The Story of Blue River Studio 

A studio is a sacred space that first must reside in one’s heart.

Thirty years ago, my friend Mary (poet Mary Junge) called and said, “You need to sign up for this workshop combining art, poetry, and writing at the Anderson Center.”

Why would I do such a terrifying thing?

I knew the poet leading the workshop; she’d been the office administrator for the art department at the college I’d attended: Karen Herseth Wee.

Still, the thought terrified me.

At the same time, my heart was desperate; my body had been sending up warning flares for quite some time to pay attention and to do something about the deep and destructive hole I’d dug, shovelful by shovelful, in the center of my being. 

Against an interior no, no, no, I signed up.

The March Saturday arrived. Would I actually go? The household was wild with trouble and kids, husband and schedules, and a naughty but nice dog giving me plenty of excuses to remain home.

I slipped out and began driving the 38 miles to Red Wing, to the Anderson Center. I could always turn around. Snow was melting and the day cloudy as I followed the Mississippi River along the shadowed bluffs. 

What was looming over me?

For years, I’d allowed a negative experience during my college art studies to grow out of control, nearly paralyzing my creative life. I’d gotten to the point where I felt I was wasting the world’s paper if I used a piece to make something; I was that unworthy.

The river flowed on my right; the dark bluffs loomed on my left haunting and bearing down on me; I trembled as I drove with my fear buckled into the seat beside me. 

I made it to the Anderson Center which was once the home and place of an inventor, now a haven and space for artists and community members. I took a deep breath and stepped inside the inventors’s old, magnificent house. I was met with smiling faces as I took a seat with a number of other people attending the workshops. After opening remarks, I climbed the steps to a room upstairs and sat down at a long table with others.

Poet Karen Herseth Wee began with warmth and welcome. My fear tiptoed under my chair. Karen held up photographs and pieces of artwork; we responded with pens and on paper. There was no shaming, no judging, only the blessed encouragement and freedom of flowing words and images. The words tumbled out, my body trembling again, but not from fear. Trembling this time, from a deep joy of making that had been shut out for far too long. My fear shrank in the corner then slipped out the door. We shared our work as we went along, the poems of mine and others intoxicating.

The last piece Karen held up was a watercolor of a spring meadow, hills, and in the background, a blue river.

Blue River Promise

March 6, 1995

I want to be in that river of blue.
There it is
just beyond the meadow.
I’ll take off my shoes,
run to the water,
run through pink flowers,
over soft grasses
around sharp thistles.

The ribbon of blue shimmers
before the looming dark hill,
the dark hill of shadow, fear, 
and the unknown.

I’ll get to the blue water and splash,
the cold stinging my skin,
awakening my heart.
I will ignore the hill of shadows.

I will see only the water bugs dancing on the surface,
hear only the rippling water tripping over stones,
feel only the newness springing from the blue.

Today I race over the meadow
to splash in the freshness of the water
as the river flows around me.
Even in the shadow of the dark hill,
I will stand firm.

Thank you, Karen and Mary. That night, I carved an image of the poem into a round pink eraser, printed it, and added a ribbon of blue. I’d made room in my heart for myself and my work, in spite of what looms around me. Blue River Studio was born—a promise to myself to be myself, and to keep making.