When Shelley Caldwell was growing up in rural Faribault County, there was a giant stack of egg cartons sitting in the corner of her family's front porch. Shelley's mom kept chickens, so the cartons were a necessity, but storage space in the old farmhouse was hard to come by, so the cartons lived on the porch. 

As a kid, the egg carton tower annoyed Shelley. It was another thing taking up space in a world that always felt cluttered with other people's stuff.

Growing up on a farm, there was a lot of stuff, but there was also a lot of movement. Hands were never idle for very long. People were always "making things out of other things that are not meant to be those things," Shelley explained. This was both cultural— her grandparents grew up during the Depression—and practical. Anyone living rural knows that it's better to make it yourself than to drive a long way to a store that might not have what you need. 

Shelley's mom was someone who could transform things into other things. She made and mended clothes; she tended a garden. She turned the egg cartons, those annoying eyesores, into feeders for baby chicks. So at a young age, Shelley knew and respected the hidden potential of everyday items, even as they crowded her life. 

Shelley told me all of this after I asked her why she is attracted to mundane things. She called me from where she lives now, just a mile from where she grew up, in what was once her grandparents' old farmhouse. 

As an artist, Shelley's work often recontextualizes domestic items, bringing into focus things we regularly see but barely notice. Though she still considers herself primarily a drawer, in recent years she's turned to 3D installation, often hanging her works on paper alongside items she's collected over the years. This was seen in her showcase Involution, which was on display at the Hutchinson Center for the Arts from May 28 -July 11, 2025. 

Her next exhibit, Sustenance, offers a new perspective on another aspect of everyday life: food production. It will feature a series of mixed media drawings that depict vegetable plants throughout the growing season and a site-specific installation comprised of used canning lids and old seed packets. 

The experience will be familiar and foreign, due to the sheer accumulation of objects typically encountered in a completely different context and scale. Collectively, it will provide a glimpse into the enormous effort that goes into making the most of each year’s abundance from the garden. See Sustenance at the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato from November 6-21, 2026. 

When I asked if there is a particular feeling or experience she wants people to have with her work, she said that's not really what she's focused on. She's more interested in the process she goes through to find her materials, and how those lead her to her subject matter.

While pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Minnesota State University, Mankato (where she ultimately earned a Master of Arts in drawing and installation), Shelley moved into her grandparents' empty farmhouse. The land was rented to local farmers, but the building site was no longer used and nature was running its course. 

"I thought it was so ironic that all these beautiful weeds were growing all over the place where buildings [once were]," she said. "The farm—and generations of people—have passed, yet these weeds that they tried to kill for their entire lives are still thriving and doing their thing."

Shelley began to draw silhouettes of the weeds and masked multicolored india ink behind them. She was at a loss for what to title the pieces, so she decided to research the names of plants that, for her entire life, she simply knew as "weeds." 

"I was very quickly learning that most of these weeds are native species; they're prairie plants, they're things that the environment has a purpose for, a use for," she explained. 

Another thing the farm provides is space. She uses the house’s second story as a studio that also serves as storage space for the raw materials of her artwork. With grant support from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Springboard For the Arts, and Prairie Lakes, she's been able to make it work as a full-time artist and occasional art instructor. Financially, it helps that she is someone attuned to the potential in everyday items, including her so-called "trash." Things someone else might toss she stores as potential supplies for future projects and even the remnants of past projects are reused. 

In the farmhouse, she found a giant tin of buttons that likely belonged to her grandmother, and generations of women before her. She sorted through the buttons, searching for the ones she wanted to hang with leaves from a houseplant. 

"As a kid, I remember sorting buttons a lot. That was one of the busy body activities my mom would give us. 'Here's the button thing. Here's a needle and thread. Make a necklace or whatever.' We never kept them; they'd always just go back in the button thing. She encouraged that tedious material play, which is something I always fall into." 

In the tin, she found hooks and eyes from old baby clothes. They were the perfect tool for hanging her installation components from a gallery ceiling, something she'd been meaning to figure out. 

"The answers are already there. It's just [about] stumbling upon them and laughing at myself for not realizing sooner that the mundane things I want people to notice are the mundane things I need myself." 

Individual artist grants are made possible from funds provided by the McKnight Foundation. Learn more here.

Shelley is accepting donations of used canning/mason jar lids* and empty/outdated seed packets for her next exhibit, now through August 2026! 

*Flat, clean lids from home-canned goods only:

• No store-bought or plastic, please.

• No rings, jars, or other canning items needed: just used lids.

• Bent, stained, rusty, damaged, or with hand-writing welcome! 

• Seed packets need not be empty; old, non-viable seeds will be put to other use.

Dropoff Locations:

• Mankato: Carnegie Art Center, 410 Project, Mankato Makerspace, Mecca Tattoo

• Blue Earth: Farmer’s Daughter, Juba’s, Rainbow Food Co-op, Ryno Repair

• Delavan: Blu Bair

• Easton: Club Blu Bair

• Winnebago Area Museum

• COMING SOON: Arts Center of Saint Peter; Sidetracked, Mankato

Questions? Contact Shelley directly at shelleytcaldwell@gmail.com