(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 Matt Olien.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll meet a treasure hunter, see how the past shaped a city's future, and get acquainted with the unique sound of an area musician.

♪ That she won't feel the same about me ♪ A traveling exhibit of 36 quilts called "Forced to Flee" at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead illustrated challenges from the current refugee crisis impacting countries across the globe.

Take a look at this moving and beautiful depiction of survival.

(Maureen Kelly Jonason) Our team generally selects exhibits based on what we know about what people here like to see.

And we know there is a major quilting subculture here, a lot of fiber artists in the community who especially appreciate the art form of modern quilts.

This exhibit came to our attention and we thought this is the perfect one to have here because Fargo Moorhead is a major refugee resettlement community.

So many people today seem to misunderstand what is a refugee and what is a situation worldwide regarding people who are literally forced to flee for their lives And I think this exhibition very beautifully and movingly illustrates that particular definition of refugee.

(Darci Asche) I think of refugees who have fled the border of their country, have applied for asylum, have been granted permission but in the general population a refugee is someone that is fleeing from their home.

Political refugees are really the ones that are gaining acceptance around the world.

We can argue for that, but our new reality is that we see economic refugees, and we see natural disaster refugees.

Politically they don't fit that definition which just creates more tragedy for them.

There are 36 in this collection, which is a large collection of quilts.

The quilters come from all over the world.

13 of them come from different countries including Germany, the UK, Ireland, Australia, even Korea, Japan, and the rest come from the United States, different states throughout the country.

The quilts really show a wide range of refugee situations throughout the world and throughout history.

I think the main thing is to draw some sympathy for the refugee crisis globally and also to educate people.

So many of the artist statements are about this realization about what's going on in the world and providing a lot of great information about it.

A lot of the exhibit appears to be probably that they were made during the Syrian refugee crisis because there's a lot of reference to that, but there are also references to other refugee conflicts throughout the world and in different time periods.

(Darci Asche) There is a quilt here in this display that lists dates and names and how that particular asylum seeker lost their life, and it's just for like a 10 day period of time.

There's another one of a small child that died on a trip across the Mediterranean.

We saw that image on the news a few years ago that he drowned.

I'm looking at all of these gorgeous quilts, and it's just making me recall so many stories that I've been told by the families that I've met and places that I've been and things that I've seen.

This is just a powerful, powerful exhibit.

I imagine somebody setting every stitch brings back a memory of the trauma.

Some of the artists are spouses of people that were refugees or grandchildren of people that were refugees, and it's them conveying the stories that they've been told into a medium that can speak to those of us that didn't have the opportunity to hear that story.

The colors are gorgeous, the balance is perfect, then you read deeper back into it and see that there's a dark story in here.

I have walked through, a number of times, I've been struck by first the creativity of the medium, how people can make a quilt into a book, and into a collection of dolls mounted on the wall.

I I'm also struck by the color orange, which is very vivid throughout the exhibit, and it is the color of the life jackets that many refugees had to use to escape their countries of origin and that have been found along the shores of different countries that they seek refuge in.

And it has a sense of igniting or maybe a flame of awareness throughout the exhibit that I think is actually very intentional in terms of what the curator maybe had been going for.

(Darci Asche) My hope is that people will come and see this and study it and read the stories behind it.

If you're not able to come there are some really wonderful videos online that you can watch.

It would just open their heart to people who really have, have and are currently experiencing the need to flee for their lives.

And hopefully move them to reach out and do what they can to help people transition into a prosperous, peaceful existence anywhere.

People who see this exhibit come to a better understanding of what's going on worldwide and also seem to have a greater sympathy for refugees.

(Darcy Asche) I'm having a hard time not crying.

The imagery is just incredible, the imagination and how those stories are being told [piano plays softly] Terry Shannon of Frazee Minnesota is on the hunt for treasure.

Every pass of his metal detector fills him with anticipation of what he might discover next, but he especially likes sharing his treasure stories and histories with everyone he meets.

[soft beeping] [acoustic guitar plays, finger-picking in bright rhythm] It's a piece of an old can.

But you've got to dig everything.

If you don't dig everything, you're going to miss the good stuff.

My wife years ago bought me a metal detector, and she paid way too much money for it, it just wasn't any good.

I was downtown in Frazee at the local meat market, and the guy had a metal detector for sale.

I brought it home, and I went out in my yard.

Every time it got over the ground it made a noise.

I took another step, it made a noise.

I got so angry I drove all the way to Fargo, the treasure store, I got the very best that he had, I come back, went out in the yard, same place, and I got over the ground, it made a noise.

What it was was my line from my propane tank going into my furnace-- the other one was just fine.

But it worked out really good, I had the top-of-the-line detector, so I started out right away finding some good stuff, and just kind of escalated from there.

We spend our summers in Frazee and our winters down in Melbourne Beach, Florida on the Treasure Coast, and I detected down there virtually every day.

In Minnesota, I detect the Otter Tail River, and I've got this Red River Oxcart Trading Post, and I go out there on occasion.

Now I just kind of got into a bunch of cellar holes.

The first thing you do is figure, where was the most activity?

And it takes a while to figure that out.

Between the house and shed for the animals, there's got to be a lot of activity back and forth there, so that's the first place that I detected.

I went over and I think 3 different times and the 3rd time I went over it that's when I found those 3 nickels.

This is a V nickel, dated 1893.

This one is dated 1902, then I've got a buffalo nickel, that one is dated 1913.

You could go to a coin shop and buy these for probably about 20 or 30 bucks.

It made my whole day just finding them.

[laughs] Detecting in Florida, I'm detecting the beach.

The key is being able to read the beach.

If we get a wind coming out of the North, it'll actually cut the beach, or if your wind is coming in from the east, they have what's called riptides, and these riptides kind of blow right into the shore, and they go out, and it's taking stuff out with them.

By detecting those areas, you get down to where the old stuff is.

The beach is very highly mineralized.

So a lot of detectors will not work on the beach.

You have to have a detector with what we call multi-frequency so it can move back and forth in the frequency chain and not false out, and you'll want to use a great big coil.

It's just the opposite when you're hunting in yards or cellar holes and stuff like that, you want to use a smaller coil, and you want to use a detector that you can turn the frequency up to try to get the depth.

Now this could be a coin, this could be a silver coin.

I've done real well, I've been real fortunate.

Up here I found many many rings.

In Florida I'm looking for Spanish treasure, Spanish coins, reales, and the gold coins are called escudo.

and artifacts, I get excited about the littlest things, I really do.

I'm showing you this can.

Apparently they didn't have can openers in them days, this is opened with a knife, and I have no idea what was in it, but it's kind of interesting to see what they had.

My very favorite thing is my first Spanish coin, it's a 1701 Spanish 2 reales.

A couple years ago I was really lucky, and I found probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast.

If you look in the front here it will have an M meaning it was minted in Mexico, G, that's for the assayer, and we were able to date this client by the assayer.

He only worked from 1544 to 1548.

They believe this is probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast, if not the oldest, it's one of the oldest.

Part of the fun is just doing the history trying to look up this stuff.

I have an e-mail list that I send out of my adventures, and I try to tell the story.

People come back, and they really appreciate knowing the history and the story of it.

Everybody was asking why don't you write a book, why don't you write a book?

So I did.

"Detecting the Treasure Coast" is kind of a how-to, it gives tips for beginners.

Then of course, I showed pictures of all the stuff I found, and it came out really well.

So I wrote the second one, "Detecting the Ottertail", which is a whole different ballgame.

I'm in the water and wading the river.

So I was able to give a lot of tips on detecting in the river.

And that went real well also, so I wrote the 3rd one, and I'm now working on the 4th one.

When I'm treasure hunting I don't have a care in the world.

I can't believe how excited I get when a gold ring pops up, and a Spanish coin, when I find one of those reales, I want to show somebody.

Couple of guys say in my books that I wrote too much.

I give too many tips and that.

And really, I want people to enjoy what I'm enjoying.

There's a lot of treasure stories that are never going to be told.

The guys find some treasure, they don't want to tell anybody.

They are afraid the government is going to come in and take it or somebody's going to steal it.

And I just don't feel that way at all.

It wouldn't mean anything to me if it was sitting in a safety deposit box.

I want people to be able to share the things that I do and enjoy the things that I do.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful hobby.

Since I started metal detecting I've been able to go on archaeological digs, I've been interviewed, and I've written books.

That's kind of a big deal for an old guy like myself.

I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it, I'm pretty well-known out there.

[laughs] Lisa Vedaa of the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County reveals some forgotten artifacts from Moorhead's history and discusses how the objects help to show the progress of the city throughout the years.

Hi, I'm Lisa Vedaa, Collections Manager at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead Minnesota, and this is my Artifact Spotlight.

Here at the museum, we have some artifacts in our collection that relate to the economic and infrastructure development of early Moorhead.

These tiles are from the Grand Pacific Hotel which was built in 1882 in Moorhead by the Great Northern tracks at the cost of $160,000.

It was considered to be the largest hotel at that time between Minneapolis and Spokane Washington.

It never really did make a profit though after it opened and it was actually torn down in the 1890s.

The hotel was very grand for it's time period, and it had crystal chandeliers and many beautiful furnishings, and as you can tell on the photograph, it had many different little balconies probably for some of the nicer rooms or some dining rooms.

It had these beautiful tiles that were that were made and acquired from different manufacturers that were popular at the time.

So these tiles would've decorated all the different rooms in the hotel, and they were very much in the arts and crafts style which was a very popular style at the time.

So this tile especially has a very arts and crafts feel to it, almost a William Morris style pattern with the large leaves And there's a very intricate mosaic tile pattern on these tiles here.

And a really nice floral design pattern on these border tiles, and a very nice glazed look on this olive green tile with the central floral medallion.

It was kind of a boom period for Moorhead, and the hotel was the big draw.

Another sign of Moorhead's development would have been paving the streets, That is what these blocks are from, paving the streets in 1896 with these cedar blocks that were covered in creosote to make them more durable and longer-lasting.

Cedar blocks were used at the time as an inexpensive option, and the technology wasn't developed yet for concrete or asphalt.

Creosote is a tar product that is used as a preservative for wood and helps it prevent too much water absorption.

Paved roads would've meant much easier traveling through the streets, less dirt and mud and grime everywhere.

It would have been a lot nicer for people visiting Moorhead and especially the residents of Moorhead for their quality of life and traveling around the city.

Artifacts like these tiles from the grand Pacific Hotel and the paving blocks from paving Moorhead streets help illustrate the optimism that people had for Moorhead's future and attracting businesses and families to help Moorhead grow and become a prosperous, great place to live.

Abraham Tabares Jr. can be found playing his red guitar throughout the region.

The raw emotion in his lyrics is real and his inspiration for this unplugged performance is a mix of pop, indie, and classic rock.

[playing in moderate folk rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm alone in my room ♪ ♪ Sitting on my bed ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You see that it's you ♪ ♪ You've been racing through my head ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I have a pain in my heart ♪ ♪ I can't seem to shake ♪ ♪ It's all I can feel inside ♪ ♪ It's keeping me awake ♪ ♪ I can't sleep ♪ ♪ I can't dream ♪ ♪ I can't think ♪ ♪ But I can sing ♪ ♪ I don't have a lot to give ♪ ♪ But I'll still give my all to you ♪ ♪ I can't find the things to say ♪ ♪ 'Cause words can't quite measure you ♪ ♪ It's true ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You think of me as just a friend ♪ ♪ And I don't know what to do ♪ ♪ If you find you change your mind ♪ ♪ I'll be here waiting ♪ ♪ For you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Waiting for you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The way that you laugh and smile ♪ ♪ When you look at him ♪ ♪ I know that your heart is something ♪ ♪ I could never win ♪ ♪ I wish I could leave the way ♪ ♪ I feel for you behind ♪ ♪ I try and I'll try again ♪ ♪ But you won't leave my mind ♪ ♪ I can't sleep ♪ ♪ I can't dream ♪ ♪ I can't think ♪ ♪ But I can sing ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I don't have a lot to give ♪ ♪ But I'll still give my all to you ♪ ♪ I can't find the things to say ♪ ♪ 'Cause words can't quite measure you ♪ ♪ It's true ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You think of me as just a friend ♪ ♪ And I don't know what to do ♪ ♪ If you find you change your mind ♪ ♪ I'll be here waiting ♪ ♪ For you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Waiting for you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing in syncopated rock rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I was blinded ♪ ♪ But now I see ♪ ♪ An apparition ♪ ♪ Right before me ♪ ♪ Her eyes so drunk with hazel ♪ ♪ Staring back at me ♪ ♪ And I began to freeze ♪ ♪ As she smiled gracefully ♪ ♪ Ee ee ee ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And when at first I saw her ♪ ♪ She was quite the sight ♪ ♪ Sitting by the table side ♪ ♪ Between walls of white ♪ ♪ I wish that I knew then ♪ ♪ What she would mean to me ♪ ♪ Then maybe it would be ♪ ♪ Easier to leave ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm done with wishful thinking ♪ ♪ I think I know now ♪ ♪ That she won't feel the same about me ♪ ♪ Anyhow ♪ ♪ And I ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm losing my mind ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And I ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I should leave her behind ♪ ♪ Oh oh oh ♪ [guitar solo] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Images of her ♪ ♪ Dance in my head ♪ ♪ And I think of all the things ♪ ♪ That I should have said ♪ ♪ But now it's far too late ♪ ♪ For what I have to say ♪ ♪ But I can't help but wonder ♪ ♪ And dream of yesterday ♪ ♪ Hey ey ey ♪ ♪ Maybe I'll give in ♪ ♪ And tell my truth ♪ ♪ I wonder what she'd say ♪ ♪ If she knew ♪ ♪ Now would she feel the same ♪ ♪ Or break my heart instead ♪ ♪ But I have come to know ♪ ♪ It may be better left unsaid ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm done with wishful thinking ♪ ♪ I think I know now ♪ ♪ That she won't feel the same ♪ ♪ About me anyhow ♪ ♪ And I ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm losing my mind ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And I ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I should leave her behind ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you know of an artist, a topic or an organization in our region that you think would make for an interesting topic, 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 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.