By Sara Quam
Nan Karr Kaufenberg is still a grieving mother, but she's also an artist.
Kaufenberg is the mother of murder victim Carrie Nelson and is one of the featured local artists this month at the Carnegie Cultural Center.
Two of her prints, marked with Carrie's favorite color, orange, are on display.
"I don't think I could have made it a couple months ago," Kaufenberg said. "It was nice to be able to put it up in the art center now that a few more months have gone by."
"Remembering Carrie" is a linoleum block print that was inspired by a picture of Carrie on Minnesota's north shore, one of her favorite places. The scene is black and white, and Carrie stands out in orange.
Kaufenberg placed an orange ribbon in the corner of the frame. "It's the one I wore to the funeral," she said.
The other print on display was intended for Carrie. "I just finished the orange poppies that she wanted for her apartment in September. 'Remembering Carrie' was just finished a few weeks ago."
Kaufenberg said the little memorials she's made for Carrie and her family have been a little therapeutic.
"It was hard to do, but it helped. Our family and friends loved it and I'm not selling it, but I'm giving prints to some people," Kaufenberg said.
Since Carrie's death in May, Kaufenberg said she's taken life day by day and will never be the same.
"We really want the investigators to get the right phone call and find who did this."
She acknowledges that the circumstances of Carrie's death have put a different spin on what would be devastating to any parent. "It's so hard to lose a child that it doesnÕt matter if it's public or not. It changes you totally."
Kaufenberg now lives on a farm near Madison, S.D., but still feels ties to Rock County.
Carrie is a Luverne graduate so the family set up a Carrie Christine Nelson Memorial Scholarship Fund through Dollars for Scholars.
Carrie Nelson, 20, was killed while working at Blue Mounds State Park, and local investigators and from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension continue to seek tips at 283-1301.