Interview with Erika Nelson: Artist and Educator
Illustration by Beyond the Clock Storyteller + Illustrator-in-Residence, Nhatt Nichols.
Erika Nelson was our November 2024 Beyond the Clock rural rockstar guest. Erika shared insights from her journey to Lucas, KS and how she utilizes her creative practice to activate civic engagement in her projects, such as "Step Right Up," inviting conversation around the practices of neighboring and how we show up for each other regardless of political differences. The conversation below is an extended interview between Nhatt Nichols, the Beyond the Clock Storyteller + Illustrator-in-Residence, and Erika Nelson, post-November’s Beyond the Clock event.
About Erika:
Erika Nelson is an independent artist and educator, exploring contemporary art forms in the public realm. She investigates the nooks and crannies of the United States seeking out the odd and unusual, gathering stories of people who build immersive elaborate art environments, as well as roadside vernacular architecture known as World’s Largest Things. Her art practice focus includes a multi-decade project producing the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things. She currently serves as the Cultural Resource Director for a NRHP site S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden, works on preservation crews traveling to sites across the country, writes for art, travel, and industry publications, and consults for regional and national arts organizations as a specialist in self-built worlds and rural art advocacy. Her work has been published in Public Art Review, Society for Commercial Archeology Journal, and Raw Vision, while her art practice has been reviewed in Frieze, Art Forum, and the Wall Street Journal. She regularly appears in pop and alternative culture interviews discussing the intersections of roadside culture, rural, and formal art worlds, most recently in a Smithsonian Magazine feature. She has been a guest of the 99% Invisible podcast focused on Balls of Twine, Atlas Obscura’s Show and Tell series, and has been the subject of a Zippy the Pinhead strip.
Nhatt Nichols:
You said something that really resonated with me, which was, in the big picture, it really is about the small stuff.
Erika Nelson:
I might not be able to sit down with somebody that I super disagree with right this very second, but I can still wave, which is continuing to acknowledge that we both exist in this place, and we might not be able to do it full on right now, but we can still do those little bits, and that's what adds up to still being neighbors.
Nhatt:
That concept of, ‘why don't we just wave and deal with conflict when it becomes possible’ is good advice. How did Lucas become a rural arts hub? Was that something you made happen?
Erika:
I don't think it can be one person. It has to be a series of people. I don't think that I am that person. I think in [Garden of Eden creator] Dinsmoor’s time he was the person that enabled two or three other environment builders to see that and go, Oh, well, I can do that too. When he died, one of those environment builders was a teacher, so she was the person who invited her neighbors to help.
I was very conscious of moving into a small town, and I moved very, very slowly, built friendships, volunteered a lot, and then asked for help with my own projects in the hopes that they would then be invested in seeing them successful.
I think one of the other artists who moved to town ended up being much more of a direct community builder in that he took over a shutting dealership where all the old guys would come and sit and talk in the morning before they went to coffee. When Eric was revamping that space, he kept the door open so that the people still came in. I don't think it's one person fostering. I think it's a series of people fostering.
Nhatt:
The number of things I've seen come together because there is, some reason for being in a space for an amount of time, which is often as simple as a cup of coffee.
Erika:
It's awkward to just sit on somebody's porch for half an hour, unless you're old friends. But if you want to get to know a town, what happens if your cafe closes?
Nhatt:
I've done a lot this year of traveling to rural spaces, and I have a lot of questions about why some communities managed to find a way through connection and art, and some communities don't, and I think the answer is in third places and local champions.
Erika:
Yeah, and recognizing that not everybody's third space is going to be the same, so you almost have to have two or 3/3 spaces so people can at least feel comfortable on two of them, and that's where that pollination happens.
Nhatt:
A lot of your work asks people to answer questions. Is this something you've been doing within your community, or do you only take this to other communities?
Erika:
I try to do it here, too, but when you become a local, you can't ask certain questions anymore. Sometimes it's easier to ask those hard questions in a community that you've been invited into as a trusted person so you don't have the baggage, or they can't see your baggage.
I made the small version [of my voting booth] for Fergus Falls, and then I knew that I had it scheduled for Kansas City. And in between, I had one opportunity to do it here. Do I do it or not? Do I want to have these harder conversations here or not? You invent these things that could go wrong in your head and they become overpowering, but it wasn't bad.
I wasn't sitting there with [the voting booth]; it was very passive. Since it was passive for me and anonymous for them, It was easier to interact with without feeling like you're stepping on those neighbor boundaries.
Nhatt:
I like that you're taking a catalog of feelings in a way that feels safe within a small community without forcing people to talk about difficult things.
Erika:
We need to develop our disagreement skills. We get it with food. We don't go into this long sort of explanation of why you're wrong about broccoli.
If it was that simple of understanding that religion is like food. Some are allergic to some kinds. Some are nourished by some kinds. Some have rejected some kinds. Some have found this new food that is just really, really super satisfying. If we could just get it back to simplifying those terms or getting those conversations to not feel so big, just make them small again.