I was fortunate to receive a grant from Finlandia Foundation to choose three songs from my CD bittersweet and three poems from my book The Way She Told Her Story and bring them together to make a video. The filmmaker Cadence Nelson shot footage and joined spoken word with music to make the short film The Way She Told Her Story.

I had the great joy and wonder of teaching the 5-string kantele to thirty students that ranged in age from 5 years old to 81 in the town of Cokato, Minnesota. I came to them as a recipient of a grant written together with the New Bohemian Arts Cooperative and funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Diane Jarvenpa narrates new Finnish film on immigration: Some We Kept; Some We Threw Back, by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts, depicts a man in contemporary times, making preparations for a sauna in the north woods of Minnesota.

As he chops wood, pumps water and lights the sauna fire – a woman narrates a series of experiences from her childhood when she and her parents left Finland for America.