Olivia Hoppe to exhibit work made from natural materials at Bird Island Cultural Center – West Central Tribune

MILTONA — On her property near Miltona, Olivia Hoppe is surrounded not only by inspiration, but also by the materials she uses to create her artwork. From gourds to animal bones to bark to wasp nests, Hoppe has found uses for many different objects.

“I just try to be as self-sufficient as possible, using what I have,” Hoppe said. “I don’t know a better way to describe it.”

His art collection will be on display at the Bird Island Cultural Center from September 6 to 26. An artist reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on September 6.

“I like the connections between things,” Hoppe said. “It all feels like a big canvas.”

A painted sculpture made from a squash by Olivia Hoppe.JPG — From a dried squash, Olivia Hoppe created a painted sculpture, blending surrealism and nature to create something one of a kind.

Hoppe grew up in Aitkin and from a young age loved art. Her father, a craftsman like himself, would bring home interesting materials from which Hoppe and her sister would create.

“He would tell my sister and me to figure out how to make something, to take things apart,” Hoppe says.

As a child, she loved to draw and paint and even dabbled in leather. Hoppe said she took as many art classes as she could in school and later studied art at the University of Brainerd.

Hoppe moved to the Miltona area about 14 years ago. She and her husband live on a plot of land where they farm and operate a small sawmill. They live in close contact with nature, and Hoppe finds or grows much of the materials she uses in her artwork on the property.

“It’s a bit of a jungle,” Hoppe says of her garden, where she grows a multitude of different plants. Everything is grown organically.

The garden includes her squashes, which she uses in her art. Once she harvests them after the frost, she lets them air dry. The inside of a squash is mostly water, so while it may take several months to fully dry, in the end, she’ll just have to scoop out the seeds and give them a quick clean.

Hoppe has used squash in many of her works. Sometimes, what she creates is inspired by the shape of the squash. She creates painted sculptural pieces using an entire squash, while other times, she takes pieces of squash and uses them as a canvas for a painting.

“I love squash,” said Hoppe, who has always loved ceramics but doesn’t have the equipment or supplies to do it. Squash is almost a natural substitute for making pottery. “Squash works.”

The garden is also where Hoppe experiments with different plants. This year, she is trying to grow cotton, a normally tropical plant. The fibers used to make cotton fabric are the covering around cotton seeds, found in the boils that form after the plant flowers. By mid-August, Hoppe had flowers on the plants.

Olivia Hoppe near her squash field.JPG — Olivia Hoppe grows all the squash she uses in her creations. In a few months, that mass of green will be a pile of squash just waiting to be transformed into works of art.

“Maybe I can make paper,” she said, if she can harvest some fiber.

Hoppe also enjoys creating art from materials she finds. She makes ink from black walnuts, creates containers and decorative objects from birch bark she harvests herself, and digs through the sawmill’s woodpile to see if there are any unique pieces she can use. On a trip to Lake Superior, Hoppe ended up stuffing her sweatshirt with small pieces of driftwood, which she turned into dreamcatchers.

A painting of owls by Olivia Hoppe.JPG — Owls are one of artist Olivia Hoppe’s favorite animals. In this work, she used brown ink that she made herself from black walnuts she harvested.

“Anything I find interesting,” Hoppe said.

His latest creation involves using flattened wasp nests, made of a paper-like material, and using them as a canvas for painting and drawing. Each wasp nest is unique and has different colors, depending on what the wasps have eaten. It’s just another unexpected material Hoppe uses for art.

It was just a few years ago that Hoppe began exhibiting her work at art galleries and craft events across the state. The first was a gallery in Alexandria and earlier this year she exhibited in New Ulm. Hoppe said she just started looking for places to exhibit her work.

Birch bark containers by Olivia Hoppe.JPG — Olivia Hoppe harvests birch bark from trees around her home and then makes objects like containers from it.

“I thought I might as well give it a try,” Hoppe said.

When people see his work, Hoppe hopes it will inspire them to find inventive ways to use the materials and supplies they already have in their environment. In an age where everything seems disposable, Hoppe wants to show what can be made from what already exists in nature.

“You have to reuse things,” Hoppe said. “It’s a good thing to be able to reuse and repurpose them.”

A bone painted by Olivia Hoppe.JPG — Olivia Hoppe likes to take materials that most people might throw away, like this cow bone, and make art out of them.

Shelby Lindrud is a reporter for the West Central Tribune in Willmar. Her areas of interest include arts and entertainment, agriculture, feature writing and the Kandiyohi County Council.

You can contact her by email at [email protected] or directly at 320-214-4373.