(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 meet an experimental filmmaker, learn the history of a regional hotel, and enjoy some traditional Nepali music.

Bennett Brien is Native American and Métis artist whose rebar sculptures can be found throughout the region.

He also designed the now retired University of North Dakota Indian head logo.

We got the privilege to visit his studio in Belcourt, North Dakota.

(Bennett Brien) I like portraying something good.

God, country, family-- that's the way we roll around here.

[acoustic guitar plays the blues] My name is Bennett Brien, I'm from Belcourt, North Dakota.

I'm Turtle Mountain Chippewa, a Métis artist.

I make two- and three- dimensional artwork.

I like to live honorably.

That's the way I was raised.

My parents were both French and Indian, grandparents on both sides, French and Indian.

My oldest brother started drawing one time when he was 8 years old.

I was 6.

I seen him drawing tanks and boats and soldiers and whatever, so I thought that was cooler than heck.

I was just blown away by what you could do with a pencil.

When I was in boarding school at St. Joseph's Indian boarding school in Chamberlain, I seen Oscar Howe's work.

That's when I kind of kicked in to the native subject matter.

I went to school in Santa Fe New Mexico, and I took 3 firsts in 3 shows I entered-- Howe's, the Heard Museum in Phoenix and one in Santa Fe.

Stan Johnson was the instructor at UND, and that was his last year, '83, '84 school year.

That was when I took my first sculpture classes.

One of the assignments was to do something small, medium, and life-sized.

I did a small stone sculpture.

I only did the small one for the 3 projects in the first semester.

Then the second semester I took sculpture 2, and he asked what I wanted to do this time.

I said geez, I'd like to do a life-size sculpture.

He says what are you going to make?

I says, maybe a buffalo.

Well, what are you going to make it out of?

I says, hum, geez, I don't know.

He said did you ever weld?

I said no.

He said can you learn?

I said yeah.

And that's when I got that big wow, man, this is just so amazing!

I like abstract, and I like realism, so I try to get the two together.

Rebar, you're doing something different, more like a 3-dimensional thing.

That rebar is like a pencil line in space.

You can bend it by hand, you can cut it with a bolt cutter by hand.

You don't need no power, nothing, and it's the cheapest stuff you can get really, the cheapest metal.

I'm working on another Fighting Sioux sculpture.

This is my second one, the first one I did in 2015.

That's at Engelstad arena by Engelstad's box.

I hadn't done a face in awhile, and this one's going a little different, it's going a little faster actually.

It's challenging; you really have to use your brain.

I did the profile first.

I copied the profile off my design just right.

You start that way first, you always do the research if you could.

The first one was bison on the capitol.

Then the horse on the capitol, then the sharp-tailed grouse, the piece in the Federal Building, that's 4 in Bismarck, then I've got 2 in Wahpeton, 3 in Grand Forks, one in Crookston, 4 around Belcourt, so I'm pretty much just a North Dakota guy.

They're different, but they're all kind of like the same in a way, because you put all of yourself into each one.

I like doing something that will bring some good thoughts or memory, like an eagle.

The natives use, like the messenger brought your prayers to God, the great spirit, Gitchi Manitou, however you want to say it.

I was right over here when I designed the Fighting Sioux logo.

That was in 1999.

Earl Strinden asked me to come up with one, so I sat down, about a week I had it, then I got sketches of different ones.

I just did the one, and I showed it to Earl, he said we'll take it.

For the design of the guy, I just drew it out.

When I started it, it was going to be something warrior type-- strong-looking, brave, the purposeful look, and the feathers for their honors of what they have done in life.

Threw a little war paint on there.

The war paints were everyday struggles.

Maybe having a cheerful disposition at work, maybe that's the struggle for you.

Saying hi to someone you don't like maybe.

I'm still doing fighting Sioux paintings for people, and I personalize them, whatever you want on it.

So I guess the Sioux logo's been pretty kind to me.

Gratifying, you've got to be thankful you get to do stuff like that.

Then you just think about what you're going to do next.

If they like it, that makes me feel pretty good If you could explain the symbolism to them I'm sure they would feel a little different I suppose, if you are there talking to them right there.

If they could just look and admire maybe the skill, the patience it took to do something like that.

I want them to know I'm from Belcourt.

I love this state, the good people you meet around here.

I wouldn't want to be in New York or LA.

You crazy?

North Dakota, that's the place to be.

Raymond Rea is a Moorhead, Minnesota based filmmaker who specializes in personal documentary and experimental movies.

His films are often motivated by his own personal journey and choices.

(Raymond Rea) It's important to say that I'm a filmmaker first, and a transgender filmmaker second.

[piano plays softly] My venture into making movies was, I had a best friend who lived two houses away from me in small-town Massachusetts, and she was given a Super 8 movie camera.

She used to ride a unicycle, so we ended up making like an epic Super 8 film about somebody riding a unicycle down a long driveway.

I went to one summer semester at NYU in New York City taking a cinematography class from a cinematography instructor named Bella Bakta.

And I learned so much in that cinematography class.

I swear I'm still using that information to this day.

[electronic music plays] "Third" was really, I think, the first time I really start making films within the LGBTQ community.

There was a third gender character, and their girlfriend, so really sort of a lesbian couple in San Francisco.

I had sort of a slow fade into being a trans man in the sense that like many transgender people, especially from my era, I made a really valiant effort first to like fit into the gender that was assigned to me at birth.

And it just didn't work at all.

At this point in my life I definitely lived more than half of my adult life as a man.

I know I'm a trans person, but I don't think about it that much-- it's just me.

I had so many friends come up to me and say, wow, we are not sure this is right for everybody, but Ray, it's like obviously right for you.

Looking across the body of his work, you start to see a lot of different aspects of his own life, even when he's telling stories about other people in the LGBT community or personal docs about his family.

(Raymond) You are a target.

(Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson) It's really fun to watch his projects as a whole.

[electronic music plays] (Kyja) One of the pieces I really like is "Cat's Cradle," which is an experimental animation project.

Part of the reason I like it so much is the sound design in relation to the imagery because it's done in stop-motion using a Xerox machine.

It has just a really interesting aesthetic.

(Raymond) The way that in general I describe my filmmaking is it always ends up being experimental hybrid no matter what I try to do.

(Kyja) As a filmmaker, he has kind of opened a window for students to see different kinds of work, to see a different life perspective.

So that's your great uncle, looking very dapper, and I would say that's in the '50s.

And all this stuff is...

This is in the grove clearly.

These photographs-- crowds and crowds of young gay men.

(Raymond) When my great uncle, Warrie, died, my parents came to me and said we've got this photo album of Warrie's.

Do you want it?

It ended up just being amazing.

I think the photographs speak for themselves, or at least that's what I tried to have happen in that film.

How are you?

I'm pretty good.

I think that he's a very approachable instructor as far as professors go.

It's also really important that he shares his work as a filmmaker with students.

Ray has done many things for our program and for our students.

One of the things that I've seen is we have a more diverse student body because of his presence in the program.

I just am so inspired ah, by young people.

getting into film.

My ultimate advice to many students is, after you graduate you are not going to see a want ad in the paper for a film director or cinematographer.

[chuckles] It's just not going to be there.

You are going to have to be scrappy as hell.

In this Artifact Spotlight we visit the Becker County History Museum to travel back in time to the late 1890s to learn about Mrs. Mary Lewis and her ingenious marketing strategies for the Lewis Hotel in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

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

This is the story of Mary Lewis and Lewis Hotel in Detroit, Minnesota.

So Mary Tomer is born in Pennsylvania in 1846.

So she's out east, she's in a good family, she's raised up as a lady, and she grows up, gets married, and has 3 children.

And then she becomes a widow.

Mary and the kids move out west to Detroit, Minnesota, and she marries Samuel Lewis.

Now, Samuel Lewis is the carpenter in town, and he's got a store right on Washington Avenue which is like the main street in Detroit.

So Mary decides to open a tea shop upstairs above her husband's business, and she wants to have decor in her tea shop, so she starts collecting creamer pictures for tea.

Then people do what people do when they find out you collect something, they start gifting you creamer pitchers.

So soon she has amassed so many creamer pitchers that she needs to keep a journal of which creamer pitchers they are, the descriptions of them, where they came from, who gifted them to her, and when they arrived in the collection.

So she now has 600 creamer pitchers.

in 1890-ish.

They decide that there's going to be tourism coming into the town of Detroit, and what people really need, they need tea-- they want tea, they don't need tea.

What they need, they need hotel rooms, they need places to stay.

So they expand the carpentry shop downstairs and the tea shop upstairs.

They add an entire building off the back and create the Lewis Hotel.

It's this full business booming because the Lewis Hotel is right across the street from the Northern Pacific Railroad train depot.

When they check in at the Lewis Hotel, [bell rings] there's a few rules.

There is no politics, no religion, no personal business, no gossip, and absolutely no cussing.

Which is difficult since right across the street are the railroad workers and the loggers and the construction people who are coming in and building the railroad.

So after a while of marketing 600 creamer pictures, it's not really working anymore.

People have seen it.

"Have you been to the Lewis Hotel?

They have 600 creamer pictures."

"I've seen it."

"You know what else she's got?

She's got a giant ball of store string."

Every time a package arrives at the hotel or the carpentry shop on the railroad it's wrapped in paper and with string, and they have started keeping every piece of string.

They tie it end to end and they start wrapping this giant ball of store string.

And they stick it right on the lobby desk, so when people walk in, now they see this giant ball of store string, which is cool.

Okay.

"Have you been to the Lewis Hotel lately?"

"I haven't."

They have a giant ball of store string.

"I need to go check that out."

So they've got people coming in looking at the store string, and that's great, and that works for a while, and then people have seen it.

She needs something new.

So she cuts a deal with the butcher shop down the street who have a two-headed calf.

So instead of talking about politics or religion or gossiping, you now have something of a conversation starter to get you talking if you really can't think of anything better to say.

And pretty soon, "Have you been to the Lewis Hotel?

They've got a two-headed calf."

"I've seen it."

What else can you do?

So Mrs. Mary Lewis looks up in the train catalog and orders a talking parrot, so everybody's got to go to Lewis Hotel and see the talking parrot right in the lobby.

So they walk in, the parrot starts talking, everyone's charmed, marketing is going great, people are coming to eat in the dining room, they're coming to stay in the hotel, all to see her conversation starters.

Well, if you have a talking parrot, there's always the chance that someone's going to teach the parrot a bad word or two behind her back.

So as soon as the talking parrot started to cuss, Mrs. Mary Lewis would get rid of it and order a new one.

Then eventually, someone would teach it how to cuss.

She'd have to get rid of it and order a new one.

This parrot then came with the rest of the collection to the Becker County Museum; this is parrot number 12.

And that is the story of Mrs. Mary Lewis and her genius marketing for the Lewis Hotel.

Damber Subba and Punya Ghimirey are traditional Nepali musicians who found their way to Fargo from Bhutan.

They appreciate every opportunity to share their music for new audiences and they visited our studio to share the music of their culture.

[harmonium solo] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium solo] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium solo] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium & percussion intro; playing in bright rhythm] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium solo] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium solo] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] 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 us on social media as well.

I'm Matt Olien.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

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