Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Train art or graffiti, depending… September 18, 2024

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A dragon (at least that’s what I see) covers an entire boxcar. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

ADMITTEDLY, I POSSESS no understanding of train art. Yet, I appreciate it. Not as the graffiti it is by definition, but rather because I see the images and words as art. A traveling art gallery. I doubt railroad companies would agree.

The traveling gallery parked in Faribault earlier this year. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

Watch any train pass by or view a line of parked box or tanker cars and you likely will see this art form. Whenever I spot this art, I wonder, “How and when do these artists manage to paint these sprawling words and images without getting caught?”

More art/graffiti I don’t understand. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

Then I try to decipher the words, which are mostly indecipherable to me. My eyes can’t separate the often over-sized uppercase letters that jam together. Even standing back to read from a distance usually doesn’t help.

Another look at the dragon from a distance and the words I can’t read. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

But occasionally I figure something out and then it’s like a moment of confused clarity. Why this word? Why this art? Why this fiery orange dragon (if that’s really what it is) stretching the length of a boxcar?

An apology. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

For the artist, like any visual artist, there is meaning behind the art. I’m just not privy to the backstory. Sure, some of what I’m seeing could be gang graffiti. But mostly, I expect it is not. And if I view the train art in Faribault, for example, that doesn’t mean the work originated locally. Likely it did not. Trains travel all over the country.

The freshly-painted signature of DOLLFACE. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

There are exceptions, though. While looking at art on short rows of parked boxcars a few months back in Faribault, a young couple was doing likewise. I asked whether they were the artists. The response from one: “I can neither confirm nor deny.” Later, as I rounded the row of boxcars and the pair were heading for two vehicles parked nearby, I got my answer. There, along the bottom edge of a boxcar, block letters dripped baby blue paint. DOLLFACE had left her signature.

More art by the apologetic artist. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)
Signature or art, I’m unsure. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)
An artist’s tag…I think. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

Other artists left their signatures, too, or what I can only assume are their signatures, along with dates, messages and social commentary. It’s all a bit of a mystery to me.

Some artists respectfully paint around official markings on rail cars. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)
An understandable commentary. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)
More art on boxcars. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

But I appreciate the skill, the effort, the creativity, the vibrant hues that go into creating this art form. Long ago, hobos—who today would be termed as “homeless”—rode the rails and left their art upon boxcars primarily as a way to communicate. Train art has a longstanding history in this country.

I found this humorous, painting around the word “PAINTED.” (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2024)

And that continues today. Perhaps not in the same way. But assuredly as an art form. Or as graffiti, depending on perspective.

© Copyright 2024 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

River, woods, train…a reflective winter walk February 8, 2023

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A railroad trestle crosses the Straight River by Fleckenstein Bluffs Park near downtown Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

LINES AND LIGHT INTERSECT, layering the snowy landscape on a late afternoon in February.

I find even dried vegetation to be visually interesting. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

I am following the Straight River Trail in Faribault from Fleckenstein Bluffs Park. Daylight presses towards early evening with sunlight slanting, shadowing, scripting as I take in the woods, the river, the dried vegetation, then the hard lines of metal and stone.

When I look up, I see a bold blue sky backdropping treetops. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

Birds chatter among the trees that border the trail, along the rambling river. I pause. Listen. Appreciate that these feathered creatures manage to survive winter in Minnesota. Even with temps reaching to 30 degrees on this day, I feel the cold.

Randy usually outpaces me as I stop often to take photos. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

I move initially at an unhurried pace. Walk too fast and I miss too much. Randy is well ahead of me, yet he also hears the birdsong, notices the robins, chickadees, a lone woodpecker.

In a dip near the park, tracks in the snow. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

Tracks mar the snow. Animal and human. I wonder about the wildlife that venture onto the river where snow meets ice, meets open water.

The poetic Straight River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

A pocked layer of thin ice nudges water which flows, rippling, curving with the topography. The creative in me reads poetry in the way the water wends. I am lost in the moment, in the scene, in the setting, in the wildness.

Lines cross this 120-year-old limestone building along the Straight River Trail. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

I press on, toward the aged limestone building hugging the trail. Diagonal lines—power and shadows—cross the stone on the boarded building with a misplaced modern garage door. This 1903 building originally housed Faribault Gas & Electric Company, supplier of power to Faribault via the Cannon Falls hydroelectric plant. Every time I view this building, I wish it could be restored, used in a way that celebrates its history.

The icy river is melting, opening to flowing water. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

My thoughts meander here along the Straight River Trail. Focusing on history and nature and introspective observation.

I often meet dogs and their owners while walking the trails. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

But then a dog draws me back to reality. A massive canine, fluffy and white, leashed. His owner stops, allows me to pet his Great Pyrenees with the friendly face, and gorgeous long fur. Ducky. I assess that keeping him clean must be challenging. Ducky’s owner confirms, then continues on.

A sculpture, at least in my eyes, set against a snow-covered hillside. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

Cold bites at my exposed fingers as I retrace my path, heading back toward the park. I notice a sagging wire fence like graph paper gridding a snowy hillside. Single family homes and an apartment complex rise high above the trail, backyards revealing much in the nakedness of winter.

Boxcar art on exhibit as a train passes over the Straight River by Fleckenstein Bluffs Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

Soon a shrill whistle cuts through the bluffs. I race to reach an opening in the woods where I can photograph a train as it crosses a trestle over the river. I miss the locomotive, focusing instead on the moving canvases of art created by transient artists.

Strong fence lines border the river overlook at Fleckenstein Bluffs Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

I see art, too, in the fenced lines of a river overlook in the park, a space packed with snow and inaccessible in the winter.

When I’m walking, I appreciate curves in sidewalks and trails. I find them more appealing not only for following, but visually. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2023)

Then I curve along the sidewalk that rounds the playground before aiming back to the parking lot. I notice reflections of trees in puddles of melting snow. The bold blue sky. The way light bounces off the segmented walkway. I feel invigorated by all I’ve seen, by the sharp cold air, by the essence of time outdoors on a February afternoon in southern Minnesota.

TELL ME: Where do you walk outdoors in February?

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Boxcar art April 29, 2019

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WHENEVER I SEE BOXCAR ART, I wonder. I wonder about the artists, what inspires them, why they choose boxcars as their canvas.

 

 

Are they sending a message? Marking territory? Vandalizing?

 

 

And when do they paint?

 

 

So many questions pop into my mind as I lift my camera and aim the lens toward the mobile art. Where are these phantom artists who create these traveling galleries of art?

 

© Copyright 2019 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The power of a train August 6, 2017

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
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TEN FEET AWAY, the train roared down the tracks next to The Depot Bar & Grill in Faribault. I could feel its immense power as the cars zipped by in a blur, rails rising and falling.

 

 

For a moment I considered my vulnerability with only a wrought iron fence and a slip of stones separating me from this mammoth machine.

 

 

Despite my flash of fear, I thrilled in the rush of sitting so near a train as I waited for my brisket sandwich and fries on the outdoor patio. I grabbed my beer, took another swig and felt the rhythm of the fast-moving cars.

 

 

What is it about trains that holds such fascination? The power certainly impresses. But I think it’s the history, too, associated with trains that appeals to us. Travel by rail opened this country to further settlement.

 

 

My paternal great grandfather, Rudolph, rode the train to Henderson, Minnesota, in 1890, four years after he arrived by steamship in Baltimore. And four years after that, he moved farther west and bought a farm from the Great Western Railroad just outside my hometown of Vesta.

 

 

I expect most of you could tell similar stories of your ancestors and their travel by rail. Trains link us to our past, to those who came before us to this land, this America.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling