ABOVE: Martin County Historical Society Curator James Marushin and Executive Director Lenny Tvedten show Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council Executive Director Anna Pollock the new interactive room at the museum on Monday evening in fairmont. The art was done by Alexandra Hurney, and made possible by funding from the council.

FAIRMONT – Lobbying group Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA) chose Fairmont, along with Lanesboro and Rochester, to hear from locals about their art stories on Monday.

The event was helmed jointly by MCA, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council.

MCA Executive Director Sarah Fossen said with the Legacy Amendment providing funding for arts, the mission was to hear about the vitality that has come from the projects and people who are able to create and utilize art in Fairmont.

“We’re building the case every single year to renew legacy,” she said. “Telling us those kind of stories like, what is some of that secret sauce? What are things we wouldn’t see when we read your brochures?”

Red Rock Center for the Arts Director Sonja Fortune said they have been able to incorporate a lot of kids’ activities into the Memorial Day Picnic and an art stop at Christmastime.

“It seems like it’s always a happy place where people engage in the arts,” she said. “They’re never complaining or angry. It’s always a happy time to bring people together.”

Jeff Rouse and Alex Young-Williams spoke about the pig project, which was made possible via funding from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council.

“It was so nice that there was funding available for something like this,” Young-Williams said. “It allowed us to jump-start the project. It seems like a silly idea on the surface, and it took a lot of convincing.”

What was initially conceived as being 12-18 pigs grew into 101 throughout Martin County, including 74 in Fairmont.

Yvonne Cory, who’s originally from Martin County but now lives in Easton, shared her story of how funding has allowed her to pursue her fiber arts passions. After teaching for 32 years, she began working with the Faribault County Fair on their marketing and advertising.

It was here, when one of their artists of the day at the fair couldn’t make it, that she had an idea.

“Something twinkled in this brain up here and says, ‘You’ve got that tub sitting down in your basement,'” Cory said. “I have a now large collection of aprons, and I go out into different programs with the aprons and talk about the art, not only that, but I also have artistic aprons as well that I’ve exhibited.”

While it started by presenting her art at the fair around 20 years ago, Cory now has 2,000 aprons she has made and made art out of. It was her art on display at the Albert Lea Art Center when a car smashed into the front of the building. Commemorating the incident, Cory still has an apron with tire marks from when it happened.

Cory also took her time to encourage others to persevere if their grants are not accepted at first. She said hers had not been as well, but she was able to stick through it to make it where she is today, continuing to hold shows and grow her collection.

Fossen wrapped the event up by talking about MCA and the Legacy Amendment. She said Minnesota is the only state in the nation to have a Legacy Amendment fund for arts in this way, and MCA is the only statewide advocacy organization who works at the Capitol year-round for arts funding.

One of the things they worked hard on in the most recent session was the attempted ban on cadmium, which is used in several types of paints. MCA Lobbyist Joe Bagnoli ended the proceedings by acknowledging Representative Bjorn Olson and Senator Rich Draheim as having been big in saving cadmium and as advocates for the arts as a whole.

For more information on MCA, visit artsmn.org/. For more information on the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, visit plrac.org/.