WHEN LITERARY AND VISUAL ARTISTS collaborate, something beautiful happens. That was evident to me in viewing “Echoes & Shadows,” a poetry and art collaboration at FiftyNorth Gallery in Northfield. In this exhibit at the senior center, visual artists created art inspired by original poetry. The results are fascinating.
As a long-time writer and photographer, who is also a published poet, I’ve participated in similar collabs in nearby Zumbrota. I found it a whole lot of fun not only to write poems, but especially to see how an artist interpreted my poetry. I expect those participating in this pairing of poetry and visual art in Northfield feel the same. The work in this show is visual art inspiring poetry.
I feel fortunate to live in a region rich in the arts. The arts expose us to new ideas, thoughts, beauty and more. The arts open us to a world wide beyond our own. The arts can serve as a catalyst for positive change. The arts represent voice, a way for us to speak via our creativity.
In “Echoes & Shadows,” artists express themselves in carefully crafted words and in a variety of visual art that seems to fit its inspirational poetry. Painting, appliqueing, woodworking, photography, collage…all are part of this collaboration.
I like that word, “collaboration.” It means working together. Even that seems especially meaningful today.
In this pairing of art and poetry, I see collaboration, how literary art and visual art play off and balance one another, centering the two pieces of art into one unified piece without sacrificing individuality. Creatives are, after all, uniquely creative even when working together.
Promotional information about the FiftyNorth poetry and art collaboration, “Echoes & Shadows,” references a quote from poet Carl Sandburg: “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Oh, how lovely those words. And how fitting for a collaboration that echoes and dances.
FYI: The “Echoes & Shadows” exhibit closes on October 31. To view the exhibit online, click here. Note that I photographed the art and poetry in this post with permission of FiftyNorth. In most cases, I’ve opted to show only part of the creative works. In featuring the poems, I’ve edited the images.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Protesting in Minnesota October 19, 2025
Tags: America, commentary, democracy, First Amendment rights, freedom, Minnesota, NO KINGS protest, Northfield, peaceful protest, rally
I AM AN AMERICAN, a Minnesotan, a resident of Rice County and the city of Faribault. I am a writer, photographer, blogger, poet. I am a wife, mother, grandmother. And I am also a protester.
On Saturday I joined millions across the country and world participating in NO KINGS rallies in my fourth protest since June 14. I care about America. I love America. But I don’t like what’s happening here under the Trump administration, which is eroding our democracy and taking, or attempting to take, away our rights, freedoms and, oh, so much more by authoritarian rule, force, threats, retribution, control, manipulation…
I refuse to remain silent at a time such as this. So I exercised my rights to free speech and freedom of peaceful assembly under the First Amendment to the Constitution by participating in a protest in neighboring Northfield along with a thousand or more others. We packed Ames Park along the Cannon River and lined the east side of Minnesota State Highway 3 for a block to listen to speakers, to share our concerns, to hold protest signs high, to hear plans of action, to sing and pray and reflect, and to engage in conversation.
At times throughout the 1 ½-hour event, I protested next to a Vietnam War veteran, a mechanic, a retired professor of Spanish and Latin American literature (also a poet), a retired college office employee, a retired engineer, a retired elementary school teacher… I also mingled among countless others there for the same reason—to protest. To express our concerns about healthcare, education, the economy, immigration, due process, freedom of speech, a free press, free and fair elections, government funding cuts, the presence of military in our cities, the balance of power, the judiciary, the overreach of power, clean energy… The list goes on and on.
I saw a baby strapped to his/her mom. Kids on shoulders. Kids with signs. Young people of high school age and early adulthood. Those in their middle years. Those in their sixties, like me. And those even older, some probably pushing ninety. The turn-out for this protest was even bigger and more diverse age-wise than the one in June in Northfield on the date Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Doug, were assassinated.
To be among this group of peacefully protesting concerned Americans during the NO KINGS rally felt empowering. Uplifting. We were unified in our movement, even as one speaker pointed out that we may not agree on everything. Another termed what’s unfolding in America today as not “normal.” It is not, and should not be, normal. Ever.
Support from motorists passing by was overwhelmingly positive with honking horns and waves. Of course, we got a few middle fingers and intentionally roaring, racing vehicles. Only once did I feel unsafe—when a car sped by at a dangerously high speed, the driver clearly attempting to antagonize and threaten us. That was the only overt hatred I witnessed.
Those of us peacefully gathered did not, as some Republican politicians adamantly and wrongly stated, come because we hate America. Far from it. We love America. That was clear in the peaceful tone of the event, in American flags waving, in recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, in singing of the national anthem, in signage, in our desire to uphold the Constitution, in our genuinely deep concern about the state of our country under President Donald Trump. In our voices rising. Loud. And free.
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© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling