(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 paint in the great outdoors with a teacher and her students, learn the history of a hospital, and listen to music played by a true southern gentleman!

♪ Miss Tennessee ♪ Located in the center of North America the International Peace Gardens have been a living symbol of the peaceful relationship between the United States and Canada since 1922.

Join us as we visit this tranquil place, as well as The International Music Camp.

[orchestra plays softly] ♪ ♪ (Tim Chapman) Well there's a lot of highlights here at the International Peace Gardens, but most folks come each summer to see the 25 acres or so of formal manicured gardens.

There's big displays of annual flowers and a big sunken garden that has a lot of perennial flowers.

On top of that we have a year-around conservatory full of an incredible collection of cacti and succulents.

There's a Peace Chapel with incredible quotes about peace and cooperation on its walls.

Another thing is the 911 Memorial that has remnants of the twin towers and what happened that day on 9/11/2001.

The conception of the International Peace Gardens is really a pretty fascinating story.

In 1929 a collection of gardeners through the National Association of Gardeners met in New York City.

They were primarily from Toronto and New York, and they thought it was important that as two peaceful countries living along the longest unfortified border that that peace and coexistence be recognized in the form of a garden on the border.

It's truly special because there is no other international peace garden.

This is the only one, and it's a tribute to a lot of folks in the '20s and '30s who really pushed for the International Peace Garden to be centrally located in the continent rather than on the East Coast or the West Coast.

[piano & violins play softly] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What happened this year at our 90th anniversary was really wonderful because it came at a time following 2 years of low visitation due to the pandemic where we were able to bring a lot of people on site for a big weekend to celebrate 90 years at the International Peace Garden.

There were all sorts of vendors, makers, musicians, we had traditional indigenous Metis powwow demonstrations and storytelling.

When you have this much space and this beautiful of a setting, you can do a lot and bring a lot of people here.

And everything you see here is its own form of art.

It's a beautiful setting that really contrasts nicely with the surrounding prairie.

So when you think of the formal, manicured parts of the garden, we really try to make sure that the edges of that meld in nicely with the surrounding forest.

Then as we start to bring in more sculpture, more performing arts, really just trying to highlight how wonderful it is to appreciate art when you are outside and in a more natural setting.

[orchestra plays brightly] ♪ ♪ Probably in August we start thinking about what next year's layout of the flowers will be 'cause it really is an annual process that begins right after or right as the season's wrapping up.

This year we wanted to recognize International Music Camp and all the music and arts that they bring to the grounds, because they were off the last two summers due to the pandemic.

The relationship between the International Peace Garden and the International Music Camp is one that goes back almost 70 years.

And it's a special one, because the International Peace Garden is not the International Peace Garden without the International Music Camp.

The International Music Camp is for campers mostly age 10 to 19.

We also have a 4-day adult camp at the end of our season.

It's just so fun to see people of all ages coming together to make music and art.

When you walk around IMC today you're going to see orchestra, the string players practicing all over the place.

We also have bands happening this week, so there will be concert band folks practicing.

For art we have sculpture, painting, and cartooning happening.

So campers will come, and they'll work on their art, and at the end of the week they either put on an art show or a concert, kind of a capstone experience of their week.

It's really incredible what happens when you have faculty who are so excited to work with the campers, and then the campers were so excited to be here, and just the magic of them all working together always produces amazing results.

[cheers & applause] I think for a lot of young people coming to the International Music Camp is actually a really validating experience.

So often we maybe go through our life and we think, oh, I'm the only person that really enjoys this.

But when you come to the International Music Camp, and when our campers come here, they are surrounded by people with similar interests whether it's their counselors or teachers or other people in their class.

They really get a lot of validation of like, it is okay that you have a passion or an interest in this.

And then that goes back home with them, and that really encourages that growth, that change, that progress within communities, and I think it helps make all of our communities large and small a better place a healthier place, and a stronger place too.

♪ ♪ The Peace Gardens has been a beautiful and important factor in what the International Music Camp is, being in-between the 2 countries, truly being international, between nations.

And in music and the arts we're devoted to bringing people together from different backgrounds and different life experiences.

And what a great place, and what better place to do that at a location that is known for promoting and celebrating peace across the world.

The International Peace Garden is such a special place because there's really nothing like it in the world.

We're on an international border, we're funded by and really honored and shared by North Dakota and Manitoba and Americans and Canadians as a whole.

It's really incredible to think that so many people that come from all over because they really see the value in a place that stands for peace, that wants to promote and advocate for peace and do that through a natural setting given that we're in the heart of the continent close to the geographical center of North America, it really kind of brings home the theme and how important peace is to all of us to be centered.

And that's one thing that I think draws so many people to the International Peace Gardens.

Debbie Aune is an impressionist painter and art educator in the Greenbush-Middle River, Minnesota school district.

She loves to paint outside, regardless of the weather and encourages her students to explore their own creativity.

[piano & drums play soft rock] ♪ ♪ (Debbie Aune) I love plein air, painting outside on the spots in the open air.

And it's a movement right now, it's a movement to me 'cause I wasn't paying attention to it up until maybe 10 years ago, and it's gotten awful popular.

It's good for your, it's good for the mind and soul.

I wouldn't choose to paint outside like today, but sometimes I've paid for workshops where you will go out and paint.

[laughs] I can put my hatch up and paint most of the time, and I've done that in the winter, in the rain.

The wind is actually the worst thing.

You can't get out of the wind.

The heat and the sun, you can get an umbrella or find the shade, but it's something you have to just deal with.

It's impressionism, I suppose.

I didn't always used to be that loose, but painting outside, that really loosens you up and helps you get rid of the fussiness.

It's just so much more fun, I think.

It's fun to teach wrap style, and it goes really fast.

You can get a painting done pretty quickly.

Now I'm going to try to find this very important triangle on this bit of construction here.

It's fantastic to see them get lost in their work.

Like no phones, no electricity, like I said, no bells.

It's fun to just watch them actually, almost, it is 100% focus.

[bass & drums play funky R&B] ♪ ♪ ♪ It's getting a little drier, a little drier, that happens, that's why we have newspaper.

I teach K-12.

All the K-6 kids I get to see.

In the high school it's typically an elective.

I just follow the state standards, but I get to design the courses.

Of course, painting's my favorite, I like drawing as well.

We do everything from clay to mixed media to drawing to fiber arts, string arts.

It's just fun to see them, I know it sounds simple when I say make stuff, but just to make stuff.

♪ I started out painting the elevators in the country.

I would go on photo shoots and take pictures of the elevators.

Gray, you know how we like black-and-white photos?

It was a lot of grays, and I thought that was fun to paint with just grays, with a little bit of color here, a little bit of color there.

I had a show with just elevators in a local town about 10 years ago.

Then I got into just landscapes.

And my last show was Beltrami Forest blueberry picking with a few people thrown in.

That's what I enjoy doing is local stuff.

It just happens when I am sleeping, I think.

I wake up, and I have this idea.

And that's really the truth.

I maybe follow the seasons too though.

When I did my elevator series it was winter scenes.

Sometimes I'd place a truck or two in there.

During the summer it was the blueberries.

You're kind of just lost in what the paint is doing.

'Cause watercolor will float to the left, and it will float to the right, then gravity takes over, and there's granules in some of the paint that separates, and they do their own thing.

Sometimes there's a big ol' accident, and that turns into something really cool like what happened to us out in the car today.

So you've got to have fun with the paint, and let it do some of the work.

Sometimes you can control it, sometimes you can't.

Sometimes it's a disaster, sometimes it's really awesome.

Tonight when we're sleeping it will do its own thing.

We're going to kill the paper today with gray.

You know how we used ochre the other day?

I never dreamed of going very far.

I visited cities, Duluth and whatnot, but I always tended to come back home, then I met my husband, and here we are living happily ever after, and I love it here.

You can get in your car and travel.

And that's what I do.

[laughs] I just am very happy with the K-12 system and teaching kids.

I think it's just so relaxing, I guess it's happy, but it's calming too.

When you're painting you're thinking about the kids at home, and you're thinking about, I still have my parents.

You're thinking of things as you're painting.

Sometimes you're not even thinking about your painting.

You're just painting, and you're thinking about supper, or you're thinking about Sunday, you know, I have a job at church tonight, and you're just painting and it's like, whoa, how did that happen?

♪ I'd love you to come to my shows.

I'd love you to walk into my shows.

I think you'll find a place that will remind you of a place that you've been.

It'll trigger a memory or a story, then you'll start talking about your stories.

These paintings that I do, I'm hoping to bring back stories for people to discuss.

In this Artifact Spotlight Chris Schuelke of the Otter Tail County Historical Society gives us insights to the history of the Fergus Falls State Hospital.

Hi, I'm Chris Schuelke with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, and this is our Artifact Spotlight.

In the summer of 1885 a Minnesota legislative commission visited Fergus Falls with the intent of finding a location for the state's 3rd state hospital.

Fergus Falls was awarded that state hospital, and in 1890 the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened.

So the State Hospital represents treatment of the mentally ill in which people were in an asylum type setting.

Now in previous generations they were often kept in almost prison, dungeon-like settings.

The State Hospital was definitely an innovation in that patients were treated well, and they wanted them to move on out of the hospital and into general society.

So the hospital is designed based on the principles of a man named Dr. Thomas Kirkbride who was an innovator in the mental health landscape in the mid-19th century.

He believed in having lots of windows, lots of air, lots of ventilation for patients.

So his design was really based on a central administration area flanked by patient wings, and they were connected almost in a U-shaped facility.

The State Hospital in Fergus Falls is one of the few remaining examples of Kirkbride inspired architecture left in the United States.

For over 117 years the hospital was a cultural, economic icon in the community.

It dominated the landscape.

Over 2000 patients often at one time were at the hospital.

It was essentially a self-contained community.

So for instance, you had to do laundry, thousands of pieces of laundry.

So here's a laundry basket that someone just donated to the Historical Society a couple weeks ago.

Of course, it says "Fergus Falls State Hospital."

It's a canvas laundry basket, one, of course, many that were used.

It's just a piece that shows the daily operation at the hospital.

There were 3 superintendents at the State Hospital.

The 3rd one was a a man named William Patterson.

He was educated out in Boston, came to Fergus Falls in 1912 with the intent of just staying a few months and going back out east, but he ended up staying until his retirement in 1968 at the age of 88 years old.

We have a couple items that belonged to William Patterson.

One was his doctor's bag, 'cause he was hired as a physician.

And another item that he had was a cane.

William Patterson was well-known for taking daily walks around the hospital with his dog and his cane.

Legend has it that he would actually greet patients and staff alike by their first name.

Now when you consider there were anywhere from 1500 to 2000 patients there and hundreds of staff-- how in the world could he remember people's names?

But that's the legend that William Patterson garnered.

So the hospital offered a variety of services.

It was really an innovative institution.

For instance, one of the items we have here is this unbelievable clipper ship that was made by a State Hospital patient, a Norwegian man in about 1920.

We believe he was a sailor, and that for some reason he came to the State Hospital for mental health issues, and as part of his occupational therapy he constructed this ship, which again, the detail is unbelievable.

Part of the occupational therapy program was also art.

In fact, just a couple years ago we unearthed several paintings, and these were done by a woman named Clory Richards.

One is labeled 1932.

We're not sure was she a patient or that she worked in the occupational therapy department.

That's more research that has to be done, so we're not sure.

And another piece that I would like to point out that was donated to the hospital was the cemetery.

Now, there was a cemetery.

Over 3200 people are buried at the Fergus Falls State Hospital Cemetery, and there were no markers when people were buried.

What was put in when people were buried at the hospital was a wrought-iron marker with a number in the middle.

And this is it-- no name, no date, just a number, number 31.

We do know there was a map, and we do know the people who were buried there, and we are doing research to try to bring back the names and lives of people that are buried at the State Hospital cemetery.

So the State Hospital, it represents a part of our history that really is gone.

And for the Fergus Falls State Hospital these pieces that are here represent a part of our heritage that needs to be saved so we can learn from that hospital, learn from the treatment, learn from the daily operations that were there, because if we didn't have them that piece of our history would otherwise be gone.

The hospital closed in 2007, it was given by the state to the city of Fergus Falls.

It's kind of a reminder of the importance of that complex to the city of Fergus Falls.

Southern born piano man Gary Timbs performed a blend of gospel, country, and spiritual music for our series "Prairie Musicians."

Although he performs throughout the Midwest, Gary and his wife love calling Staples, Minnesota home!

Hi, I'm Gary Timbs from Staples, Minnesota.

The music that I'm a small part of means a lot to me.

It came out of the gospel, both black and white, it came out of the early Appalachian, especially southern Appalachian mountain music mostly known as bluegrass now.

It came out of the deep delta blues and the early Dixieland swing.

Put it all together and it's what I call southern-fried gospel and country-blues music.

[playing the blues] ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady ♪ ♪ Lay your love on me ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious baby ♪ ♪ I love the way you love to be ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious woman ♪ ♪ Set this po' boy free ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady won't you lay ♪ ♪ Your mischievous love on me ♪ ♪ Miss Tennessee ♪ ♪ Miss Alabam' ♪ ♪ Miss Arkansas ♪ ♪ They all know who I am ♪ ♪ Oh but there's only one Miss ♪ ♪ Who's meant for me ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady won't you lay your mischievous ♪ ♪ Love on me ♪ ♪ She's a classy lover ♪ ♪ An angel in disguise ♪ ♪ She get what she wants ♪ ♪ Each and every time with her come-here eyes ♪ ♪ She done won my heart lord ♪ ♪ I never wuz too wise ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady I want your love ♪ ♪ Don't want no alibis ♪ ♪ Oh Miss-Chevious lady ♪ ♪ Lay your love on me ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious baby ♪ ♪ I love the way you love to be ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious woman ♪ ♪ Set this po' boy free ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady won't you lay ♪ ♪ Your mischievous love on me ♪ ♪ Miss-Chevious lady won't you lay ♪ ♪ Your mischievous love on me ♪ ♪ [playing in blues/rock rhythm] ♪ ♪ Hey baby your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Sure got a hold on me ♪ ♪ ♪ Yes sir-ee ♪ ♪ Oh darlin' your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Sure enough got a hold on me ♪ ♪ ♪ Can't you see ♪ ♪ Love me now ♪ ♪ Love me long ♪ ♪ Love me quick baby ♪ ♪ Honey love me strong ♪ ♪ Baby your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ It's got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Aw ha ha ♪ ♪ ♪ From the early early mornin' ♪ ♪ Till late late at night ♪ ♪ Keep doin' what you're doin' girl ♪ ♪ You know you do it right ♪ ♪ You can love me while I'm young ♪ ♪ You can love me when I'm old ♪ ♪ Every time you love me girl ♪ ♪ I wanna give you all of my gold ♪ ♪ Oh lordy to love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ It's got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Yes sir-ee ♪ ♪ Darlin' your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ It's got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Aw ha ♪ ♪ Oh oh love me quick and ♪ ♪ Love me long ♪ ♪ Love me now baby ♪ ♪ And honey love me strong oh lord ♪ ♪ Your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love done got ♪ ♪ A hold on me ♪ ♪ Yeah a-a hay ha ♪ ♪ Oh lordy your love ♪ ♪ Baby your sweet love ♪ ♪ It's got a hold on me-ee ♪ ♪ Aw-haw-haw ♪ ♪ If you know of an artist, topic or an organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment contact us at... (Barb) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel and please, follow us on social media as well.

I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

Thanks 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.