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(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 Humanities Council,
a nonprofit independent state partner
of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
the North Dakota Council on the Arts,
and by the members of Prairie Public.
Welcome to "Prairie Mosaic,"
a patchwork of stories about the people
and places that contribute to the arts,
culture, and history in our region.
Hi, I'm Barb Gravel.
On this edition we'll investigate
the art of rosemaling,
visit a museum dedicated to the history
of Minnesota's milling industry,
hear the story of the Root Beer Lady,
and listen to some smooth jazz.
Poetry Out Loud is a contest that encourages
the nation's youth to learn about great poetry.
This program helps students master public speaking skills,
build self-confidence and learn about their literary heritage.
Bethany Brumbaugh of Cavalier High School was a finalist
in North Dakota's 2013 State Poetry Out Loud competition.
Poetry Out Loud is a high school competition
where students pick a piece of poetry, memorize it,
but also learn what it means and learn how to say it
how the author would have liked it to be said.
It all starts at the classroom level.
Your teacher approves a poem that you pick
and you recite your poem for your class.
And then the winner of the classroom competition
goes to the school competition, and then they pick one winner
out of all the classroom competitions
to represent the school at the state competition.
They have a website, poetryoutloud.org.
They have a database of a whole bunch of eligible poems.
You had to have one that had the 25 lines and fewer,
and then you also had to have one that was pre-18th century.
There are hundreds and hundreds of poems
that you can pick on that database,
and through all those I found 3 that really stuck out to me.
You look at the author's perspective
and not take everything so literal,
because a lot of poetry isn't very literal,
you have to look at the imagery behind it and keep in mind
that things aren't so concrete in poetry.
It is like artwork, abstract artwork.
"The sea is calm tonight the tide is full,
The moon lies fair upon the straits
On the French coast the light gleams
And is gone;
The cliffs of England stand
Glimmering and vast
Out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window,
Sweet is the night air!
Only from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land."
While I was performing my poems, I felt very, very nervous.
The state competition is the worst for that,
just because the lights are dimmed low,
and you have this spotlight,
and there are all these really good competitors.
So it's more nerve-wracking that way.
But it was kind of cool at the same time that I had
reached that level and that people were listening to me
because they thought that I was good.
Before I entered Poetry Out Loud, I had this idea that
poetry was kind of unreachable and un-understandable.
I didn't really see it as any type of art,
but now I can really see
how poets really create this piece that really is art.
It's something so beautiful.
"Sometimes I say, I'm going to meet my sister at the café,
Even though I have no sister,
Just because it's such a beautiful thing to say.
I've always thought so, ever since I read a novel
In which two sisters were constantly meeting in cafés.
Today, for example, I walked alone on the wet sidewalk,
Wearing my rain boots,
Expecting someone might ask where I was headed."
I would encourage other students
to participate in Poetry Out Loud
because you get in touch with yourself in a whole new way.
I gained a new perspective on learning and life,
more confidence in who I am.
If I wouldn't have done Poetry Out Loud,
I probably would have regretted it.
The first poem was
"Batter My Heart Three-Person'd God," by John Donne.
I wanted to have one that incorporated my faith.
It's a man who is pouring out his heart to God
and he's very frustrated because he has no control
over giving his whole heart to the Lord.
We are in the back of my Grandma Shirley's yard,
and I chose this location because the beauty in this area
reminds me of the beauty that I see in the poem.
"Batter My Heart Three-Person'd God," by John Donne.
"Batter my heart, three-person'd God,
For you as yet but knock,
Breathe, shine,
And seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand,
O'erthrow me, and bend your force to break,
Blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you,
But oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me,
Me should defend,
But is captiv'd,
And proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you,
And would be lov'd fain.
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,
Untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me,
For I, except you enthrall me,
Never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste,
Except you ravish me."
♫
In 1974, Jean Honl enrolled in a rosemaling class.
It was there that she fell in love
with the beautiful scrolls and flowers so prevalent
in this Norwegian folk art.
She is a master at her craft
and makes most of the items in Roseau, Minnesota.
(Jean) Rosemaling in Norwegian
means flower painting.
And when you look at the different styles of rosemaling,
they always incorporate flowers.
Certain churches in the cities
would invite painters from Europe
to come in and paint their churches.
And they needed people to help them,
and that would be just regular Norwegians,
and they would watch
what the professional painters were doing,
and they would, the Norwegians would just rosemal
or try to do the same thing as the professional rosemalers,
because it was more folksy.
When you start rosemaling, it's better to kind of
use your own designs, and you'll get used to it.
You won't get dependent on anybody else's style.
And then what I'm going to be doing is
I'm going to be tracing over my design.
I think the first time I realized
I was interested in art was we, in first grade,
we were making finger paintings for the fair.
I do all my own designs, and that was a challenge too,
to create my own style.
I have transferred this design, and then
I put baby powder on the backside,
I transfer it with the stylus,
and the whole pattern is right here.
A lady taught a community class in rosemaling,
and my husband said you should really go to this,
you might have fun just learning a few extra things.
And when I got home that night,
I was so excited I couldn't sleep.
So I had kind of a sleepless night, but it was a fun one,
because I realized how much I really loved what I was doing.
This design is just kind of a modified C, and what you do is,
I'm just going to dip my brush in the water,
I'm going to put a little paint on my brush,
and all this stroke is,
is you start at the top, and you start really slowly,
and as you get to the bottom, you pull over and stop.
The challenge for me was color
and kind of using the color in the design.
And the S stroke is, you start with a line,
you come down...
and then slowly move over again.
I had a huge challenge with getting the small detail lines
and the strokes nice and crisp.
And that took me many years to just kind of
get acquainted with it and do that.
If you notice, I'm using the same strokes over and over again,
and that's the basic strokes right there.
I would look at different designs,
and then I would try to put these designs together.
And that was confusing because I wanted it to be different,
but I didn't want them to recognize the flowers
or whatever that I had used.
And after I had done that for many years,
it now, it just flows.
It started, I think, becoming really popular in the 1970s,
and a whole lot of people
discovered rosmaling again, even in Norway,
but now I've found that it's kind of
dying out a little bit; it's not as popular as it was,
and I'm a little concerned about that.
When you start rosemaling, I think half of it is
developing your own style,
and I think that's part of the problem is,
it's not, it's gotten too restricted,
and I think it should be more open to everybody's style
and what they want to paint.
If you don't have a good brush,
you're going to struggle through this.
You need really good brushes.
Right now I've done a few birds
and I've also done folk figures within my painting.
I enjoy rosemaling because, especially my kind,
it's, because it's different,
you're creating different things all the time.
It's not the same thing over and over again.
Once you get involved in a certain thing,
it just keeps going on and on and on.
It seems like you're never done learning.
I love rosemaling; I love the people I meet;
I love rosemaling for other people, and I especially enjoy
when they love what I've made for them.
And that's part of the upside of being a rosemaler.
Singer-songwriter Elisa Korenne
of New York Mills, Minnesota,
writes songs about unusual characters
and events in Minnesota history.
One song focuses on Dorothy Molter, a courageous
and independent woman who lived
on Knife Lake near Ely, Minnesota.
Dorothy owned a resort in the Boundary Waters region
and her legacy grew from the warm hospitality
and ice-cold glass of homemade root beer
that she provided for tourists.
[bongo & drums play in bright rhythm]
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer ♫
♫ Huh! ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer ♫
♫ Huh! ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer ♫
♫ Huh! ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer na na-na na-na ♫
♫ Root beer ♫
♫ Huh! ♫
The Mill City Museum in downtown Minneapolis
is a fascinating place to visit.
The museum tells the story
of the history of milling in the Twin cities.
and the companies that rose to prominence.
Visitors experience interactive rooms,
historical interpreters, and other treats.
But remember, you'll need a full morning to see it.
(man) It was quite the sight; I sure can't believe it myself.
It was exciting enough that schools would bring
busloads of kids down here to watch us start that mill.
To me it's still amazing.
We're standing in Mill City Museum
in what was once the largest flour mill in the world.
When it was built in 1880, it was the largest flour mill.
From 1880 to 1930, Minneapolis was
the flour milling capital of the world.
And this flour mill continued to function until 1965.
You have the 2 companies, the Washburn A Mill,
Pillsbury Mill across the river,
and here they're both producing flour on a massive scale.
This mill was once the largest flour mill in the world,
then the Pillsbury A Mill was, so this is
what made Minneapolis the milling capital of the world.
(man) Minneapolis, the Mill City!
The flour milling capitol of the world!
(Laura Salveson) The building closed as a flour mill and in 1991,
there was a huge fire that burned through the building,
destroying all the original equipment,
and in 2003, this opened as Mill City Museum
with a brand-new building built inside the ruin walls.
The explosive history of this site is
that the first Washburn A Mill,
which was built 1874, was destroyed
by a huge flour dust explosion in 1878.
I'm going to reproduce an event
that actually occurred here back in 1878;
it was the explosion of the Washburn A Mill.
It's quite likely with the actual explosion
that the ignition source was a machine.
I have a nice jar of flour dust here,
put a nice heaping teaspoon of material in here.
We're going to get this dust mobile,
and in order to do that,
I'm going to use this trusty bicycle pump here
and get that flour dust moving around in that mill.
Let's try it here, 1, 2, 3, go!
[poof!]
We're part of the Minnesota Historical Society, so it was
the Minnesota Historical Society's exhibit team
and department that worked on the exhibits here.
And they explore a number of different things.
One of the big stories
that we tell here is
the story of promotion and advertising.
You have General Mills here, Pillsbury across the river,
they're both making the same product,
how do they build consumer and brand loyalty?
So that's a big story and you'll see our giant Bisquick box,
which kind of anchors that area.
We also tell the story of the wheat fields
and the Red River Valley
that supplied a lot of the wheat that was milled here.
And history player Mary Dodge Woodward
is one of the ways that we tell that story as well.
"April 3rd, when the sun shines,
such a steam arises from the ground
that the prairie looks like an ocean with waves.
One cannot make out objects at a distance,
the country is alive with teams seeding and dragging."
(Laura Salveson) We have a large number of school and youth groups
that come through here every year, about 35 to 40,000,
and they experience all facets of the museum.
We have an interactive water lab, where people can discover
changes that were made to the river
in order to power the mills.
The key to the whole thing
is not to let the water go down the waterfall.
So what they did was build a 3-sided dam, and that
actually raises the water up a little bit more, then
drives it to the side, where you can run it through machines.
(Laura Salveson) We have a baking lab where all sorts of things take place.
Our staff will talk with folks
about test kitchens, wheat and flour.
Hard wheat and soft wheat are turned into the bread flour
and the cake flour, and then we have our all-purpose flour,
which is generally a blend of bread and cake flour.
(Laura Salveson) We also have a show called "The Flour Tower,"
where you ride between 7 floors of the museum,
each one designed to look like a different floor of a working flour mill,
and hear the voices of people who actually worked here.
(woman) They were just young kids.
They wanted to work on the same place all the time.
They were boy crazy too.
(Laura Salveson) There is a "Meet the Machines" exhibit,
which is flour milling equipment
from the Pillsbury Mill across the river, from the Albany Mill,
and other places as well.
And you will also see history players,
people portraying people from Mill City's past
and get to enjoy stunning views from our observation deck.
[loud whistle] Oh!
Is it any wonder that it frightens the animals.
Huh, I never thought I would see the day
where work was done by the power of machines
rather than by horses.
I think for some people, this is their starting point,
the go-to for Minneapolis history,
but also regional stories
and stories of how this place changed the way we eat.
(man) So you get the strangest dream.
I said to the wife in the morning,
"Oh, I'm all worn out today" she said "Why?"
"I had trouble at the mill last night."
I think it's something I'll never forget.
Peggy and John Bartunek live in Grafton, Minnesota,
and have a long history in music education and performance
They started the Sneaky Wild Oats
because of their love for jazz.
Today they play throughout North Dakota and Minnesota.
So sit back and enjoy the smooth jazz sounds of Sneaky Wild Oats.
♫ There will be many other nights like this ♫
♫ And I'll be standing here with someone new ♫
♫ There will be other songs to sing ♫
♫ Another fall another spring ♫
♫ But there will never be another you ♫
♫ There may be other lips that I may kiss ♫
♫ But they won't thrill me like yours used to do ♫
♫ Yes I may dream a million dreams ♫
♫ But how can they come true ♫
♫ If there will never ever be another you ♫
[piano solo]
♫
♫
♫
♫
♫
[trumpet solo]
♫
♫
♫
♫
♫
[saxophone solo]
[drum solo]
[saxophone solo]
[drum solo]
[saxophone solo]
♫
[drum solo]
[saxophone solo]
[drum solo]
♫ There will be many other nights like this ♫
♫ And I'll be standing here with someone new ♫
♫ There will be other songs to sing ♫
♫ Another fall another spring ♫
♫ But there will never be another you ♫
♫ There will be other lips that I may kiss ♫
♫ But they won't thrill me like yours used to do ♫
♫ Yes I may dream a million dreams ♫
♫ But how can they come true ♫
♫ If there will never ever be ♫
♫ No there will never ever be ♫
♫ No there will never ever be ♫
♫ Another ♫
♫ You ♫
If you know of an artist,
a topic, or an organization in our region
that you think might make for an interesting segment,
please contact us at...
I'm Bob Dambach.
Thank you for joining us for this edition of "Prairie Mosaic."
♫
(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 Humanities Council,
a nonprofit independent state partner
of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
the North Dakota Council on the Arts,
and by the members of Prairie Public.