- On this episode of Postcards (music playing) - It's a real privilege to be a part of big events in people's lives.

Weddings, funerals, graduations.

- Inspiration comes from any direction at any time of the day or middle of the night.

- I feel really fortunate that I have this space and that I have the time and the ability to sit down and create whatever I want.

- Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com The Lake Region Arts Councils Arts calendar an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 kram.

Online at 967kram.com.

(instrumental) - Food is good when you make it.

You know it's best when you make it.

Very few, you know, foods get better with age, unless it is fermentation is a part of that process but with baked goods, it's fresh, you know that's where it's good.

- Carl's Bakery was founded in 1957 by Carl Aus.

He owned and operated it for 30 years.

His son Tom, bought the bakery, then he and his wife Lori and they ran it for 32 years until 2019 when my wife and I along with our, our oldest son, who's a minority owner and my father, a part-owner, bought it.

- My husband up to that point could make peanut butter toast and that was about it.

And so when he said he wanted to buy a bakery, I, I just didn't see how that was gonna quite fit with who he was.

But the more we thought about it, the more we saw that it was just a perfect fit for our family.

It was a lot of new things to learn and a lot of transitions that were difficult, but we took it one step at a time and it's become so much a part of our lives now.

It's hard to imagine not having it at this point.

(instrumental changes) - We were farming just a small livestock you know, pasture-based farm.

We were eager to expand what we were doing on the farm.

We have nine children as a big family.

We love working together.

We, we love the joy that comes in producing good things through our labor and our work together.

- Papas?

- What honey?

- Can I hold your hand?

- Yeah.

Here.

- And we also thought this is a wonderful way to bring what we're doing on the farm, a step forward.

And, and so that's a part of what we do here is, you know farm to table food offerings.

What we produce at Streblow Family Farm is pastured pork chickens, and beef.

They go into our breakfast sandwiches they go into our salads, they go into anything that we serve up front for the, for the lunch and and breakfast menu.

- It's the beauty of a local bakery or a winery or a cheese maker.

It's, it's the flavors of the place.

(instrumental changes) - What we produce on a on a daily basis is gonna be our buns and bread.

That's a, that's an everyday production for us.

And our fry rolls, fry rolls is a, is a big part of what we do that starts every single morning throughout the rest of the day is gonna be the production of our cookies and the bars and the cake and the muffins and the, you know the pastries and pies and, and all of that.

The bakery doesn't open until 6:30 but really by the time the lights are on 5:30, 6 o'clock, you know, people are sneaking in to see what we may have available yet.

And, and by the time we get to 6:30, 7, well then the the store is starting to fill up with with customers that are eager to get those fresh rolls.

- The bakery is just a really unique place in the community where people can come and gather and sit down, read the paper interact with whoever else is coming in.

I think that's really important for a healthy community to have places where people can do that.

- Alright, have a good day.

- Thank you.

(instrumental changes) - Since getting the bakery, I've seen it teach my kids a lot of things that, some of the things they didn't even realize they needed to learn.

They've all learned to excel in different parts of the bakery whether it's cake decorating or learning how to run a till or helping on the bench or whatever it is.

The kids have all just really enjoyed becoming a part of the bakery here.

- Okay, what did you say for hotdog cuts?

- Our son, Isaiah just jumped right in.

He just loves the baking here.

He really enjoys trying new things and even trying things that have been around a long time.

- And this is what we've tried to inculcate in our children.

This, this sense of this is what a good life looks like.

It's not about having things, it's about, it's about learning the right things and applying them in the right way so that they bless other people and ultimately for us, they give glory to God.

- I think baking is a really important art and skill that is being lost.

Keeping those skills alive is is important for good living, for healthy living.

We've had trouble selling whole chickens because it intimidates people.

They don't know how to de-bone a chicken.

It's overwhelming to them, just like they don't know how to make a roll of bread or or how to make cookies from scratch because of our society now, they don't have to do it.

And so they don't.

- When this bakery was founded back in the fifties there was at least two if not three bakeries in Granite falls.

Bakers would have been active through the night multiple night bakers producing hundreds of loaves of bread because there was no big box bread solution.

It was just your local bakery or you made it yourself.

And now you, you know, you fast forward to where we are at now, and you're driving 40, 50, you know an hour even to, to find another bakery.

And if you find one that's typically owned and operated by an older couple who are, are going, "Hey we would love to retire.

But who wants to, who wants to get up at, at two three in the morning and go to all the hard work of running a bakery?"

Our love of tradition, our love of the older ways and our desire to see these older ways brought forward these older tradition, these older skills and practices which are so essential to not just a healthy community, but to human thriving to to good living was a very much a part of what we were eager to see.

The book of recipes that we inherited with this bakery.

Things like even our peanut brittle, you know it stretches back a hundred years.

It's just loaded with these very very old recipes and formulas that have just been passed down generation to generation.

A lot of the ethnic foods that we do, these Scandinavian foods that are part of the Granite Falls heritage will have older patrons come in, you know, 70, 80 years old.

And, and they they're just glad to see these foods that they grew up with and knew, but they don't find anywhere else.

They're just thrilled to see these, these ethnic traditions.

And this is our heritage.

- It's a real privilege to just see a lot of the same faces day after day to be a part of big events in people's lives.

Weddings, funerals, graduations.

We get to know a lot of people in the community that we never would've gotten to to know if we hadn't bought the bakery.

And we formed a lot of really special relationships.

And our kids have gotten to know a lot of special people through our work here.

And, and that's a real joy.

- A lot of people will have a a bit of a midlife crisis when they turn 40.

And they, you know, they, they, they're like they're reexamining their life and they go do something crazy.

For us as a as a couple, you know, it was, it was saying, "Hey let's just do this crazy thing with our nine children and we'll just buy a bakery."

And we found it to be an absolute gift of the Lord.

We absolutely have, have loved the, the whole process of it.

It's a wonderful thing.

(instrumental changes) - Inspiration comes from any direction at any time of the day or middle of the night.

The starting point for my inspiration visually is is almost always God's created order.

As, as we walk amongst it, we sit under a tree we canoe on a lake, we walk along a stream just a small portion of what really grabs my attention.

- I'm an old school representational type painter the old masters kind of approach.

That's what I studied and what I appreciated and that's what I do still with some quirky adaptations.

Well, my history in art kind of goes way back to just post-high school.

Graduated in 1970 in Granite Falls and had a strong interest in art.

But after a couple of years of Iowa College I enrolled in Bemidji State art department planning on going after a degree in fine art.

Couple of classes, one that was pretty much a waste of time was already at that level.

And another one, which I gained a tremendous amount of value in, which was composition.

Got home in '73, was married the fall of '73, and thought, well I'll hang out my artistic shingle and make a living.

I was that naive.

And that ended really quickly, like after I was done with my first commissioned oil painting and I figured I'd better get serious with supporting a wife and whatever family comes.

So I put aside my easel and my paints and brushes and spent the next number of years doing odd jobs around the community and area, which led to a strawberry farm on the property where I live now.

One thing led to another there and woodworking came into the picture, which was the next 20 years of my life doing commercial woodworking in the corporate recognition realm, plaques, desk accessories and the like.

So after 20 years of running a business I talked to my wife, said, well, what do I do now?

At this stage in life, at seventy years of age I'm a little freer to do what I want, not what I have to do.

So I'm back in the art world and seeing what I can do with it as a Senior citizen.

Many of the pieces that I get the strongest reaction to are some of my oddest paintings, because they've I've poured myself into them.

They're not just, well, I need another mountain painting or I need another chicken painting.

It's ones that just, I had a spark of inspiration and what can I do with that and turn that into a viable painting?

And that's what really fires me up.

And so I put myself into it and if I'm happy with it, I show it.

And, and those are the ones that people I think recognize the level of intense effort that has gone into it, that shows in the final product.

I like new challenges, much of the satisfaction.

In fact, nearly all of it, frankly, is in the journey of getting from a rough idea into a finished piece that works and people respond well to.

So I do all of my own framing which gives me more creative freedom.

It also saves a buck here and there and gives me an opportunity to do some unusual things which occasionally works.

The problem with art and my surviving as a human being much less providing for a wife and a large family.

As everyone, no doubt knows, art or fine art or craft is not a road to financial security for very many people.

And so we're always looking for opportunities to advance our economic reality, pay our bills, and and then to expose more people to our work.

So a number of, I've lost track, was it 16 years ago now?

Roughly.

A bunch of us local artists craftspeople got together and out of that grew the upper Minnesota River Valley art crawl the meander, as we call it and have been in it for most of its years.

I have so many unfinished projects, painting and sculpture wise that beg finishing.

That's the downside of having a creative mind, is that you always want to chase the next project.

I wanted to sculpt my wife, whom I have tremendous admiration for.

So there needs to be a sculpture of her.

It's 10 years ago now that I'm still wanting to finish.

I show it every year at the meander and people comment and my, my wife is here and say, yeah, looks like you but I'm, it's, it begs to be finished.

So even for this interview, I've pulled it out and I'll do some work on it.

So we grew up without a lot of money and the need to be ingenious and find solutions for whatever challenge came along in life.

I don't want to use the word self-made because no one is self-made.

We all learn from somebody.

But I have very little formal training in anything I've done.

Just a ton of confidence and some God-given aptitude.

And so I've applied that to a wide variety of things in life.

Art for me in my adult life since I left college has been up and down in and out based upon economic realities.

All the while pressing against my forehead from the inside wanting to get out.

It's hard for me to shut my mind down.

My creative mind is, is constantly going.

- So recently, within the last few years, I really have been wanting to do collaborations with other artists.

This is an example of one of them.

2003, I went to Alaska and I saw the totem poles.

And when I came back from Alaska, I had this piece.

I don't do a lot of things like this.

This is about 2013, and these are actually pages out of an early Alice in Wonderland book.

So did a lot of things earlier in my career that was painted on, found objects and that is a found frame with a piece of glass in it, painted from behind.

I used to do some torn paper things.

This is called Urban Sprawl.

This, this piece is one of the few torn paper pieces I did.

And it's painted over with oils.

I, I guess I just liked it at the time.

I really had a problem over the COVID isolation.

I thought, oh, I'm gonna be able to create so much because I'm gonna have all this time.

And it just left.

It was so bizarre that I couldn't create.

And I had all this time.

I really got into trying to analyze the difference between solitude and isolation, because I need solitude.

But isolation was a completely different thing.

It's the longest period of time that I ever went in my entire life without creating.

We were creating other things.

I mean, we were creating this space because we moved this building on and we were working in the big house, you know, the renovation.

But I just, I was like, okay, I'm guess I'm done.

I guess I'm not an artist anymore.

So this is the living room that we're redoing and we've made a lot of progress in it from what it used to be.

I did the plaster on the walls and we wanted to bring it back to life.

And so this is a room that we started in because this is a room where we'll gather and have our conversations and have it be very balanced.

Try to bring it back to the way it was back in 1885 when this property was built.

The floors are Douglas fir.

We redid the floors and we even left some of the square headed nails in the floor just because because they're square headed nails.

I mean, we left a lot of imperfections.

We, you know, nothing is perfect and the imperfections just give it more character Because now I'm really, I'm excited again about creating and color is not dead.

I'll always be vibrant with my work.

And I do experiment in different things like the Alice in Wonderland little head there.

It's always gonna be vibrant.

I paint on canvas most of the time.

I stretch my own canvas while my husband builds the frame or the stretchers for me.

I like a lot of layers.

And the painting tells me when it's done.

I mean, I just keep going if it's just so weird.

And sometimes I hate it.

Sometimes I go home at night and I'm like I don't know what, I hate this.

I hate this painting.

I just need to paint over it.

But then if I come back the next day with a fresh outlook and maybe try a different color, it it eventually reveals itself.

It's, that's prob probably one of the things I love the most.

I probably painted a thousand different things for people for whatever they wanted painted that was paying the bills that was keeping, you know, the electric company off my porch.

However, this was where my heart was, was in this style of painting.

I didn't really know if anyone would be interested in this sort of painting, but I knew that I had to paint it.

And to me what it represents is the life of a single mom balancing, juggling on horseback.

You've got the faces looking on.

I love, love, love these colors.

I love the movement and I wanted to get it framed.

And when I brought it to the framer, he asked me to promise to never do this again.

And I had stretched it on an old window frame and it's called Circus Ride.

This frame at the time of getting it framed cost more than the actual car that I was driving at the time.

Every painting that I do, I can remember exactly how I felt when I was doing it.

And I've always said about this area that it's in my bones this it's just in my bones.

This living here, coming back here after living in Texas, number one, Texas was not a place first for me at all.

And it's like when I got back here I just was like, this is so beautiful.

I can't believe I would ever wanna leave.

And I haven't.

I am actually surprised at this point that I'm still so in love with it and that I haven't run out of ideas.

I have a friend and he worked for DC Comics and he said I have this friend Jenny, who's an artist and would you like to see some of her work?

And Gary, and he's a great guy.

He wanted to buy that painting of the flowers.

And he sent me the retainer check - Batman speaking, warning all of you to brace yourselves for big news - With the DC comic envelope with Batman superimposed on it.

And so I framed it because I live in the middle of nowhere Minnesota and paint in a tiny building who gets to sell art to the retired art director of DC comic.

It's been a heck of a ride.

I've, I think some of the best things are the people that that I've met, honestly.

It's literally in my bones.

I mean, my art is, has affected me in many ways.

The journey has been very colorful.

I feel like it's never gonna stop being a complete surprise.

I feel really fortunate that I have this space and that I have the time and the ability to sit down and create whatever I want.

It's, it's wonderful and it's, it's hard but it's more wonderful than it is hard, really.

- Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

Mark and Margaret Yaeckel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com the Lake Region Arts Council's Arts calendar and arts and Cultural heritage funded digital calendar.

Showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 Kram.

Online at 967kram.com.