August 3rd, 2016
“We had 450 people the first year, 1,000 the second when we moved it to Island Park, and more than 3,000 last year when we moved it to the Red River Zoo.” says Dayna Del Val, Executive Director of The Arts Partnership. According to The Arts Partnership’s website, “ChalkFest 2015 was the largest art-making event in our community’s history.” They are anticipating nearly twice as many attendees at this year’s event.
2016 marks the fourth year for Chalkfest. Chalkfest…
August 3rd, 2016
Early in my interview with artist Dan Jones, I commented: “It must be nice to make a living doing what you love.” Dan retorted, “Yeah…. Everyone says that. But it is still work.” He explained: “If I was truly doing what I love, I would be on the road with a blues band. But I can’t carry a tune. I can play the harmonica and that’s it.”
If you’ve followed Dan’s career, being a working artist suits him. Perhaps the harmonica should remain a hobby. In order to create…
July 20th, 2016
By Elle Anderson
As the years have gone by, street art in the community has grown and keeps on growing. In large cities everywhere you walk there are murals on the sides of buildings and sidewalks. Art has always had a way of brightening up any city. In the city of Moorhead, Mandel Mertz has received a grant to paint a mural on the east exterior wall of the Junkyard Brewing Company.
Mertz is originally from Arizona and moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area in 2010. She attended college at…
July 20th, 2016
By Brittney Goodman
If you go near the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, you will likely see a beautiful field of translucent, colorful flowers. But these flowers are man-made – specifically made by area children.
Pop-Up Pop Bottle Flowers is a recently installed public art project located in a grassy field on South 42nd Street near the Alerus Center in Grand Forks. The project was organized by ArtWise and funded by the Community Foundation of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Region. The…
June 29th, 2016
Fargo native, and neon artist Chris Orth recently unveiled a “beacon” outdoor neon art piece on the exterior of the Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead. Chris creates neon art for businesses and individuals. A self-described “neonist,” Orth is passionate about his work and asserts that neon is not only a sign medium.
He is a graduate of the neon technology program at MSCTC Detroit Lakes. Before beginning his seven years of work at Indigo Signs in Fargo, he worked in Eau Claire,…
June 22nd, 2016
By Elle Anderson
Photographs have a way of expressing feelings without verbally saying anything. Photographs can make you feel a certain way or help see a new perspective. In almost every photograph there is a story and this story begins in Iceland. Lynn Fundingsland began taking photographs when he was eight years old and fell in love with the urban landscape during Cub Scouts. “It is challenging and rewarding to interpret a landscape”, says Fundingsland.
Fundingsland graduated from…
June 15th, 2016
On Tuesday the 21st, the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCSCC) will be hosting a panel discussion and book signing at the Hjemkomst Museum, complete with refreshments. Photographer Jon Solinger will sign and sell copies of his book, “Working Land: New Rural Photographs,” a visual chronicle of the evolution of rural life in Otter Tail County, Minn.
On his website, Solinger describes “Working Land” as having both a documentary component and an artistic vision. In…
June 8th, 2016
By Jacinta Macheel Zens
Due to an overwhelmingly positive response to the 2014 pilot Arts Resource Fair, the Lake Region Arts Council (LRAC), will host another Arts Resource Fair on June 25, 2016.
The Lake Region Arts Council is the largest arts funder in West Central Minnesota, and will again host this innovative project, which is designed to help regional artists connect with the wide variety of statewide resources.
The Arts Resource Fair, taking place on June 25th, represents LRAC’s…
June 8th, 2016
MJ Masilko is a Grand Forks native based in St. Paul, Minnesota. As a child she spent her summers with her grandparents in the small town of Sarles, North Dakota, “where there weren't many people anymore, walking around listening to the wind blowing through the cottonwoods and seeing the empty houses and garages, all overgrown. Those images became a part of who I am” Masilko said.
She added, “Being a kid to whom social interaction didn't come naturally, I had a lot of alone time,…
June 8th, 2016
Project Unpack: Telling Stories, Creating Community, is a one-year program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to initiate dialogues in the Fargo-Moorhead and North Dakota communities about the legacies of American wars.
According to Dr. Christine D. Weber, Associate Professor of Sociology at NDSU, Project Unpack plans to “create space for veterans, their family members, and the larger community, to unpack, or in other words, talk freely, about complex topics such…
By Josette Ciceronunapologeticallyanxiousme@gmail.com What does it mean to truly live in a community —or should I say, among community? It’s a question I have been wrestling with since I moved to Fargo-Moorhead in February 2022.…