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If she’d been born a musician, then Cadence Eischens would no doubt be writing songs for i-Tunes or YouTube spreading an activist message about conservation. But, she’s a photographer.  So she uses images, to show people just how key it is to support all things in the natural world.

Eischens’ photos are the backbone of an exhibit opening next week, March 21, at Hallberg Center for the Arts that serves a dual purpose.  It is a capstone project required to complete  her senior year in an on-line school. You are also going to learn something about small farms and monarch butterflies’ interconnectedness.

Monarchs are like Minnesota’s unofficial mascot and small farms are part of the scenery in the Chisago County area, so the obvious relationship between the endangered butterfly species and nature was right outside Eischens’ backdoor.

In talking about her experiences in the web-based school of some 112 students Eischens explained that the students may work independently on the Internet,  but they get together regularly at a metro-area hotel and do activities, including presentations on projects before a school council.  

She has observed that while creating art can be gratifying in and of itself, “half of art is sharing.”   She looks forward to having interested exhibit-goers at the opening night presentation, at the arts center, from 4 to 8 p.m.  Each photo station will have an informative text with it, so you are welcome to wander at your own speed, or you can hear the whole project described when she gives what she promised will be a brief speech during the opening March 21

The capstone project is going to be in the lower level and Eischens shares the center with the “Brush and Needle” show, upstairs, featuring painter Susan Amot and fiber art of Shirl Chouinard.

Eischens explained that the  in depth capstone experience began with monarch-raising starting in May 2018.  By January 2019 she had a successful butterfly release, the photos and the substantiating data and a write-up ready to go.  

She got the okay to post it all in the Hallberg Center, at 5521 East Viking Boulevard, in Wyoming, owned and operated by the Wyoming Area Creative Arts Community. (WACAC)

So, why photography, she was asked.

As an art form it is so very portable, you can carry a camera with you anywhere.  Eischens continued,  “I’m really interested in exploring,” and  when you are mobile photography works.  She just experienced an ecological- educational   adventure in the Everglades.  

This arts center program  will be hanging until April 13.



 





 

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