(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 learn about the process of harvesting wild rice, meet a multimedia artist, and listen to folk music from a Minnesota based musician.

[playing in rhythmic folk tempo] Mandy Groom of Glyndon, Minnesota has found her passion with alcohol ink.

With each drop of ink and blast of air, she lets her emotions flow onto paper, and creates colorful works of art, armed with only her tools and her positivity!

[harp plays softly] I'd like to think that I just pour my soul into everything that I do.

And I think it shows.

When I discovered alcohol ink I was working on my PhD, I was stressed to the max, holding down a full-time job, and I needed something that was going to be my relief.

I've always turned to art and creativity for that.

And when I discovered this medium, it was like opening up the gates and allowing me to really release everything that I was holding in and bottling up onto paper.

Then I just kept doing it and doing it and never had the intention of turning it into a job or anything like that.

Alcohol ink is a highly pigmented ink.

It is essentially what is used to make markers, but it's in the liquid form, so I use it on glossy surfaces, mostly synthetic paper.

I can use it on canvas and other surfaces like ceramic, glass, metal.

I love working with alcohol ink because it's very fluid.

You can mix colors together, and it just moves on paper, and there's something very whimsical and freeing about it.

My process really starts with how I'm feeling that day.

Emotion really dictates how the piece is going to come together.

I really use nature as inspiration for my color palette.

I take those natural palettes and I make them more whimsical.

So I might intensify the color or think about it a little differently than what you're actually seeing.

I start with adding ink.

Usually it's like a small pool of ink first, then add metallic.

The metallic goes into the ink,then I add isopropyl alcohol to it.

That allows for it to move across the paper; it becomes very fluid.

A lot of the movement in I'm doing on the paper requires forced air.

You need to force it kind of around whatever surface you're working with.

I use my air blaster bulb to kind of blasted the air around, and also a hair dryer to move it.

And I use silicone brushes.

I use those to help move the inks around because normal paint brushes will soak up that ink.

It's very fast drying.

The alcohol is what really helps to keep it more fluid, so the more alcohol you add to the ink, then the longer you have for the dry time.

I think ink can be very intimidating because there isn't a lot of control.

I think the most challenging part is not knowing essentially what it's going to look like when the colors start to merge.

I have swatches which are behind me, those swatches allow for me to see what some of the undertones are.

Those undertones will then mix, so you have to be very careful to think about how those colors mix.

Part of why I love working with alcohol ink is it allows me to use the analytical side of my brain that really starts to dig into how are these colors going to mix, what is that going to look like, is it going to create something that is really intense and beautiful or could it end up muddy and not really what I was hoping for.

I don't know if a piece is ever really finished.

As an artist I think there's always something that you look at, and you're like, oh, I could maybe do something here or touch it up here.

When you add more ink to what's already on the paper it's going to shift and move that ink as well, so sometimes it can really disrupt a painting if you add too much or not add enough.

So usually I go based off a feeling.

Everything is about feeling for me.

If it feels right, the painting is done for me.

I love to teach one-on-one sessions.

I had someone reach out, they were just curious to know a little bit more about my process and really just interested in the medium and wanted to give it a try.

So I said I could meet with you one-on-one over any type of connection we could make and teach that individual how I do my process.

It just kind of dawned on me, maybe other people want to learn, and I was surprised by people's interest and wanting to meet with me and learn from me.

I'd show them how I paint, then I give them an opportunity to show me how they're working, then I provide feedback as they are doing it.

They are a lot of fun.

What I want people to feel from my art is emotion, have a response, something that triggers something for them, whether it's happiness, joy, frustration, whatever it might be, but I want it to spark something in them, something that maybe draws them back to a memory or a thought or something that makes them feel.

I love to bring joy to the world and positivity, and I think that I'm able to do that through teaching and just inspiring others to keep doing what they're doing and finding ways to relieve stress and bringing more of that positivity into their life is rewarding for me.

I like to see people happy!

Wild Rice in the White Earth Reservation has sustained it's people for thousands of years.

Winona LaDuke, a ricer her entire life, takes us through the process of harvesting wild rice and what it means to the people of the White Earth Reservation.

[acoustic guitar plays in bright rhythm] (Winona LaDuke) This month is called "Manoominikewi-Giizis" or the wild rice making moon in Anishinaabemowin.

It has just started, the rice is here, and we know it was coming because when the first maple leaves turn is when the rice is ready.

My name is Winona LaDuke [speaks Ojibwe] I'm Executive Director of Honor the Earth, and I'm a ricer.

We are at the Round Lake Farm of the the White Earth Land Recovery Project, and we are parching rice.

We've been doing this for about 25 years here.

So this starts when the rice comes up on the lake.

Non-Indian people have treated it poorly thinking it's a lake weed, but for us it is manna.

The word manomin itself refers to something the manitous gave us, it's a part of our migration story.

We were instructed to move to the place where the food grows upon water.

So this is where we were instructed to go by our creator.

Where there is rice there are Anishinaabe people, and where there are Anishinaabe people, there is rice.

We have an entire world that is based on that.

Our people live in a world that is almost half water.

If you look at the Anishinaabe universe, we're the northern part of 5 American states and the southern part 4 Canadian provinces, and there's a lot of water.

The Great Lakes, of course, and then the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, that's our "aki," the land to which we belong.

So in that, we have this world that has a lot of fish in it and a lot of rice.

So this time is something that for thousands of years we have looked forward to.

So right now across the North country there are Ojibwe people and non Ojibwe people taking to lakes.

We go out there, put our prayers out, and then go out with a canoe.

One person has the "bawa'iganaak," or the knocker, You bring it over, you knock it, you've got to be kind of gentle, you don't whack it.

You've got to be gentle, and the heads fall into the canoe.

The other person, they put some poles and pushes you through the rice beds because it's not deep water.

We go until we get good rice in our canoe or how tired you are.

Then you bring it to us here or to a parcher, and we weigh it, then lay it out to dry.

Then after it is dry we put in a wood-fired parcher.

Ronnie Chilton has been parching here for most of his life.

My name is Ron Chilton, I work for Honor the Earth.

I've been here quite a few years now, and I have a crew of about 6 guys that do different jobs.

Today we are in the process of parching and thrashing and finishing rice.

It probably takes about 3 hours to cook a batch of rice of 300 pounds, 2-1/2, 3 hours.

We'll dump it into a cooling box, and we'll hook it up to a fan, then we'll cool it off a little bit so we can handle it and put it in the thrasher.

The purpose of that is to get the hull off and try and not break the seed up.

Then from there, it goes into another little box, and we'll take it into the fanning mill.

The fanning mill, that just blows the hull out the back of the building and the seed into a bin.

Hopefully we get a lot of rice this year.

We are going to do 20,000 I hope, or 30,000 pounds.

I'm building a new thrasher and setting up another fanning mill to do the project.

It's really interesting, the equipment is from a lot of different decades.

It's like that Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time."

So you got like a 1943 fanning mill.

Like it's all handbuilt equipment that's very custom-built for this very specific purpose-- just genius, mechanical genius, a lot of these rural people.

People don't think about what mechanical genius it takes to figure out how to adapt equipment.

My community is economically poor, just everything you don't want to happen is our community.

But what we've got is rice, so if you've got wild rice, you can make some bucks.

So to us it is food for the belly, and it is also food for the pocket.

You know, it pays a lot of our bills.

So Native Harvest and Honor the Earth both sell rice, and we also parch for families.

A lot of families might rice, then they need their 100, 200 pounds parched; we do that too.

A lot of people eat rice, it's the centerpiece of our nutrition.

There's a reason that the Ojibwe people are so numerous and large.

A lot of it has to do with wild rice.

When you go out and rice, you're happy.

You're doing something your great great great greats did.

In the same lake; in the same lake!

Ber Vasquez is a multidimensional artist who specializes in painting, ceramics, and other works of art.

Originally from Peru, she found her artistic calling after moving to Dilworth, Minnesota.

She is a tireless worker who demands perfection from her art.

[piano plays in bright rhythm] [Ber speaks with an Incan, Quechuan accent] Dan Israel is a singer/ songwriter from Minnesota who has been creating folk-rock for over 2 decades.

His music is a mix of sweet melodies and infectious hooks.

Enjoy his performance from our series, "Prairie Musicians."

Hi, I'm Dan Israel, I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I'm kind of a singer/songwriter who sometimes gets grouped in with folk musicians, but I probably lean a little bit more rock 'n' roll.

I often play with a band too, and my records have a lot of drums and electric guitars on them.

So I kind of walk the line between folk and rock, but my heart is probably a little bit more in rock 'n' roll.

[playing a folk-rock beat] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It's all I can do to raise my chin ♪ ♪ Grew up believing it was a sin ♪ ♪ To let a single day go by ♪ ♪ To sit alone and only cry ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Each day a million things explode ♪ ♪ Conspire to take me off the road ♪ ♪ I need affection I need love ♪ ♪ Can't find the answer in a ♪ ♪ Stay alive 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ Don't take that dive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ You let her down and turned your back ♪ ♪ And then you could not get on track ♪ ♪ You chased and pleaded felt the sting ♪ ♪ Of what the cold rejection brings ♪ ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ Don't take that dive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ I got no answers ♪ ♪ No final score ♪ ♪ Gonna take my chances ♪ ♪ See what's in store ♪ ♪ I can't get down if ♪ ♪ I just keep going ♪ ♪ I'm close to knowing ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You went along all that you could ♪ ♪ They said they'd hold not sure they would ♪ ♪ You feel it crumbling down below ♪ ♪ When it comes down to it you ♪ ♪ Stay alive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ Don't take that dive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ Feed your drive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ Let your heart thrive ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ 125 ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing in country/folk rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Something's got ahold of me ♪ ♪ I want love but I must be free ♪ ♪ Can't see what my future brings ♪ ♪ Can't decide on anything ♪ ♪ Once I had it figured out ♪ ♪ Then I came face to face with doubt ♪ ♪ Got stuck on the difference ♪ ♪ Then I lost my confidence ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Then I got stuck in the weeds and tangled ♪ ♪ Then I was just looking for an angle ♪ ♪ Then I was looking for the words to say it ♪ ♪ Then I was looking for the time to play it ♪ ♪ There's a cost ♪ ♪ The coin's tossed ♪ ♪ Still I'm lost still I'm lost ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Did all that a person could ♪ ♪ If someone said it then I would ♪ ♪ Lifted every weight alone ♪ ♪ Shrugged and struck out on my own ♪ ♪ Then I took a casual glance ♪ ♪ Not sure if I have a chance ♪ ♪ Studied all the history ♪ ♪ Plunged into the mystery ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Then I got caught and I felt bewildered ♪ ♪ Then I got stranded and ran unfiltered ♪ ♪ Then I was on the verge of submerging ♪ ♪ Then I listened to all your urging ♪ ♪ Me forward ♪ ♪ One more day ♪ ♪ Guess I'm ok ♪ ♪ Guess I'm ok ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ 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... (Barb) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and please, follow Prairie Public as well on social media.

I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

Thanks for tuning in to 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.