The Star News 6/13/06

Doralucia in bloom

by Britt Aamodt
Special to the Star News

In 1996, Doralucia Muilenburg’s only child, Juan, died of an aneurysm. He was 5.

The next few years were torment, as Muilenburg said, she didn’t want to get up, go anywhere, do anything. Then two things happened: She met Joe Muilenburg, the man she would marry; and she discovered art.

Beginning Thursday, June 15, Muilenburg’s acrylic oil paintings will be on display at the Elk River Library. The visual theme of her exhibit, called Summer, is flowers—bold, audacious, brilliantly-colored flowers.

The artist will host an art opening 6–8 p.m., June 15, at the library, located at 413 Proctor Ave. Refreshments will be served, including flan and coffee imported from her native Colombia.

To say Muilenburg discovered art is misleading.

It was always there, in the mountains looming over Pereira, her birth city in central Colombia, in the lush foliage of her father’s coffee plantation, and, later, in the projects she executed as founder and creative head of her own design firm.

Art, to her, was something lived every moment. It was how she dressed, how she decorated her home, how she designed her clients’ publicity campaigns, and how she expressed her love for Juan.

When her son died, Muilenburg said, “I had this big hole right here, in my heart. But even so, although I was empty, big empty, I was happy also because I needed to continue.”

That was when she took a cue from her sisters, who were working artists, and picked up a brush and palette. She decided to paint flowers, which were a predominant theme in her tropical climate.

“Colombia is one of the biggest exporters of flowers to the United States,” she said. “So to me they represent my culture. But they inspire me, too, because they are authentic. They are shape and color and that’s all they need to express themselves.”

During this time, the artist met Joe Muilenburg, a pharmacist from a small Minnesota town, and fell in love.

“After my son’s death, it was very difficult for me to get up,” she recalled. “I get up in fact when I meet Joseph. Then I am reborn.”

That sense of renewal stayed with the couple when in 2000 they married and moved to the United States. They moved to Spicer, Minn., outside Willmar, where Muilenburg made a slow adjustment to a culture she found much different from her own.

Minnesotans, she discovered, didn’t like to hold hands. They didn’t hug or touch each other when they met.

“I get the sense they’re all the time swallowing their feelings,” she said. “Me, I am direct. It’s very easy for people to know who I am because I am like a window, very open.”

Yet despite the cultural differences, Muilenburg found common ground in art. She joined artist groups and had an exhibition, titled Tropico, at Willmar’s Barn Theater, where she sold several paintings, including two to the local hospital.

Her art flourished in its new surroundings. Deprived of the visual stimulus of tropical flowers, Muilenburg’s imagination bloomed on canvas. Sunflowers radiated in fields of red. Orchids, Colombia’s national flower, enlarged, so that every colorful nuance rippled into view.

And into every painting the artist infused her spirit of living life to the full.

“I see some artists, their colors depress me. Very dark, like death. When I paint I try to bring the beauty outside. Because it is very important for me with my art to say, ‘I am alive. I am living.’”

In Willmar, Muilenburg was also introduced to Danette Hendrickson, a published author, who was looking for an artist to illustrate her children’s book “Happy Baby.”

The book, collaboratively financed by Kandiyohi, Meeker, Yellow Medicine and Renville counties, addressed children’s mental health issues and was used in the region’s public health program.

Published in 2003, “Happy Baby” received two awards, including one from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Last year, Muilenburg moved to Elk River when her husband took a job in Coborn’s pharmacy. Though still getting used to her new home, she has already begun to fix her artistic roots in the community.

Every weekday, at 9:30 a.m. and again at 2:30 p.m., Muilenburg teaches drawing, painting and Colombian-style dance to preschool-aged students. The exhibition at the library will be her first in Elk River.

Information about Muilenburg’s paintings or art classes is available by contacting the Elk River Area Arts Alliance at (763) 441-4725 or e-mailing them at elkriverart@sherbtel.net.

Journalist

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