: For Students, Faculty, and Staff 
From Here to There: One Step at a Time by Martha Bird.
Holistic Practice: A Nurse and Her Art by multidisciplinary artist Martha Bird is the latest installment in the Bio-Medical Library’s rotating Art@Bio-Med series.
Exhibit details
What: Holistic Practice: A Nurse and Her Art
When: February 7 – June 11, 2019
Where: Bio-Medical Library, 2nd floor, Diehl Hall
About the exhibit
Martha Bird is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist. In 1992, Bird was working as a nurse when she injured her back and could no longer work full time. To begin the process of moving off of bedrest, she started taking art classes where she reconnected with her creative self.
Through this holistic practice of creating, Bird has been able to return to working part-time as a nurse while also establishing herself as a professional artist. The merging of her dual careers places value in the healing aspects of working with one’s hands and body.
Bird’s knowledge from her master’s degree in holistic nursing is woven throughout her multimedia artwork as a representation of the resilience found in the body, mind, and soul.
Themes that can be seen in her work include the individual is stronger in community, art as a healing and creative force, and connections to beauty and nature.
About the artist
Martha Bird has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions locally and nationally including Massachusetts, Washington, and New Jersey, and at locations such as the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Hennepin County Library, Textile Center, Duluth Art Institute, Society of Arts and Crafts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Minnesota History Center. She has also toured her sculptural basketry with the National Basketry Organization.
Bird recently received the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant to exhibit her fiber-based work at the Kaddatz Gallery in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Bird is committed to the community and has been involved in the arts as a student, volunteer, curator, writer, arts organizer, teaching artist, and arts advocate. She teaches and presents on the transformative process of creating with one’s hands.
If you are interested in purchasing Bird’s art, please contact her directly at mbirdthatflies@gmail.com.
