MILTONA — At the property where she lives near Miltona, Olivia Hoppe is surrounded by not only the inspiration but also the materials she uses to create her art pieces. From gourds to animal bones to bark and wasp nests, Hoppe has found a use for many different items.
“I’m just trying to be as self-sufficient as I can, using what I have,” Hoppe said. “I don’t know a better way of describing it.”
Her art collection will be on display at the
from Sept. 6 to Sept. 26. An artist reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 6.
“I like connections between things,” Hoppe said. “It is all a big web.”
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
Hoppe grew up in Aitkin, and from childhood she loved art. Her father, a fellow artisan, would bring home interesting materials and from it Hoppe and her sister would create.
“He would tell me and my sister to figure how to make something, to take stuff apart,” Hoppe.
She loved to draw and paint as a child and even tried her hand at using leather. Hoppe said she took as many art classes as she could in school and went on to study art in college in 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 run a small sawmill. They live close with nature and Hoppe either finds or grows much of the materials she uses in art on the property.
“It is a little bit of a jungle,” Hoppe said of her garden where she grows a mass of different plants. It is all organically grown.
The garden includes her gourds, which she uses in her art. Once she harvests the gourds after frost, she allows them to air dry. The inside of a gourd is mostly water, so while it takes several months for the drying to finish, by the end she will only have to remove the seeds and give them a quick cleaning.
Hoppe has used gourds in a lot of her art. Sometimes what she makes is inspired by the shape of the gourd. She makes painted sculptural pieces using an entire gourd, while other times she takes pieces of gourds and uses them as a canvas for a painting.
“I like gourds,” Hoppe said, who has always loved ceramics but doesn’t have the equipment and supplies to do it. Gourds are almost a natural replacement for making pottery. “Gourds work.”
The garden is also where Hoppe experiments with different plants. This year she is trying to grow cotton, normally a tropical plant. The fibers that are used to make cotton fabric are the covering around the cottonseeds, found in the boils that form after the plant flowers. By mid-August Hoppe did have blooms on the plants.
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
“Maybe I can make paper,” she said, if she can harvest fiber.
Hoppe also enjoys making art from materials she finds. She makes ink out of black walnuts, creates containers and decor items from birch bark she harvests herself and picks through the sawmill’s wood pile to see if there are any unique pieces that she can use. During a trip to Lake Superior, Hoppe ended up filling her sweatshirt full of small driftwood pieces that she made into a dream catcher.
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
“Anything I find interesting,” Hoppe said.
Her newest creation has been using flattened-out wasp nests, which are made of a paper-like material, and using them as a canvas for paintings and drawings. Each wasp nest is unique with different colors, depending on what the wasps have been eating. It is just another unexpected material that Hoppe uses for art.
It was only a few years ago that Hoppe started showing her creations at art galleries and craft events across the state. The first was a gallery in
and earlier this year she showcased in New Ulm. Hoppe said she just started looking for places to show her work at.
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
“I thought I might as well try it,” Hoppe said.
When people see her work, Hoppe hopes it inspires them to find inventive ways to use materials and supplies they already have in their surrounding environments. In an age when it seems everything is disposable, Hoppe wants to showcase what can be made using what is already in nature.
“Repurpose things,” Hoppe said. “It’s good to reuse and repurpose.”
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
