Tag Archives: Corrine Heiberg

April 21, 2024 A Preview of GERANIUM LAKE: POEMS ON ART AND ART-MAKING, Part VIII and Poem, “Zinc”

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The final section of Geranium Lake is titled “Roadside Attraction.” It contains poems about what might be termed outsider art, from haute coutre to the fiberglass statue of the Jolly Green Giant or the simple design of the oriole feeder above. Innovation, inspiration, and good design can be found all around us. I, for one, do regard these one-of-a-kind objects as art.

Zinc

	for Corrine


Years ago, my now-deceased neighbor
set out small zinc dishes, fitted
them into shallow depressions she routed out 
into the wood of her back-porch railing
before filling them with purple jelly.

She had made the jelly, too,
from fruit of the crabapple tree at the front
of her house. She was set on enticing
the orange wink and blur of northern orioles
to this feeder of her own design

again, that spring, when she’d called me to bring
my fitful camera. We waited, talking
softly in the green-shadowed garden.
None of the orioles came that afternoon,
but her own nature, the sweetness of intention,

pierces me now from behind my chance image, 
this still-glossy photograph: a churned
surface of red-violet jelly, like a sea storm
at sunset, and one delirious drunken wasp,
diving headlong, accepting the sublime dish.

Leslie Schultz
Corrine and Peanut

This concludes the preview to Geranium Lake. Later this summer, when the book is published, I will make an announcement here. Thank you for allowing me to share a first glimpse with you. It isn’t enclycopedic work on art–there are no poems in Geranium Lake inspired by film, fiction, dance, or drama, for instance–but I have enjoyed putting this collection together. Perhaps someday, in another book, I will have other poems that reflect and consider other forms of art and art-making. In any case, I shall keep my eyes open and my pencil ready!

Meanwhile, I hope you will see art in expected, and unexpected, places–today and everyday!

LESLIE

Third Wednesday Magazine Publishes “Memorial Day 2020”– My Sonnet in Honor of Corrine Heiberg

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My dear friend and neighbor, Corrine Heiberg, died three years ago this month. Many times every day I think of my friend, Corrine, of her husband, Elvin, and of all the kindness, laughter, and sharing they brought, and still bring, to our lives.

This month, Third Wednesday Magazine, a journal that has enriched my life as a reader, subscriber, and contributor, has published a sonnet I wrote this year for Corrine. Just yesterday, I learned the magazine has honored it by making it poem of the week on their website.

While in the years since Corrine’s death, Elvin and I have often taken a drive to the serene and nearby Oaklawn Cemetery to visit Corrine’s grave, and to visit the family graves of the Heibergs and the Hulbergs (Elvin’s mother’s family), I realized this year that I had never taken flowers to any grave on Memorial Day. With so many moves in my life, I have perhaps never been in the same city as the final resting place of a deceased relative.

This year, with so many gorgeous flowers in our garden, and frustrated because Elvin and I could not take our uses drives or even visit for armchair travel with slide shows in his apartment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I thought that at least I could take flowers to Corrine on Memorial Day. Elvin supported the idea, and so I made some bouquets (pictured below). Later, I made this sonnet.

Below are some photographs take that day last May. (Frederick Heiberg and Beulah Hulberg were Elvin’s parents. Grace Whittier was his godmother.)

Postcard: February 3, 2020

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Today is the birthday of my friend, Corrine Heiberg. This elegant bowl was made by her when she was in college. The way her husband, Elvin, tells it, it required seventeen coats of varnish–not a popular odor with Corrine’s roommate. The fragile glass balls were purchased on Corrine and Elvin’s first trip to Murano, Italy. Packed in hand-luggage, they survived a sudden hard fall from the upper rack to the bus floor and have survived ever since. I think they resemble the eggs of a rare, fabled bird in their perfectly balanced nest.

Celebrating the Life of Corrine Heiberg

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Corrine Ila Wellendorf Heiberg (February 3, 1934 to September 9, 2017) was my neighbor and dear friend from just about the first minute Tim and I moved to our current home in April of 1996.

(Peanut, a keen judge of character, always made a beeline for Corrine.)

We shared a love of gardening, and she taught me much about local prairie plants, even generously sharing slips of native species from her own garden. Corrine was a dedicated conservationist, and helped to establish River Bend Nature Center in Faribault where Julia took classes. For many years, we had a tradition of going together to the Northfield Garden Club’s annual Garden Tour. Many of my favorite photographs were taken in her garden.

She was an artist, a skilled teacher of Home Economics, and a spectacular seamstress. Corrine and I shared a love of textiles, Hmong needlework, and quilting. To mark my 50th birthday, Corrine gave to me an heirloom from her own family, a fragile but riotously colorful silk-and-embroidery crazy quilt made in the 1890s. It is now hanging, safe from direct sunlight, above the desk in my office.

Corrine and Elvin, her husband of more than sixty years, spent their early married years in Germany, where two of their three sons were born. Travel was a shared pleasure, often combined with in-depth study. They always brought back stories and objects to share, along with wonderful images. Yet, although Corrine was a sophisticated world traveler, I think of her most often in terms of home. She was a volunteer and an involved neighbor, as well as a friend. And she was a mentor to me, a skilled weaver of those traditions that create and sustain meaning. For example, she made a point to come when I exhibited photographs or read my work, and it was a comfort to know she was there. Each December, she and Elvin would come to our house for a Christmas tea, and they would always wear Norwegian sweaters!

Perhaps I think of her most often in February. Corrine was a firm proponent of the “Birthday Month.” A single day just isn’t adequate to contain birthday joy. When Julia was young, Corrine gave our family the “Birthday Plate” from her own childhood. When she was a girl, her piece of birthday cake was always served on this special, hand-painted plate.

We have continued the tradition. Below is a piece of my birthday cake from January 2018, made by another kind and skillful neighbor. (Thank you, Raymonde! So delicious!)

This year, on Corrine’s birthday, I am keenly aware of how my life has been enlarged immeasurably because she reached out to me on that day in April 1996. When I was with her, I felt safe. I felt loved. And I felt interested to know what she thought about everything. This week, I bought some roses to remind me of her garden.

Corrine’s favorite color was blue, and this glass disk, which used to hang in the Heiberg picture window looking out on the Carleton Chapel, now hangs in our own south-east bit of sky. Even in the darkest, most grey, and saddest days, if gives us our own dependable patch of blue sky.

Thank you, Corrine, for being such a true and inspiring friend, to us and to so many.

Leslie