MSU NOTSTOCK Rocks the Region with Art and Design, plus Music

For the third year running, North Dakota’s centrally located university, Minot State, is the site of an art and music extravaganza that features internationally acclaimed graphic design artist Art Chantry, as well as maverick designer Jeff Johnson of Spunk Design Machine, plus Minneapolis artists Amy Jo and Tooth of Who Made Who and printmaker extraordinaire, Bjorn.

Art Chantry is “a pillar in music poster art and graphic design,” according to MSU Art Professor Bill Harbort. In addition, says Harbort, “Chantry’s low-tech, irreverent, garage-gritty style pioneered alternative punk-grunge graphics by celebrating retro-images, typography, and composition. His work often calls on wit, sarcasm, irony, counterculture spirit, and genius.”

Chantry’s art and design works are found in collections from the Museum of Modern Art to the Louvre and many points in between. Clients who have pursued Chantry’s talent, according to writer/interviewer Christopher May, include Nike, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola.

In a telling interview, Chantry admits to preferring some old-style approaches to design production favoring the “versatility of the eye combined with the hand [that] has carried human creative endeavor through a quarter-million years of history.” “Computers,” he says, are “just one very small aspect of that material available for use.” He describes his art, in part, as “laying ink down on paper” and insists that this is “where the magic begins.”

Chantry and Minneapolis/New York-based designer Jeff Johnson present the key-note NOTSTOCK addresses—Johnson at 7:00 pm Wednesday night and Chantry at 7:00 pm on Thursday. Both events will be held in the Student Union Conference Center on the campus of MSU-Minot and are free and open to the public, as are all 3-day NOTSTOCK activities.

One intended purpose of MSU NOTSTOCK is to offer student artists and designers, art and design instructors and community members, the opportunity to get up close and personal with high visible, nationally-recognized artists. Attendees are offered opportunities to work alongside the visiting artists in projects that involve silk-screening on shirts and even skateboards. Anyone can show up with a blank t-shirt, according to Harbort, and leave with a menagerie of designs on the shirt, with art supplied by the guest artists and printed by a “factory” of students, MSU art alumi, and guests. Guest artists will also be screening editions of prints, which in itself will be a top-notch educational experience.

In addition, 20-plus modern, rock, and alternative bands will punctuate the art and design weekend. Festivalgoers can mix and mingle, rock out, and create art for three days straight, in a setting that is designed to feel like an Art Happening.

The off-campus MSU NOTSTOCK events include exhibitions of the art of Art Chantry and others at the innovative and hip 62 Doors Gallery and Studio and the Taube Museum of Art, both in downtown Minot, plus an additional exhibition of posters at the Minot State University Library. Chantry has sent over 300 posters for display at the three venues. This will be an impressive viewing of Chantry’s work!

Visiting artists will have posters for sale and will be available to sign other collected works, as well. A closing reception will be held Friday, October 23 at 62 Doors Gallery, with a gallery talk at 8:00.

With the birth of 62 Doors Gallery, along with the continued art support of the established Taube Museum of Art, and the professional faculty of the Art and Graphic Design departments at MSU, Minot continues to sustain an art scene that deserves the attention, not only of the locals, but of a statewide and regional audience. The MSU NOTSTOCK “Happening” is a way for artists and designers from around the region to connect in an informal yet heady creative environment.

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If You Go

What: MSU NOTSTOCK
Where: Minot State University Student Center
When: October 21-23, 2009
Info: For event schedule, visit http://www.msunotstock.org