(gentle music) - This episode of "Wish You Were Here!"

With Eliza Blue, is brought to you, in part, by South Dakota Public Broadcasting and the South Dakota Arts Council.

Thanks for watching!

(gentle guitar music) ♪ Back roads and byways ♪ ♪ Campfires, we'll lie awake ♪ ♪ Sweetgrass and summer sage ♪ ♪ Come on baby, come and take my hand ♪ ♪ Take my hand ♪ ♪ Take my hand ♪ ♪ We're Dakota bound ♪ Join us, as we travel to share stories and songs from the prairie.

(slow banjo music) The western edge of the northern Plains can be a bleak and unforgiving place in winter.

The high, dry heat of summer is replaced by deep, deep, cold, and bitter winds.

The wind and the cold are two reasons that, while short grasses thrive here, trees, for the most part, do not.

The eerie moonscapes created by wind and snow are not without beauty, however.

Winter sunsets may not display the same tempest of delights as their summer and autumn counterparts, but when the subtle bands of color on the horizon set the snow to glowing, it's hard not to fall in love with the unique magic of the cold prairie.

The prairie and winter has been an inspiration for a lot of poets and musicians over the years.

And this particular song is a very famous cowboy ballad that actually started out, some believe, as a sea shanty, but then they changed the words to apply to the sea of grass.

It's called, "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie."

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

(slow, bluesy guitar music) ♪ Oh, bury me not ♪ ♪ On the lone prairie ♪ ♪ These words came slow ♪ ♪ And mournfully ♪ ♪ From the pallid lips ♪ ♪ Of the youth who lay ♪ ♪ In his dying bed ♪ ♪ At the close of day ♪ ♪ Oh, bury me not ♪ ♪ And his voice fell there ♪ ♪ But we took no heed ♪ ♪ Of his dying prayer ♪ ♪ In a narrow grave ♪ ♪ Just six by three ♪ ♪ We buried him there ♪ ♪ On the lone prairie ♪ ♪ Oh, bury me not ♪ ♪ On the lone prairie ♪ ♪ Where the owl at night hoots ♪ ♪ Mournfully ♪ ♪ And the blizzards beat ♪ ♪ And the winds blow free ♪ ♪ O'er his lonely grave ♪ ♪ On the lone prairie ♪ ♪ And the cowboys now ♪ ♪ As they roam the plain ♪ ♪ For to mark the spot ♪ ♪ Where his bones were lain ♪ ♪ Fling a handful of roses ♪ ♪ O'er his grave ♪ ♪ With a prayer to God ♪ ♪ For his soul to save ♪ The bleak beauty of the Plains isn't just an inspiration for songwriters, however.

It's also been an inspiration for all kinds of visual artists, including two that we are going to meet today.

(pencil scratches) Mark Zimmerman and Mary Wipf are visual artists living, working, and teaching in western South Dakota.

Mark says that the landscape of the northern Plains and the Black Hills are the primary concern in his work.

He finds views of Earth's organic forms, intermeshing with geometric grids, endlessly fascinating.

As he says, memories of place, the feel as much as the look, haunt me.

String memories of these multiple visions together, dump them on canvas, and you are close to his artistic process.

Through the exploration and discovery of form, he hopes to convey a love of great, and small.

Of timeless, and fleeting.

Mary seeks out the fragile ephemeral, or that which is not often seen.

Detailed knowledge, subtle complexities, and the patterns of the natural world are her passions.

She looks to the flora of the Black Hills for inspiration, but also to the elements themselves, and the repetitive motion implicit in her own invented patterns.

She believes in the power of the mark, and of line, and of color.

Direct and spontaneous.

I am so excited to be here today at the Green Ink Gallery and Studios.

I wish you were here, but the good news is, they are happily open by appointment.

So we're going to be seeing some great art and hearing some music.

Let's get to it.

Since we've been talking a lot about wind and snow, I was hoping you could give us a little tour of this piece of yours.

- Well, as you can see, it is full of squares.

And that is because I grew up in a square house on a square block, in a square state.

And I don't know how to deal with the landscape, honestly, without including squares.

So I take my landscapes, this is Bear Butte, and a fence post, in the winter, with snow, I take my landscapes and I break 'em into squares, and there's an awful lot of play, too.

If you look at the marks, I'm using the back end of the pencil and swinging from the shoulder, they're not very planned out.

They're pretty intuitive.

And, that said, a lot of the geometry is pretty prescribed, too.

- So, do you draw the squares first and then fill them in?

- Sometimes.

(laughs) I don't do anything, always.

I think in this one, I probably drew most of the squares and then filled them.

Although there are elements that run across squares too, so... - And what did you start with, for this piece?

- I started with the line here, that is Bear Butte.

Because I knew I wanted to deal with Bear Butte.

And it is kind of interesting that I deal with Bear Butte, and I deal with the prairie in my work, and I live in the Black Hills.

And I very seldom do anything that focuses on the Black Hills.

Occasionally Black Elk Peak shows up, and I've got a series of Black Elk Peak paintings, but basically I do the prairie.

I do that open, empty space.

I love open, empty space.

It's where I'm most at home.

I drove through western Kansas by myself, once, where I grew up as a child, and I was absolutely giddy in the car, all by myself, at all this wonderful, open, empty space.

So here's my empty space.

- So, now, here's my question, do you feel like you have to live away from it, though, to really appreciate it?

Like, if you actually lived out on the plains, do you think it would be harder to create art about the plains?

- I don't know.

It might be.

I might be a little bored with it, but I visit it, and I'm very much a visitor, and I go to it the way some people go to church, go to temple, go to their favorite places.

I go to the wide open.

So I don't know if it would be the same if I lived in it, maybe.

Maybe, maybe not.

- Before we look at more art, we wanted to share a song with you that is written, partially based on some nature journal entries that Mark had sent me from Februaries past.

One of the things, when Mary and Mark and I were first discussing this episode, we were talking about how February really winnows everything down to the sparest details, which I think is great for artists, and it's also interesting for songwriters.

So, this song is partially my own and partially Mark's, taken from some descriptions from his walks around the studio in February.

It's called "February Frost."

(slow, gentle guitar music) ♪ The quiet's like a fog ♪ ♪ The quiet's like the creek bed snow ♪ ♪ The quiet frosts the plains ♪ ♪ Land so rich, where poplars grow ♪ ♪ The dawn is cold and still ♪ ♪ Still is spread out like a quilt ♪ ♪ What remains ♪ ♪ Set ablaze ♪ ♪ By the February chill ♪ ♪ Fresh snow coats the quiet ♪ ♪ In a sparkling diamond white ♪ ♪ Lantern burns out loud ♪ ♪ But there's no heat in all that bright ♪ ♪ What remains ♪ ♪ Remains unchanged ♪ ♪ By the February light ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Oh, ooh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ The old dog heads to snow ♪ ♪ Sniffin' prints of night time fox ♪ ♪ The wind is rising now ♪ ♪ Cleanin' nuthatch twitters soft ♪ ♪ What remains ♪ ♪ Glowin' brave ♪ ♪ In the February frost ♪ - Well, so what I'm doing is called suminagashi.

It's a really, really old art form from the far East.

Sumi means ink, and nagashi means floating.

And so, on my tank of water here, I'm going to float ink, and it basically becomes a picture that captures the nature of the interaction between air and water.

Two clear things that life depends on.

And when I sandwich a layer of ink in between those two, we can see their relationship with one another.

And so, my ink has a surfactant in it that makes it wetter than the water that it's floating on.

So it's going to basically spill out across the surface of the water I've got in the tank, here.

It might be a little bit influenced, just from the natural air currents in the room, but then I'm also going to apply some air to it, to move it even further.

So, you know, I'm getting, like, something over here is...

Which happened last time, too.

And that's okay.

Part of this process is to allow, and work with, whatever I'm getting.

And so I'm receptive to that, and, to me, the whole pattern of doing is kind of like a mantra or a meditation, especially when we do sheet after sheet.

And then I've got this, kind of, wonderful repetition of motion.

And I'm not dropping the ink on there.

I'm just touching it to the surface, and then the water wants to, kind of, take it out, so...

So there's my color, and then I'm going to just blow on it a little bit, and move this color around.

So I chose, today, some cool colors, some icy blue, some drab grays, and violets, black.

I'm trying to get a balance of contrasting colors.

And then I'm going to capture that on my paper.

So the paper is very absorbent, it's just going to take that pattern, like that, and I'll rinse it a little bit, and then let it drain a little.

And there we have it, captured on paper.

The image of the interaction of air and water with each other.

And I'll just lay that out to dry.

Actually, maybe I can, would it be better if I set it here?

And there we have it, frozen on paper.

(laughs) - The next song Todd and I are gonna share with you is called, "Come to Me," and it's off my last album, but we tweaked it a little, so it would be appropriate for this chilly winter's day.

(gentle guitar music) ♪ Come to me, darling ♪ ♪ Cross the great white plains ♪ ♪ I've been roaming ♪ ♪ Through hard wind and rain ♪ ♪ Don't drive too fast, love ♪ ♪ But don't drive too slow ♪ ♪ From now on, where you go, I wanna go ♪ ♪ Come to me me in winter ♪ ♪ Come to me in spring ♪ ♪ Come to me in autumn, I wanna give you everything ♪ ♪ Come to me in April ♪ ♪ Come to me in May ♪ ♪ Come to me in February ♪ ♪ Come to me, darling ♪ ♪ Come shut the door ♪ ♪ Leave your keys on the table ♪ ♪ Leave your boots by the door ♪ ♪ Don't close your eyes, love ♪ ♪ Don't hold your breath ♪ ♪ I'll let you dive in ♪ ♪ But not just yet ♪ ♪ Come to me in winter ♪ ♪ Come to me in spring ♪ ♪ Come to me in autumn, I wanna give you everything ♪ ♪ Come to me in April ♪ ♪ Come to me in May ♪ ♪ Come to me in February ♪ ♪ Come to me in winter ♪ ♪ Come to me in spring ♪ ♪ Come to me in autumn, I wanna give you everything ♪ ♪ Come to me in April ♪ ♪ Come to me in May ♪ ♪ Come to me in February ♪ (crickets chirping) And now, some notes from the field.

(slow banjo music) (wind whooshing) (snow pattering) - Mary and I work across the state of South Dakota as visiting artists, through the State Arts Council.

I'm gonna read something that I wrote after one of those residencies.

This is called, "Small Somethings."

I do a good deal of work at an awe-inspiring place.

The Suzie Cappa Art Center in downtown Rapid City, where great things happen for a group of folks who aren't always afforded great opportunities.

The center claims to integrate artists with and without disabilities, helping people see past preconceived notions of disability, and honor the creative spirit of every person.

Their words.

And that is just one of the powerful things that happen, great and small, at Suzie Cappa.

I count the so-called disabled Suzie Cappa artists as friends, and long ago stopped seeing them as "other," or their disabilities as more than something inconvenient to overcome.

Mary and I are the proud owners of an ever-growing collection of their artwork.

I worked at Suzie Cappa this week, teaching painting.

Acrylic on stretched burlap.

Two days ago, I spent my day helping three Suzie artists paint a couple of sheep.

Toward the end of the painting day, one of the artists we'll call, "Jane," expressed her fear about the looming unknown buried in the artistic process.

Jane says, "I get nervous that I don't know where a painting is going."

I reply, "I don't ever know where a painting is going."

"Really?"

She twists her head and looks at me, looks me in the eye to see if that is bull.

"Painting is like exploring," I suggest, "imagine you're an explorer, and you don't ever know where you're going.

You can't know.

Nobody's ever been here, or gone there, before, but, and this is the thing, you know how to go exploring, so you're okay.

There's no need to get nervous.

You don't need to know where a painting is going, because you know how to paint."

"Really?"

(chuckles) "Really.

You trust your skills, and have faith in what you can do, and you don't need to know exactly what's going to happen."

"Hmm."

Yesterday I helped four Suzie artists, Jane among them, paint daisies on burlap.

I remind Jane that we're going exploring, and we know how to do this.

She nods.

And though she expresses some uncertainty in the beginning, by the end, I'm not doing more than handing her paint and holding her painting back so she can see it from a distance, and decide what color needs to go where.

Her daisies are hers.

And Jane's never been more okay with that.

She tinkers, occasionally asks what I think, but makes the decisions that are rightfully hers, and eventually declares the painting finished.

"You know, Jane, I'm pretty proud of how you worked today.

You were an explorer, a painter, today, and it shows."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.

That's an excellent painting, and it's all yours."

"Yeah."

Jane smiles and nods.

I nod and smile too.

I did a small something that led to a great thing for someone else.

"It's a good day, huh, Jane?"

"Yeah."

I happen to have purchased that painting from Jane, and I am the proud owner of Jane's "Daisies on Burlap."

(chuckles) (gentle guitar music) ♪ Back roads and byways ♪ ♪ Campfires, we'll lie awake ♪ ♪ Sweetgrass and summer sage ♪ ♪ Come on, baby ♪ ♪ Come and take my hand ♪ ♪ Take my hand ♪ ♪ Take my hand ♪ ♪ We're Dakota bound ♪