A Labor of Love

Engaging the Past with the Present... For the Future

Having roots in interior design, architecture and natural resource management, Amy Nash has an unbridled wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm that’s infectious. She’s established herself as a local leader in sustainable planning and an ambassador for downtown Fargo. Her drive to improve North Dakota’s built environment through mindful urban design and sustainability leaves people feeling inspired and proud to call the Midwest home!

Nash, a proud Bison, graduated with interior design, environmental design and architecture degrees from NDSU, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in natural resources management. Her business, ALNSustainable Design and Consulting, LLC., offers services ranging from residential design to urban planning, although Nash said her practice gravitates towards renovation and sustainability consulting. Throughout her work she found her true passion of sustainability connected to historic preservation. “I love anything where I can take the majesty of what’s already there, enhance it and give it another life. What’s more sustainable than that?” Each project is always a collaborative effort with the end result having a much lighter ecological footprint.

In terms of the built environment, the common mentality in the Midwest is newer is always better. Through a continuous re-education process from stewards like Nash, mindsets are slowly turning around. A perfect example is the excitement surrounding the enhancements planned in

BY JESSI LARSON SKYLOFT PHOTOGRAPHY

the historic downtown Fargo district. Historic preservation has become a form of storytelling with designers and architects playing the teller. Renewing an original ghost sign, or uncovering a brick wall read as chapters of a book. It takes a keen eye to revive these “stories” of the past, but when it’s done just right, the result is vibrant. “When people start seeing those stories of a building’s lifetime, they start gravitating towards it and wanting more,” Nash gushes.

She went on to say she’s always loved this vibrancy downtown encompasses and wanted to become even more involved. So during the summer of 2011, she took a courageous leap back into the intern world. Cue the Downtown Community Partnership (DCP). “I called up Mike Hahn from the DCP and asked if they needed any extra help, and the rest is history.” While volunteering many hours of her time researching other downtown districts and business improvement districts she became hooked. “I got bit by the downtown bug,” she admits. Through all her hard work, Nash has become the DCP’s Sustainability Coordinator.

Amy’s first project at the DCP was research. “I began researching large urban areas as well as peer cities to see what we can implement here in Fargo.” The DCP, under Amy’s lead, engaged community members and business owners to get feedback on what improvements they wanted in their district as part of a Business Improvement District (BID). This data aided the DCP in focusing on multiple efforts with environmental, social and economic sustainability in mind. Two notable projects planned are an ecological tree walk utilizing our green spaces and the City of Fargo’s first on-street recycling effort. Other programs include building databases, energy efficiency programs and other sustainable built-environment improvements.

In April of 2012, Amy, along with other DCP staff, Mike Hahn and Jed Pahan, attended the

National Main Streets Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The conference focuses on innovative techniques to spark economic development and help communities survive downturns through diversity and thinking sustainably. “We went up to New York City where I noticed many parallels between their dense urban environment and downtown Fargo, just on a much different scale. You look at New York City and they have art museums, theaters, college campuses, and historic churches and we have all of that here. It was like our little downtown smashed into the heart of New York City. It made me appreciate the Fargo vitality even more,” Nash said. She’s not only working in Fargo, but also on collaborative efforts in Ohio, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

Of all the great opportunities Nash has received thus far in her career, one of the milestones was being the first North Dakotan selected to attend the Clinton Global Initiative in Washington D.C. in 2012 and again in 2013. Twelve hundred community leaders from around the world gathered to brainstorm and share their solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Dignitaries included the likes of Madeleine Albright, environmental activist, Vandana Shiva, and of course, Bill Clinton. “There is nothing like shaking the hand of the former president and talking with him. Follow that up with some of the most incredible leaders in the world, many of them women, and you feel very small. But, then you’re overcome by the feeling that you can accomplish ANYTHING and make a difference on the planet through hard work and dedication.”

Nash’s work is truly a labor of love. But what is this all for, what drives her? She goes on to say, “Everything I’ve learned is to help give back to my city and state.” The one things that sticks out about Nash is her desire to share; share her knowledge, her time and her resources. This steadfast desire to give back is what truly makes her a champion in the design community and in life. [AWM]

JESSICA WACHTER’S EXPRESSIVE ART

BY JILL N. KANDEL >> SKYLOFT PHOTOGRAPHY

Jessica Wachter believes in hard work. She sometimes pulls all nighters. Sometimes she spends six months or more contemplating a canvas, adding a stroke of color here or there, before she feels it is complete. Her oil on canvas paintings and monoprints, which sell into the thousands, are works of art that might appear to people as random, but years of study and long hours of diligent work precede their creation.

A North Dakota native, Wachter grew up in Bismarck where her parents, Mike and Kelly Wachter, introduced her and her younger sister to art museums and historic centers, as well as football and soccer games. “I was able to see a lot of different worlds growing up,” Wachter said.

Wachter moved to Fargo to pursue a B.S. degree in Art with a minor in Interior Design from NDSU. “I loved NDSU and wanted to be really involved on campus,” Wachter said, “I was part of the Blue Key Honor Society, the Bison Ambassadors, InterVarsity and Cru and Chi Alpha.” Wachter also worked with the God’s Child Project, helping with fundraising and building homes in Guatemala.

“During my studies at NDSU, my art work was strongly influenced by the oils and colorful textures of a renowned artist named Joan Mitchell,” Wachter said. By the time her four years of study were coming to an end, Wachter was well prepared for her senior thesis show. Many art students opt for a group senior showing, but Wachter had completed enough work, including both paintings and prints, to do a solo show. Her solo show turned out to be life changing in several ways. As a little girl Wachter dreamed that someday she’d become a professional artist. “I thought it would be so impossible, so far off,” Wachter said, “It was so exciting at my senior show to see that people connected with and enjoyed what I had created.”

When the director and owner of ecce, and art gallery on Broadway in downtown Fargo, walked into her art show looking for works from young artists it was a perfect match.

“I was the first artist in their expanded showroom,” Wachter said. “It was such an honor to be able to exhibit there.”

Wachter’s mixed-media work includes oil on canvas and monoprints on paper. “My monoprints are unusual,” Wachter said, “I work right on the screen. It takes hours. I might print twenty and throw them away before I get one I really like. There are no editions; they are one of a kind.”

Wachter’s art is self-reflective and works on various levels, both emotionally and intellectually.

“I am always transforming life into new art,” she said. “My work translates into a visual experience, rooted in or delivered through abstract expressionist language. It’s strongly gestural and often contains my own personal celebrations, struggles, joys, loves and losses. I express my own experiences through the use of color, texture and composition. There is always a deeper content than what you see on the surface, or what is shown, and this is constantly changing.”

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“People might come to me wanting a certain size or specific colors and I create a piece with those ideas, using my own inspiration,” Wachter said. She has had people buy a work of art and then use that piece as the focal point of an area. “I want to imbue my work with a tangible essence and a mystery,” Wachter explained, “while at the same time keeping it open enough for the viewer’s own response.”

“Working with oil is a messy job,” Wachter said. “The first thing I do when I arrive at my studio is to change into my painting clothes. Being an artist means showing up for work every day and painting.” Wachter stretches and primes her own canvases. She often works on ten to twenty paintings at a time. This is partly pragmatic oils take a long time to dry and partly contemplative, giving her time to decide and mull over her unfinished work. Once she has added a layer or a color to one canvas, she can let it rest and dry, while she goes on to another.

Wachter’s paintings sit on coffee cans or bricks, just inches off the studio floor. She does not work standing in front of an easel, but often sits on the floor in front of her medium sized paintings. Her six and eight foot canvases require her to stand on a ladder. “Sometimes, while I am thinking about a particular painting, I study it and look at it from various angles. Once I’ve added paint, I won’t move it. I don’t want to disturb the paint or cause it to drip while it is drying, unless that is the effect I want to achieve. I needed a studio with a lot of wall space and was super happy when Starion Financial heard I was looking, and offered me this space.”

Wachter has had several solo shows at ecce Art Gallery and recently had a solo six-month exhibit, Beyond Convention, at the Plains Art Museum. “The exhibit at the Plains was a huge honor for me as a local artist,” Wachter said. “It was an interactive space of suspended screen prints, which acted as an entry point and contrast to the conventional displays of my oil paintings.”

Wachter’s dedication to her art shows itself in the work she continuously creates. “It’s a big deal to produce enough work for these shows and galleries. I have off days. But I have to do the work. It’s a balance. Producing, yes, but also I want to be vulnerable and bring my joys and hurts to the canvas. I want to bring authenticity to my work. If I’m frustrated or happy or sad, I put that on the canvas.”

Wachter often brings simple horizon lines into her paintings. “My paintings are subtle minimalist,” she said, explaining their complex simplicity. “My dad used to be in ranching and we have some land by the river. I love going there and getting away. I love going to the Minnesota lakes. Blue tends to end up in my paintings. I am drawn to the blue hues, but I might also paint the water orange, seeing the world in a different way.”