Sept 12, 2025 – March 15, 2026
Bone Creek Museum is so pleased to announce an exhibition by a Minnesota-based artist who has blended multiple talents and keeps coming back to nature for nourishment of the soul. Lark Gilmer has made a successful career as a high-end commercial photographer and videographer. She also has spent years learning the Basque tradition of shepherding in France and translating those skills in her own Montana flock for a time. This exhibition displays a melding of these two passions.
The exhibition’s title “La Bergère- Shepherdess” is a simple and direct tribute to her French connections. La Bergère means shepherd in French. The Basque word, art-zain, (as the culture has its own traditional language) interestingly begins with ‘art’ deriving from the Basque name for sheep ‘Ardi’ and ‘zain’ meaning guardian. In many ways Lark embodies the meaning of these words as she has been a protector of her flock as well as a guardian of art and the land.
Her ideas about the agrarian lifestyle so keenly match that of the museum’s mission for she writes, “People need to connect to the land. I have witnessed and been amazed at how individuals approach agrarian work, the series of emotions invoked as they step nearer into view. Sometimes, it looks as if they are awash with gratitude followed by awe while their hand reaches out to hopefully touch it. I have witnessed an image (projected on screen) pull people out of their chairs because they are hungry for it. And, for many, for the first time…sit and be present in its presence. It is a yearning that people don’t realize they need until they are with it to know they’ve missed it. In those moments, I realized how rare a real connection is.”
In the first galleries of the new museum visitors will experience a variety of ways that the artist has found to communicate ideas and experiences that have been so meaningful to her. Life-size photography has melded to painting, which has given way to sculpture and manipulation of natural materials, grasses, etc. all weaving together to portray a personal connection with the land.
She writes, “I have often felt the pull to connect, and reconnect with the land, torn between duty and calling. My authentic life is born from the land, working with it in my every day and I am refreshed every time I return. My work attempts to capture a land-based practice, life-sized so that the viewer can experience a moment as I do. When I am able, I use the camera and when I cannot, I use a brush. They are all lived experiences on the land.”
All artwork samples by Lark Gilmer.
