(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.

(woman) Welcome to... a patchwork of stories about the arts, culture, and history in our region.

Hi, I'm Andy Garske.

Welcome to Prairie Mosaic.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

On this edition, we'll take a look at how Project 412 in Detroit Lakes invests in the community by working with local artists.

Then Bailey White finds inspiration through Moorhead's landmarks and the people that love them.

(Andy) And later we'll hear from a band that weaves charismatic stories into their songs.

But first we're going to Nome, North Dakota to meet knifemaker Jed Anderson who is keeping the art of knifemaking alive by turning raw steel into handcrafted blades.

Each knife is made with skill, patience, and dedication to craftsmanship.

Watch the process behind these unique blades.

My name is Jed Anderson, and I'm a full-time bladesmith.

[orchestra plays in sustained bass tones] [thwack thwack of the hammer on the metal blade.

We are in my shop in Nome, North Dakota about an hour from Fargo.

When I was 11 years old I was at a county fair up in Northern Minnesota, and I saw a blacksmith, and I stood there for an hour and a half watching him just amazed at what he was doing.

Then in 2016 I was on a seasonal layoff and curiosity, I had nothing else to do to early in the year to hop on the Harley and go somewhere, and I built myself a forge.

Then 6 months later I made my first knife, and I was on a full-body high afterwards.

I knew then that's what I wanted to do.

I've been in this garage for about a year now.

There's not a lot of fancy stuff.

The forge that I have, I've got $50 into that.

Made it out of an old oil drum.

My press, I built that out of an old wood splitter.

The most fancy piece of gear I have are my belt liners.

Other than that, I don't have anything fancy because I like to be able to use my hands to make it.

I've done swords, daggers, filet knives, chef's knives, hunting knives-- basically anything that's sharp and pointy I can make.

What I try and make are pieces that are going to be used, that are practical.

Heat that area one more time.

Still got a little bit of meat in there.

Functional art is what my stuff has been described as.

The process-- it's kinda basic, you know, doing a mono steel blade out of a leaf spring or something like that.

I heat the steel and hammer it out to shape and thickness, then take it over to the belt grinder, clean it up, heat-treat it, then do the handle.

See what the mast is, patterning the steel, it's a little bit more involved, a lot more time in, but it's kind of the same process-- heat the steel, get it to forge well together, then you just kind of start manipulating the steel to get the certain patterns that you want.

Being able to manipulate the steel to get certain patterns just comes from practice and experience.

It's centered, now just got to get it straightened out.

I am self-taught, a lot of trial and error, a lot of good days, a lot of bad days.

When you go to make something and it doesn't work out, there's always a way to salvage it.

Even through failure you can find some form of success.

One of the first proverbs I learned about bladesmithing is that bladesmiths don't make mistakes.

We only make smaller knives.

This is going to get a little bit more flexible when we move up to the next grit.

But... aw!

What happened?

That's perfect.

That is nice and smooth.

Looks like sugar.

That's a good heat treat.

Just, I was flexing it too much before it was ready.

And it snapped, so what I'm going to do with this, I'm going to grind down right in this area, give about 2 1/2, 3 inches for a hidden tang, then I'm going to turn this into a nice little paring knife.

It's not going to be the filet knife I wanted, but I can at least make something out of this.

When you figure out what that means, it makes the learning a lot easier.

With every heat, every round of hammering you do, it gets, you can see more and more of what it's going to be.

[loud thwacking] I love this story.

Making things from older pieces-- that knife already has a story behind it.

For custom orders, I've had people send me pieces of material from their grandfather's farm, a car that they were rebuilding with their father, and that adds even more to the knife.

Every knife that I make, I want to have a story behind it.

I was in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2009, got out as a corporal.

This year it was the 250th birthday of the Marine Corps.

So that's why I made the Marine Corps NCO sword.

So the blade is 250 layered Damascus.

My grandfather was a Pacific War Marine, he was Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.

He's one of the reasons why I became a Marine.

80 years later I was in the same division as him, and so it was something I've been wanting to do for a long time and figured this year, this was the year to do it.

Most of the responses I've had with my knives are damn, that's sharp!

And that encourages me to keep on doing what I'm doing because people seem to like what I do Being able to make a living doing this-- I love it!

I love coming out to the shop and being able to create things.

The fact that people are willing to pay for what I make-- it makes me feel awesome.

If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.

It's cliche, but it's true-- doing this it's-- what do I want to make today?

Even if I feel a little bit sluggish and not feeling too motivated or creative, there's other things I can come out and do in the shop, keep myself busy, and so I get that support.

I love being able to do what I love and be able to live off of it.

I'm not going to get rich doin' it, but as long as I can keep the lights on and food in my belly, I'm gonna keep on doin' it.

Named after the 412 lakes in the Detroit Lakes area, Project 412 is an organization whose goal is to bring positive impact to the lakes region of Minnesota.

From concerts and events to sculptures and trolls, each idea is curated with the intention to highlight artists and bring the community together.

(Amy Stearns) We are creating joy and spreading joy through art and public trails and nature.

Project 412 is a small nonprofit placemaking organization.

We are based in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Project 412 as been existence since September of 2022.

We have one simple purpose which is, we are just trying to do cool stuff throughout Detroit Lakes.

Our mission is really to elevate the cultural and economic vibrancy of the 412 Lakes area.

We have just really hit the ground running doing a whole bunch of things-- trying things, seeing what sticks, seeing what works.

We lit up the park which was kind of a carryover from the Ice Palace days.

We did some pave people in the city park, we did a giant mammoth.

In the summertime we do a series called Trucks and Tunes and there are free concerts down in our city parks.

We got a grant from the Blandin Foundation to help fund murals in the community.

We work with a variety of artists on our murals and our utility boxes.

Hanna Jurina is the artist who did all of our small art surprises.

We're just trying to find ways to celebrate the great local talent that we have.

This is Ortenstone Gardens and Sculpture Park.

This was a farm, but we've saved it, and instead of turning it into development we're leaning into all the natural environments.

This land has a special nuance to it.

You can see Big Detroit Lake from here.

There's great hills and valleys, this is a beautiful area where the 3 biomes that come together in Minnesota are all here.

So you see deciduous trees, you see coniferous trees, you see the prairies and grasslands We're working with a local artist named Hans Gilsdorf who is adding 3 bronze pieces to Ortenstone Gardens here.

Those will represent the 3 different biomes.

(Hans) The sprites are Greek mythology.

They are spirits that are born of the earth itself that are protected from nature.

I thought that would be kind of a fun storyline to kind of create 3 characters-- 3 female forms that would actually represent these biomes.

What I want to create was just a moment of reflection.

So when you're sittin' there looking at these sculptures, you're taking in the female form, but at the same time you're reflecting on why you are here in nature.

And it's to slow you down to respect and to be grateful for what's around us and just to take in all that's around you.

[piano & oboe play softly] (Amy Stearns) Our first really giant project was the trolls.

The whole exhibit is called Alexa's Elixir.

You start your troll journey with Alexa in the Detroit Lakes City Park, and there's a book there that you can read and hear the stories.

Then somewhere you go to find the 5 other trolls.

Each of the trolls has a challenge for you.

For example, the troll behind me, her name is Barefoot Frida, and her challenge for you is to walk a mile barefoot.

The idea is, if you can find each of the trolls and do the challenge that each troll has, then you'll find the golden rabbit and defeat the golden rabbit.

Olga Ziemska is a fabulous American Polish artist.

She does giant large natural pieces.

She really talks about how landscape informs her art and informs who we are as people.

The 3 pieces that are here right now are called Hear, Strata, and Ona.

They are just wonderful pieces.

You can stand there, talk about them, you can just be in their presence and feel the message that she as an artist was trying to convey.

Charlie Harper was an illustrator, a really prolific artist in the '50s and '60s and '70s.

There are 13 of his pieces in Ortenstone Gardens.

There's another 27 of his pieces at the Becker County Museum.

His pieces are really fun.

They're whimsical.

He talks about the animals and makes them almost like characters.

So we also added here out at Ortenstone Gardens a Storywalk about one of his books that highlights his illustrations written by Zoe Burke called "What's in the Woods?"

Jim Dolan is an artist out of Montana and we commissioned him to do a piece called "Togetherness."

it's in honor of our friend Mark Knudson who passed away a couple years ago.

It's 2 horses, they are overlooking Detroit Lake.

When the sun is setting, they just glow-- they're just beautiful pieces.

We're still trying to figure out the economic impact, but we know very, very conservatively, we've had over 100,000 visitors to see the Trolls, and coming here to Ortenstone Gardens, it's probably been another 30,000 just this summer.

We know people are staying in the hotels, they're buying gasoline, they're eating in our area restaurants and doing some shopping downtown, and so we know the economic impact is making a difference.

This Detroit Lakes area is extraordinary.

I mean, the people here are great, they're creative, they're resilient, they come up with really fun ideas, and they embrace different things.

And I love that what we've thrown out for Project 412, the community has just been like, yeah, we want trolls!

There's so many different reasons art makes a difference.

I really want to encourage people to know that art is everywhere.

it is in nature, but it's also in a sculpture that somebody makes.

It really has made a difference in Detroit Lakes, and you see that in other communities around the country and around the world.

Art is everywhere; art is everything.

Whether it's music, poetry, sculpture, writing, design-- everything.

Public art actually helps calm people down, helps them slow down, helps them appreciate and have respect and passion for their own communities.

What this has really grown to become is something, I think, that's bigger than any of us combined, because it's just a project that speaks of our community, the power of our community, and the ability of what our community, when it comes together with an idea, great things happen.

From a young age, Bailey White was surrounded by art.

With the never-ending support of her family and community, Bailey continues to grow her craft with each stroke of her brush.

She finds inspiration in the landscape of the Midwest and the cities she's lived in.

(Bailey White) I would say that one of my gifts in this world is being able to pick up on something artistic very easily, and my greatest weakness is boredom.

[laughs] and moving on to the next thing very quickly.

So I've got a little bit under my belt of what I'm capable of.

When I start a piece, it is always a little bit daunting.

I can really drag my feet and say, I don't want to do this, it's so much work, it's going to take hours.

And then those hours are gone in what feels like minutes.

I'll come back afterwards and say to my husband, Did I forget that I love painting?

I have been an artist my entire life.

It feels like I've been out painting and drawing and just doing something.

And my mom, she was actually a really prolific stained-glass artist.

She always pushed my artistic ability, she always encouraged me to go farther with it, to take classes, and to constantly be creating.

My mom had our home absolutely stocked with anything I might want to explore.

And so, my whole life I have been painting.

The majority of my work is acrylic painting.

What I aim to do is to continue to push it and actually make it something that when you look at that you say, that is something Bailey White did.

Every single painting starts with the background.

I really, really love the baby sky blue.

The majority of my paintings have that as just a solid one-color background.

Then I come in, I draw out the buildings, then it's just color-blocking for me.

I really, really like to explore buildings around the Fargo-Moorhead area.

I like to paint their architecture, and especially brick buildings.

And I love to share that with other people, especially people who have connections to those buildings.

It can be so easy to be lost in a building.

When you're looking at architecture, you go, I don't know what's next, everything's run together, especially when you're painting it, all of the lines, you lose them, so it's really important to color-block them and just start blending.

And before I know it the painting is done.

Every time I make a painting I set out to do realism, but it always ends up just getting pulled back into illustration because I like to have my bold and thick lines.

I like to use paint pens, and so it always just ends up somewhere between realism and illustration.

It's interesting because I don't want to fall into abstractism, like slightly abstract.

But I also want that to be such a recognizable part of my work.

It's just constantly pushing in different directions and just try not to get stagnant in whatever I'm doing.

I've been calling it just like a patchwork style, drawing from the farmland, I want people to see all of that together.

I hope that people see the sense of community that I'm trying to pull in.

I like to take the places around me and just show the beauty that's here, what the people here have made, and then I just get to replicate that a little bit.

When it comes to the architecture stuff, I know what that's going to look like 'cause I know exactly what it needs to look like to be recognizable.

But when I do some more creative stuff, and I'm trying to expand my artwork, I try to not be so rigid about how I'm thinking.

I try to really let what wants to be be.

If I wanted to do this, and it's just not working, I say it's just not what the canvas wants to be, and I have to let it go this direction.

I've been honored with some different things like being the Giving Hearts Day 2023 Artist of the Year.

I've also gotten to work with Medora on a few different projects that just celebrate their region.

The one I did for the 2023 Giving Hearts Day Artist of the Year was called "Floodplains," and that was abstract.

It still was just imagery in a different form of our area.

I love the Midwest, I love North Dakota, I love Minnesota, I love where I'm from.

I have a hard time looking at a mountainscape and wanting to paint it.

I think a lot of that comes from painting and creating what you know.

I've stared at wheatfields, I see it every single day, I know what she looks like, I know what it's supposed to feel like when you see that painting.

I want to create things that the people around me will appreciate.

If we lived in a world where art weren't supported by the communities around you, you would live in such a gray and stagnant world.

To think about the pieces we would lose if that wasn't part of our lives.

My biggest goal is to just start getting to be in shows, but I need to build my collection first, so just focusing on building up an actual portfolio of either the architecture of the patchwork designs I want to do, just solid portfolios and pieces that all fit together.

Maybe some other people if they were to tell their parents that they are going to art school, their parents might say that is a waste of money.

And though right now I'm not saying that it was [laughs] the smartest decision I ever made, my mom knew that that's what I was going to do.

She never questioned it, she supported it the whole way.

When I called her to tell her that this was happening for me, all she said was, "I'm so proud of you!"

A charismatic duo, The international Treasures met in 2020 in an on-line music writers forum and have been captivating audiences ever since.

Themes of love and life experiences populate their songs, and their fun-loving personalities shine through in every performance.

[playing with a rhythmic folk-country beat] ♪ ♪ ♪ This old house used to be my mother's ♪ ♪ This old house used to stand the test of time ♪ ♪ This old house leans into the weather ♪ ♪ Lets in everything that's cold wet and wild ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Tell you what let's put our backs to this field grass ♪ ♪ Tamp it down and watch that black blue sky ♪ ♪ It's been so long since I felt the rain coming ♪ ♪ Listen for that thunder put my hands to the sky ♪ ♪ Oo oo oo oo ♪ ♪ Oo oo oo oo ♪ ♪ A world gone wild and so have I ♪ ♪ Rain coming in sheets blowing on the line ♪ ♪ Everything gone wild so why can't I ♪ ♪ Built to last only works for a time ♪ ♪ Only works for a time ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Wishes in the wind dropping rain on my face ♪ ♪ Wish I could clear out of here clear out my mind ♪ ♪ Broken windows look out on these dreams ♪ ♪ Tempting lightning just to prove I'm alive ♪ ♪ Oo oo oo oo ♪ ♪ Oo oo oo oo ♪ ♪ A world gone wild and so have I ♪ ♪ Rain coming in sheets blowing on the line ♪ ♪ Everything gone wild so why can't I ♪ ♪ Built to last only works for a time ♪ ♪ ♪ This old house used to be my mother's ♪ ♪ This old house used to stand the test of time ♪ ♪ This old house leans into the weather ♪ ♪ Lets in everything that's cold wet and wild ♪ [playing in folk/country rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ Nothing ever looks the same tomorrow ♪ ♪ ♪ Words don't carry the same sound ♪ ♪ ♪ Grasping at moments that are borrowed ♪ ♪ ♪ Counting on the wind dying down ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ She left me dangling in the sunshine ♪ ♪ ♪ Melted snow off the window sill ♪ ♪ ♪ All she wanted was for me to care ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm sorry to say I never will ♪ ♪ As she turns to look back ♪ ♪ Through an empty rearview ♪ ♪ I've gone to something better and new ♪ ♪ ♪ Now there's just the simple fact ♪ ♪ She'll never walk in my shoes ♪ ♪ She may regret all I didn't do ♪ ♪ But I never will ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I never will ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Nothing ever looks the same tomorrow ♪ ♪ ♪ The sound of her words ringing in my head ♪ ♪ ♪ I know I should feel some sorrow ♪ ♪ ♪ But I'm feeling alive instead ♪ ♪ ♪ And someday I'll look back ♪ ♪ As we're all compelled to do ♪ ♪ I hope she's on to something new ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you know of an artist, topic, or an organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment, please contact us at... (Barb) You can stream this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" online, and follow Prairie Public on social media for more content and updates.

I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Andy Garske.

Thank you for joining us for another edition of "Prairie Mosaic."

[guitar, bass, and drums play in bright country rhythm] (Barb) 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.