Minnesota Taps Ojibwe Culture, Anticheriabe Spirit to convert wood into art

In every corner of Minnesota, there are good stories that are waiting to be listed for places that make our country great and people who “contribute to a verse” every day. This is the theme of “Wander & Wonder: Exploring the unexpected places of Minnesota.”

In the afternoon sunflowers through the pine trees in the clearing off the 61st highway near Grand Portage. Bird song fills air and bark dogs at the distance. Superior Lake is half a mile below the hill.

Dozens of curved pieces of light and dark wood are located on a temporary table next to a small house. The artist Donovan Adham tends the table, thinking about the partially assembled work.

He said during a recent visit to his home: “I am trying to integrate the teachings and the teachings of Ogeboy’s culture, to teach people about the spiritual aspects of those who are as an Echinabi people.” “All two pieces are a kind of element of teaching.”

Dahmen has been involved in art most of his life, design and sale of shirts and some pen and ink drawings of wolves or eagles. Then one day while he studied drawing an eagle, he saw the feathers as wood. This was placed on a way to grow the spirit of wood and turn it into art.

He said, “I think the wood tells me what I want to be in the project.”

The piece will currently work on 10 feet in 10 feet when completed. It includes a woman who carries stars in her outstretched hands with the sun and the moon, OJIBWE animals, drum, sweat and wild rice.

It is called “biidaaban”, the soul before the sun appears. Before the sun appears, there is stillness – light and darkness – and it has to do with balance," Dahmen explained.

He has six years of work invested in “BIIDAABAN”. The wrong pieces are intertwined, with light rice and dark walnuts that give work a sense of movement.

He said: “I am really difficult to satisfy. I really want this art to be great, not just like the craft.” “For me personally, I may not have all the spiritual pieces to complete it. It takes its own time. It is her own spirit.”

“Speak to us without any words.”

Art has always been part of Dahmen’s life. When a child spent hours inside the drawing while the other children were playing outdoors. He was sometimes pushed to clean the studio to his great uncle, The legendary artist, Oujiboy George Morrison.

Dahmun said: “He did many different types of formulations. Thus, it should have affected me when he was a child, even at the time,” Dahmun said.

He tried the art school but left. He said he lost his way for a period of time in alcohol and drugs before contacting Ojibwe teachings. “That culture filled a kind of hole that I think I had inside me and I was aside a recovery to understand the kind of I was like an anshinaabe person.”

Now 56, Dahmen feels just like. He is now a drum guard and a pipe guard, helping others in their spiritual journey. His name is Ojibwe is Maymishwashwapeton. It is Nessi, or the bird clan.

Dahmen usually cuts out of the outdoor combined. In rainy weather, the residence of Waaginogaan, which is a dubbed structure made of thin rice columns.

While his English name is used as an artist, Ojibwe culture is essential for his work. It surpasses the wood he uses to make his art.

He said: “The relationship with wood is very distinctive for me. It seems as if you were getting a plate with fresh sand and running your hand through it, and I feel that this energy comes from it.” “This is a relationship with wood, this spiritual type of communication.”

He said that in the wooden arenas, he is “like a child walking in a sweets store. I am looking for a specific wood that may have a knot, and sometimes people do not want, as you know, it will be attracted towards some of this wood.”

Among his works, Dahmen created a large group of SPIRIT tree, a creative rice tree on the superior lake, which is sacred to the people of Ojibwe. Collage made of more than 160 pieces of wood, hanging in tribal casino and staying in Grand Portage.

A 12 -foot wooden braid of SweetGRASS it made is part of the art collection at Essentia Hospital in Dolouth. He did a few smaller commissions.

Dahmen is wrestling with pressure to produce art quickly for commercial sale while trying to respect the process and listen to lives. He believes that art is very important for rush.

“He speaks to us in several different ways, in ways that we do not know,” he said. “He inspires us. He inspires us to be linked to nature. It inspires us to be linked to culture. It inspires us to be associated with teachings. Art is a language, and speaks to us without any words.”