SPARKS FLY SPARKS FLY

INSIDE SNOWFIRE STUDIO with ARTIST KARMAN RHEAULT

Words by Alicia Underlee Nelson | Photography by Kensie Wallner Photography

Sparks fly when Karman Rheault gets creative at Snowfire Studio — literally. The air inside her cozy 100-year-old granary studio is heavy with the smells of creation, the tang of metal, and the hot, sweet scent of flame. Rheault sends a shower of sparks across her work table, then grabs a welding torch and protective helmet, an eye-catching spot of color in a largely unadorned and utilitarian space. “A helmet can make a welder, I think,” she says, with an easy grin. Then she pulls down the face shield and gets lost in her work.

Rheault has been a working artist for over 20 years. But the quality of her work, the joy she finds in working with metal, and her supreme confidence in her process reveal an artist hitting her stride.

She started her career working in ceramics. But when caring for a growing family made keeping her clay in top working condition a challenge (she and husband Mark have three now teenage daughters: Syler, Caiden and Zenna), she picked up a paintbrush. Her work, with its palpable sense of movement and ethereal figures and forms, is instantly recognizable.

But then a friend introduced her to welding and she fell in love. “I was just mesmerized,” she says. “I’ve always loved fire. I’ve always loved 3-D. By the end of the week, I’d bought all the tools and jumped in.”

Rheault threw herself into metalwork. She created complex lawn sculptures, undulating wall sculptures, whimsical creatures with kitchen utensils for limbs, and three dimensional nature scenes. She used the heat from her tools to create colorful accents on the metal, complex purples and greens and blues, and rusted the surface of her creations to create a rich patina.

Commissions came her way, including 3-D logos for local businesses, a dragon mascot for her alma mater Minnesota State University Moorhead, custom trophies for the NDSU Research Park Innovation Awards and a particularly memorable fireplace, which she shipped to North Carolina piece by piece. But at this stage in her career, Rheault feels herself moving away from commissioned work and toward her own vision.

“I used to be a total ‘yes’ girl and took every project that came my way because that’s how you make a living,” she says. “But it came to a point when it felt like work. My art is who I am. I really prefer to just have an idea and dive in and just have it flow that way. I’m not an artist who plans every detail out.”

I used to be a total ‘yes’ girl and took every project that came my way because that’s how you make a living. But it came to a point when it felt like work.

MY ART iw WHO I AM.

I really prefer to just have an idea and dive in and just have it flow that way. I’m not an artist who plans every detail out.

Rheault opens Snowfire Studio to the public during the Fargo Moorhead Visual Artists’ Studio Crawl every October and shows her work at Gallery 4, an artist owned co-op gallery in downtown Fargo where Rheault is the current president. She loves the experimental space, where she can exhibit without being bound by a theme and receive instant feedback from visitors. She also shows her work on her website, snowfirestudio.com.

Willowy in worn-in jeans and brown cowboy boots, Rheault ambles out of the granary and across the grounds of the farm where she lives and works. It’s a luxuriously quiet place, nestled against the banks of the Red River just a short drive north of Moorhead. A pair of horses keep quiet watch as friendly farm dogs, a gaggle of geese and one lone chicken wander underfoot.

Rheault opens the door to the gracious farmhouse where she lives with her family. Her split-bank tank top reveals a glimpse of a tattoo on the small of her back. It’s one of her designs, a small and graceful figure. Its lines are echoed in the metalwork displayed throughout the spacious, richly colorful rooms of Rheault’s home.

“Just in the past few years I’ve been trying to do more stuff for me,” she says, gesturing to the metalwork across the face of the fireplace, the scenes gracing the kitchen cabinets and the fluid wall sculptures. She laughs. “It really feels narcissistic as I’m pointing it out.”

The last year has been all about giving herself permission to do the work she wants to do. “I make time for lunch with friends or kayaking the river or whatever I want to do,” Rheault says. “I’m really trying to follow my heart on what I work on. Some days I don’t feel like work and I kayak on the river and other days I’m in there for 12 hours.”

“It’s been really fun to get back to the ethereal themes and figures that I was painting in for so many years,” she says. “So I think I’ll do that more. It feels really good.”