- [Announcer] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and cultural heritage fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

[loon call] - [Barbara] Cruising your way next Off 90.

A visit to a veteran's Memorial in Rochester, the Winona County Historical Society.

A look at beading in Rochester and an artist from St. Charles.

It's all just ahead, Off 90.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip, Off 90.

Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial in Rochester is meant to honor the sacrifices of Southeastern Minnesota veterans, past, present, and future.

The Memorial is free to all visitors.

So the lessons to be learned from our veterans are accessible to all.

(sad music) - [Terry] Soldiers Field Veteran Memorial is divine ground.

It's where we honor our veterans, their families, and it's an educational Memorial.

A place to come and find peace, to grieve, to find comfort.

Should you have lost a veteran or a family member serving and reflect on the service of that person and your family.

The Memorial came to be conceived in 1995.

We were looking for a plaque in the park, as we called it.

In 1996, they started breaking ground.

It's all tax free dollars.

There's no tax dollars here.

It's all volunteer works.

This Memorial has inspired other nations to come here look at it, other communities to look at it.

And this has been an inspiration, not only for this area but for the nation and a lot of countries in the world.

- [Pete] We start with the flags.

We got nine flags, state flag, Minnesota flag the six service flags and the POW flag.

And then we have our wall remembrance and our wall remembrance is for the military people who have passed away.

And then we have the Walk of remembrance and that's our sidewalks.

And our sidewalks we have within those, a total now of 6,483 pavers.

- [Terry] They worked so hard to come up with designs and you had World War II veterans, Korean, Vietnam, everybody experienced something different.

And everybody had an image that was just engraved in them.

And so you come together and you compromise and you find things that people would understand.

The wall is four walls.

It's inner circle represents the circle of life and it starts off with the Civil War.

And then it's the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War and ends up with the Persian Gulf War which at the time we thought, "We're over this.

This world can get along."

And it just can't.

- The Wall of Remembrance is a focal point.

The main part of this Memorial and the idea is to remember our veterans that have given their lives and died as a result of injury sustained in the service.

Everyone from a 50-mile radius from Rochester is eligible.

If they died, no matter when they died, 20 years after they got outta service or anytime.

And the Walk of Remembrance, it's just the same thing, we wanna remember now that's for any veteran living or dead of the United States, armed forces or our allies.

Now, the Walk of Remembrance was the main fundraiser.

70% of the funds raised to build this memorial was through the sale of the pavers.

There is a price paid also on the home front which we have in front of the Wall of Remembrance.

We have that statue, you can call it a a widow and a child or a mother and a child.

The idea for a memorial came up in 1995 when the 173rd Airborne had their reunion here.

And all of a sudden this idea to honor and remember the 173rd became an idea to honor all veterans, which started out as a plaque.

Now this here is our plaque in the park and we presented it to the city of Rochester in about 2007 or 8.

We gave the ownership of it to the city of Rochester.

Proud of it.

It's the gem of the city of Rochester.

- [Terry] We formed a subcommittee for the GWOT, global war and terror veterans.

We're working right now on adding to it, to come up with a design and thoughts.

They were there, I wasn't.

I can't come out here and put something down for what these young men and women went through.

This memorial means to me is being a combat vet and being around those made the ultimate sacrifice.

This is a place to honor them, to honor the people that unselfishly step up to defend this nation, to defend their homeland.

They do it willingly and to do a very good job at it.

And it's sad that so many will lose limbs, will spill their own blood or lose their lives or come home with PTSD.

It's divine.

When I come here, I know I'm among hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters that I am just one speck and like sand on the beach that help defend this country will continue to do so today.

(upbeat music) - The Winona County Historical Society offers not only exhibits of its collections but a variety of activities for members of the community.

Located in Winona's former armory, the museum's goal is to preserve history for future generations.

Something you have in your attic just might be of interest.

- Hi, I'm Carrie Johnson.

I'm the director of the Winona County Historical Society.

We're located in Winona, Minnesota and we serve all of the people of Winona County.

Our organization runs three museum sites.

We have the Winona County History Center, right downtown Winona.

We also have the Bunnell House.

It's a house museum in Homer, Minnesota, which is just down the river a little bit from Winona.

And we operate the Rural Heritage Museum which is located in St. Charles, Minnesota on the county fairgrounds.

- Hi, I'm Jennifer Weaver.

I'm the museum educator, with the Winona County Historical Society.

My job entails a lot of things.

It's a lot of fun.

With being a museum and historical organization, education is a huge part of everything that we do, from exhibits to what we sell in the gift shop to programs and events.

I work with all of our wonderful volunteers and other staff designing and creating really things for people to do.

We offer walking tours in the summer through September on select Saturdays.

We go all around downtown and through the historic districts as well as over to the Windom Park historic districts.

Being along the river, we also do tours, buses and walking tours for visitors that come on river cruises through American Cruise Lines and American Queen Voyages.

So it's really fun to be part of welcoming new people to Winona as visitors.

It's always very exciting to hear all their reactions and those wow moments of what Winona has to offer and just the amazing stories and history that we all share.

One of our major fundraiser events that involves many members of the community is Voices From The Past.

It's a cemetery walk, held out in Woodlawn Cemetery.

We also do an accessible performance here at the History Center.

And with hundreds of volunteers from actors to guides, to writers and researchers and people helping at the admissions table.

It's a fun community event that has a unique way of sharing our past.

Another great way we can educate people is you can take that home with you.

We have this amazing gift shop that features locally made items from artisans and crafts people from around the region.

We also have a great selection of historical books, as well as Winona and Minnesota souvenirs, apparel, postcards, there's really something for everybody here.

And it changes often, so definitely stop on down and shop as well as enjoying the museum, the exhibits and all of our programming.

- [Carrie] The History Center is housed in the former armory.

And then we have a beautiful new addition that was added 12 years ago.

And it's a huge facility.

Our permanent exhibit space is the former drill hall and running track for the national guard that was in the armory.

So right now on exhibit, we have a wide variety of things that you can see in our gallery.

You can learn about the sawmill and lumber industry that was here in Winona County.

You can learn a little bit about a theater experience, an entertainment that was here in the early days.

And then we have a timeline in the mezzanine level which was the former running track.

And that starts with pre-history.

It starts actually with geology and the unique geology of the Driftless region, talks a little bit about native history and then through the decades until today.

Some of the exhibits there have been on display for some time and so we've taken upon ourselves to develop a strategic plan for upgrading and updating all of our exhibits in the permanent gallery which is a huge undertaking.

Part of our mission is to collect history.

So not only do we have some interesting items on exhibit but we have even more items in our storage area.

And it's one of the main missions of all local historical societies to preserve those histories and those things for future generations.

One big project that we're in the middle of is digitizing photographs.

So we do hope to feature those digital images in future exhibits.

In order to preserve objects, we have to keep a certain environmental condition.

And so we have a major heating and ventilation system upgrade that we're gonna be working on to make sure that we can preserve all those historic artifacts for generations to come.

- My name is Andy Bloedorn, and I am the curator of collections at the Winona County Historical Society.

As the curator, my main responsibility is taking care of the collections.

Being a county historical society, one of the main things we do here is collect and preserve material that can help to document the history of our county.

Over the years, we've accumulated quite a bit of material including about 20,000 3-dimensional objects, about 6,500 books in our library, almost 1000 linear feet of archival material.

And over a hundred thousand images.

The vast majority of everything we have here has been donated to us.

So my job really begins with the donor when they bring in material.

A big part of my job is to record and preserve the stories and the information that goes along with what is being donated.

And then a lot of research and other things go into cataloging the material, once it comes in.

We have to be careful to track, be able to track things throughout the building.

So that's a big part of my job as well.

Another big part is the preservation of the material and that is trying to protect whatever is donated from pests or lighting or temperature and humidity fluctuations, things like that, things so that we can preserve the material for future generations.

I'm standing in our storage rooms.

We call it the vault.

We have over 90% of everything in our collection down here.

A big misconception about some museums is that, what is on exhibit is a lot of what we have, and that's not true.

We try to rotate what we have on exhibit.

And there are things down here that are specifically for research purposes.

- I'm Walt Bennick, I'm the archivist, here at the Winona County Historical Society.

One of my tasks is the research for the organization for individuals coming in and for other businesses in the community.

I am sitting in the reading room of the Laird Norton archives and library.

This is where we work with our patrons who come in and are looking for the information for their family history, their house history, organization's history, or just general histories of the community.

In the background is the morgue for the newspapers.

The newspapers are extended from 18 to 55 through about 1948.

In the rest of the archives, we maintained in our collection of books, papers and other two dimensional objects.

We have a library of books, history, the state, the national, along with a number of other books relating to activities in the county.

- [Carrie] The Winona County Historical Society is a private nonprofit organization.

While we do receive some funding from the county and the city, we do rely on our membership and our donors to keep our organization operating.

We also rely heavily on volunteers with our organization.

We are open seven days a week.

And so in order to staff our front desk, for example we rely on volunteers.

We also pride ourselves in our partnerships.

Our art gallery is co-sponsored by the River Arts Alliance and they help us with their network of artists.

Another area where we partnered was with Project Fine.

They're an organization here who helps immigrant and refugee families.

Sarah Johnson, who's Winona's artists Laureate approached us and asked if we'd be willing to be the site for some murals that she was going to be creating with Project FINE.

So Winona is from my perspective, really great at partnering with our local nonprofits and finding those areas of synergy, where our organizations overlap for more information, or to become a member, you can go on our website at winonahistory.org.

There are various membership levels and great benefits including free admission to the history center.

Actually, all of our sites.

We receive our newsletter and then discounts to our rental facility.

Or check out our Facebook page.

We've got lots of great historic photos that we post and then obviously our events and activities are all posted there as well.

- The Rochester Arts Center invited two bead artists to its classrooms to assist other beaders to create new bodies of work and learn new techniques.

For those involved, beading is about more than the finished work.

They believe in the power of arts to relieve stress and to heal.

- [Chris] One of the fun things about beading is getting together and just sharing our lives and our beading together at the same time.

- I'm Amy Garretson, education and community outreach coordinator, right here at the Rochester art center.

We were thrilled to welcome bead artists, Margo Yee and Chris Allen into our studio space today for open studio beading.

- Open beading at the Rochester Art Center was every Wednesday in month of May, here at the classrooms of the Rochester Art Center.

My name is Chris Allen and I live in Rochester, Minnesota and I am a bead artist.

- [Margo] We didn't have a set agenda for projects for people during open beading, but some people brought their own beads and supplemented them with beads that we supplied at no charge that have been donated.

I'm Margo Yee and I'm one of the coordinators of the open beading here at the Rochester art center.

I'm a volunteer.

I think that as we age, we have an obligation to return something to communities that have have been so kind to us during our busy working years.

- [Amy] I get to work with artists who are so passionate about their medium, Chris and Margo reached out and asked how they could share their love of beading with the community.

I had met both artists in the past.

I had seen their work online, on Facebook and Instagram and said, absolutely, sounds fantastic.

We would love to partner with you to bring this opportunity to the community.

- Oh, it looks so good.

And it matches with this... - [Chris] We wanted to gather other beaders to create bodies, of new bodies of work or to admire what each other is doing or help solve problems for other beaders.

Bead work to me is something I've practiced for over 30 years.

For me, it's meditative, it's a practice of healing and thinking, and I just love teaching it.

Yeah, this is very therapeutic.

As a result, we brought lots of people together that we didn't necessarily expect.

- Because of Mayo Clinic.

Every week, we had a patient and a caregiver from either Fargo or Chicago or some place in Iowa.

Then we didn't really expect that they would find the Arts Center and actually get to come and bead with us.

And we feel like we sent them home with a good feeling about Rochester.

- We believe the arts can be really healing as well.

And that arts and cultural programs do a lot to heal the soul.

Just like our good doctors here in Rochester, heal the body.

We really believe in the power of the arts in music, theater, dance, visual arts to just kind of complete that whole picture.

- [Margo] Well, I think that the arts are so important for people.

It's a great stress reliever, but it's also, it's just so fun.

- [Chris] Last week the upper Midwest Bead Society came from Minneapolis and we all started a new project called Beading Rocks with Sunflowers on them in honor of what's going on in Ukraine.

So we're building community through bead work.

- I'm so grateful to the fact that they've allowed us to do this here and didn't charge rent and that it was great for the students because they didn't have to pay for materials.

And we just have had a great time.

- [Amy] I think people have a natural curiosity.

They see a really cool piece of art and they wanna know, how did you do that?

How did you make that?

And being at the Rochester Art Center we get to explore that question all the time with artists where we get to learn the process and kind of the stories behind their artwork.

(upbeat music) - Christie Nicklay is a visual artist in St. Charles.

She loves painting and drawing things from nature, animals, flowers, and other plants.

We went to her home studio to find out what inspires her and to find out how she's still learning.

- Hi, I'm Christie Nicklay.

And I'm a visual artist.

I like to draw and paint because I see things in our everyday life That is a beautiful thing that I wanna try to put it on paper or canvas and share it with people.

For example, a maple leaf might be laying on the sidewalk that is getting stepped on, rained on and ran over.

I turn around and turn it into a watercolor painting or a drawing and share it with people.

Well, I've been drawing since I was a little girl.

I used to make mud drawings on my dad's dairy barn.

I would draw anything I could on anything I could find.

So if I found an extra piece of paper, I would save it just so I could draw on it.

My favorite subject matter is plant life, botanicals, flowers, just because they're everywhere.

I walk out in my backyard.

They're everywhere.

I'm always taking photos of flowers.

And if you walk through my garden today, you'll see everything is blooming.

My dream project would be to draw a likeness of my grandchildren.

And I think that's why I study anatomy and keep at it because someday I would like to be able to do that.

But it's harder than I ever thought it would be.

(orchestral music) The mediums that I primarily work in the acrylic paintings but in the past year, I've started doing more in watercolor and especially watercolor pencils just because of the portability, 'cause we do do a little bit of traveling and I like to take as much with me as I can so that I can still do my artwork no matter where I am.

The benefit of doing an acrylic painting over pencils is just a different look, a different texture, a different feel.

My favorite color palette would have to be earth tones.

With my interest in plants and botanicals.

I'm very drawn to the greens and the browns and some of the reds and oranges and rusts.

My favorite part of the process is becoming completely engrossed in the concept to actually seeing something take shape on my paper or canvas.

And when I'm doing a botanical basically seeing it grow on my paper.

So after I've finished it I feel like I've paid something forward.

My process includes usually listening to music and I do become so engrossed in it, that time passes so quickly.

I could think I'm gonna work on something for 20 minutes and it's two hours later.

So I do lose time.

Creating art is very therapeutic to me.

Doing my art is how I like to spend my time to just be.

In my retirement, I plan to or I hope to be able to spend as much time in my art studio as I can.

I mean, a daily routine, whether it's all day, half a day or a few hours.

Everyone has a little bit of artist in them.

It's something that if it interests you enough and you apply yourself a little bit every day, you can be an artist too.

- We've reached the end of this tour.

Thanks for riding along.

See you next time, Off 90.

(upbeat outro music) - [Announcer] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

[loon call]