Art Pieces from Minnesota

Minnesota craft sits in the house, not only in a museum. A painted cupboard, a quilt, and a carved fish are the pieces people still make.

Rosemaling

• It is Norwegian rose painting on wood: scrolls, flowers, and a few strong colors.
• A trunk, a plate, or a cupboard door carries it.
• It came with settlers in the 1800s. Classes still teach the strokes.
• It marks a family cupboard more than a clan.
• A visitor may look. The piece is not a toy.
• It is the old country kept on a shelf.

A quilt

• It is a blanket sewn from cloth scraps in a set pattern.
• A wedding, a baby, or a long winter is the reason for a new one.
• Church groups still sew them for a raffle or a gift.
• The pattern is shared. The cloth is from the house.
• It is used on a bed, not only hung.
• The point is warmth, and the hands that made it.

A fish decoy

• It is a carved wooden fish, painted, used under the ice to draw a real fish.
• Spear-fishing through a dark hole is the old use. Many now sit on a shelf.
• The shape is a pike or a perch. The paint is bright so it shows in the water.
• Makers still carve them in the north of the state.
• It is a tool that became an art piece.
• A house with a lake history often has one.

Birch bark

• It is the bark of the paper birch, folded into a basket or a box.
• Ojibwe makers still sew it with spruce root. The tree is not stripped to death.
• A basket holds berries or sits as a gift.
• The pattern of the bark is the design. Paint is extra.
• It is older than the state. It is still made.
• A buyer asks who made it. A stall copy is not the same.

A loon carving

• The common loon is the state bird. A wood carving of it sits on mantels.
• The black head and the white checks are the mark.
• It stands for the lake, not for a family name.
• A cabin without a loon picture is the rare one.
• The bird itself is on the water in summer. The carving stays all year.
• It is the quiet symbol. The rosemaling is the old-country one.