Big Muddy Speaker Series

Presentation by Artist Libby Reuter

Tuesday, November 8th, 2022

• 7 p.m. presentation (6 p.m. Social Hour)
• Register for Virtual Zoom Option here.
• Watch it LIVE on our YouTube Channel (and you can also catch the recording there later)
• The Bistro at Les Bourgeois Vineyards in Rocheport, MO
• Google Map – Directions Below

The Bistro Restaurant is closed on Tuesdays, but the bar will be open. You ARE welcome to come early, bring some food and gather with friends before the presentation. Speaker Series attendees are welcome after 6:00 p.m.

Hosted by Missouri River Relief 

Beginning in 2011, Watershed Cairns artists Libby Reuter and Joshua Rowan have been marking the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi River Watershed with over 400 images. They travel in Rowan’s van on roads alongside the rivers looking for sites that tell a story about land and river. They temporarily place one of Reuter’s cairns, glass sculptures assembled from glass she finds at local thrift stores. Then, Rowan creates a luminous landscape photograph. They record the address, GIS coordinates, and information about the watershed at that site, repack the glass and drive on to the next site.

In this Big Muddy Speaker Series, Reuter will show some images from their 2017-2018 journey tracing the Missouri River from Montana’s Centennial Mountain to its confluence with the Mississippi River at West Alton Missouri, share the history of the Watershed Cairns project, tell some stories of their adventures and invite your comments and questions.

Watershed Cairns: Water Marked with Art has been exhibited in galleries including the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Dubuque (Iowa) Museum of Art, and the Minnesota Marine Arts Museum, Winona, Minnesota.

Libby Reuter

Throughout her career as an artist and arts administrator (Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri and Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, Illinois), Libby Reuter has been a mural painter, found-object sculptor, and an installation artist. After the flood of 1993, her work has been focused on water. Since 2011, she has been building glass sculptures for Watershed Cairns, a collaboration with photographer Joshua Rowan.

Directions

• 14020 W. Hwy BB, Rocheport, MO
• Take I-70 to the Rocheport, MO, exit (Exit #115). It’s the first exit east of the Missouri River.
• Head north toward Rocheport.
• After about a mile, turn left at the sign for Les Bourgeois Bistro. Follow the signs to the Bistro. You will probably need to park in the lot above the Bistro and walk the trail down.
• The presentations are held in upstairs in the restaurant. The restaurant is no longer open on Tuesdays but the bar is! You are welcome to bring your own food or snacks.