Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A look at the arts in Faribault with a focus on visual art November 6, 2025

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
A portion of an acrylic on canvas painting, “Crazy Minds,” by Bethlehem Academy senior Payton Eckhardt. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

I LOVE LIVING in a community with a thriving arts center and arts scene. Why? First and foremost, I love the arts. Second, the arts connect and build community. Third, the arts are a form of expression, a source of entertainment, a way to learn more about each other and the world around us. Simply put, we need the arts to feed our spirits, to uplift, encourage and grow us, especially in turbulent times such as these.

“Ducks,” acrylic on hardboard by Julie Fakler. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

I need only grab my camera or put my fingers on my computer keyboard to create. I am driven to create not because it’s something I have to do. Rather I love to create with images and words and I cannot imagine my life without either.

The Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault recently featured Comedian C. Willi Myles. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Ask any visual, literary or performing artist and you will likely get similar comments about creativity and the importance of access to the arts. I don’t take for granted that Faribault has a hub for the arts in the Paradise Center for the Arts located in our historic downtown. It’s a gem—a place to attend theater, a concert or a comedy show; take a class; create art; display art; view art; perform art…

An overview of the “I Am Minnesota” exhibit by Kate Langlais in the main gallery. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo October 2025)

Recently I popped into the Paradise to view four gallery exhibits, including “I Am Minnesota” by Kate Langlais in the main gallery. It features the portraits of first and second-generation immigrants in Faribault and their stories. I wrote about that exhibit in an earlier post. (Click here.)

“St. Olga of Kiev” an acrylic on canvas by Varvara Meshkova, Bethlehem Academy tenth grader. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

In the Paradise’s three other much smaller galleries I found equally impressive art, which will be on display until November 15. Four of the artists participated in the recent Studio ARTour of South Central Minnesota while the rest are students at Bethlehem Academy in Faribault.

A close-up of Kathy Weed’s textile art, “Songflowers” Sunflowers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

What I saw was a whole lot of talent. From the textile art of Northfielder Kathy Weed to the pet portraits of Paradise Executive Director Julie Fakler to the pottery of Johnnie Walker, visual arts department chair at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School, to the fiber and clay art of Char Johnson to the assorted artworks of high school students, I delighted in it all. To view these collective works is to see an artist’s hand, an artist’s mind, an artist’s spirit and inspiration on display.

A sampling of Kathy Weed’s textile art currently displayed at the Paradise. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Quilter Weed, for example, clearly loves nature as it themes her textile art recreations of the natural world.

“Happy Goat,” raku clay by Julie Fakler. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Fakler shows her love for animals in vivid animal portraits done in acrylic and clay. Her art is signature recognizable to me. I’ve often thought Fakler’s colorful animals would be perfect in a children’s picture book or splashed upon a tee shirt. They always make me feel happy.

A mug crafted by Johnnie Walker. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

And then there’s Walker’s pottery, equally as appealing, but in a totally different way. I want to wrap my hands around his pottery, to feel what he felt when he shaped a mug or a bowl from clay. I value such connections to art.

Ceramic necklaces created by Char Johnson. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Char Johnson brings her love of nature and of animals into her detailed art created in the mediums of clay, animal fiber and photography. I find needle felting particularly intriguing as, in my mind, it hearkens to hardy pioneer women.

“Woohitike Courage” wood intarsia by Lain Kuhlman, Bethlehem Academy sophomore. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

When I walked over to view the wall gallery of Bethlehem Academy student art, I wondered about the stories behind their creations. What of the untitled piece featuring three masks? What of the colorful abstract “Crazy Minds”? What of “St. Olga of Kiev”? Or “Wóohitike ‘Courage’”? I reacted to each. I thought of the masks we all wear, of mental health, of the war in Ukraine, of Indigenous peoples.

An untitled acrylic on cast plaster by Hannah Miller, Bethlehem Academy senior. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

And I thought, too, of how much I love and value the arts and my access to them.

More pottery by Johnnie Walker. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

TELL ME: What do you love about the arts? Where do you access the arts? Are you a creative? Or simply share your thoughts on the art featured in this post.

Julie Fakler’s animal portraits, painted with acrylics on hardboard.

FYI: The Paradise Center for the Arts, 321 Central Ave. N., Faribault, is open from noon-5 pm Wednesday-Friday and from 10 am-2 pm Saturday. All art featured in this post was photographed with permission of the PCA. Artists own the copyrights to their art.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

So many reasons to value the arts in southern Minnesota & beyond October 26, 2022

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Rain” by Ivan Whillock priced at $3,000 and exhibited at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE ARTS, whether visual, literary or performing, here in southern Minnesota is such a gift. The arts enrich our lives, open our minds to new ideas and experiences, feed our souls, entertain us and, for me, also inspire.

As someone who grew up in rural southwestern Minnesota with minimal exposure to the arts, I especially value galleries, theaters, libraries, and any place that gives me access to creativity. Creating with images and words is my passion and my life’s work. I embrace the work of fellow creatives, who, like me, must create.

Woodcarvings fill the main gallery at the Paradise. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

Recently, I stopped by the Paradise Center for the Arts in historic downtown Faribault. The PCA centers the arts in my community with four galleries, theater, music, art classes and more. Here in this space, creatives converge. And we as a community are the better for that. I hope those in neighboring Northfield, Owatonna, Waseca and even small town Montgomery, feel the same gratitude for their arts centers.

“Eileen” by Ivan Whillock, priced at $1,500. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

The arts broaden our perspectives, make us think, laugh, cry, ponder… When I write and photograph, I feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment if my work resonates, prompts emotions, stirs interest and more. I expect the artists currently exhibiting at the Paradise feel the same. There is joy in getting art out there into the community, joy in connecting.

Marv Kaisersatt specializes in caricatures such as “Portrait of a Pig,” displayed but not for sale. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

As I meandered through the Paradise’s current exhibits, I observed incredible talent and variety in the art displayed. Inside the largest gallery, I meandered among woodcarvings by three Faribault artists, two carving for more than 40 years. Ivan Whillock and Marv Kaisersatt, are award-winning long-time carvers, nationally and internationally-recognized. Their work is decidedly different, but their creative skills decidedly the same—excellent. Both are quiet, humble men.

“Wood Spirit” by Chris Whillock, priced at $40. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

Chris Whillock, Ivan’s son, is a talented carver in his own right. The pair create at Whillock Studio in Faribault and operate the Whittling Shack, source for woodcarving supplies, their art and more.

The plant-filled installment by Shelley Caldwell. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

In one of the most unusual installments I’ve ever seen is the art of Shelley Caldwell who lives in rural Faribault County near the Iowa border. Her artistic use of plants to shape art left me standing temporarily immobile, wowed by her imaginative creativity. Peace comes in connecting with nature and I felt that in the scene before me—all that green interspersed with light, air and a sense of movement. Her exhibit also includes mixed media drawings.

Photos of Autumn Carolynn line a gallery wall at the Paradise Center for the Arts. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

The images of Minneapolis-based travel photographer and writer Autumn Carolynn are displayed in another gallery. Studying the work of other photographers, especially one as talented as Autumn, helps me grow my skills, even if I’m not a world traveler. Her images take me to places I have never seen and never will. She expands my world through her photos and that, too, is an artful purpose.

This is an untitled acrylic and latex on canvas by Bethlehem Academy senior Tyler Hogate. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

In the final gallery, the art of selected students from Bethlehem Academy in Faribault is highlighted. I never fail to be impressed by the talent of these young people. I feel gratitude to their teachers, the PCA and others who support them in their creative pursuits. Now, more than ever, students need the arts as an outlet, a way to express themselves, a way to connect.

This shows a snippet of Ivan Whillock’s “He’s Late,” priced at $6,000. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

And now, more than ever in these unsettled times, we as a community, a state, a country, a world, need the arts.

FYI: The exhibit by artists featured here continues until November 12.

TELL ME: What do you appreciate about the arts?

© Copyright 2022 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

From the Paradise: Student art reflects the pandemic March 26, 2021

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
This vivid art by Faribault Middle School seventh grader Levi pops color into the student art exhibit at the Paradise.

THE ALL AREA STUDENT SHOW rates as one of my annual favorite art exhibits at the Paradise Center for the Arts in historic downtown Faribault. I love viewing the creative efforts of students from elementary age through high school. Their talent always impresses me and this year is no exception.

This year’s exhibit is significantly smaller, filling only a single second floor hallway.

But the 2021 show, because of the pandemic and mostly distance learning, is scaled back. Way back. Art lines only a section of one hallway rather than multiple hallways and the walls of the second floor gallery.

Bethlehem Academy sixth grader Diego drew the masked portrait, left, one in a long line of masked portraits by BA students.
Masked portraits by BA sixth graders, Allison, left, and Megan, right.
Lillian, from the sixth grade class at BA, created the portrait on the left.

Not only are fewer pieces of art displayed, but the art, too, reflects the pandemic and distance learning. Students from Bethlehem Academy, for example, drew portraits. Of their masked selves.

“Lines” by Faribault Middle School eighth grader Aronranrcsy reminds me of the prairie. This is one of my favorites.

I also noticed a lack of copycat art with teachers assigning students to a specific art task and then student after student after student creating the same thing. I observed more creativity and diversity. And I really appreciated that individuality as it allows students to open their artistic wings and soar.

“Color” by Mohamed, Faribault Middle School eighth grader. This just makes me happy.

Paradise Center for the Arts Executive Director Heidi Nelson and I briefly discussed my observations. She agreed that distance learning definitely factored into the artwork, noting that some of the art is computer generated/created.

What incredible talent…portraits by Faribault High School student Stacie.
Each work of art is tagged with the artist’s name and school. I’d welcome info on the art medium.
Hazel, a third grader at Bridgewater Elementary School, created this family portrait, which I absolutely love. If we’ve learned one thing during the pandemic, it’s the value of family.

However these students created—whether via a pencil or a brush or a computer or some other method—they share the common denominator of making art. And for that, I feel inspired and grateful.

FYI: The All Area Student Show on the second floor of the PCA continues through April 10. The Paradise Center for the Arts is open from noon – 5 pm Thursday and Friday and from 10 am – 2 pm Saturdays.

© Copyright 2021 Audrey Kletscher Helbling