We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kris Frykman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kris thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear stories from your time in school/training/etc.

In the late 70s, early 80s I was one of the only women in art school that was taking foundry and welding courses. I loved the physical process of manipulating wax into a form, building a mold, casting bronze and iron sculptures. Same too, the physicality of shape shifting metal and reconfiguring materials into a welded sculpture proved rewarding. I first discovered my interest in the arts when my 6th grade class took a field trip to see a retrospect of Vincent van Gogh’s work at the San Francisco Museum of modern art. It wasn’t until I moved to MN in 9th grade, a week after classes had begun, that I ended up in an art class. On the encouragement of my art teacher, I submitted three artworks into the high school literary art magazine. All three submissions were accepted. I later was on the high school literary art magazine staff combing my love of the arts and writing. Prior to high school, I had no formal training in art. Thankful to have been introduced to welding by my high school art teacher as that sparked my interest in exploring art more formally in college where I earned a BFA in sculpture and painting.

As we all know, teachers have the power to influence their students through their passion of subject matter, nurturing support, and encouragement. Therefore, when a college professor asked me as an undergraduate student to show my work at an art gallery with him and other artists, this was affirming. So, too, was it affirming being asked to train other students in foundry work or lead a bronze or iron pours as an undergraduate student.

After graduating with a BFA and working low paying jobs in tile design, as a sculpture assistant, photography manager, advertising and publishing, I decided to go back for an art education degree so I could teach K-12 art. During my time as a K-12 art teacher, I received training by the MN Counselor’s Association to facilitate support groups using art and writing with K-12 students. For 11 years, while I taught K-12 art, I offered students, identified at risk, healing art support and counsel. I continued to pursue my knowledge and skill set in art therapy.

By 2003 I had state training to facilitate crisis counseling support groups for all ages and had earned a degree in Written and Visual Storytelling (art therapy). My practicum experience was through over 16 years facilitating art therapy support groups for trauma survivors and for those living with chronic or terminal illness. By this time, too, I was teaching at Metropolitan State University where I continue to teach today. Beginning in February of ’22, I also began facilitating healing art workshops, known as Story Portraits, through the Suicide Survivor’s Club (SSC).

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

ARTIST

As an artist, I am interested in portraying a sense of visual sound. I am influenced by sounds and shapes of music and nature. I wish I had musical talent to compose the sound I feel and see in the work that emerges. Musical instruments, particularly the guitar shape in its human-like abstracted body, frets, and all, visually appear in much of my painted work. As far as my recent sculptures, I have worked with driftwood with the goal of making driftwood forms appear floating in space to give the viewer a lyrical sense of rhythm and movement. The fact that driftwood has already transformed [fallen branches once pulsing with life, now dead, floats off to sea and later onto a shore], sets the stage for continued transformation. I transport the driftwood from its original geographical location (the north shore in MN) to a new location.

In June 2020, amidst the Covid pandemic, I loaded my car with a ladder, driftwood, filament and supplies to set up an 1/8 of mile long installation in the Solana State Forest (located in McGregor, MN) along the Blueberry Trail just beyond the Shire in the Wood’s cabins. Just me, my ladder, supplies, mosquitoes, and horseflies, I set out to shape shift the experience of one hiking in the forest with floating driftwood arching over the hiking path and secured in fluid momentum along the Blueberry trail. Poems were left on both dissolvable paper and on permanent signage. The piece is about the connections one makes in nature and the loss when these connections break or shift over time (which the sculpture installation, with the variables of nature, will invite continued transformation). As we enter our fourth year with Covid, we all are aware of the transformative shift of our own connections through visible isolation, illness, and loss.

Wrapped driftwood ─wrapped in a pattern of wax colored thread─ offers a storytelling quality to the woven wood. I have recently found this form of weaving and wrapping wax thread with driftwood pure joy, especially seeing what story needs to emerge from the driftwood attire.

TEACHING

In my childhood years, I lined up my stuffed animals and regularly taught them whatever subject we wanted to talk about. My passion for teaching and sharing the gift of learning was, perhaps, a calling, set in motion, from a young age. Of course, teachers made a huge impact on me from my third and fifth grade teachers who would write to me when I moved to another state to the teachers who set in motion my love of learning, my love of writing, and my love of the arts.

While in college, I was invited to teach and mentor other students through foundry work. After college, I was called to give trainings to others in advertising sales and photography. Then I felt the call to go back to school to earn my teaching degree. After 11 years teaching K-12 students, I chose to go back to school once again as my interest in art therapy and writing expanded. For the last 22 years I have been teaching at Metropolitan State University. I have taught Written and Visual Communication, Writing About Art, Written and Visual Storytelling as Healing Art, Art History courses, Advanced Writing, Writing for Nursing Students, Creative Writing, and graduate level courses in the master’s in liberal arts program.

HEALING ART FACILITATOR

While teaching K-12 in the Anoka-Hennepin school district in MN, I received training from MN Counselors Association to facilitate support groups for K-12 students identified as “at risk.” With guided prompts, students would be led into a visual exercise and later invited to talk about what they created. The images could often speak for the students, when words were not initially available. In other words, through the use of images, colors, shapes, marks, a visual story emerged that the student was able to visually access and begin talking about within the safe, respectful, support group setting.

After 11 year of teaching K-12 art, I felt called to pursue a study of art therapy through written and visual storytelling. My passion for the arts, writing, counseling, all came together. While teaching courses at Metropolitan State University, I was also getting practicum experience in crisis counseling and facilitating art therapy workshops at the Sexual Violence Center. Additionally, I engaged with local organizations that fostered healing art within the community, later offering workshops in hospital settings and at Pathways of MN, Inc, a place in Minneapolis, MN that offers free services for participants living with a chronic or terminal illness.

While continuing my teaching at Metropolitan State University, I have combined my love of teaching, the arts, writing, while facilitating healing arts support workshops through the Suicide Survivor’s Club (SSC), too.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

Without a doubt, I would choose the same professions. My life experiences, in part, have influenced my call to facilitate learning, insights; and, to also provide workshops for well-being where personal healing can manifest — while at the same time nurturing my own art and writing, too.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Hope is a word I like when describing the resilient spirit. I believe that those who have endured trauma (whether it be in childhood, from assaults, illness, etc.) and/or witnessed trauma, have found their way to grow, stronger like a flower that emerges from an otherwise dead log, as an example. In other words, one has synthesized and worked toward releasing their trauma experience(s) to become heightened in empathy, insight and determination. Keeping a closed lid on family secrets, the ebb and flow of love with verbal abuse, abandonment, emotional abuse, where a child hopes to be recognized, seen, consistently treated kindly was an influential drive, for me, to be kind, hard-working, dedicated, caring, with the concern of helping others to be seen and witnessed where they are at on their respective life journey. Celebrating the wisdom from the Dalai Lama “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

Contact Info:

• Other: suicidesurvivorsclub.org

Image Credits
-Kris Frykman