photography | Minnesota Prairie Roots

Blessings in a box from North Dakota November 24, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: blessings, books, crafts, David Paukert, family, gifts, Land O' Lakes, North Dakota, photography, rural life, yo-yo pillow

WHEN THE MAIL CARRIER arrived at my door on Friday bearing a package, I was surprised. “I didn’t order anything. Who’s it from?” I asked.

“Looks like it’s from a relative,” he said.

And then I remembered my sister-in-law’s quick phone call several days earlier requesting my address. She was running errands and had no time to chat. This box with her return address solved the mystery of that call.

Inside, I found several sweet surprises—a pillow, a book and a clutch of notecards.

My niece worked all last winter stitching these yo-yos for this pillow.

My 10-year-old niece crafted a yo-yo pillow for me. Fifty-six yo-yos, tiny circles of fabric gathered at the edges and sewn into circles stitched to a pink flannel pillow. Yo-yos were, Beth wrote in an attached note, popular during the Depression. Women made them from scrap fabric (oftentimes from old clothing) and then stitched them into quilts.

The story and history behind the yo-yo pillow.

As much as I appreciate the pillow, I treasure even more the words Beth typed when she entered the pillow in her county fair and then the North Dakota State Fair. She earned two blue ribbons for this 4-H project. Here’s the part that especially touched me:

I made it for my Aunt Audrey’s birthday. She loves funky stuff and vintage, so I think she’ll like this pillow.

Beth’s wrong. I don’t just like this pillow; I love it.

And I like that my dear niece and her mom, Rena, know me so well. I do, indeed, value funky and vintage.

“When I discovered this historical gem from under junk and odds and ends (in a rummage store), I knew it was meant for you. Enjoy!” my sister-in-law wrote. This chapter explains how Land O’Lakes came to be the name of the Minnesota Cooperative Creameries Association’s butter. The Co-op launched a contest in 1924 to name its sweet cream butter, offering $500 in gold as prizes. Mrs. E.B. Foss of Hopkins and George I. Swift of Minneapolis submitted the same winning name. Contest entries of about 7,000 daily overwhelmed the company office. The contest topped news in the Midwest, second only to the Teapot Dome oil scandal, according to the author.

That leads to the second gift, the book Men to Remember: How 100,000 Neighbors Made History by Kenneth D. Ruble. Land O’ Lakes Creameries, Inc. commissioned the volume published in 1947. Perfect for someone who grew up on a dairy farm.

The “Spatial Odysseys” collection of notecards by David Paukert.

The last item in the package—a collection of rural-themed notecards—is a fitting gift also. The cards feature the work of Michigan, North Dakota, photographer David Paukert. Titled “Spatial Odysseys,” the photo cards showcase fields, a church, a barn and more from Paukert’s “Visions of the Prairie” Collection. Prairie. That reflects me, rooted in the prairie.

These gifts from Rena and Beth arrived at the end of a difficult week. They didn’t know this, of course, because the presents were originally intended for my birthday two months ago. But the timing of the delivery couldn’t have been better. Rena and Beth blessed me not only with the items they made and chose for me, but also with their thoughtfulness, love and care.

My sister-in-law also included a quote from Mother Teresa: “…do small things with great love.”

This week, please consider ways you can bless someone. Call a friend or family member who needs your support and encouragement. Listen. Avoid “hearing without listening.” Send a card with a heartfelt handwritten note. Or a gift. Volunteer. Be kind. Show your love. In whatever way you can.

Check back tomorrow for another “blessings” post.

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Photographing the Minneapolis skyline October 8, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: city, cityscape, Interstate 35W, Minneapolis, Minneapolis skyline, Minnesota, photography, skyline, skyscrapers, thoughts, traffic, travel

Frame 1: Northbound on Intestate 35W toward downtown Minneapolis.

EVERY TIME MY HUSBAND and I journey toward and around downtown Minneapolis, I am taken by the skyline. Generally, I am not a fan of skyscrapers embedded in concrete, of vertical lines that block ground level views and cast long shadows. I am of the prairie, of horizontal lines and broad vistas.

Frame 2: You best know which lane you should be driving in.

Yet, I have grown to appreciate the Minneapolis skyline. From a distance. And through the viewfinder of my Canon DSLR. My camera distracts me from the often congested traffic, although my definition of congested certainly differs from that of a city dweller.

Frame 3: Traffic builds as you approach the downtown.

Frame 3: Traffic builds as we approach the downtown. Great sign placement choice by Yahoo.

Afterward, when I am back in my Faribault home office, photos uploaded into my computer, I study the frames. And I see in the downtown skyline images an almost other-worldly quality, as if the collection of buildings is background in an animated film. Unreal. Stacked Lego blocks. The work of an artist rather than that of engineers and builders.

Frame 4: Enough traffic for me. About this time I’m asking my husband, “Do you know which lane you’re supposed to be in?”

Frame 5: Traffic slows in a tight spot.

Frame 6: We’re going right. Better than taking the congested 16A exit.

Frame 7: I love this painterly view of the Minneapolis skyline.

Frame 8: One last look at the skyline.

Do you see what I’m seeing, that surreal artistic quality in the buildings?

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Mankato photographer focuses on hands and water in new exhibit October 7, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: "What Sustains Us: a photographic journey of hands and water", art, Carnegie Art Center, exhibit, hands, Kay Herbst Helms, Mankato, Minnesota, photography, poetry, rural life, water

IF I WERE TO STUDY your hands, what would I see? Would I see earth or art, youth or age, strength or weakness…

My left hand, which I photographed in 2011.

When I look at my hands, I see brown spots sprinkled across skin streaked blue with veins. I notice the slight bump on the knuckle of my right pinkie, a writer’s callous from finger rubbing against paper.

Would my hands show you that I am of the land and also a wife, mother, writer and photographer? Would you see the poetry that flows from my fingertips in both words and images?

Four separate photo projects meld in Kay Herbst Helms’ new exhibit. Image courtesy of Kay Herbst Helms.

A Mankato photographer has chosen for the past five years to study hands, to tell their stories through a series of photographic projects. Kay Herbst Helms’ photos come together in “Seeking What Sustains Us: a photographic journey of hands and water,” an exhibit of four photo projects showing at the Carnegie Art Center, 120 South Broad Street, Mankato.

The exhibit opens at 1 p.m. Thursday, October 8. I will join five other area poets—Yvonne Cariveau, Susan Chambers, John Hurd, Derek Liebertz and Gwen Westerman—at 5 p.m. in reading original poems about water. Dick Kimmel will also entertain with bluegrass music.

But it is Kay’s images which will be the focal point. As she tells it, the decision to photograph hands happened in a prophetic way—when she awakened one morning with the single word, hands, in her thoughts. That led to “Blessed Are the Hands That Have Served,” a photo exhibit focusing on the hands of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Viewing Kay Herbst Helms’ photos in “What Sustains Us.” Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2012.

Her second hands project, “What Sustains Us: considering the hands and the land of south central rural Minnesota,” features the hands of those who work the land and their rural surroundings. It’s an exhibit I viewed in 2012 at the Arts Center of Saint Peter. In that display of black-and-white photos, Kay also shared brief stories of those she photographed.

In her third project, “inner necessities,” Kay photographed the hands of area artists and musicians.

Her fourth hands-themed photo compilation, “Water Vapors,” debuts this week as a consideration of what our hands have done to, in and for water. “We all have connections to each other and to water,” Kay says. “How we manage those connections will determine the future of our great-great grandchildren.”

Several of Kay’s images focus on cattle, enhancing the exhibit’s rural theme in her “What Sustains Us” photo project. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2012.

I expect that I will connect with all four of these photo exhibits because I, like Kay, hold a deep appreciation for storytelling via photography.

An elderly man turns to a hymn in the old pocket-size songbook that's been used for decades.

I shot this hands photo at an old-fashioned mission fest in Marquardt’s Grove south of Janesville in 2012. To this day, it remains one of my favorite photos of hands. It tells a story of enduring faith.

And for hands. (Click here to read one of my most beloved posts about hands, my mother’s hands.)

Activities related to the exhibit. Image courtesy of Kay Herbst Helms.

FYI: Kay Herbst Helms’ exhibit runs through October 24. An opening reception is set for 7 p.m.- 9 p.m. on Saturday, October 10. Additional arts activities include the free “Fish Prints for Kids” at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, and “Marbling for All Ages” at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 17 (fee is $5). Click here for more information.

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Minnesota Faces: Historical reenactors “Katie” and “Jim” plus more October 2, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: A Night at the Museum, beer, black-and-white portraits, event, F-Town Brewing Company, fall festival, Faribault, food, historical reenactors, history, living history, Minnesota, Minnesota Faces, Oktoberfest, photography, Rice County Historical Society

Portrait #42 : Siblings Kaylee and William

Back in the day when I studied history, it was dull and boring and printed mostly as straight factual information in books. Dates and events and important people. Page after page after page with the occasional illustration or photo to break up the blocks of copy. Since I’m good at memorizing, I passed history classes with ease, but not with interest.

I haven’t cracked a history textbook in decades. But I presume they are a bit more interesting, perhaps in a storytelling, personalized way.

Today, thankfully, living history conveys the past in a personal and relatable way that a textbook never will. When I met siblings Kaylee and William last September, they were role-playing pioneer children during the Rice County Historical Society’s second annual “A Night at the Museum.”

Lots of kids were running around the grounds in period attire or attending class inside the historic Pleasant Valley School. I was learning, too, as I wandered the museum grounds and observed reenactors portraying historical characters. I suspect I’m like most people who find this much more educational and entertaining than simply peering at historical items on display inside museum walls. Not that that doesn’t have value, too. It certainly does. I just prefer living history and am grateful our local historical society started this annual “A Night at the Museum.”

From 4 p.m. – 7 p.m. this Saturday, October 3, attendees can interact with costumed characters from Rice County’s past on the museum grounds at 1814 Northwest Second Avenue in Faribault, right next to the fairgrounds. New this year is a Flashlight Tour of Harvest and Heritage Halls at 6 p.m. There will also be horse-drawn wagon rides and food available around the fire pit. Click here for more information.

Maybe you’ll spot Kaylee and William there, pretending to be Katie and Jim.

Participants in last year's Chili Contest dish up chili at a business along Central Avenue during the Fall Festival.

Attendees sample chili at a business along Central Avenue during the 2011 Fall Festival. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE a full day of it in Faribault, arrive earlier for the annual downtown Fall Festival and Oktoberfest. Most events begin at noon. However, starting at 9:30, until noon, local artists will gather outside the Paradise Center for the Arts to create en plein air.

At noon there’s a kiddie parade and a Chili Contest with businesses and others offering chili samples (for a fee) until 2 p.m. From 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., those interested can take the Spooky Basement Tour, a free event at the Paradise Center for the Arts. The PCA is also holding a costume sale. Kids can go trick-or-treating downtown from 1 – 3 p.m. Games for kids, pumpkin painting and a unicycle show are also among fest activities.

New to the downtown festival this year is Oktoberfest, celebrated from noon to 11 p.m. at Faribault’s new brewery, F-Town Brewing Company, just off Central Avenue. The event features food trucks, yard games, live music and, of course, beer.

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Minnesota Faces: Boys at a barn dance September 25, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: barn dance, black-and-white portraits, Minnesota, Minnesota Faces, photography, rural Dundas

Portrait #41: Boys at a barn dance

Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2011

Several years ago when my dear friends John and Debbie hosted a dance in their rural Dundas barn, I photographed these two boys. To this day, it remains one of my favorite portraits. Such sweetness in those faces.

I didn’t ask the boys to pose as they did. The cowboy just slung his arm around the other boy. They may be cousins or brothers or simply friends. I don’t recall. But it’s obvious they enjoy each other and were having a good time.

Maybe I’ll see the pair again this weekend, all grown up, perhaps sporting cowboy hats, maybe not. John and Debbie are celebrating the 100th birthday of their barn with an old-fashioned barn dance. I can’t wait to kick up my heels to live music, chow down on great food (including meat from Nerstrand meats and pie from the pie-baking contest), mingle with party-goers, and simply delight in the ambiance of dancing in the hayloft.

And, yes, I’ll have my camera in hand to document the event.

Minnesota Faces is featured every Friday on Minnesota Prairie Roots

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Minnesota Faces: September bridal couple September 18, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: black-and-white portraits, bridal couple, family, Minnesota, Minnesota Faces, photography, wedding

Portrait #40: Carlyn & Jared

Aside June, September is the most popular month for weddings in Minnesota. That’s according to my unofficial, brief online research. I believe it.

My parents were married in September. So was my eldest daughter. And last September, my niece Carlyn married Jared.

They were wed in Walnut Grove, childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was a stunning autumn day, a reason September proves popular for weddings. The church was packed, the flower girls and ring bearers restless and cute.

And I was there with my camera, in an unofficial capacity. I’ve photographed weddings for family in the past, but won’t any more. I can do without the drama, emotions and challenges. I much prefer to shoot journalistic style images without the pressures of portrait photography.

Which brings us to this photo, taken as Carlyn and Jared’s wedding guests tossed birdseed at them. I love everything about this frame—the light, the motion of the seed showering the couple, the blur of the crowd, Jared’s loving glance at his bride, Carlyn’s smile. It captures a moment of celebration and love. On a beautiful September afternoon in southwestern Minnesota.

Minnesota Faces is featured every Friday on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

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For the love of flowers September 8, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: flowers, gardens, Lamberton, memories, Minnesota, photo essay, photography, thoughts

Phlox grow along a fence in my backyard. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

THE SWEET PERFUME of purple phlox drifts through the open window, scenting my office with summer. I glance outside, where the phlox sway in a wisp of an afternoon breeze above clusters of snowball hydrangea.

My flower gardens are a rangy mess of overgrown plants. Tangle of leaves and flowers and stems. Nothing neat about them. I like it that way.

Flower gardens have always been a part of who I am. Not that I am a master gardener. But I have always been an appreciator and grower of flowers, a love learned early on when every visit to my maternal great grandmother’s or paternal grandma’s houses started, in the summer, with a tour of the gardens. Flower and vegetable.

To this day, when I arrive at the home of a family member or a friend who gardens, I self-start a tour. I admire the blooms, dip my head toward scented petals, appreciate the sweeps of color, delight in the beauty that unfolds before me.

I shall always love flowers. They are memories, art which springs from the earth, bold bursts of color in a subdued landscape and the gift I give myself.

BONUS PHOTOS:

FYI: All of the flowers and plants, except the phlox, were photographed at my brother Brian and sister-in-law Vicki’s rural Lamberton, Minnesota, acreage in mid-summer.

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Minnesota Faces: Steam engine tractor operator September 4, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: black-and-white portraits, events, flea market, Minnesota, Minnesota Faces, photography, Rice County, Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show, rural life, steam engine tractor

Portrait #38: Steam engine tractor operator

The sheer size of a vintage steam engine tractor always impresses me. As do those who operate these monstrosities. Just look at the difference in scale between man and mammoth machine, this one at last year’s Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show. You better know what you’re doing when you run one of these machines.

The steam engine tractor will rumble around again this weekend at the show grounds along Minnesota State Highway 3 three miles south of Northfield.

If you appreciate vintage tractors, flea markets, farm work demonstrations (like threshing, corn shelling, plowing, sawing, etc.) and more, then you must attend the Friday – Sunday event. Click here to see the complete line-up of activities. Don’t miss the Parade of Tractors at noon daily.

I promise, you will enjoy this event. I especially like its comfortable size—big enough to offer plenty to see and do, but not too large as to overwhelm. I always see people I know here and that’s part of the fun. Visiting. Oh, and the food, is pretty darned good, too.

Minnesota Faces is a series featured every Friday on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

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Pumpkins, picking & prayer September 2, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: cats, faith, Faribault, friends, gardening, photography, picking, pumpkins, rural Minnesota, thoughts

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED to coax a cat onto a pumpkin? It is difficult at best.

I am not a cat owner. But I grew up with farm cats, simply calling, “Here, kitty kitty,” and the felines would come running. They did not, however, appreciate any attempts to dress them in doll clothes and then plop them into a doll buggy.

The sprawling garden includes pumpkins and popcorn.

That “here, kitty kitty” tactic did not work with Gretchen, who belongs to friends, Jeff and Mandy. My bible study group gathered recently at their rural Faribault acreage. We always socialize for an hour before digging into our study. And on this perfect late summer evening in Minnesota, we surveyed Mandy’s garden. Gretchen meandered with us among the vines and rows.

Hannah’s sunflowers

Mandy grows vegetables that I’ve never seen grown—like kidney beans and burgundy beans and tomatillos. This year she’s had help from Hannah, a teen who wanted to learn gardening.

Jeff coaxes Gretchen…

…onto the pumpkin.

Hannah planted pumpkins which just kept growing and growing and growing into ginormous orbs. I wanted to photograph them. But I needed scale. Ah, Gretchen the cat would be perfect. So Jeff, kind friend that he is, agreed to lure Gretchen onto a Great Atlantic (or something like that; Jeff couldn’t quite remember the name) pumpkin. Eventually I got an acceptable photo.

Later, Gretchen hopped atop a fence post, providing for more photo ops as the sun edged down:

When the photo shoots and garden tour ended, we began moving toward the house. But we were sidetracked. Debbie and I, dairy farmers’ daughters, checked out the barn. Most of the guys headed to a shed and scrounged in a scrap metal pile. Steve, the artist among us, found metal for art projects and a trough that will work as a flower planter. Then Mike and I waded through tall grass with Mandy, aiming for the wood pile. There we rooted out wooden boxes. Mike also found scrap wood for his oldest son’s May wedding.

The barn rises high above the garden.

One person’s junk is another’s treasure.

The top of the silo and the barn roof.

What a fun evening it was, first touring and photographing the garden and Gretchen, then picking, then gathering around the kitchen table with dear friends to study, to share and to pray. I am blessed.

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For the love of photographing a car show August 31, 2015

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: car show, cars, collector cars, Faribault, Faribault Car Cruise Night, Minnesota, photo essay, photography, vintage cars

These two vintage cars staged side-by-side with the simple building back drop caught my eye.

These two vintage cars staged side-by-side with the building back drop caught my eye. I love the repetition of lines and shapes in vehicles and building. Plus the signage and USA plate add to the visual interest.

I’M NOT INTERESTED in car shows like my husband. He can spout off makes and models and years without hesitation. Rather my interest focuses on color, curves, reflections, light, art, words—the details.

I’ve discovered that vintage car owners possess a sense of humor, the reason I always examine the plates.

The difference in our approaches rises from our professions. He is an automotive machinist. I am a photographer and a wordsmith.

What’s under the hood interests Randy far more than me.

He can no more frame a great photo than I can do a valve job. We fail at each others’ work.

Our friend Larry with his restored Ford Econoline truck. Car shows are also about connecting with others, not just about showing off and viewing vehicles.

Still, we delight in attending car shows together. He sees what I miss. I see what he misses. We learn from each other. I wander with my Canon DSLR. He chats up cars with those who appreciate vintage vehicles for the same reasons he does. It works for us.

I love the shiny bumpers and the reflections therein.

About a year ago I nearly hit the jackpot with my car show meandering. I was contacted by a Chicago ad agency regarding an image I’d taken of a shiny bumper. The photo was among half a dozen in the running for a national ad campaign for a major car care product. I would have been paid a significant amount of money for use of the image. In the end, another photo was selected.

I set my camera on the street and tilted it up to take this shot. That’s my husband on the left, already moving onto the next vehicle.

That’s how it goes. I will keep shooting car show photos as I always have, for the joy and fun of sharing that which I discover through the lens of my camera, from my unique perspective.

BONUS PHOTOS: