Arts

A summer affair with Dan Jones

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…

Moorhead’s Growing Art Mural

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…

Pop go the flowers

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…

More than signs: Chris Orth’s neon art and brand illumination

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,…

Traveling Through Iceland

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…

Jon Solinger: “Working Land: New Rural Photographs”

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…

Fair game

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…

Wanderlust for life

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,…

Unpacking the war experience

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…

Local Students Create Art Studio

May 25th, 2016

By Elle Anderson

Up-and-coming artists always seem to have a tough time finding studio space to create art or even a space to promote their artwork. Some of the studio spaces can be expensive to rent and this at times can be stressful. Here in the Fargo/Moorhead area, a group of young, talented artists have created a studio to share their art and support each other’s art.

Students crafting Ochre Creative Studio

Ochre Creative Studio is a collective of eight talented, young art students.…