This year at the Creative Drive, we have three fantastic options to satisfy your hunger.

Miller Bjersted Rogers Catering at Silver Bison Ranch

Miller is an expert in local cheeses and meats. He works at the Rochester Food Coop and caters events.

Profits support Red Thread Charities, a non profit dedicated to supporting Chinese children in orphanages and foster homes.

MENU

• Bison Burgers with Smoked Gouda
• Bison Hot Dogs
• Smoked Salmon Salad
• Cold Natural Sodas
• Hot Spiced Cider if its cold out

Chef’s favorite: 

The Silver Bison Ranch burger or the smoked salmon salad – it’s a toss up!

Russell Glover Farm Pizza at Color Crossing

We are a family owned and operated business located in River Falls. We produce high-quality, gourmet pizzas with our mobile brick wood fired pizza oven.  We currently serve at farmers markets in the Twin Cities area and cater events.

MENU 

• Breakfast Pizza (served from 10am -11am)
• Rizzo Pizza
• Veggie Pizza
• Pepperoni Pizza
• Fruit Pizza

All pizzas are sprinkled along the edge with sea salt for extra deliciousness!

Chef’s favorite: 

The vegetable pizza has both the crunch of the fresh veggies and the richness of the melted mozzarella.

DJ’s Mexican Restaurante at Onkka Pottery

DJ’s is a family owned restaurant located on Main Street in Baldwin, WI. We pride ourselves on our fresh, homemade, authentic Mexican food.

All profits support Tumax Ministry, a non-profit organization dedicated to development work in rural Guatemala.

MENU

• Tacos with beef, chicken, or veggies
• Quesadillas
• Beans and Rice
• Homemade salsa: hot, medium and mild
• Guacamole
• Soft drinks, Coffee and Cookies.

Chef’s favorite: 

Beef Tacos.  Endlessly satisfying!

There is a single path that goes through this chaos and at the end stands Calder. His back is turned to the viewer and he is at a worktable that is also piled high. He looks small in the space and you cannot see what he is doing. None of the evidence in the picture leads you to believe that you are catching a glimpse of one of the world’s greatest artists at work.

I am not sure exactly what Calder is doing but I have always imagined that he is simply standing at that table bending bits of wire. He is completely immersed in this task. His shoulders look relaxed and he seems content. I imagine him looking at the shapes as he bends the wire, how it moves through space and casts shadows.  Yes, what he is bending may end up in a museum or someone’s art collection but I don’t think that is why Calder is at that worktable. To me he just likes to manipulate materials. Whatever is close at hand he is going to start to bend, twist, stretch and crimp.

Whether we are squeezing clay in our hands, pushing paint with a brush or working bread dough against the kitchen counter mankind has always found satisfaction and contentment through manipulation of materials. There seems to be a basic neurological connection made from the tactile sense of the fingertips to the brain. A connection that makes us want to do it again and again because it pleases. Calder did this and became a great artist. Some of us find a way to make a living at it.  But most of us just sew or bake, enjoy a woodworking shop in the garage or work in the garden for our own reasons. We may end up with different titles but we are pretty much all doing it for the same reason.

The first and fastest road we find takes us out of the city. Our Civic dips and turns across winding roads, transporting us to a land of white silos, old oaks and rolling prairie. It is early spring. The fields are not yet sown and the trees are crowned in the faintest halo of color. I snap photos of gnarled bur oaks and fields still adorned with remnants of last year’s harvest. Impressions and thoughts dance hastily on the pages of my sketchbook; I’ll find a way to interpret them later. As we ascend less traveled hills, the greatest mysteries of the world exist on the other side. Kyle has no idea what we seek; he is immersed in the joy of driving. My quest is not specific. Only when it comes into view will I know it by name.

Emerging from a meandering switchback, I cry out “STOP!” Pulling the car gently to the shoulder, Kyle looks around expectantly for what I have found. A tree, not just any tree, a cathedral elm stands alone and stately in a greening pasture. I know what a find this is. Decimated by the Dutch elm disease, few of these noble beauties still exist in mature form. The shutter clicks rapidly. Pencil meets paper attempting to capture limbs tipped with chartreuse cascading wistfully from a towering trunk.

The old engine hums as we circle back over hills and through hollows their secrets now discovered. As the city lights burst forth on the horizon, we are satisfied. Our Creative Drive has found its purpose and we are homebound with all the discoveries of the day stored safely on film and paper.

Emily Gray Koehler is a printmaker who will be at Silver Bison Ranch during the Creative Drive. You can see her work at studioegk.com. The print in this essay is hers.

JLK: When did you make your first basket?

MM: Almost 30 years ago, shortly after my husband and I moved from the Midwest to LaFayette, Indiana. Being in a new place, I thought taking some kind of class would be a good way to meet people. I went to a basket shop and saw so many wonderful things, and the shopkeeper said to me “well, you can make baskets too.” So I decided to take a class. I found my nitch almost immediately and thought it was really fun. I’ve been making baskets, teaching basketry and creating patterns ever since! And I think I’ll continue forever, I don’t ever want to stop.

What kind of pieces give you the most joy to make?

Any piece that gives me a new challenge or which allows me to use a new material. I love all the new challenges arising out of the unusually shaped bases my husband makes for me to use. I also get really excited when I can incorporate new materials into my work, like the big bison hide that I purchased at the Silver Bison Ranch last year. I started adding bison leather rims to my baskets. It was so supple and beautiful, a great pleasure to work with. I’m also excited about these new pods. I can design a whole basket around a beautiful pod or a piece of birch. I love lichens and fungi from trees too. With all these materials, I have a lot of fun!

I’ve always used my hands to make things, knitting or whatever, so it’s been fun because my work involves lots of different textures, and not just traditional basketry materials. You can see, I use a lot of yarns because I love knitting and I use birch bark which I harvest in the woods. I’m also trying to think of ways to work other materials into my baskets.

Do you find most of your inspiration from your materials?

Yes, and from nature. Also, from the wooden basket parts my husband makes for me and from my artist friends. A lot of things inspire me. I never know when I’m going to find something I can incorporate into a basket; that’s my approach. For example, I have a friend who is a gourd artist and we went to a gourd festival together and found all this really cool stuff: water lilies, wall bark, jacaranda pods – and the birch bark accentuates these materials nicely, so I’m anxious to experiment with these new things.

Do you think of yourself as a messy or organized person?

Oh, I feel like I’m messy and organized, both! Because in order to work you have to be organized, you have to find what you want quickly, but as you can tell, it’s not all organized! I found this big old chest at an antique shop and I thought, it’s big but I can fill it. And, it’s always full! So, no and yes. I think to be an artist you have to be kind of messy; it stimulates creativity.

Is there one piece that you especially cherish.

MM: Yes! Yes! I have a basket that I made with Martha Weatherbee. She is a famous maker from the East who crafts Shaker-style baskets. She studied with the Shakers. They lent her a wooden mold which we used to make a basket together. My husband, Tom, carved the handle from brown ash wood and she helped with the rim. All three of us signed it, which felt really neat. It’s something I treasure very much. It is displayed in our living room so we can enjoy seeing it every day.

Are there certain basket making traditions or cultures that have influenced you?

I love all of the Native American Ash Baskets. I have a whole collection of them upstairs. They are very functional yet elegant, and the handles are all carved by hand. Their process was to make the basket and then carve the handle to fit. For instance, when making a swinging basket they’d make the handle so it would fit perfectly on both sides. Those shapes and traditional ways inspire me a lot. At its best, basket making is a functional art.

Stop by and see Marlene and her baskets at the Silver Bison Ranch location during the Creative Drive this year and see for yourself her imaginative and beautiful creations.

The town, Mussoorie, has a local bazaar which is a narrow one-lane winding road running along the crest of the hills. With little stalls and shops on either side it is the gathering place for locals as they buy the things they need for daily life and discuss the day’s events.

My attention on these visits is always drawn to those shopkeepers that are actually making the things that the local people need. In one bazaar it is tailors and cobblers providing sturdy footwear and warm clothing for life in the mountains. Their shops are very small, maybe the size of a typical US bathroom. They sit cross-legged on the floor hammering leather or working a sewing machine by hand. It is so simple that it almost seems impossible.

As an artists, it is easy to think that if I bought one more tool or piece of equipment for my studio that it would improve my work. When I see how little these craftsmen have and yet can make such beautiful things I am a bit embarrassed about the size and scope of my studio.

I have a few favorites in this bazaar that I like to go to and this year I ordered a wool jacket, several shirts and a black pair of boots.  It was with anticipation and a bit of uncertainty that I visited each shop to pick up my orders. Did they understand what I wanted? Would it fit? As I made my rounds and an order was handed to me it was great. It was just wonderful to hold in my hands something that was personally made for me.  Then, I began to experience that feeling of being totally impressed with things that are so beautifully made by the hands of another person. A pair of boots, imagine that, someone made me a pair of boots.

Photo: Kishan the cobbler in Mussoorie, India.

JLK: What is the first thing you remember making?

SG: I was about 9 and I did broom lace crochet to make scarfs for all my aunts for Christmas presents. Four scarfs total. Broom lace crochet is crocheting with a broom stick or with a dowel where you crochet a bunch of stitches together off the wood and it creates the holes between the stitches. I loved making the scarfs and my aunts were so happy.

What aspect of your work gives you the most joy?

Thinking about what I’m going to do next. That’s why I always have so many projects going at once! I love thinking about a project and then plotting it out. I can start knitting a project or I can spend 8 hours thinking up a pattern for some kind of lace or other piece. Sometimes, I’ll try it and it won’t work, but it won’t matter because the planning stage is the part I like the most.

What inspires you?

The yarn inspires me — the different weights and all the possibilities; what color it’s been dyed or if it has a special texture, or whether it will be good for lace work. For the sweater that I’m knitting, I was rolling up the 13 skeins of yarn in the sun and the texture and the depth was so cool — I just love doing this. So, there are all these different yarns and they each inspire a different kind of garment or pattern or kind of knitting — so I have nice yarn and I think, oh what am I going to do with this?

Has anyone influenced you a lot in your work?

Elizabeth Zimmerman for one. She was famous to knitters and has passed away now. She was influential in the US, her attitude freed knitters from having to follow a pattern. She came up with an idea she called the percentage system, where you get your own yarn and you knit a swatch and then you use the swatch to knit the sweater. No pattern required. She also started circular knitting in the US. She was sending patterns to magazines and they didn’t credit the designer, it was like the magazine owned the pattern and the editors would change it. She would send in a circular pattern and they would change it so that you had to sew pieces together which made her very mad. So, she quit sending them to the magazines and she created her own publishing company where she sold her patterns. She also started a knitting retreat camp in WI. This was in the 50s and 60s. She was born at the turn of the century in Europe and then moved here and lived into her 80’s.

The other person would be Prudence Johnstone. I took a workshop from her which has influenced the collage/free form stuff that I make. She opened my mind to new possibilities.

Do you think of yourself as a messy or organized person?

I remember what my mom said, “Being organized is knowing where to find things”. It doesn’t matter if it looks messy if you can put your hands on what you want. So, my work space looks a bit chaotic but I know where everything is.

Is there any piece that you have here that you’ve made and especially cherish?

I have a lot of sweaters here and other apparel I’ve made over the years that I like, but my favorites change. I’ll wear one thing for one year and then I won’t wear it for 5 years but I’ll keep it. So what I cherish kind of floats around. This year I’ve been wearing a sweater that I made about 20 years ago, and I think the reason I love it so much is that it’s the first sweater that I made for myself with yarn costing over $100. I purchased the yarn in 1983 and I couldn’t decide what to knit with it because it was so expensive. Then, I went on a cross country ski weekend on the North Shore with friends and I knit almost the entire sweater without a pattern. The yarn is spun from Malabrigo wool from Uruguay and its dyed indigo. It has a little cable pattern across the back and old substantial buttons. I wore it a ton and then I put it away for many years and wore other things. This year I took it out again. It was really fun to make and I have great memories of my friends and being at the cabins.

Do you see any of your work taking a new direction?

This year I want to make free form pieces but not always clothing. We grow concord grapes in the back and I’ve saved all the grape vines and I’m thinking of creating pieces and then crocheting them or hooking them onto the grapevine in a circle. And I have a product for fiber that makes it waterproof and stiff so you could put it in a garden. You could hang it in a tree if you wanted. So I’ve been playing around with ideas: Do I want to do flowers? Do I want to do free-form pieces? We’ll see!

If you are a knitter, you can get a taste of Shawn’s style by checking out her patterns on Patternfish or Ravelry, or her website Acme Knits. Otherwise, simply join me at Onkka Pottery during the Creative Drive to see Shawn’s beautiful creations.

Photo credits from top: JLK, Andrea Cole

It was late winter in 2004 when four of us met at the Red Barn Café south of Baldwin for breakfast. Potter John Turula, painter Sheralyn Barnes,  musician Brian Barnes and myself  began to throw out ideas of how we could work together on a small spring art event. Our goal was to promote the work of local artists (ourselves at that point) and create a community art event that was fun for us and the public. It was unturned land and we just threw out seeds of ideas with no idea of where it was going to take us and which ones would grow. 

It took a few more breakfasts, lots of emails and phone calls, but we slowly began to see our plans take form. For the first Creative Drive we settled on three open studios, a few guest artists at each one, and an evening jazz concert  followed by the showing of a vintage film in an old theater.

What we didn’t have was a name and we needed one before we printed a few hundred invitations. Spring was now starting to pop out and we were running out of time. One warm spring day Brian and Sheralyn were driving the back roads, taking in the beautiful western Wisconsin scenery. They started brainstorming names and Sheralyn threw out “The Creative Drive.” She knew immediately that she had a winner and I got an excited cell phone call. We had what we wanted.

The first Creative Drive wasn’t much. The studios were too far apart and we didn’t have much promotion. The jazz and film was fun for all ten of us that attended. Basically that first year was a big flop. But it was a fisrt step and we did get an enduring name for our annual spring event. Since then the Creative Drive has grown tremendously, but the name still means the same thing – artists sharing the best part of themselves with the community.

JLK: What are you working on these days?

CC: I just finished an edition of 310 cell phone holders. Oh no, there are 320! The cell phone holders look like little sculptures on the desk but then when you come to work, you just set your phone in the holder and the sculpture has become functional. I do a variety of kinds of work, everything from production, like the 320 cell phone pieces for a marketing company, to one of a kind pieces. The company that commissioned the cell phone holders prides themselves on being very creative. Every year we design an interesting new kind of piece – they have input and I have input.

What inspires you?

When I’m working I always have more ideas than I can make. Because the glass process is so fluid when I’m making a piece, other shapes appear. There’s a specific set of steps to get to a certain shape. In between, serendipity steps in – I have to make a note and say, “that is a really cool shape.” At that moment, I would like to stop and follow up on that new idea, but then I realize I have to make these bowls right now. So, it’s an ongoing process and one piece always leads to 3 or 4 more so I never have enough time to make all my ideas.

Is there any one artist that you feel influences you a lot?

No. I think all artists have influenced me because they all have such different reasons for doing what they do. You take from one and you take from another and you put those parts together and mix them up. I’m interested in what motivates artists and where they came from, so the artwork is really just the tip of the iceberg. What’s fascinating is the rest of the iceberg. That’s what I hope people at the Creative Drive will step into and spend some time asking questions like – why this shape? Why this color? The Creative Drive can be an experiential time for customers – you get to see the object, but also the maker, and hopefully there’s an exchange so you can get a sense of why the artists makes what they make.

Are you a messy or an organized person?

You can already see! Most people would say messy but I don’t see it that way. There are glass objects that are important to me that I have lying around because I’m either working on them or thinking about them and I want to keep seeing them to continue the dialogue with the work. For example, this black and gold piece has been in process for about a year. It’s gold leafed on the bottom, so the light comes in from the top and reflects off the gold so it appears there is a light inside; I want to continue meditating on this concept.

What do you like about the Creative Drive?

The name of this show “The Creative Drive” is something that I’m committed to. I’ve come to realize that artists study how to manipulate different media, such as glass, clay, wood, but there are no classes that talk about the creative process. I think it’s one of the important things about this show because people have a chance to meet the artists and realize these are normal people – they have simply chosen to focus on this creative process, and they are a lot like me.

In many cases, people think there are creative people and non-creative people. When I was teaching in Cambridge, I had students who would look me in the eye and say, “I’m not creative.” I think it is unfortunate when people say that, because it comes from one side of your brain and you need both sides to exist fully. Frequently people think creativity is an aptitude you are born with. From my studies I see it ain’t true! It’s all about practice. If you want to be good at something, you need to put in 10,000 hours. It’s a simple thing and it works out that way with athletes, musicians and writers – everybody really.

________________________

Craig will have his glass pieces this year at the Silver Bison location. Feel free to make your way to Craig and ask him how he arrived to the pieces of glass work that you will see! I guarantee you will come away with some good food for thought. You can see more of Craig’s work at CampbellArtGlass.com

“Looking forward to spring already!”

Spring seems like a long way off as I write this. It was dark before 5PM and the temperature is heading towards zero tonight. I just want to eat and drink coffee and then go to bed. Right now spring seems farther away than last August. It is easy to put off today what we can do tomorrow and winter seems like a great time to live by that axiom. I know I can fall into that frame of mind.

But is spring really that far away? Not for an artist.

As a potter I have been surprised by spring many times. The production cycle of making pots runs six to eight weeks for me. A hundred or more pieces must be made, then given time to dry. This is followed by the firing process, which can run several weeks. In all from start to finish, with a few interruptions, I have to remember that it takes a long time to make a bunch of pots. The same goes for the other art mediums. I need to start making new work two to three months ahead of when I need it.

Theresa’s comment could mean that she is already tired of winter and is trying to “think spring.” But I don’t think so. I took her comment as a reminder to me that I cannot wait for the signs of spring to start making new work. I have to anticipate spring in the dead of winter if I am going to have some great new work done by the first weekend in May in time for the Creative Drive. I have a feeling that Theresa is way ahead of me on this.

If you would like to know what dragon eyes, writing books and leather have in common, then please join me in getting to know Charles Smith. Charles is an author and leather artist who has been living in the Baldwin area since 1990.  I met him one evening at his home in the woods of Western Wisconsin.

Jenelle:  What is the first piece that you remember making out of leather?

Charles:  A book binding.  I had written a novel, titled Dryad, for my kids.  My daughter, Soleil, who is now 16 years old, said she would like it in book form so I printed it out and stitched it together.  Then I bought some leather and made a binding out of it.  Soleil thought it was so cool, she helped me sign up to take some classes and learn more about working with leather.  I got started slowly and enjoyed it very much.  Every month I would buy a new tool and learn how to do something different.  That’s how I got started.

What pieces do you enjoy making the most?

I guess the pieces that I design completely.  I enjoy making the ones that I tool, where you put a design into the leather and create a 3-dimensional picture.  I like it when I can tool something and include that design into a larger piece, like a bag or a briefcase so they are a part of a whole concept.   I also like the final touches, adding hardware so it looks older and creates its own feel.

Has any particular leather artists influenced you a lot?

I’ve been taught by different people but there’s no one in particular that has really jumped out at me.  I just look at every leather artist I see and try to understand and get a feel for their techniques.  There are some truly great artists out there and they all have their own techniques and styles.   I really like the western styles that have been popular for 40, 50, 100 years but I also like to look out there and do something in a science fiction style or mix science fiction with the western style so it’s something that most people aren’t used to seeing.

Do you think of yourself in general as a messy or organized person?

Hum,  a little of both.  At the beginning of a project, I have to have things somewhat organized so I know where to find the different tools but once I get going on a project things will just pile up and then I have to stop, re-organize everything and get started again.

Is there any one piece that you’ve made that you really cherish?

I made a dragon bag that is one of my favorites right now.  It has dragon eyes looking out of a portal on both sides of the bag.  It has steam punk style where you have gears and flowers.  Then I used rivets around a portal and created a Victorian pattern, like a wall paper.  I hand stitched the whole thing, using pig skin on the inside with cow on the outside.  I like it because it feels good.  It hangs at the right height from the shoulder and I like the look of it.  So fortunately, I haven’t been able to sell it yet!

Do you see any of your work taking new directions?

I want to do more bag type pieces.  I like doing things that are functional and yet really jump out at you.  I’d like to do more murals and I would like to do a lot of my original art work and maybe mix it in with stencils so that I can create scenes on bags.  Designing is half the work on a piece and I really enjoy that process.

Charles Smith will be joining the Creative Drive for the first time in 2012 and will be at the Silver Bison Farm location.  He sometimes makes pieces collaboratively with his daughter, Soleil.  They have a stamp for their pieces with the name Cuir de Sol, leather of the sun.