News from Big Stone Lake Stories Camp and Cornfest...

At Cornfest, camper, Nevaeh, shows the public how to sew their "special place" onto the big fabric "Land Markings" map.

It was a creative, busy time last week at Big Stone Lake Stories camp at Bonanza Education Center which mostly wrapped up on Friday, August 17th. Some of the campers also helped host the camp's booth with Big Stone Lake Arts Council on Saturday, August 18th at Cornfest in Lakeside Park in Ortonville. Here they demonstrated paper making with Don Sherman, and invited the public to participate in the interactive "Words for Water," and "Land Markings" artworks. Campers also joined Lee Kanten on stage during the Kanten Brothers set in the pavillion to share the songs they'd worked on all week with Lee at camp.

From left: Campers Breyden, Piper, Nevaeh, Zane, Caleb, and Addie, perform music with Lee Kanten at the annual meeting of Citizens for Big Stone Lake

Earlier Saturday, campers and team members presented the Big Stone Lake Stories project and performed music at the Citizens for Big Stone Lake annual meeting. The goal was to explore cooperation between concerned citizens and arts and youth groups in the common values they share around protecting Big Stone Lake.

...It's been hard to keep up with sharing the story each day since our days were jam-packed with art, science, and outdoor activities. We will be documenting the stories of all we did on this website, and letting you know about updates by Facebook over the coming weeks.

Please visit back to learn more.
Here are more photographs from Cornfest...

Artist, Don Sherman, explains how natural materials (including the invasive Curly Leaf Pond Weed!) can be integrated into handmade paper.

Camper, Cayden brings his little brother to see how he learned to make paper.

A visitor shares her "word for water" as she pours water from the nearby Big Stone Lake into the vessel. The water combines with water campers have poured from the tap at the sink at Bonanza Education Center, and the water they collected at Lake Traverse.

A visitor to the booth is interested to see the Continental Divide (shown in orange on the map). The glacial history of this area is one of the things that attracted him to move here.

A visitor ties the red thread to mark a place he cares about after first making the stitch with a needle. No fingers were injured during this two-sided stitching activity.