DULUTH — Storm clouds skittered across the sky June 28 as Annie Hejny met a reporter and photographer at a Minnesota Point beach. The artist was ready for the weather, stepping out of her hatchback wearing a blue rain suit and well-fitting cap.
You have to be prepared for anything when you set out to experience the full shoreline of Lake Superior, and Hejny had just completed a circuit. It will serve as the basis for an upcoming multimedia show expanding on her practice as a painter known for working with water.
Clint Austin / Duluth News Tribune
"It was a journey that was beautiful, and it was challenging," said Hejny while warming up afterward at Caribou Coffee in Canal Park. "I'm still trying to understand what it's all meant to me."
After a short sojourn in Duluth, the artist would return to her Minneapolis studio to begin the yearlong process of creating a body of work inspired by her 24-day journey around the lake's perimeter. She has a deadline: The Kolman and Reeb Gallery has slated a fall 2024 solo show for Hejny.
The gallery, based in Minneapolis' Northrup King Building, provided grant funding for the project. Hejny also hopes to display her work at venues along the Lake Superior shore, but doesn't have any confirmed Northland shows to announce yet. "It should also really be seen up here," she said about her forthcoming work.
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We all have different water experiences. Some people, it's love and joy, positive memories. For some people, water is a challenging place and it's maybe scary or not comfortable.
Annie Hejny, artist
Contributed / Annie Hejny
Though the Mahtomedi, Minnesota-raised Hejny painted cityscapes during her college years at the University of St. Thomas, she found herself increasingly drawn to water when she moved to the lakeside city of Chicago after her 2012 graduation.
"There was a time of starting to go to (Lake Michigan) and having that as my outlet and as my source of inspiration," she said. "Having these cities on a lake, there's a contrast, but there's also a comfort."
Contributed / Annie Hejny
Around 2016, Hejny began the series of work for which she's become best known. To create pieces in her water series, she blends acrylic paint with water from specific sources in the natural world.
As she applies the mixture to canvas, a painting comes to evoke water as seen from above, with flowing gradations of hue and texture — the latter typically supplemented by sediment.
The pieces tend to draw strong emotional reactions, said the artist. "We all have different water experiences," she said. "Some people, it's love and joy, positive memories. For some people, water is a challenging place and it's maybe scary or not comfortable."
Joy and challenge often go hand-in-hand on Lake Superior, a freshwater lake with conditions that demand it be respected as a sea.
Contributed / Annie Hejny
"It's so expansive. It feels like it goes on and on," said Hejny. "But there's another shoreline on the other side. What does it look like to be on the other shoreline looking back?"
Hejny expects to create new water paintings based on her journey, but also to delve into other media. "I'm ready to break into something new," she said. "If I could have Lake Superior be the inspiration to help me break out and break through into something new, that would be amazing."
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She headed back to Minneapolis with 11 gallons of water from various points around the lake, "and some sediments or rocks from most of those places as well," she said. In addition to those physical materials, she captured digital files.
"I was using a GoPro camera and taking in cinematic-level videos," she said. "Really trying to get in and under the water — ways of documentation that I haven't been able to do before."
Contributed / Annie Hejny
Hejny expects her 2024 show will include both paintings and videos, but the documentation isn't only for public display — it's part of her process, in which she mentally revisits the water's source as she creates her paintings.
Though the connection between body of water and body of work is literal in the form of the physical materials used, it's not pictorially representative. Don't expect to look at one of Hejny's paintings and see, for example, a recognizable shoreline. Instead, the artist represents the water's source through a more abstract, emotion-driven method.
"It's the way that I go through my pouring technique, reflecting back on seeing that water movement," she explained. "It's often through color choices I use, and how much light and dark contrast I have in a painting. Colors can evoke emotions, and so not all of my water paintings are blue or green."
Clint Austin / Duluth News Tribune
Hejny shares her practice with others through avenues including commissioned paintings, which sometimes involve bringing patrons to shorelines "and showing them how I spend time with water and what it actually means to collect the water," she said.
She is also a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide, leading groups through a deliberate "sequence of invitations" that help them connect with nature in a trauma-informed manner emphasizing personal choice. Forest bathing, as one such practice is known, is "a way to get out of our heads and into our bodies," said Hejny.
In late June, the artist was still coming back into her head, as it were, after a lake circuit during which she camped out on most nights. "Where I'm at right now is just processing some of those things," she said.
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Clint Austin / Duluth News Tribune
"Even just the basic (concerns) like, 'Oh no, my tire,'" Hejny continued. "Like, 'Oh, it's pouring rain, where do I go?' Or the wildfire smoke, needing to be adaptable. But also the immense, stunning, almost shocking beauty and amazing sights that I would be able to go and immerse in."
To learn more about Annie Hejny and her work, see anniehejny.com.
Arts and entertainment reporter Jay Gabler joined the Duluth News Tribune in 2022. His previous experience includes eight years as a digital producer at The Current (Minnesota Public Radio), four years as theater critic at Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages, and six years as arts editor at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. He's a co-founder of pop culture and creative writing blog The Tangential; he's also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Minnesota Film Critics Alliance. You can reach him at jgabler@duluthnews.com or 218-279-5536.
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