Lisa Bergh, whose colorful, abstract sculptures and assemblages are now on view at Mia (“Topography”) as part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, never intended to be a rural artist. But for close to 20 years, she has made a life, and a living, as a working artist and arts advocate in tiny New London, Minnesota, 100 miles or so west of Minneapolis. A passionate and committed ambassador for her community, Bergh is the co-founder and co-curator of the Traveling Museum, a mobile art space that bringscontemporary art to greater Minnesota. She and her husband, artist Andrew Nordin, collaborate on public art projects under the moniker Rural Aesthetic Initiative.

She may be the daughter of farmers, but Bergh was a city kid. She grew up in Iowa’s Quad Cities, went to college in Tucson, and then attended grad school in the Bay Area, where she met Nordin, a painter. The two moved to Milwaukee and lived there for five years. But soon after their first child was born, they realized their needs had changed. They considered different cities—or no city at all. Nordin had been offered a sabbatical replacement position at Ridgewater College, in Hutchinson, and in 2005 the couple moved to New London, expecting to stay a year at most. “I thought, oh, we’ll flip this little house. And then you have kids and jobs, and we’ve been here ever since. It’s just sort of where we landed.”

More information can be found here.