(woman) "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.

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

Hi, I'm Matt Olien.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll take a look at some fascinating museum artifacts, meet a student whose passion for poetry paid off and listen to the hardanger fiddle at it's finest!

Bill Brien is a Native American Digital Artist from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Inspired by his wife's battle with cancer, Bill strives to share their story of hope and his native heritage through art.

[a wolf howls] (Bill) After we left Mayo, we got back to the hotel room we prayed and prayed.

We were lost; we were at the end of our rope.

The wolf is a very emotional animal.

The howling wolf image represents how we felt at this point.

We were calling out for answers, we were calling out for directions and guidance.

[keyboard plays softly] My name is Bill Brien.

I am a Native American digital artist.

I got interested in art due to my wife.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014.

She did the surgeries, the mastectomy, radiation and chemo.

She got a clean bill of health, but then around late 2015, early 2016, the cancer had returned, and the cancer spread.

I really wanted to share her story, I wanted to share what she was going through, and I didn't know how.

I ended up googling a free art app on my phone, and I just figured I'd give it a try.

I started doodling, and I made something.

I really enjoyed having at my fingertips my canvas.

And I stuck with digital art since that moment.

I grew up around art.

My dad's an artist.

In a way my dad's own artwork has influenced me just later on in life.

As a Native American artist knowing that everything around us is alive and has meaning, I love to incorporate that.

Because culturally we do believe there is a spirit that's dwelling within every living thing.

Then capturing that in art to create a story that extends my own cultural background, whether it's Chippewa, Lakota, Dakota, or Métis, and sharing that with those who look at my artwork is what I try to achieve.

When I'm working on a piece that I've started, I get lost mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

There could be an hour that goes by, and to me it only feels like 5 minutes.

The more a piece comes to completion, I feel like it's another kind of chapter in my own life that I've completed.

The title that I choose for each piece has to have its own spirit as well as just a piece.

Culturally as a Native American, we passed on our knowledge through stories.

So I believe that I'm doing that still with my art.

Every piece that I've created has a story that comes with it, passing on the knowledge of my own background as Lakota, Dakota, Chippewa.

It is in the weaknesses of both men and women where their true strength resides.

When and where one person is weak, the other is strong.

We do not have to be strong all the time.

That is a precious gift between husband and wife.

What I want people to take away from my art is the simple slogan of my company-- "Hope through art."

The reason I started this company, and I discovered art because of my wife, Geri, is that there's always hope in the midst of suffering, in the midst of trials and tribulations.

We all go through them, regardless if it's from a loved one passing from cancer or any illness, or a sudden passing of a loved one, or even just the tragedy of losing a job.

As long as we have hope, things will be okay.

The Bismarck cancer center was where my wife received radiation treatment.

In honor of my wife, I donate part of my proceeds from all of my art sales to the Bismarck cancer center.

They in turn will give those donations out to families who are going through their own cancer journey.

Every time that I'm doing art, I know that it still connects me with Geri.

We spent quite a bit of time on the road going to doctors appointments.

She always knew that things will be okay regardless of what was going on.

And I see my wife's hand guiding the art and the journey of this whole endeavor, slowly but surely just guiding it along the way.

That drives me to continue to do what I'm doing.

I am telling a story Stories do have an end, but the story of life doesn't.

So this is a small contribution that I am doing for myself, for remembering my wife, and hopefully passing on the teachings of my own tribal background to those that view the art and buy the art.

The eagle flies high in the heavens, relying on the updrafts to stay aloft.

Even though they are flying high in the clouds, they still have the keenest vision of any bird to see what is before it.

This colorful eagle allows me to be a little closer to my wife, as I know the eagles soar close to the heaven.

Poetry Out Loud is a high school program that encourages students to learn about poetry, master public speaking skills and build self-confidence.

Kylie Howatt, from Northern Cass High School, was the 2021 North Dakota State Poetry Out Loud Champion.

Listen as she talks about poetry with a passion!

"The soft-toned clock upon the stair chimed three-- "Too sweet for sleep, "Too early yet to rise.

"In restful peace I lay with half-closed eyes, Watching the tender hours go dreamily;" I am interested in poetry because it offers me another outlet to perform.

At Northern Cass, Poetry Out Loud is required.

We use it in our English classes, 9 through 12 to help develop their skills, not only interpreting poetry, but then reading it expressively.

The fact that you can give the same poem to 5 different people and they'll interpret it differently.

I really like that aspect.

The information and materials are provided by North Dakota Council on the Arts.

It's a national program.

Poetry out loud turns it into a competition.

Congratulations to... Kylie Howatt from Northern Cass High School There's of course, a winner at every level.

There's a winner at the state level there's a winner at the national level.

(Don Hollister) So we have classroom competitions, then they compete at the school level, usually about 10 to 12 kids from different grades.

The winner of that goes on to the state competition.

At the state competition they have 3 poems they'll recite.

The requirement for the state level of Poetry Out Loud is you have to have at least one poem that's 25 lines or fewer and at least one poem that is pre 20th century.

This year they had to film them beforehand, then we sent it in, so they competed virtually (Kylie Howatt) Last year I did go to the state competition and performed in front of people.

That was a much more intense experience.

People are there because they really do love poetry, and they're there to listen and to hear everything.

When I first read "The Barnacle" by A.E.

Stallings, I loved it; it was perfect.

It was everything that I was feeling about the world, especially at that time.

Because it's about how stubborn people are.

And once they're in one mindset, they are only in that mindset, and they will never change-- ever.

"Once grown, with nothing more to prove "It hunkers down, "And will remain stuck fast.

"And once it does not move, Has no more purpose for a brain."

Poetry Out Loud, they provide a website with a huge library of possibilities.

Choosing poems isn't really about who the poet is, it's just about what the poem is about.

Once they start reading the poetry, they start to see pieces of their life in the poem.

(Kylie Howatt) My last poem, "Dream Song 14."

I encountered a few years ago.

My brother was looking for poems for Poetry Out Loud, and he found this poem, and he came to me, it was like, you have to read this poem.

It's so hilarious.

There is a line in the poem that my mom basically paraphrases a lot.

What she says is, "Boring people get bored."

And in the poem it's, if you have no inner resources, you're going to get bored, basically.

(Don Hollister) We spent quite a lot of time going through the poems and interpreting them, really understanding them.

Then once we get to the competition level, it's almost a challenge for them to memorize it.

We start with just memorize it and say them and slowly start adding phrasing and pauses and just give a little bit of flavor to it.

(Kylie Howatt) "Dawn" by Ella Higginson is really an appreciation for nature.

It's just a peaceful poem to me.

I felt like it was a really good contrast, especially to "The Barnacle."

"The chanticleer sent drowsy calls across the slumbrous air; "In solemn silence Sweet it was to hear my own heart beat .

.

."

When I am presenting my 3 poems, they each have very distinct emotion to them, and I really try to personify that in my voice and in my expressions.

The only action that I do in any of my poems really is in "The Barnacle" when it becomes stuck fast and it doesn't move.

A lot of times with poetry, the voice is all that is really needed, and if you add a lot of actions, it takes away from what you're saying, and it just makes it a little muddy.

"Dream Song 14" by John Berryman.

"Life, friends, is boring.

"We must not say so.

"After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, "We ourselves flash and yearn, "And moreover my mother told me as a boy "(repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored "means you have no Inner Resources.'

"I conclude now I have no inner resources, "Because I am heavy bored.

"Peoples bore me, literature bores me, "Especially great literature, "Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes "As bad as Achilles, who loves people and valiant art, "Which bores me.

"And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag "And somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail "Considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, "Leaving behind: me, Wag."

In our ongoing segment, Artifact Spotlight, we're visiting the Becker County History Museum to learn about traditional beadwork from their exhibit of Woodland Tribes artifacts.

I'm Emily Buermann from the Becker County Museum in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and this is our artifact Spotlight.

I am the program director here at the Becker County Museum, and I'm also a citizen of the White Earth Nation.

I am a traditional Ojibwe beadwork artist.

So the artifacts in the collection here at the Becker County Museum that are of the beadwork artist genre are of particular interest to me.

So I've spent a lot of time with some of these items.

I'm going to tell you about some of them today.

All of the items on this table are woodland beadwork of design.

You can tell if it's woodland because it would be beaded with all of the most beautiful florals and leaves and vines and medicines of the woodland area.

So you can think about our local Ojibwe Anishinaabe population as folks who are living here in our area.

So where winter is 6 months long, and you go 6 months with snow, or it's gray, or everything's brown, and it's just dried and covered in snow.

And the most beautiful thing that you see all year are those first flowers that come up in the spring, you know, those first leaves, the first buds on the tree, and that's when you know you finally get to see some green and some color.

So the woodlands tribes, the majority of the beadwork is going to be floral inspired.

So the big piece here is a bandolier bag.

You can see that it's got flowers, it's got vines, it's got leaves.

A lot of these are stylized.

They've also got some berries here on the vine, and we've got some berry motifs down here, and the leaves in particular in this piece here, you can see that the artist really took care to bead in the veins on the leaves and really make them a little more realistic, even though some of the flowers are little more stylized.

This whole bottom section here is a pouch for the purse to keep all of your important items that you want to have with you in your bag.

This would have been worn across your shoulder here with the bag hanging down on your hip.

If you were very fancy or very important and you had two bandolier bags to wear you crisscross them and have one on each hip.

These are very important as traditional pieces of regalia with the woodlands tribes.

We say the saying about the bandolier bags is that it's a bag that's worth a horse.

So you could trade one of these and get yourself a horse or more, depending on how intricately it's beaded.

We also have a few of these cinch top bags.

These sometimes are called tobacco bags.

But, of course, they can hold a lot more than just tobacco.

So these bags are leather, and they've got leather fringe on the outside, and now that you know it's woodland, and it's floral, you can tell it's got this beautiful orange flower here, and it's got some bluebell type flowers here, and it's got a really nice maple leaf.

And then we've got some moccasins.

So moccasins are the shoes, the footwear of the woodlands tribes.

We've got a pair here of baby moccasins.

They are so adorable!

They are teeny tiny, and they've got a distinctive woodland pucker toe design, so it's got a pucker all the way around the toes, and that's really a distinctive woodland tribe design.

In this pair has a cuff of black velvet around the outside, and it's beaded all the way around.

Making a pucker toe moccasin is not easy.

I've tried several times, and I've been beading for about 30 years, and I still haven't perfected the technique of making a pucker toe moccasin that's quite as cute as this.

It's not easy to make moccasins, and it's got to be particularly difficult to make it in miniature size.

So these cute little newborn moccasins were made with love and care.

Lovely.

So this is an adult size of the woodland moccasin.

It does have the pucker toe design, but it also has this pointed toe pucker toe design.

You can see there's a seam running here through the front of the foot, and it's stitched very close and very tight, and a very careful pucker toe around this design.

These have attached tuft all the way around, but in the traditional floral woodland design.

These have little sparkle with little silver lined glass beads.

These are some of my favorite pieces in our collection.

We do have a larger collection, however, items that have the glass beads or are made of leather or on delicate fabric, we do need to change those exhibits out from time to time, because any amount of light, even artificial light, any amount of light starts to break down the materials in these items.

So these get switched out from time to time.

in our exhibit gallery at the Becker County Museum.

Fargo Spelemannslag, with members from Minnesota and North Dakota, is an eclectic group of talented musicians dedicated to inspiring, strengthening and energizing the Hardanger fiddle community.

The group performed in our studio for the series "Prairie Musicians."

[playing in bright waltz rhythm] ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing in moderate tempo; playing melodically] ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [instruments only; no vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ 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... (Matt) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and follow Prairie Public on social media as well.

I'm Matt Olien.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

Thank you for joining us for this 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 November 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.