(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet Lakota, North Dakota artist Nelda Schrupp.

But first joining me now is someone who wears a few hats at NDSU.

Sarah Sunderlin, who's the Senior Lecturer with the NDSU Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Interior Design and Hospitality Management.

I'd say there's a few hats there Sarah.

(laughing) Thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, as we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Sure.

I grew up in a little town in Central North Dakota and education was very, very important to my family and to my parents.

And they went to NDSU and sent all of their children to NDSU, and all of their children's spouses and grandchildren.

And in the end, everybody has some connection to NDSU.

Either took a class or several classes, or graduated from NDSU.

So it was kind of a given that's where I would go as well.

My Master's Degree and my Bachelor's Degree is from NDSU, so that's, that's where I'm at.

- Well, did your mother influence you in this?

- [Sarah] Yeah, yeah.

- I know we had her on a show that we did the Alba Bales house.

- Yep, yep.

She did, she told me I should be a teacher and I said, "No, I can't be a teacher."

'Cause my parents were both teachers and I didn't wanna do that.

And now 21 years later I'm a teacher, so.

- Well, we've got a lot to cover today.

- [Sarah] Sure.

- But let's start with the fact that you're the caretaker of the official NDSU Tartan.

What is that?

- Sure.

A tartan is a piece of fabric that's created to unify a family, or unify a group, or a clan, and the idea started in 2010 that then our department chair or chair that we had was Dr. Holly Bastow-Shoop, had this idea to work with a company, to come up with an NDSU tartan for the, for the college or for the whole, for the whole university.

And we had a contest and students submitted their designs of their tartan to this contest.

And in the end, 12,500 people voted online in 2011 to come up with the one that they thought was the best.

And so this is the one that was chosen back in 2011.

And the student wrote a story about why it was important and why she put the stripes in the places that she did, and has a deep story about how the colors come together.

And you'll notice that there's a third color in our tartan, not just the green and gold, but there's a little teal color in there as well.

And she put that in there so that she could offset the dark green that was in there and make it stand out a little bit more, make it a richer tone to it.

So that is the, the pattern that we have that we use as our tartan.

- Well, and, so you said it was 2010 and voted on and then 2011, so it really hadn't been that long involved in yet.

It seems like it's been there forever.

You've got a few samples or you got a sample here and, but, so were there a lot of entries or a lot of interest in this when in back in 2010 when you did this?

- Yeah, there was, there was, it was an interesting time at the university was going through rebranding and the thought was that this could be used as part of that rebranding that was going on and lots of support from people that helped us on the committee and helped, you know, put their ideas forward as what they thought was gonna be the best one.

- Yeah, well I want want you to tell me about the various groups I understand that are involved in creating the tartan blanket made entirely, I understand, from NDSU grown wool?

Is that right?

- Yeah, yeah.

So the, the Blanket project, which is on the table here, started in 2018 as an idea that we could take NDSU wool that came from a flock of sheep in Hettinger, North Dakota at the Research Extension Center and the Rambouillet sheep produced wool that would be good for using for a product like this.

And that idea started in 2018 and then we started production in 2020.

The spring of 2020, when all things were shut down, we started making blankets.

And so the wool was taken from Hettinger to Buffalo, Wyoming, to the wool processing plant that we used, which is Mountain Meadow Wool in Buffalo.

And from there they washed the wool and got it ready for making it into yarns.

And then they dyed the yarns.

And the examples we have on the table are those exact yarns that they used for those blankets.

And then we sent the yarns to Farwell, Minnesota to have them made into blankets at the Farwell Wooling Mills that lots of people recognize that name from the region of making wool items from that company.

And so you can see that on our tag, the Farwell blanket tag is on there, but the proceeds from this go to support student scholarships in animal science and then in our department of apparel merchandising, interior design and hospitality management.

So all of the profits really go back directly into student scholarships to give away.

- Well there you go 'cause I just, you know, how is the tartan used?

So obviously it's, it is for that, but, you know, where can people purchase items associated with the NDSU Tartan project, are they widely distributed?

Or is there only- - Yep.

We have one exclusive provider at the NDSU Bookstore and they are partners with us to give back our portion of that every sale that goes through their store.

So they're the only ones that sell our NDSU Tartan and they, you know, support that online and in person.

But they're the, the official supporter of that for selling.

- You say, you know, you've brought the samples here and you've talked about the production, the development of this.

I mean, it sounds pretty rigorous.

I mean, why did y'all take something like this home and talk more about that process?

- Sure.

It, there's a lot of steps involved in that and a lot of people don't understand how a product gets from an idea to be actually manufactured.

But we use that a lot in, at least I use that a lot in my classes of product development to show students that this is the process that this went through and this is how we have a product now after many, many months of development, but now we have a product to show.

So it's a really great example for that.

The hats were created as a project because we had leftover yarns and we wanted to be good, you know, use a good resource and be a good steward of the extra supplies that we had from the project.

And so we sent the yarns back to Mountain Meadow and they, they knit those hats and those are just available in the last couple weeks at the bookstore during homecoming.

So it's starting to get to be wool season and we would, we would like a wool hat maybe right now.

So those are available as well, so.

- Yeah, so, really the tartan part of it, the blanket here and even the bow tie, if people are able to see that sitting up there.

They are actually part of the tartan project per se, as tartan.

- Right.

- But then the hat itself is just- - Is part of- - An extra product made.

- Yeah, yep, exactly.

So the tartan was around for many, many years before we made the blanket.

So we have products that are made in all parts of the world for, you know, and that fabric that's used for the bow ties was made in Scotland.

So that's not NDSU wool, but the blankets are, and the pillows are, and the wine bags are.

And so we have lots of products that were created from those blankets.

So those are the things that go along with the project.

- Well in fact, you had the samples here, you got so many, we couldn't get 'em all on the table.

So if you wanna find them, they'll, they'll look for 'em here.

- Yeah.

- Later as we tell 'em where they can find them.

So explain how you use all of this as sort of a teaching tool as well in your classroom.

- Sure.

Well one of the things that we really have focused on a lot in the last several years is to get people to understand where their fabric comes from and to have a connection to what they're using for textiles.

We are all consumers of textiles, but most of us say, you know, we're not, I'm not interested in fashion that doesn't affect me, but with few exception, everyone in the world uses textiles in some way and we can't continue on this same path of just using as much as we possibly want to and just discarding it.

And so if people would, you know, we know that from research, if people have a connection to what they're purchasing, they're more likely to keep it and they're more likely to, you know, keep it in circulation and not throw it away or not, not discard it 'cause it's cheap and and useless.

And so that's kind of always tied into this idea of educating people of where their fabric comes from and where their fiber comes from.

- Okay, well maybe let's turn away from Tartan for a moment, but you're also involved in the Nome North Dakota Schoolhouse Project, south and east of Valley City.

Can you tell us about this and how may I think you understand it's turned into a fiber arts retreat center?

- Right, yep.

So the schoolhouse itself is a place where people can come and practice fiber arts and they can stay in a boutique hotel there, but an offshoot of that is something called Nome University.

So EWE University, and that's the portion that I'm involved most with.

And that's a portion of education trying to get people to understand again, where wool comes from.

And it, you know, it came from an animal that was well taken care of and you know, is used in a resourceful way.

- Well, tell me, we hear farm to table a lot, I got a question here, that farm to needle experience.

- Yep.

- How can this, what is that and how can this educate young people?

- Sure, same idea that, you know, where did that fiber come from?

And so farm to needle just means that that animal that's out back at the schoolhouse that you can see, you know, roaming around the countryside, is we're gonna use that fleece to make fiber out of, to be made into other things.

And so there's a connection there that they can see the actual animal, they can see where the wool is processed, they can see it made into a kit or they can make it into other things, make it into yarns, and then they can see an actual product come out of that.

- So, So tell me about what it is you teach at NDSU.

- I have a full-time teaching appointment, so I teach lots and lots of classes, but I teach textiles and I teach product development.

I teach beginning classes for our freshmen classes on sustainability, all kinds of, all kinds of different topics that are offered in our program.

- And why, you know, why are sustainability issues in global apparel and textile so important?

- Right, it's because we can't keep consuming at a rate that we are consuming.

We have to actually stop and think about that.

Last semester I taught for the first time or last spring, I taught for the first time a class on sustainability.

And it's kind of depressing to see all of the things that the industry that we teach about and care so much about is affecting the, the earth in general.

And so how can we change that and turn that around and make people understand that even a small change could make a big change if everybody made a small change in consumption patterns and, and throwing things away and, and all kind, you know, what happens to your fabric once you're done using it.

- So can you expand a little bit and talk about reeducating people on where clothing items actually come from?

- Sure.

One of the things is that people just need to be more aware.

So our customers and our students need to be more aware of reading labels, understanding that a person made that thing for you, a person somewhere created that item for you and how can you, you know, connect kind of with that person that we know that manufacturing isn't done mainly is not done all by robots or anything.

It's still done by human people and human hands.

And so if we care a little bit more about who made that, that might make a difference in what we do with that later.

- And you know, the global textile industry sometimes comes under scrutiny or criticism about employing cheap overseas labor.

You know, why does this happen and what can you tell us about this or comment about it.

- Sure.

It, that is true.

There's lots and lots of issues that happen in the apparel and textile, you know, complex as a whole and there's just a continuous work to see if we can try to combat that and, you know, buy from brands that you know are not using sources that are not ethically created and ethically made.

But there's a big shift to take manufacturing out of the US in the eighties then the 1980s.

And so once that left and went away, it was different when it's trying to come back and there's a lot of people trying to get that back, but the people that were skilled in those areas are no longer working.

And so they're retraining people in a new, you know, to be the pattern makers and be the people that are making the items themselves.

- So yeah, no, I, I can remember the days of, of textiles, different companies.

I won't name 'em going to Mexico, going overseas.

And are you telling me now though, that we're bringing some of that back and?

- [Sarah] Yep.

- And we continue to?

And is you think that's the future for, for textiles?

- I think it's the future for some, because it has a higher price tag.

It costs more to pay people a living wage and pay people, you know, what they should be given for creating those items for us.

And so it's not the cheap, you know, $2 t-shirt, that's not what we're talking about.

But there's lots of successful companies that are making things in the US because they can and people buy that because they know where it's created.

- Yeah.

What does it mean when it says made in the USA?

I mean it, does that mean everything's made in the USA?

So is that entirely accurate or not?

Can you tell me?

- It depends.

The labeling laws for apparel can say that it's made in the US from fabric from another country and it doesn't have to say, you know, where the buttons came from or where the zipper came from, or it doesn't have to say those components, but it does need to say where the manufacturing happened for it.

So if it was made in the US it should have been made in US soil or on US soil that it was manufactured here.

- Yeah.

You know, you talk about what you teach and the different classes, you know, what kinds of careers can students that are majoring in your department, what kind of careers can they have coming out of college?

- Sure.

Lots of them work in product development.

Many of 'em work in retail, both in person, in a traditional store and online for E-commerce things.

Many of 'em are doing different types of display work.

You know, getting enticing people to buy things that are, you know, on display in a store.

Many of our students are store owners now.

We have several students who start their own companies right outta college.

Some of them run those companies online during college and then they open a freestanding store when they graduate.

So lots of exciting things.

- Different one, turn back to the Tartan project.

It, it's relatively new.

When you think about textiles, you said 2010, you talked about 2018.

What are the goals?

What are the plans for the project are going forward?

- Right, well, we have some blankets that we would really like to sell that are still at the bookstore.

And once we, those last blankets that are there really support the student scholarship fund the most because we kind of paid off our loans so to speak, that we were given to get the project started.

There's a lot of startup costs that are involved with producing your own product.

And that's all been paid for.

And now the the left, we know what's left for the blankets, that's what's paying our student scholarships the most.

And so we're getting, you know, we wanna see those go away.

But really in the future we would like to have a product that was made entirely in North Dakota.

So now we're using, you know, for the, for the hats, we're using the Wyoming mill, but we have mills here that can do small scale things and we want to, you know, keep coming up with an idea for, for now what to use those yarns for that we have leftovers still, and then, you know, in the future, who else can we use in North Dakota to make products from that?

Well now you talked about I think sheep from Hettinger, did I get that right?

- Mm-hm.

Is is there still more wool being produced or is that- - Yes.

Yep.

So our partnership with Hettinger Research Extension Center with Christopher Schauer is the name of the director there.

He saves wool for us.

So when, when the next idea comes about that will be ready to go.

So sheep are sheered in their flock, sheep are sheered once a year.

And so they save a portion of that for a project, whatever that looks like.

- So I mean, you came up with bow ties, bottle covers, wine bottle, - [Sarah] Yeah, yeah.

- A hat.

Do you have other ideas?

Are you taking other ideas from people or would, would you be interested in other ideas from people?

- We, we have files of suggestions that people have said, Why don't you make this in tartan, you know, as general, not not even related to the North Dakota portion of the project, but lots and lots of people have ideas of what we should make with it.

And, and one of those problems is our scale.

We, you know, the, the price that we could make it at would nobody would purchase it if it was that.

And so we constantly work with the bookstore to come up with new ideas and new things.

- Often say ideas are easy, execution and scales.

I like that terminology there.

'Cause you gotta scale it where, it's profitable and reasonable to make.

- [Sarah] Right.

- Well what's the best part of your job?

- I know it sounds really cliche, but I really like my students.

They, they keep me, you know, coming to work 21 years later that in a job that I thought was only gonna last for two years.

And it's really exciting to see what they do when they leave NDSU and, and what, you know, skills they have when they leave and what they come up with for, you know, jobs and careers on their own.

And then they come back and tell us and, and teach the next, you know, help the next generation know, I could do that too 'cause this person did that.

So that's the, I, that's one of the best parts.

It's also nice to teach in a place where you really like what you do for hobbies.

So my hobbies are sewing and this just feeds right into that, so.

Well that's helpful.

- That's wonderful.

That's wonderful.

Well, if people want more information, where can they go?

Who can they contact?

- Sure, we have a gigantic website name, but if you just Google ADHM and NDSU together, you will get to our website and that will tell you more information.

Or they can go to the NDSU bookstore website too and that will show you the exact Tartan products.

- Well, Sarah, best of luck to you and thank you for joining us.

- All right, thank you.

- Stay tuned for more.

(mellow music) Nelda Schrupp of Lakota, North Dakota uses metal to create incredible art.

Her one-A kind designs are inspired by the rattle, a sacred object used in spiritual ceremonies, blending together abstract, geometric shapes and traditional forms.

She creates jewelry and sculpture.

(jingling) - That sound, when you're praying, helps to carry your prayers and it's a very soft emotion.

It's very sacred feeling within you when you pray.

And that beautiful sound is a sound that you just wanna share with your spiritual leader.

Noise makers are very primitive item.

The different tribes use different kind of rattles.

When the medicine men pray, they'll pray to the four directions and they'll use their rattle while they're praying.

The sounds help carry the prayers to grandfather, but women don't make rattles.

That's a man's birthright to make rattles if they so choose to.

I do rattles, but it's more for artistic interpretation.

Mine are very contemporary, very modern.

I try to stick as close to possible with the meanings of colors, the materials, but yet stay out in the realm of the sacredness of making the traditional rattles that they use in ceremonial purposes like blessings and naming ceremonies.

A lot of the jewelers, their focal point is the stone where mine is the metal.

When I buy my metal, I buy silver and different gauges.

My favorite gauge is 24 gauge that's sturdy enough to keep the hollow forms.

And I saw that two identical pieces together and that creates the hollow.

A lot of our northern plains designs are very geometric.

I'll cut 'em down into little pieces of their former cells and create little hollow forms and then I'll turn around and recreate a different image that does not even look like what they began.

And I use my melted down scrap silver, and I make little beads and I put 'em on the inside and each rattle is so different.

They can be basically the same chamber, but depends on the size of the bead and how many beads I put in them.

You hear that one?

- This is kind of more clunky, this is more ringing.

Some pieces are so intricate that I have to wire 'em together.

And I leave a little skirt around the image and that's where I'll put my solder.

After my last soldering, I'll cut off all the excess and then I drop 'em in the acid bath.

This is just pure citric acid.

It's non-toxic and it cleans just as well.

Then I put it in my other bowl over there and I soak all the acid off.

From there, I'll go back and solder again.

That's the repetitiveness of the soldering process.

I'll solder the acid cleans, I rinse it out, go back to soldering and I'll do that until the piece that I've created is done.

And then I start the polishing.

I call them audio aesthetics because it's hearing beauty.

Even the blind people can enjoy the the artwork because of the sound.

And they're so individualistic, they're like little people and they're little voices.

I follow my intuition a lot.

I follow my spontaneous creativity a lot.

When I finish a piece, it has no resemblance of what I started out with.

People don't realize how much inspiration is needed to create these pieces.

How much time, how much effort, how much of yourself gets into that piece?

I'd like for them to see the creativity that goes into these pieces.

What tickled me the best is when the Smithsonian wanted to buy a piece from me.

Not only in the National Museum of the American Indian, but the National Museum of American Art as well.

That kind of gave me the satisfaction of saying, "Yay, look at that, I can do it."

It certifies that I am a true artist and other people recognize me as an artist.

I do tell my grand babies that when you have grandkids, I says, "Take 'em to these museums and show this is what Great, "Great Grandma made."

I'm leaving a, I don't know if it's a legacy, but a history for them to enjoy.

I don't want 'em to follow in my footsteps, but it's possible, you can make anything for yourself.

Well, you make yourself whatever you wanna be in this world.

- Well, that's all we have on Prairie Post for this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

- [Speaker 1] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.