Project Overview
Join us on July 25 to celebrate the recovery of Long Lake, a shallow water lake that has moved from an F grade to a B+ over the past decade. Long Lake, historically turbid and impaired by excess nutrients, is healing—quietly, steadily, through resilience and stewardship. We hope you will spend some time with us surrounding its waters, exploring the ecology of water, plant, biome, and our relationship therein. Together with the communities around the Lake, the city of Stillwater, and our Brown’s Creek Watershed biologists and leaders, three artists will activate the space around Long Lake and invite you in to see your watershed with new eyes—perhaps understanding what is already happening beneath the surface of the waters and within ourselves.
Meet the Artists
Jennifer Awes Freeman | Plants, Paper, and Printmaking
Jennifer Awes Freeman is a multimedia artist, educator, and scholar whose work explores ritual, materiality, gender, and history. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Minnesota, Connecticut, and Tennessee. She serves as Director of the Gallery and Collection at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis and teaches medieval art history at the University of Minnesota. Her recent publications include The Good Shepherd: Image, Meaning, and Power (2021) and The Ashburnham Pentateuch and its Contexts: The Trinity in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (2022).
For Still Water, Living Lake, Jennifer will lead Plants, Paper, and Printmaking, a hands-on activity exploring Long Lake’s aquatic ecology through natural pigments and printmaking. Participants will create marbled papers in blue and green hues inspired by the interplay of water and algae, and experiment with linocut stamps featuring native aquatic plants such as pondweed and white water-lily.
Follow Jennifer’s work: @awesfreeman
Playdoh Kolo | Watershed Puppets
Playdoh Kolo is a New Orleans-based puppeteer and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores found materials, water ecologies, and participatory performance. Their practice transforms discarded and natural materials into sculptural and animated forms that examine relationships between people, landscapes, and systems of accumulation. They are the creator of Riperion, an ongoing puppet performance project rooted in the Mississippi River and Gulf South waterways, where salvaged objects become “Piano Creatures” navigating shifting floodplain environments. Kolo’s work emphasizes accessibility, collaboration, and site-responsive making, inviting communities to actively participate in the creation and activation of the work.
For Still Water, Living Lake, Playdoh will lead Watershed Puppets, a drop-in workshop where participants create small “lake beings” using natural and reclaimed materials. Drawing inspiration from the ecology of Long Lake, participants will assemble puppets from found materials and bring them to life through collaborative play, creating scenes, characters, and stories that reflect the living systems and shared imagination of the watershed.
Sharon Mansur | tracings: a creative walk along Long Lake
Sharon Mansur is a dance and interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and community engager based in Winona, Minnesota, on Dakota homelands. A facilitator of movement, people, spaces, and imaginations, her creative practice integrates dance, improvisation, somatics, visual installations, film, and site-responsive projects that have been shared throughout the United States and internationally. In 2023, she initiated tracings, an ongoing creative walking project that explores walking as an artistic and embodied practice. Sharon also facilitates The Cedar Tree Project, presenting Arab/SWANA contemporary artists, and SHIFT~, a series of experimental performance salons.
For Still Water, Living Lake, Sharon will lead tracings: a creative walk along Long Lake, a series of small-group experiences inviting participants to slow down and connect with the natural environment through movement, observation, mindfulness, and creative writing. This gentle, approximately 0.3-mile walk follows a flat wooded path along the lake, with pauses to engage the body, imagination, and landscape through guided prompts and moments of reflection. Suitable for walkers of all levels, the experience offers an opportunity to cultivate curiosity, wonder, and a deeper appreciation for this unique place within our community.
Learn more at www.mansurdance.com or follow Sharon on Instagram @mansurdancer and Facebook at Sharon Mansur.