Join us online with the artists of Leading With Our Hearts: Nordic, Sami, and Ojibwe Designs from Nature! 

Alison Aune, Chi Ma’iingan, Laurel Sanders, Wendy Savage, Dr. Lisa Savage, and Marlene Wisuri will talk about the contributions to the exhibit and the cultural and ancestral roots of their work in textiles, wood, and paint.

Register for a link to this free online event here.

More about the artists:

Alison Aune (Duluth, Minnesota)
Influenced by her experiences as an art professor and interest in and study of ancestral Nordic folk art, textile patterns, and historical artifacts, Alison creates contemporary pattern-filled and color-rich paintings depicting individuals, symbolic artifacts, and floral imagery.

Chi Ma’iingan (Cloquet, Minnesota)
A former Chief of Police for the Fond du Lac Reservation, Chi Ma’iingan is a designer and maker of contemporary fabric-appliquéd Ojibwe regalia. As described on his website, he is “an Ojibwe artist rooted in tradition and heritage.”

Laurel Sanders (Duluth, Minnesota)
Laurel is an art educator and recipient of a 2024 American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship to study Sámi band-weaving in Norway. She and her daughter Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes, a renowned Ojibwe craftswoman, study ancestral band-weaving techniques and its history and place in Ojibwe, Sámi, and Nordic cultures. Laurel is a board member of the Sámi Cultural Center of North America in Duluth.

Wendy Savage (Duluth, Minnesota)
An art educator and contemporary Ojibwe artist, Wendy’s historical and nature-inspired creative work includes, for example, paint and fabric creations. She delights in sharing the stories embedded in her grounded-in-nature artwork, literally and figuratively. Since 1982, she has been working to bring back fabric appliqué techniques, particularly in skirt form creations.

Lisa Savage (Binghamton, New York)
Lisa and Wendy Savage are sisters. Lisa presently focuses most of her time with her work as a neuroscientist. The handbag she created and lent to Leading with Our Hearts is an example of her beading artistry and connection to her Ojibwe ancestry and traditions.

Marlene Wisuri (Duluth, Minnesota)
Marlene, an author, photographer, and Director of the Sámi Cultural Center of North America in Duluth, has Finnish-Sámi heritage. Her work is anchored in historic context and expressed through a contemporary lens. The exhibition includes her manipulated and mirrored digital scrolls printed on silk.

This exhibit is made possible by a generous gift to the Vesterheim Annual Fund in loving memory of Floy Anderson Sauey by her daughters.

Commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the first organized emigration of Norwegians to the United States with Vesterheim in 2025! The single-masted sloop, Restauration, left Stavanger on July 4, 1825, with 52 people on board and landed in New York Harbor on October 9, 1825.

Vesterheim joins Crossings, a group of Norwegian-American organizations, to commemorate this anniversary with programming inspired by the strong connections between the people of Norway and the United States. Whether you have Norwegian roots or an interest in Scandinavian traditions, we invite you to join Vesterheim’s special programs, exhibitions, and classes to share the history and traditions of Norwegian Americans.