestors all way back to creator.

"Gizhe."

[wooden flute plays softly] ♪ (Troyd Geist) This exhibit began probably about 11 years ago.

What we really wanted to show in the exhibit is-- you can look at a tree, or you could look at a rock, or a butte, and it might be beautiful, but we don't really know what we're looking at.

And the storytellers really revealed to me what was there.

It's more that a butte or a lake to many of the Native Americans.

It's a spirituality, it's a place where they get power, it's a place where they heal.

It's a place that they receive messages and interact with the supernatural.

I think what I would like the people to remember about this exhibit is that we live on this earth, and this earth is a wondrous, powerful, and sometimes very supernatural place where there are unusual things.

(Keith Bear) It's really encouraging to hear the responses of non Native people.

I stopped by the museum desk here a couple times and they said it was really powerful to a lot of people.

Then I hear folks back home, they say, I knew you did this, but I didn't know you did that!

[laughs] So get them to realize that we're carrying on these traditions.

Our school children have come down by the busses, and they're just really happy-- there's my grandpa!

So it's humbling, and we're glad that we had the opportunity to do this because it's not just about native people, it's about North Dakota.

I started working with Troyd about 3 years ago putting this exhibit together.

I have been thrilled by the numbers going through this gallery.

The very first day it was open we had more than 250 school kids.

We try to give people options to delve into the stories because they're so important to the overall experience.

You have access in the gallery space.

We also have a small theater space here in the building where you can also sit and listen to the stories in your own time.

And they're also available on line.

The takeaway I would like to see really is that there is a parallel way of looking at the environment and the land.

We're just scratching the surface with this exhibition.

(Keith Bear) Storytelling has always been a part of our family.

My grandfathers and my uncles-- "Well, there was this boy, there was this eagle, there was this buffalo."

And they would tell stories about how the strength of those animals gave those humans strength.

Sometimes the stars would help the people and the plants that gave us the strength and the vision to do these things, so those were very important to me.

Having that connection to the world around us-- these stories gave me strength.

These stories empowered me.

It gives us hope.

It gives us hope because so many years we had to be silent.

And it gives us hope that our future will be filled with "bimaadiziwin"-- the good life.

Because within our story they tell us how to live in a good way.

The buffalo went through the very same thing that you did as a people.

They tried to exterminate you by putting you on the reservation where life was very hard, and you didn't have food.

And the same thing happened to the buffalo.

The were shot en masse from trains and so forth and left to rot and die on the prairie.

And those that remained, they said they put them in a park like Yellowstone, yet they survived, and your people survived.

The lessons like that that we learned from people, from the environment and the animals and other living things around us.

My favorite story, it's the star in the cottonwood tree.

It's just such a sweet, charming story.

That one is a wonderful story-- how the little star came and heard all these wonderful sounds and wanted to stay.

But the other stars scolded him and told him you belong up here.

But he was persistent, and he finally came down.

They told him he could come down and stay if he could find a place where he would stay and not distract the people because the people had to work.

So then he looked and there was this cottonwood tree.

These storytellers, they've given their lives to these stories, to preserving these stories, to continuing these stories Not for themselves, but for their children and their grandchildren and their grandchildren to their grandchildren.

(Debbie Gourneau) That's what that circle of life is-- we're all connected, and that's what these stories are telling us-- live a good life together take care of each other, not just people-- trees, the wind, the rain, take care of the water, the birds.

(Debbie Louise Defender Wilson) We always give thanks to the earth itself and always try to walk with respect because if we don't realize that all of the earth has power and energy, then we might not be able to receive whatever that particular place has for us.

We're an oral people, we always pass things on.

So if my witness is not there to witness and verify my story over time-- now this is going to be there forever.

Anybody can see it, so we have to tell the truth, we have to tell it right.

So to bring all of these storytellers from around North Dakota from the many different tribes-- it's all about the earth, it's all about the people.

The Kittson County History Center and Museum in Lake Bronson, Minnesota, has a large display of historical relics and memorabilia from the far northwest corner of Minnesota.

Longtime museum Director Cindy Adams, is passionate about preserving the county's history, and sharing it with visitors.

[bass & drums play in spirited rhythm] ♪ We have a little saying here in Kittson County-- Minnesota doesn't end here-- this is where Minnesota begins.

♪ This museum, the original building here was built in 1973.

Through the years it has been added on.

The main building was 60 by 100.

We added on another building in 1978, and that's the farm machinery building, then we have the transportation building which was added in the 1990s.

We've also added outside buildings, historic buildings.

We brought in a building from the James J. Hill farm which was north of, out in Hallock and Northcote.

We also have the first Swedish settlers cabin in the county.

It was Eric Norland who were the first Swedish settlers in the county.

They came up on the Red River, and they put in a homestead here.

We have a country school, depot and a caboose and a country church that have all been moved into the museum grounds.

I'd say we get between 3000 to 4000 visitors a year.

A lot of people that have roots here in Kittson County.

That comes into act.

I try to connect people to the item.

We do a lot of genealogy research here.

I've had wonderful volunteers that have helped get us our genealogy resources together.

Look at this one... 1916.

(Cindy Adams) We get an appropriation from the county commissioner that covers mainly the salaries.

The rest is through memberships, donations.

For special projects we get grants from the Minnesota Historical Society or the Legacy Fund.

My favorite exhibit would be the country school.

It's so quaint in there.

I just recently had a board member and his wife, they put new curtains in there, and they made it all shiny again.

You go in there, and it smells like school.

We had gotten a donation from a farmer, he had bequested a large amount of money to the museum.

And with that, that was kind of a starter fund.

Then we were able to raise money to build this new addition.

It depicts the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

I had 2 ladies by the name of Katherine Mattson and Cindy Glidden Olson who were from Hallock, Minnesota, they graduated from there, and they wanted a project.

They went through the museum's collection first, they knew people from the area that had some clothing, then they went shopping at vintage shops.

They purchased all the mannequins, and they purchased all the clothes.

They did the whole thing themselves.

The military items we have, the Civil War up to the Gulf War, they all are related to Kittson County veterans.

Odin Langen was a congressman, and he was from Kennedy, Minnesota.

It was in the 1950s, early 1960s when he was in office.

The desk came from his office in Washington, D.C. We have the 1929 Harley Davidson.

It has a neat story behind it.

The man who lived here in Lake Bronson, he was a collector of a lot of artifacts, and we have several of his items in here.

And he had gone to South Dakota, and he found this Harley Davidson sitting in a pigpen, buried in mud, topways up, and the sidecar was being used as a sled.

So it was all wore out on the bottom, and he convinced the farmer to let him buy this Harley, and he restored it.

I like how peaceful it is here.

It's quiet, there's a sense of safety.

The people have supported the museum so well.

I have over 200 members, and that's a lot for a small county museum.

There's less than 5000 people in the entire county.

I think one thing that helps us too is we're open year around, and we're open full time.

In the wintertime we're closed on weekends, but we're usually open 5 days a week.

This is the county museum, this is the people's museum, and I just feel that when people come here they kind of have a little bit of a sense of-- it is their museum.

Kristi Swee Kuder is a Fiber and wire-mesh artist from Battle Lake, Minnesota.

Her designs are unusual and brilliant and most of her work has an emotional connection to her personal and family life.

[piano plays softly] ♪ I work with wire mesh I work with natural fibers.

You give me anything that I can stitch, anything that I can weave, that's usually what I like to work with.

My name is Kristi Swee Kuder, and I am a fiber artist.

My artistic journey has always been related to fiber.

I started out with fiber as a child, growing up in Breckenridge.

My mother and dad had a department store there.

In the department store was everything a town could have including a fabric and notions department.

So my mother would always bring home anything that she could knit, anything that she could sew.

I wanted to say something, but I really didn't know what I wanted to say until my family was hit with a loved one with mental illness.

My son was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008.

And it was that where I found my voice.

That was what took my work from being, oh, let's play with this, let's try that, let's see what I can make with this to the point where I wanted to say something about what was happening to me personally.

And I think as a result of that personal engagement and impact, it elevated my work, it brought my work to another level.

He's been homeless, he's been a homeless person, we've experienced years of not knowing whether he's alive.

These experiences are very much a part of a lot of people's lives.

I'm finding out as I share my work, I hear from others who are saying something that is also very, very much in the same vein as what I'm going through.

And it was at that point I realized I needed to do something more.

And it was wire mesh that spoke to me.

Wire mesh was a fiber I could stitch with, I could weave, I could deconstruct, I could tear into.

It expressed so many things that I was feeling.

I buy it in huge big rolls, maybe 6 feet wide, and then I don't know how many yards long.

I cut it down to whatever size I want to work with.

Some of my pieces suspend from the ceiling and are big, I call them veils, they drape down.

So I'm working on a very large scale.

6 feet by 6 feet wide.

Other pieces are much smaller.

I mark it with a torch, I mark it with usually a cooking torch.

And the heat causes the wire mesh to change colors.

I love some of the colors that I get from it.

It gives me some gem tones, deep blues, copper, gold.

That carries the concept for me, of history, the past and the present.

I usually have maybe 2 exhibitions a year that I work towards.

The installation that I feel is the most powerful one is called "As I sit, I knit."

It is made up of a chair with knitting needles and yards and yards of knitted wire.

Along with that are 7 veils that have been marked with logic symbols.

Those logic symbols are scattered throughout the veils.

The logic symbols don't add up.

The equations don't make any sense.

When you deal with the unknown, particularly with mental illness, you have no logic to work with.

When there is no logic, there is no way to to solve your problem.

[guitar plays softly] I'm very connected to this part of the state.

I grew up in Breckenridge, my family would pack up the car after school was out, bring the kids out here.

We would spend the summer out here.

Pack up the car and go back to school in the fall.

So I had my summer friends.

I think it was just an idyllic way to grow up.

I think the landscape here is important to me-- the water and the hills-- it's a beautiful part of the state.

Well, right now I'm starting a new project, and it is taking willow to build a shelter.

For me again it comes back to my desire to talk about mental illness which leads into homelessness.

Homelessness, unsheltered-- I want to create something that is going to be a shelter.

And very often that is a place where the homeless end up is shelters within nature.

The presence and the absence is a big message that goes through a lot of my work.

There's a term for it called ambiguous loss.

Ambiguous loss can happen for people who have gone through a divorce where is the presence and absence-- a child is dealing with that.

Or where a person is dealing with dementia or Alzheimer's, a loved one has that.

I have found it to be very therapeutic, art is really for everyone, whether you are dealing with a major concern or just enjoying life, you still need art or some form of creative process to feel human, to be alive, to have that opportunity to come up with something that is yourself.

I think that what really drives my work mostly is the concept, the desire to share some message, some ideas that I have in my head that I want other people to hear and understand.

The Cropdusters are a group of local musicians from the Moorhead and Fargo communities, who perform a wide variety of musical genres.

Here's part of the set they performed for Prairie Musicians.

[playing in country/bluegrass rhythm in a minor key] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Badland country in summertime ♪ ♪ Beartooth Mountain was such a climb ♪ ♪ Ain't the same as when I was young ♪ ♪ I got 10 pounds in the back of my truck ♪ ♪ The Rocky Mountains ♪ ♪ Rose so high ♪ ♪ A piercing a reflection ♪ ♪ Of the sky ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ In the glistnin' lake below ♪ ♪ But those 10 pounds got me movin' ♪ ♪ So slow ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Sweet Missouri River is such a sight ♪ ♪ When it's glowin' in the pale moonlight ♪ ♪ Stopped at a roadside honky-tonk ♪ ♪ The kind you have to be careful how you talk ♪ ♪ I met a gypsy woman there ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Or so she claimed I could not care ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ But she could never really know ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ That those 10 pounds got me feelin' ♪ ♪ So low ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar solo] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [keyboard solo] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar solo] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Midday sunshine burnin' bright ♪ ♪ As I awake still drunk from last night ♪ ♪ A bit of them 10 pounds will do me good ♪ ♪ I'll hit the road like a good rambler should ♪ ♪ Southbound I hear the sirens go ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So close to sweet hot Mexico ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Only 15 miles to go ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ But those 10 pounds got me movin' ♪ ♪ So slow ♪ [guitar solo] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you know of an artist, topic, or organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment, please contact us at... (Barb) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" 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, and drums play in bright country rhythm] (Barb) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.