It is our hope that this exhibition encourages your own artistic curiosity. We aim to lead with our hearts to promote inclusiveness, artistic creativity, and a greater understanding of our shared humanity.  – Wendy Savage and Alison Aune

Leading with Our Hearts: Nordic, Sami, and Ojibwe Designs from Nature exhibit opens on August 31, 2024, at the Vesterheim Museum. Ojibwe, Sámi, and Nordic artisans have always decorated domestic objects and ceremonial clothing with sacred patterns. Traditional arctic designs, woodland and garden flowers, vines, leaves, and berries symbolize a spiritual relationship with nature. Today, artists featured in this exhibition are preserving, reinterpreting, and revitalizing cultural patterns. They are exploring and honoring their cultural roots and ancestral traditions through art.  

The exhibition, first shown at the Nordic Center in Duluth, Minnesota, is curated by Wendy Savage (Duluth, Minnesota) and Alison Aune (Duluth, Minnesota). Participating artists are Alison Aune, Chi Ma’iingan (Cloquet, Minnesota), Laurel Sanders (Duluth, Minnesota), Wendy Savage, Dr. Lisa Savage (Binghamton, New York), and Marlene Wisuri (Duluth, Minnesota).