The River.
The Prairie.
The Forest.
The Wetland.
The Oak Savannah.
The Quiet.
I’m so grateful for having been chosen to be a MNPAIR Artist-in-Residence at Wild River State Park this year, embedding myself into this ecosystem and this place, but also this unit of state and local government, to learn more about our State Parks and Trails system and find new ways to celebrate and engage with nature and create deeper connections and a sense of belonging to this place for all who visit.
I began the process back in October, meeting the staff, walking the trails, participating in interpretive programs, and entering into an ongoing conversation with this place and all the life and creatures who call this place home. Lots of listening, looking, waiting, learning.
As part of my initial engagement process, I created a new incarnation of my interactive “Love Tree” sculpture, which first appeared in the original Fall Sound Garden at Manomin Park in 2018. Set up in the Visitor Center lobby, the Wild River Love Tree asks “What do you LOVE about Wild River?” and provides paper leaves in shapes of common trees at the park for love letters to share with all who visit, by hanging them like ornaments from the Tree’s branches. I call them Love Leaves.
It’s been a great way for me to discover new parts of the park, aspects I wasn’t aware of, and might not have been, if not for this community input. We plan to keep the Love Tree up through March, and then bring it outdoors around the park for the Summer.
I brought my Winter Sound Garden to the woods outside the Visitor Center for Wild River’s annual Candlelight event on Feb 8, and was joined by some of my longtime collaborators – the mini choir sang and poet Rosie Peters read poems and told stories around the bonfires.
And now I’ve begun composing new music and designing new site-specific performance installations, jumpstarted by an extended 2-week onsite creation residency where I’ve set up my portable recording studio to compose and record my sketches that will hopefully grow into some new Sound Garden symphonies for places around the park, slated to premiere in August and September, at the end of my year.
Rosie and I are also collaborating on creating a new kind of nature walk – full of poetry and storytelling and history and language and music and set amongst this majestic nature. These trees. This River. She visited yesterday and we went on a long walk down to the river, where we spent time with an eagle below her nest and imagined how this work will unfold.
I’m so grateful and so inspired to create and collaborate here. And excited to share whatever blooms with whoever can join us. Check out my Wild River webpage for more photos and highlights and upcoming events. And sign up to our Wavelets Creative newsletter for email updates, if you’d like to stay in touch that way.
