Does everything happen for a reason? Those of you who are familiar with the Minnesota State Fair might know that the Fine Arts Competition is mobbed with entries each year and is notoriously difficult to get in. I entered my transparent tapestry, “The Farmer’s Daughter’s Yggdrasil (Tree of Life),” in 2019. It did not make the cut, but as my grandmother once wrote to me, “life doesn’t hand us all our desires.”
I was sad about that rejection, but quite happy to display it in the weaving category in the Creative Activities Building, where it received a blue ribbon and was viewed by thousands of fair-goers — including Mary Savig, Curator at the Smithsonian Renwick Museum of Craft, who has Midwest family ties.
Several months ago Savig wrote and asked if “The Farmer’s Daughter’s Yggdrasil” could be included in an upcoming major exhibit of fine craft, blue-ribbon-winning craft, in several media from State Fairs around the country, from the mid-nineteenth century to today. What an amazing opportunity! Thank goodness my tapestry was not hanging in the Fine Arts Building down the street when the curator stopped by.
Wouldn’t my grandfather, posing here with his potato warehouse workers, be surprised?
This is a draft of the text that will appear in the accompanying catalog to the State Fair exhibit.
As the title suggests, Robbie LaFleur is the daughter of a farmer. Her father and grandfather farmed potatoes in the Red River Valley, a fertile farming region between North Dakota and northern Minnesota. A particularly successful harvest in 1952 enabled LaFleur’s father to build the family’s home.
LaFleur was inspired to make this work during a weaving fellowship in Stavanger, Norway, where she studied the open warp technique of famed weaver Frida Hansen. The open warps (the vertical wool threads) give a sense of transparency, conjuring natural sunlight against the verdant leaves in the top half of the tapestry. The open warps delineate the potato root system in the earthy bottom half, that serve as the base of her Yggdrasil, the tree of life in Norse mythology. LaFleur also added a stylized row of prairie rose blossoms. The tapestry earned a blue ribbon at the 2019 Minnesota State Fair, prompting LaFleur to observe: “There are prize-winning potatoes at the Minnesota State Fair each year, but generally not in the Creative Activities Building. This year, mine are.”
I am so honored, and only wish my potato-growing ancestors could join me to see when it hangs in this room beginning in August, 2025.
I visited the current Renwick exhibit, “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” in Washington DC last weekend. I highly recommend it; the works are beautiful and intriguing, and the installation is beautifully arranged to give the viewer a chance to examine each piece closely, and in its own space. I was especially lucky to gain insights about the artists and the works from the curator, Mary Savig. If you can’t make it to the exhibit (or even if you can), I recommend this talk online by Savig, “TEXTILE TALK: Smithsonian American Art Museum: Subversive, Skilled, Sublime—Fiber Art by Women.”
I still hope to get into the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts exhibit, one of these years!