American artist Benish has Czech heritage, and grew up with Czech spoken at home in Newport Beach, California. On her first visit to Czechoslovakia, in 1979 at the age of 17, she felt instantly at home. But college had to come first. She was not able to return until 1993, when she came back to the Czech Republic on a Fulbright Scholarship and stayed for good.

There are glimpses of the Red Mill in the exhibit: Dominating one wall is an infrared video projection titled Footprints of Benish repeatedly trudging through the snow in slow motion, with the camera pointed down at her walking boots. At the end of each walk, the camera rises to view a horizon, or a tree, or, in one, take a view of her mill. It's apparent that each of the walks ends at edges of her property and farm.

Previously, this was the property of the Navrátils, a miller and his wife. (navrátil means "he returned.") This walk and the view it encompasses was a great part of their lives, just as it is for the artist today.

The video player is camouflaged within a towering contraption titled Baked Good — an old oven (a remnant taken from her mill) with legs attached to give it the shape of a giant spider. The stove is hard to notice at first, because attached to it is a billowy white semi-inflated ball or parachute sewn from old bed sheets, which makes the sculpture look like a giant insect.

Along one wall there are approximately 40 drawings (charcoal on paper) of redesigned farm tools, saddles, plants, flowers and various bulbous shapes. There are also drawings of her most recent sculptures. Along with these works from 2006, Benish includes works from her 2003–2004 series "The Miller's Wife."

Benish also created a group of women's pants, displayed between plates of glass. One side of each pair is the tough work pants made and worn by the miller's wife; the other side was made by Benish using softer fabrics with floral embroidery. The result is south Bohemian farm-art chic, which would certainly put a smile on the face of Mrs. Navrátil, who makes an appearance in this exhibition in a found black-and-white photo at the entrance to the exhibit, across from the pants.

The photo shows a calm, contented, yet stoical woman sewing white lace. She appears to be sitting in her kitchen (now Benish's kitchen), and the found photo is appropriately titled Coming Home.

Mrs. Navrátil lived a hard life. Her husband was kept in a concentration camp by first the Nazis and then the communists for his political views. When he finally returned home, he was not able to work as he had before due to his mental and physical state. His wife maintained the mill and farm in his absence, and after his homecoming.

The heroic history of Mrs. Navrátil is known only to a few of the older residents in the area, even though her life and work was vital to the community's existence for many years. But her life became the primary inspiration for Benish in creating this body of work.

Benish's work in general is committed to her local community, just as the work of the miller's wife was committed to it decades ago. In reviving the memory of the miller's wife, Benish has disseminated her history far and wide, exhibiting portions of the series in just the past few months in Jindfiichův Hradec in south Bohemia, Southern California, Warsaw and in a show that just opened in New York City.