"Greetings from the Yellow Dog!" watercolors by Kathleen M. Heideman-Rydholm on exhibit through February in Marquette

MARQUETTE -- The exhibit "Greetings from the Yellow Dog!," featuring watercolor paintings of the Yellow Dog Plains by Kathleen M. Heideman-Rydholm, will be on display throughout February at Babycakes Muffin Co., 223 W. Washington St. in Marquette.

"Marsh Lake, Grassy Edge" (original watercolor) by Kathleen M. Heideman-Rydholm. Beavers stay busy, dredging bottom-muck from Marsh Lake. In several spots, their mud and sapling lodges lie exposed. The water has dropped many inches since spring, leaving the lower portion of the grassy hummocks visibly blackened. (Image © and courtesy Kathleen M. Heideman-Rydholm. Reprinted with permission.)

In her artist's statement Heideman writes, "These watercolors document the wild beauty of the Yellow Dog Plains of northwestern Marquette County, especially remote scenes connected to the historic "Bentley Trail" that once connected the McCormick Wilderness and the Huron Mountain Club. The Yellow Dog Plains are a unique and fragile ecosystem, a glacial outwash feature visible from satellite images, where jack pines grow taller and straighter than anywhere else, and rivers slope away to Lake Superior in all directions."

The artist notes her goal is seeing, painting details of the landscape and hoping to remember them.

"Just over the horizon, through trees draped with bearded lichen, Rio Tinto's Eagle Mine gnaws a hole in the fabric of this natural world," she adds. "Often my subject is fleeting -- spears of buttery sunlight, green shadows, rain dripping from pines, fog burning off a pond at dawn. I am trying to capture ephemeral details of weather and landscape, especially intersections of water and underlying geologies."

The watercolors in this exhibit were painted en plein air, Heideman notes, and are dedicated to the memory of her late father-in-law, C. Fred Rydholm.

Kathleen M. Heideman (photo, left) was named a 2011 fellow of The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, receiving a three-month artist residency in Taos. As a fellow of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, she worked with scientists at the South Pole, McMurdo science station and various remote field camps. In 2010, Heideman served as writer-in-residence with the Andrews Experimental Forest (OR), artist-in-residence at the Aspen Guard Station in the San Juan National Forest (CO), artist-in-residence at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge (WI) and artist-in-residence at Badlands National Park (SD).

She is also a poet and the author of two chapbooks: Explaining Pictures to a Dead Hare, and She Used to Have Some Cows; and a collaborative artist book, TimeUponOnce (MN Center for Book Arts).

Heideman is the Board Vice-President of Save the Wild U.P.

To see more of Heideman's work and read more about her, visit her Web site.

Babycakes Muffin Co. store hours are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. For information, visit babycakesmuffincompany.com, email kdcakes@aol.com or call 906.226.7744.