‘Fire in the Village’ Tour Makes Printmaking Pit Stop in Bemidji

A group of artists in rural Minnesota decided to band together and create a music, culture, and arts collective called Fire in the Village.

“Fire in the Village is kind of a response to a loneliness epidemic that’s going on nationally,” said David Huckfelt, Fire in the Village Music Director and performer. “The disconnection facilitated by social media and the politics of the present moment.”

“Our faces are stuck in screens way too much, and you don’t need to be creative, and you don’t need to go experience things because you can just look in your palm,” stated Fire in the Village Co-Founder Annie Humphrey. “It’s become a comfortable disease.”

The group was in Bemidji over the past weekend hosting a printmaking pop-up at Headwaters Music and Arts.

“We teach people how to make simple block prints on fabric,” explained Fire in the Village artist and Co-Founder Shanai Matteson. “We use the image of aandeg, or the crow, that’s kind of the emblem for Fire in the Village. Rather than it being really prescriptive, everyone’s invited to collage together their own image, and it’s really cool to see the creativity and the different ways that people express themselves, even with just a little square of fabric.”

And although there’s art to do and music to listen to, there’s so much more meaning behind doing these pop-ups than just putting together some crafts.

“It was elders and parents and little children, and they were all like, creating and having fun and talking and and that’s the space that we want to create,” emphasized Humphrey. “We want to create that kind of place where we have this intergenerational sharing and creativity and inspiration. It’s not about anything else but that.”

To the Fire in the Village collective, it doesn’t matter if they don’t reach a huge number of people, only that they can make an actual difference to a few.

“You care about the people in your family, in your town, in your region,” added Huckfelt. “And so this organization is rooted in the upper Midwest with these small little fires in small villages where, you know, we can hear ourselves think and I can hear what you’re saying and you can hear the songs. And we all practice listening together around the fire.”

There are six stops left on the tour, with the next one happening in Brainerd at the Gichi-Ziibi Center for the Arts this Friday at 6 p.m.. There will be a printmaking pop-up as well as a music performance and fashion show.