Book Signing

Marley Kaul and
Kristin Eggerling

Monday, December 7, 4 - 6 pm

Help us celebrate our own authors. Marley Kaul and Kristin Eggerling’s new books have arrived in time for the holidays. Kirstin’s Sigrud Olson: The Breath of the Wilderness tells the story of Sigrud Olson, a force in the movement to preserve wilderness, including Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Marley’s Letters to Isabella presents seventy-seven egg tempera paintings, each accompanied by a letter to his granddaughter offering an intimate look at the artistic process and the personal and professional influences reflected in his work.

The evening is free to all. Parking is provided compliments of the Museum.

Marley Kaul
 

Marley Kaul and his wife, Sandy, live in Bemidji, Minn. The Kauls have two children, Steve Kaul and Allison DeLeone. Their daughter and her husband, Chris, have two children, Isabella and Julia. Their son’s family includes his partner, Christine, and her children Amber and Wiley. Since retiring from his job as an art professor at Bemidji SateUniversity in 1997, Kaul has spent most of his days in his studio pursing his passion to paint.

About 12 years ago while dealing with a health scare, Kaul started writing letters to his unborn granddaughter, Isabella. He says around that time he began to think about his own mortality, and wanted to make sure his granddaughter would know about him and his work if he wasn’t around to share that knowledge with her. At the time he was working on a large painting that included a cabinet with an open drawer, an empty drawer. "I thought maybe I should tell her about what I’m up to in this painting?” It wasn’t long before Kaul had a tall stack of letters, one to accompany each painting he worked on while his daughter was pregnant—and then many more.

Kaul's new book, Letters to Isabella, features seventy-seven full-page egg tempera paintings, each accompanied by a letter to his granddaughter. They offer an intimate look at the artistic process, his personal meditations, and the professional influences that underpin each artwork. The book resonates across ages and spectrums, warmed by Marley's kindness, shaped by his inquiring intellectual life.
 

Kristin Eggerling

Kristin Eggerling is passionate about preserving wild places, reading, and exposing kids to the outdoors. Currently, she works as a freelance writer, community activist, and parent. She writes about natural resources and serves on her local library board and a number of regional and state boards focused on sustainability and conservation. She has worked in the public health field, coordinated watershed education, taught sociology at the University of Minnesota Crookston, and served as the administrator of the Environment and Agriculture Budget Committee at the Minnesota Senate. She has also served on the Citizen's Advisory Committee of the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources. Kristin holds a BA in sociology from Augsburg College and an MA in sociology from the University of Manitoba.

Breath of Wilderness is the story of Sigurd Olson's love for wild places and how that love transformed his life. It inspired him to play a key role in the movement to preserve wilderness throughout North America, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the largest lakeland wilderness in the country. Olson's successful writing career, born from his devotion, spread his fervor worldwide. This is a story of one man finding his passion and standing up for what he believed even in the face of tremendous adversity.