Bill Mitchell, Loop 1
Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center
54165 Audubon Drive, Sandstone, MN 55072
Loop 1 straddles the periphery of forest where trees communicate and grassland where soil is alive and all things are interconnected. This installation helps illustrate the interconnectedness of different land types, highlighting the edge between the two as a place that is shared and thriving. The segmented infinity loop speaks also to resources, production, process and a closed loop system. We live with systems of extraction, use, and disposal. This work aims to consider ways of thinking differently about resources and waste. The burned ends of the structure are a more direct comment on our current climate crisis from wildfires to carbon emissions. Yet it is also about renewal, the land regenerating as it knows what to do, we just need to pay closer attention. The large scale can be visible from a distance and up close, it highlights the expansive scale of the environment relative to the human form. The structure is roughly 100’ by 30’ x 4’ high and will adjust and contour to the site grade. It is supported by dual rebar/cedar supports. Fabricated from locally sourced, milled and solar kiln dried eastern redcedar. the piece makes use of an overlooked resource. There is no waste in nature, everything has use and purpose. To look and think differently how we interface with the land, how we use resources and how we live in harmony, or not, with all other living things, is a central component of the work.
Bill Mitchell is an artist living and working in Lancaster, Wisconsin, exhibiting regionally and nationally. A Chicago transplant (2012), he currently heads Rountree Gallery in Platteville, Wisconsin, a community run non-profit gallery with regional and national exhibits. His involvement with non-profit art organizations goes back three decades with Chicago Artist Coalition and Windy City Arts, while also assisting for-profit galleries Oskar Friedl and Vedanta with exhibitions, including Chicago Art Expo. Bill studied illustration, design and ultimately painting, and received a BFA and MFA with teaching assistantship from Northern Illinois University in 1993. As a landscape designer, his work has been featured in publications including Fine Gardening, Chicago Home & Garden, ILASLA and more. In addition, he has taught landscape design at Northwestern University Continuing Studies and has been a presenter at several garden conferences. Bill lives on a small farm with his wife Angie, three miniature donkeys, and numerous cats and chickens.
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Osprey Wilds is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) residential environmental learning center, conference & retreat center nestled on the shores of Grindstone Lake in east-central Minnesota. Our mission is to instill a connection and commitment to the environment in people of all communities through experiential learning. Our vision is a healthy planet where all people live in balance with the earth.
The land that Osprey Wilds resides on was home to the Anishinabe or Ojibwe Indian people. The US Government made an agreement with the Ojibwe in 1834 that allowed non-Indian people to live in this area. This land was purchased in 1898 by Dr. Arnold Schwyzer, a prominent St. Paul surgeon. Portions of the forest were logged prior to the Hinckley Fire (1894), and the land was farmed during the first half of the twentieth century.
In 1968, the Audubon Center of the North Woods (ACNW) was established following a bequest of 535 acres by Dr. Marguerite Schwyzer to the National Audubon Society, who then transferred the land to the ACNW. In 1971, the first director was hired and our educational mission began.
Between 1971 and 2020, ACNW educated over 220,000 K12 youth, college, graduate, family, Road Scholar, and community participants, through formal and informal education programs, about the environment and our relationships to it.
Since 2004, the Center has been committed to reducing our carbon footprint through an extensive program of renewable energy.
In January 2020, the ACNW formally changed its name to Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center.