This piece is called Stocked Pantry, it’s jars and jars of pantry items. The inspiration started when I moved back to North Dakota. All of a sudden, I had time and space to have a garden. When I lived in California, I didn’t have time to take care of a garden, and I didn’t have space. All of a sudden, that reconnected me to memories of both my mom and my grandma having these giant gardens and then, every fall, would stock the pantry. You would spend days and days making different pickles, preserves, all sorts of things. My grandma had infamously good pickles. My mom was always making pickled fruits and pickled beets and jellies and all sorts of things like that. It was this thing I got disconnected from and then got to reconnect with.

Unfortunately, since then, my grandmother has passed away. Nobody has her pickle recipe, so we have not been able to recreate those pickles. But it’s been an interesting experiment trying that. My personal pantry is full of experimentation, so it looks very multicolored like this. One day we’re trying so and so’s relish recipe. We put everything in the jar for that and then set it on the shelf until the day comes in the winter where you’re like, you know, that sounds really good. I want that thing we made back in the summer and the fall.

To me, all of us in the alley were wanting to represent what North Dakota means to us. This was really reconnecting with North Dakota to me, preserving all of the things from the summer. It’s an optimistic feeling of “I can’t wait to crack this open in the winter when I need that bit of sunshine and something to brighten the day.” That’s still what preserved goods mean to me, being able to rack that open and either enjoy the fruits of your own labors, or, even better, when somebody makes something for you and you get their special preserves. It just kind of brightens the day.

My heritage is Germans from Russia. My grandma’s name is Marlene. In trying to recreate her pickle recipe, I’ve collected cookbooks from around Keith, North Dakota. My dad grew up in McClusky, where she lived later. I’ve collected cookbooks from around those areas and tried different recipes and gotten closer. When you look at the jars on the shelf, you’ll see some of them have carrot spears in them because that’s what I remember my grandma doing with her pickles. But then you’ll also see empty jars waiting to be refilled. There’s specifically pickled eggs up there because that summer was the first time I'd never made or consumed a pickled egg. I’d never eaten one. I’d never made one. We tried it, and they were better than we realized. There’s been lots of personal experimentation there, but there are also things I’ve been gifted. I have a friend that makes really good chow chow relish, so I’m always really excited when I get that from her. There’s lots of fun, little hidden stories up there.

Some of my grandma's pickles would have a slice of red chili in them because hers were spicy and savory. My mom makes a really good sweet pickle, but it’s a fridge pickle, so it doesn’t go in the pantry. Maybe she’ll need her own series of refrigerated recipes.

It’s been a fun endeavor to try to replicate my grandma’s pickles. The thing that I nailed first, and maybe it’s coming from a painter's perspective, the pickles started to look right before they ever even started to taste right. I was able to get the chili and the carrots in the pickles. I remember she used whole pickles in there, she didn’t slice them. I was able to make them look right before I was actually able to start getting them to taste closer. They’re still not there yet.