Archive for September, 2009

By Mary Marx

Steve Vanden Brink

Staring out my window at leaves falling from a crab apple tree, Steve Vanden Brink replays a scene in his mind – I watch as he carefully weighs his willingness to share a story.

Steve is a paramedic specialist. He’s one of the few who respond when your car is wedged between two trees or when you’re helplessly lying on the bathroom floor. He gives life-saving breath and coaxes your heart to beat on its own. Steve brings calm to your chaos.

He apparently reaches some conclusion and our conversation resumes. “I see death and dying more than your average person. One day, three people died…traumatically… in 12 hours. They were young,” Steve says to the corner of my desk. “Every call affects each paramedic differently – over the past 20 years, there are always those calls that stand out.”

Steve studies the notes he prepared for this very interview. “It was maybe 15 years ago – I worked the night shift – and the ambulance was dispatched to a home birth. We delivered the baby; that’s not something we get to do very often. The crew brought both mother and baby to the hospital for care and then, about an hour later we were called to a house – to a family just like the one celebrating a new child – to try to revive an unresponsive infant. We gave that child all we had, our combined expertise, our equipment, everything, but the baby died.” 

In this profession, nights like these are sad realities. But there is also life. There is beauty in the eyes of someone whose pain has subsided and joy in the monotonous tones of a heart once again beating on its own.

“I heard a call for first responders to the home of one of my friends,” says Steve. “He’d collapsed while getting ready for a night out – his wife found him. I got there first and did CPR until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics on duty shocked him with the defibrillator – and we waited for the beep to start, but nothing happened. And then, the lines on the screen began to move. Everything worked that night – it happened the way it should – and now I see him jogging through town, enjoying the life he almost lost.”

Dave Neinhaus

“You have to absorb the good moments,” says paramedic Dave Nienhaus. “You have to let those happy endings fill you up… and enjoy them.” 

Dave’s first happy ending earned him the gratitude of the patient, and a canned ham.

“I was a first responder at the time – pretty green, I was out only two years. I heard the call and arrived on scene, shocked the patient and her heart began beating again. Not too long afterward, she stopped over to my house, gave me a hug and pressed a canned ham into my hands.  It was such a touching – and memorable – gift; I don’t think I will ever forget it.”

In Dave’s mind, paramedics are not in the business of “saving lives.”

“Whether or not someone lives, that is between the patient and God,” he says. “If they are to live, and I am part of that plan, I am happy to serve and will do so to the very best of my ability.”

Training and experience play a significant role in a paramedic’s ability to help a patient, but “good equipment and new technology make it a whole lot easier.”

The Advanced Life Support monitors the Winneshiek Medical Center Foundation is raising funds for this year through Festival of Trees allow paramedics to attend multiple things at once. The monitors will hook up with the chest compression machine and deliver shocks as needed. The paramedics will be able to provide better care, and that means more happy endings.

“People expect us to come busting into their home, perform CPR and shocks and then whisk the patient back to the ER where they will make a full recovery – kind of like it happens on TV,” says Dave. “When this happens in the real world, it is a kind of euphoria – like you are experiencing the scene from somewhere on the ceiling. You watch hands placing the machine on someone’s bare skin, see their chest rise with returning breath – it is surreal. And then, you meet them walking to cardiac rehab two weeks later and you know you had a part in it.”

Occasionally the happy ending is more bittersweet.

“Sometimes, if we can bring someone back, it is just long enough to say goodbye to loved ones,” Dave says. “We don’t save them in a physical way, but it brings a sort of acceptance to the family. Like I said, I don’t save lives – I just help people.”  

Dave Reutlinger

He’s been there. Dave Reutlinger has provided emergency care for people as long as I have been alive – 29 years – and I cannot even fathom the different experiences that have shaped him into who he is today.

Dave is nationally certified in … and a specialist in… and licensed in…, but amid all the accolades, I get the feeling that experience is his true teacher. Yet he is anything but boastful. As I attempt to understand the whys and hows that are his life’s work, Dave is reluctant to share too much. This man carries within him some the most personal experiences of many of us reading this very article– his stories are ours.

“When we are on our way to a call – maybe a car accident – we make our plan,” Dave says. He explains that everything makes a difference in what to expect: the voice inflection of the dispatcher (which could mean a serious call or an over-excited caller reporting the accident), the weather conditions, time of day, even the way the glass is broken or the vehicle is dented or the smell of the scene when they arrive.

I can imagine that his kind face and quiet way of speaking would bring calm to even the most frantic of patients. “If we can, we get in the car with the patient – talk to them while starting IVs or assessing their injuries,” says Dave. “We explain what the sounds mean – the snapping and banging of the metal roof being cut away, why the car is swaying, that we are doing everything we can for them.”

Dave stresses that they are not alone in their task.

“The entire emergency system is… interconnected, on the scene with first responders, law enforcement, the fire department,” he says. “And when we return to the emergency department –everyone has a hand in saving a life.”

Josh Moore

Time is constant. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes to hours. But it doesn’t always seem that way.

“Time had never moved so slowly,” recalls Josh Moore. “We were waiting for the defibrillator to give us direction after the shock. It only takes about 10 seconds to analyze, but when a teenager is lying at your side without a pulse, those 10 seconds…”

His eyes are bloodshot and he offers a weary smile – it is seven in the morning and time for him to go home. It was a quiet night in the emergency department, though that is something to never even suggest in the presence of the staff who work there. Josh willingly puts off a good night’s (day’s) sleep for 10 more minutes to share the memory of what he calls, “his first save.”

“I worked with my dad and a few other guys in a basic ambulance service. We got the call of a man down at the school, and following our protocol, ran lights and sirens to get there, though it was only a few blocks from our garage.”  Josh was the baby, the newbie, green. “When we rolled up to the school, it was my job to get the jump kit while the others went to the patient. We only knew someone was down in the gym; I assumed in my head they had hurt their ankle – something pretty minor.”

Josh focuses on a point somewhere above my head and continues, “He was only 19. It was a scrimmage game, something for fun. He fell past the three-point line, just short of the hawk emblem painted in the center of the floor, and his teammates could only stand over their friend – they knew his pulse was gone. I was the one who placed the defibrillator patches on his chest. I remember the lump in my throat as the machine said, ‘shock advised,’ and I pushed the button and watched his body jerk… and waited.”

After 10 painstaking seconds, the defibrillator advised the paramedics to begin chest compressions once more. “I started compressions,” says Josh, “and just willed his heart to begin beating. And then, against the heel of my hand, under his sternum, I felt pounding – I actually experienced his heart come back to life.”

He goes on. “We delivered the patient to the nearest emergency room and were heading back out to the garage when the doctor stopped us – he told us, ‘He’s in there talking to his family because of you guys. Congratulations,’ – and it was at that moment I committed to this path – one of day shifts and night shifts, adrenaline rushes and lulls. I want to make a difference in someone’s life.”

Mary Marx is a life-long Winneshiek County-ian, and is proud of her family and this year’s garden. Her favorite things include crushing hugs from her two sons, a good cosmopolitan and watching the sun set from her back porch with her husband, who also happens to be her best friend.

For Festival of Trees 2009, Winneshiek Medical Center Foundation will raise funds toward the purchase of two new Advanced Life Support monitors for Winneshiek Medical Center’s ambulances.

 Each Advanced Life Support Monitor costs approximately $25,000. The primary event scheduled to raise funds for this technology is the second annual Holiday Showcase of Homes, held October 23 & 24, 2009. For information on this Foundation event, visit www.winmedical.org or call the Community Relations Department at 563.387.3129.

By Aryn Henning Nichols

At a typical symphony orchestra concert, you don’t hear a “yeeee-awww” coming from the audience. It’s just not proper. But the trio Time For Three – headed to the Luther College Center Stage November 20 – isn’t really all that proper, and they’re most definitely not typical. They’ve even gotten a “yeee-awww.”

Described as a “ground-breaking, category-shattering” ensemble, Time For Three (TF3) is an up-and-coming group of talented blue jeans-wearing, violin and double-bass-playing classical-with-a-twist musicians. That’s a lot of hyphens, but what TF3 does is truly a hyphenated hybrid of things.

It all began for the group at Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute for Music. Three young musicians – Nick Kendall (violin), Zach De Pue (violin), and Ranaan Meyer (double bass) – met with a mutual interest: doing things a little differently.

“We were the only ones who improvised,” says Nick during an early afternoon phone interview. “We all played classical in the beginning and practiced our butts off, so we’re extremely technically proficient, but we’re also creating music – kind of like street musicians in Europe, creating music from where they’re from. We’re making American street music. All of it has an energy that opens the door to a wide range of audiences.”

They write and arrange the majority of their music, and have produced two albums – the 2002 self-titled “Time for Three” and the 2006 “We Just Burned This For You” – and they have one on the way in January of 2010, “Three Fervent Travelers.” The upcoming album and their growing audiences have got them really looking forward to the future.

“It’s an exciting time,” Nick says. “What we think is happening it people are having to rethink the way things work. Because of that there’s a lot of acceptance for different music. In the coming years there will be a lot of times for collaborating – we’re evolving.”

And while Nick jokingly blurts out, “We play mostly strip clubs,” then laughs, “no, don’t print that,” in truth, they primarily play concert halls like Philadelphia’s Mann Music Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and soon Carnegie Hall. That’s even with a collection of songs that edge into bluegrass, hip-hop, funk, jazz, and country. “I like to say we’re a classically-trained garage band.”

Ensemble, yes. Band? “Hell, yes,” Nick says.

That attitude – along with the fact that they, also, are young with ages ranging from 29 to 31– is helpful in reaching a younger demographic. This is part of TF3’s mission: They’ve done almost 400 shows and presentations for youth and students.

“Young people are an unexpected breath of fresh air and a good excuse to have fun,” Nick says. “We’ve definitely garnered a lot of interest that way.”

They also garnered some attention from a novel lights-out jam session in July of 2003. While technicians attempted to get lights rolling again after a power outage at Mann Music Center, Ranaan and Zach also rolled with it, busting out tunes like “Jerusalem’s Ridge,” “Ragtime Annie,” and “Orange Blossom Special” in the dark hall. The audience loved it. Was there a “yeee-awww” that night? That came at a different show on the other side of the world.

 “We were playing with the Chicago Symphony in Australia and were doing a piece with bluegrass. The bass player did some awesome licks and a few people yelled out, ‘Yeee-awwwww!’ I think the orchestra was shocked, nobody knew what to do,” Nick says, laughing.

Although people rarely dance at their shows, “in a concert hall, that’s sort of weird,” Nick does entertain its possibility. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll create that sort of atmosphere someday. We don’t just go up there and play: We’re really captivating – it’s fun.”

TF3 will take the Center for Faith and Life stage at Luther College at 7:30 pm on Friday, November 20. Tickets are on sale November 5 and are available at the Luther College Box Office or at luther.edu/centerstage. You can also check them out in advance at tf3.com.

Aryn Henning Nichols might give a “yeee-awww” at the upcoming Time For Three concert. And she bets SOMEONE in Decorah will dance. It’s just that kind of town. 

By Jim McCaffrey

 If you are fortunate enough to live in Northeast Iowa as my wife, Brenda, and I do, then you have had the wonderful opportunity to experience the changing of seasons from summer into fall. An explosive collage of color descends upon the area as the flora metamorphoses from the greens of the past six months into its final hurrah before the harsh reality of winter arrives. Brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow merge into a kaleidoscope of panoramic splendor. Nature provides a unique setting of which one should take full advantage. So instead of being a horizontal couch slouch, unglue your hand from the remote, and spend a little quality time with your loved ones in the great outdoors. Leave the drone of ESPN behind, participate in one or all of the following activities, have some darn good fun, and then, we’ll do lunch.

The old saying, “The best things in life are free” is certainly applicable to Decorah and the surrounding area. There are miles of trails in its great parks. Hiking one of these numerous paths can be an exhilarating experience. It is also great exercise. Be sure to wear good shoes. High heels and flip flops can be disasters in the waiting; there are lots of ups and downs. A few years back, Brenda and I traversed these trails extensively as we trained to hike in and out of the Grand Canyon in one day. Ok, we were idiots, but our training trails definitely built the leg muscles we needed to accomplish that feat. The added bonus of hiking is just to be out in the woods enjoying nature. Breathe it all in. For me, a heightened awareness of my surroundings occurs when I’m out of my normal environment an in someone or something else’s. The solitude of the woods accompanied by the occasional bird twitter, a couple of squirrels chasing each other, a bright leaf or two falling, or a pair of red tailed hawks in search of a tasty mouse for their noon meal certainly tunes into one’s mind that we are just a miniscule drop in the pool of life. Actually, kind of humbling when you sit down and think about it.

Another great but lesser utilized outdoor activity readily available in Northeast Iowa is fossil hunting. The entire family can, pretty much, participate. My grandsons, who are five and six, just love to go. They have a big advantage over grandpa. Hey, they are short, sharp eyed, and quick to the find. Ah, youth! I started out as a child myself. The innocence and wonder of discovery still remains with me. Well, maybe not the innocence. Ok, I digress. Dry creek beds full of broken limestone are an ideal place to get started. Bring some sacks along to put your millions-of-years-old treasures in and wear “GOOD SHOES.” Move slowly scanning the rocks at your feet. Not only will you find fossils but lots of other interesting items. The last time I went was with my grandson, August. His bag contained some pretty important stuff. A few fossils, some pretty rocks, a lot of acorns, several abandoned snail shells, and a couple of fuzzy caterpillars to take home to mom and dad to put in jars with grass for the winter. Butterflies in the making. That plan was quashed, however, when we returned home only to find the crafty little rascals had made their escape. Other great places to find fossils are the sand and rock bars aligning both sides of the Upper Iowa River. With each new flood these rocks are turned over revealing a host of new finds. These areas are also great places to teach the young ones the art of skipping stones. Knowledge like this is always extremely handy.

My last favorite fall activity is hunting late-season mushrooms. This, of course, can be incorporated into the previous two forays. It can be a little dicey as well, so if you are not sure of a mushroom’s edibility, ask someone who does or just throw it away to avoid any problems. One of the easiest fall mushrooms to identify are giant puffballs. They are found growing on the ground in meadows and forests. They are round and I have found ones the size of a basketball that weighed up to 25 pounds. Make sure you only pick ones that look freshly white and are solid throughout when cut open. They have a wonderful earthy flavor. Cut them into steaks and sauté in butter and minced garlic. Heaven! Chicken in the Woods is another great fall mushroom in this area. You can find them mostly growing on dying or dead oak trees. They will be growing on the side of the tree about three feet up or so. They are bright yellow with maybe a little orange. They can get pretty large as well. 15 to 20 pounds is not unusual. Do not rip them off of the tree. Just cut close to the bark so it grows again the next year. A third option is found on Box Elder trees. These mushrooms grow in knotholes or tree injuries. They are known as elm mushrooms. Very edible and delightful. They look like common white field mushrooms and are a little milder. Sometimes they are higher up than you can reach, so you can work on your tree climbing skills as well.

As long as you are out and about separated from the idiot box, you might want to check the local farmers’ market too. Pick up some great fresh produce, use it in the following recipe, and grab a loaf of newly baked bread to accompany the meal as well. Whew! All this exercise has worn me out. I wonder if the Hawkeye game is being televised.

Jim McCaffrey is a chef, author, and co-owner with his family of McCaffrey’s Dolce Vita restaurant and Twin Springs Bakery just outside Decorah. He is author of a humorous cookbook titled “Midwest Cornfusion.” He has been in the food industry in one way or another for 40 years. Email him at mcdolcevita@gmail.com or visit mcdolcevita.com.

Mushroom Turkey Kabobs and Darlene’s Golden Rice

Mushroom Turkey Kabobs

2 lbs. fall mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs. boneless turkey breast
1 T. sesame seed oil
4 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup orange juice
6 T balsamic vinegar
2 large onions, cut into 1/8’s
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 green peppers, cut 1“X1”
3 T. minced fresh chives ½ lb. cherry tomatoes

Cut mushrooms and turkey into bite sized pieces. In a large bowl mix Worcestershire, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chives, garlic, sesame seed oil, and orange juice for a marinade. Add mushrooms and turkey. Cover and chill 2-3 hours. Preheat BBQ grill. Have 12 metal or presoaked wooden skewers on hand. Thread with a piece of mushroom, turkey, onion, green pepper, and tomato. Twice for each skewer. Grill, turning skewers often, until turkey is cooked completely through. Serve with Darlene’s rice.

Darlene’s Rice

3 cups chicken broth
½ tsp. turmeric
1 ½ cups rice
1 ½ T. soy sauce
½ tsp curry powder
1/2 cup golden raisins 

Mix all dry ingredients in a large heavy duty pot. Add broth. Bring to a boil. Cover with tight fitting lid. Simmer for 20 minutes. Serve it up! Delicious!

By Benji Nichols

 Many people in the upper Midwest can recognize the unique wood cut prints of Decorah artist Carl Homstad – and perhaps even more have seen some of his 40 plus murals on the sides of buildings from Osceola to Calmar. But as this successful local artist can attest, the artist’s path is not usually one of riches and fame, but of honest hard work and creativity – both on the canvas, and off the beaten trail.

It was in the late 1960s that Carl Homstad traveled from Denver, Colorado to Northeast Iowa on a visit to Luther College, the very school where his parents had met decades earlier. But it wasn’t exactly an introduction to Decorah’s institute of higher learning that sold him on later returning to Luther as a student. “I came out for my sister’s graduation, and instead of going to the ceremony, I floated down the river in a canoe – that was pretty much it,” he says. “Denver was a thousand miles away, and that seemed about right.”

Of course it didn’t seem to hurt that the counterculture of the late 1960s was also alive and well at Luther when Homstad showed up that perfect spring day, but he also sites a noticeable crop of both teachers and students, particularly in the arts, that helped lure him to Decorah. Amongst the most notable art educators at Luther during that time were Orville Running and Dean Schwartz – both instrumental in getting an Art Major recognized at the College just a decade earlier – and the young, new educator Doug Eckheart.

Homstad spent much time honing his skills both with his mentors at Luther and also studying abroad. A year with the Institute of European Studies included a class on mural painting in Vienna, amongst many other opportunities. Upon returning to the US and finishing his degree at Luther, Homstad found interesting opportunities close to home. The Iowa Arts Council, led by Nan Stillians, was in its hay day with Touring Art Team projects. It was within this program that Homstad began to shape his style and ideas for recreating the Iowa landscapes and scenes that he is now well known for.

The Touring Art Teams of the progressively led Iowa Arts Council of the 1970s read like a who’s-who of now well-known Midwestern artists. Each summer, a team of eight to10 Iowa artists would visit 20 towns that had less than 1500 people. The first day in a new town they would show off their crafts and skills for the residents to see, and on the second day they would teach classes and then have them present their own show that night – and Homstad says the creativity that came out of these rural Iowa communities was a revelation

“What it really did was showed that art was for everyone – and people really noticed. It was amazing some of the talent that we found – competing kitchen bands from neighboring towns, incredible painters, musicians…” he says, trailing off.

It was also during this time that Homstad began working through President Carter’s Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) program. “The town of Jefferson, Iowa wanted a mural, and through the channels I was picked as the person to do it – even though I hadn’t actually done a large scale outdoor mural! It was one of, if not the biggest, murals I have ever done. I had taken a class – a study really – on murals in Vienna and knew how to do it, but hadn’t actually done one – so it was my first outdoor landscape mural. I’ve learned a lot since then…”

The humble artist now has an impressive collective body of mural-works across the upper Midwest that is really nothing short of a legacy. Most of the works are commissioned scenes of historical landscapes or locations and Homstad enjoys explaining the almost Zen process of designing, implementing, and creating the murals. “I always tell people that murals, just like house paint, are not permanent. They have to be worked on every few years if you want to keep them – otherwise the scenes just fade back into time,” he says.

As Homstad continued to mature as an artist he found that his studio in Northeast Iowa offered him an life that he was short to find anywhere else. The natural beauty and changing seasons provided not only a lot of fun outdoor activities, but also a vast array of scenes to call up in his woodcuts. “It was Orville Running who showed me that the woodcut prints could be a decent way to make a living – as even though they take some time to create, as an artist you can then print many of them and have them in various galleries all at once – versus having one painting in one place at a time.”

The process that goes into Homstad’s woodcut prints is beautifully laid out in a series of photos on his website, www.carlart.com. Generally four different plates are carved of the same scene depicting different reliefs that are then inked by hand and printed in sequence. “It’s kind of like making a picture into a jigsaw puzzle, drawing it, cutting it up into pieces, and then putting them back together,” says Homstad of the tedious printing process. “It’s not really drudgery though – it’s interesting work.”

Through his art, Homstad has drawn from his past and yet pushed forward in his style and mediums. He says he had noticed a change in his compositions over the last decade from having symmetry to now following a more organic, flowing shape and utilizing empty space. “The hardest thing is to be simple – I’ve been creating art for the better part of 50 years and learning the whole way,” he says. “But now I sort of have to un-learn a lot of those things to find the space and simplicity.”

 Much of this he attributes to his travels and study of Chinese and Japanese woodcuts as well as ink wash painting. Homstad has also found himself at a place in life where he has rediscovered other mediums. It was an invitation by good friend Mike Noonan of Unified Jazz Ensemble fame that brought him back to oil painting.

“Mike invited me out to see a Winslow Homer retrospective in DC –he is one of my favorite artists. While I was there I realized that Winslow didn’t really start oil painting until he was 45, and I thought, I’m 45, I could still do this! I mean, trying to make a living as an oil painter is like being a quarterback in the NFL – it’s out there, but it’s pretty hard to do. Luckily because of some of my other artwork I am now afforded the chance to come back to painting.”

Taking shape from many events in Homstad’s life, his oil paintings share stories from rail riding across the west as a young man, to serene and mature landscapes of Japan, the Midwest, and many points between. It is within these landscapes that Homstad confesses his true goal in his artistic life, with only a slight grin on his wild and honest face, “What I’m ultimately working toward is a zen painting of a corn field.”

Benji Nichols has a not-so-secret passion for collecting woodcut prints of local artists, and believes we are incredibly luck to have a great history of such art here in NE Iowa. Check out this issue’s Probituary on Orville Running, the man responsible for teaching decades of young artists how to create beautiful works of art.

Carl Homstad’s oil paintings will be featured at the Perfect Edge in Decorah throughout the month of November. His rural Decorah studio is open by appointment and will also be featured on the Northeast Iowa Studio Tour October 9-11, 2009. Visit www.carlart.com for more information about the artist, as well as world of famous hermit and social commentator Art Kuntsler.

By Aryn Henning Nichols

Ashley Dull’s enthusiasm is infectious. She bustles through the door of a downtown Decorah coffee shop with arms full of paintings, at least one still mildly wet. We hug – I’ve known Ashley since she was seven and her sister and I were best friends in the fourth grade – and we both speak at once.

“I haven’t seen you since that time we talked about changing the world,” I say.

She laughs, “I’m still trying to change the world…somehow.”

This earnest mission is at the root of what inspires Ashley in her art. She’s not jaded. And there isn’t supposed to be a “yet” on the end of that sentence. Maybe she’s naïve. But who cares? She’s definitely not cocky, especially for a 26-year-old who is actually making a living at art in the Twin Cities, a place loaded with talented artists and creative folk. No, Ashley is willing to admit she’s got a lot to learn

“I’m still trying to figure out this world – I don’t know enough about anything, really,” she says humbly.

She does know a thing or two around a canvas. If it weren’t for the amazing texture created by the carefully molded piles of still-wet paint, her nature-inspired pieces could be photos. Really dimensional photos, almost like you could walk right in.

“I want people to say, ‘I wanna touch that. I wanna be there,’” she says. “I will be out walking in the woods, touching everything, enjoying the peace that nature brings – I want to put that in my paintings. I want to make people feel good.”

Ashley’s upbringing on a small farm in between Postville and Decorah was full of the big skies, beautiful trees, and picturesque landscapes of the Driftless Region. A walk in the woods could inspire as many as three-dozen future paintings. Perhaps this is where the passion she’s had for art “since forever” began.

Nurtured by teachers with good foresight – Postville High School’s Rose Schutte and Luther College’s Doug Eckheart being two major mentors – Ashley took the encouragement they gave her, “You really have something here,” and ran with it. She graduated from Luther College in 2005 with a double major in health and art. And like many recent graduates, she wasn’t sure what was next.

“I thought, ‘What am I doing? Where am I going?’” she says. “But I did feel that it was possible to really do it, to be an artist.”

It certainly wasn’t a straight shot to galleries and commissions from there though. She moved to the Twin Cities to work as a personal trainer, painting in her free time. In 2007 she finally applied for her first art fair in Edina. And got in. During that show Ashley met her now “art agent” Jack McCauley. McCauley helped her put together her first gallery show in Roseville and it was a huge success. This was the affirmation Ashley needed to paint more, train less. McCauley continues to represent her work today.

Her pieces have since been shown in seven galleries – along with four shows in the next two months alone – and she landed a lengthy internship with nationally known Twin Cities artist Pamela Sukhum. Now, just two short years since Ashley’s first show, she’s armed with a wealth of new skills and information for her life both as an artist and as a self-employed business owner.

“It is still a business, and I need to make money,” Ashley says. “If art takes me there, then okay.”

She has learned it’s a lot of paperwork. And marketing. And networking. And while it’s fun to envision a future of grandeur, she’s not expecting it – perhaps doesn’t even want it.

“You know, I think it crossed my mind what I was younger, ‘Maybe I want to be this famous artist,’ but now – I could care less about fame. I want to bring peace and beauty to people’s lives,” she says, earnest once again.

She also wants to bring hope to people’s lives, and attempts this through a “giving back promise.” Ashley donates a small percentage of sales at her shows to an organization she’d like to support. The exhibits in the Twin Cities have been tied with non-profit organizations mainly dedicated to helping at-risk youth. For her Decorah show, running from October 1 through 31at The Perfect Edge on Washington Street, Ashley has, we’re humbled to say, chosen Inspire(d) Media as the organization she’d like to support.

“I believe in what you’re doing and want to help if I can,” Ashley writes in an email after informing us of her choice. She’s also really excited to have her paintings in the town of her alma mater.

“I always hoped – and sort of knew – I’d do a Decorah show,” she says. “So many of my paintings are Decorah landscapes.”

In addition to the giving back promise, Ashley has a few other traditions tied to her work: She always picks a theme – the current show is entitled “From Darkness to Light,” inspired by the prayer of St. Francis ­– and she always hides a bible verse somewhere in each painting. Don’t get worked up – she isn’t really a beater of said bible – she just relates many of the verses to her experiences in nature: feelings of calm, peace, love, joy, beauty, change, and new life. It’s by translating these experiences to her paintings that she plans to change the world.

“If I can help someone feel a connection to the world around us and a sense of purpose in this life,” she writes, “then I know I have done right by my talent.”

Aryn Henning Nichols truly believes you can change the world with passion (the good kind) and positive actions. When she was 21, she said this to someone and they told her she’d just wasn’t jaded yet. It’s been a happy seven years in the so-called land of bunnies and unicorns. She’s not planning on leaving any time soon.

For more information and to check out some of Ashley’s art, visit artbyashleydull.com or stop by The Perfect Edge on Washington Street in Decorah from October 1 through 31.

Join us for an artist reception / Inspire(d) birthday party!

Help Ashley and Inspire(d) change the world – come to an artist reception October 16 at The Perfect Edge on Washington Street in downtown Decorah. Inspire(d) is TWO years old and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than with other people who are trying to make a difference. And if you’re not sold yet: they’re will be free food and drinks too!

Ashley’s Upcoming Artist Receptions

 October 11 Pax Christie Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota 10 am –12:30 pm
 October 16 The Perfect Edge, Decorah, Iowa, 5:30 – 8 pm (show running Oct.1 – 31)
 November 14  Kelley Frame & Fine Art Galleries, Hudson, Wisconsin
 November 20 Kelley Frame & Fine Art Galleries, Woodbury, Minnesota, time TBA