Arts

Unearthing the “Sodbuster”

October 30th, 2015

Plains Art Museum to give press conference on iconic sculpture’s restoration

For over 20 years “Sodbuster, San Isidro,” the striking, boldly powerful sculpture of a homesteader plowing with a team of bulls, could be seen hard at work tilling the intersection of Main and Broadway in downtown Fargo. Unfortunately, due to years of deterioration caused by severe North Dakota winters and an unfortunate lack of care, the once-proud art piece was placed into storage, in the hopes that it…

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Getting creative at Make Room

October 30th, 2015

photo by Chelsea Thorson

Although located subterraneously, local artist Chelsea Thorson’s recently opened business, Make Room, is lit up with creativity by people of all different levels of experience.

“We are all inherently creative,” Thorson said. “Whether you make a living in the arts or you haven’t touched a paintbrush since elementary school, we all share the creative gene. If you are alive, your ancestors used creativity to sustain themselves through difficult circumstances. We can all access…

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Climbing to a more colorful future

October 22nd, 2015

By John Showalter

Living in one of the more prosperous nations in the world, it can be easy to take things for granted. Whether it’s food, clean water, shelter, education, proper medical care or even something that might be passed off as unnecessary by the more cynical of us, like art or a place to play. There are millions if not billions of people on this planet that would be ecstatic to have even one of those things. In the case of the last two, Ann Mladnick and her husband Mat St.…

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Mike Marth: Developed Work, New Series at ecce

October 15th, 2015

In his fifth solo show at ecce gallery, Mike Marth continues to push his unending approach to working and making for yet another series.

Like the previously shown, well-recognized work, Marth’s newest collection offers an extension of the mixed media sculpture and reliefs that punctuate his entire body of work.

The latest series is set apart by the heavy emphasis on the combination of organic forms and objects with industrial materials. More than ever, Marth’s varied found materials…

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It’s a bird, it’s a plane…An exclusive interview with Dutch artist Bart Jansen

October 7th, 2015

Bart Jansen, 36, is an artist who lives and works in The Netherlands. His piece “Orvillecopter,” part of his “World’s First” series, has received worldwide attention after his test video went viral. “Orvillecopter” was a collaboration between Jansen It’s a bird, it’s a plane...

An exclusive interview with Dutch artist Bart Jansen

By Sabrina Hornung

Bart Jansen, 36, is an artist who lives and works in The Netherlands. His piece “Orvillecopter,” part of his “World’s…

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Roll Out

October 1st, 2015

Star Wallowing Bull’s solo exhibition “Transformer” hits the Plains

Star Wallowing Bull has been drawing robots since he could pick up a pencil. Some things never change -- other than his medium of choice and the walls his art has hung upon. “I've been drawing transformers all my life,” says Wallowing Bull. In fact a few of his childhood drawings, including his attempt at illustrating a transformer comic book (at age 11), grace a wall of the Plains Art Museum along with the…

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Can Jam - Thank you Man!

September 24th, 2015

Street art may have deviant roots but it has been around as long as man’s cognition. Though comparing petroglyphs to graffiti writing may seem a bit abstract, marking community space to express oneself definitely has its parallels.

The way we choose how to express ourselves has obviously evolved. Art in Fargo-Moorhead is making its way off the gallery walls and on to the city streets as our community embraces street art with open arms and open cans through the advent of Fargo’s first…

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“Bittersweet Harvest” season

September 16th, 2015

It’s amazing how large sections of history can get buried by time. This fall, the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCSCC) is highlighting a relatively forgotten event in American history, one which happened in the not-too-distant past and in our very backyard, or rather, in our farm fields.

In partnership with the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service, HCSCC has brought “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964,” a bilingual (English/Spanish)…

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A cut above the rest

September 3rd, 2015

photo by Troyd Geist

Wycinanki, pronounced vee-chee-nine-key, is the Polish art of papercutting. The distinguishing factor is the colorful, often symmetrical, layered paper cutouts. Tower City-based Meridee Erickson-Stowman learned the folk art wycinanki from Leona Wojcik Barthle, a woman of Polish descent who was based out of Sioux Falls, S.D.

The pair met in 1998 as part of the North Dakota Council on the Art’s Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. According to the NDCA website the program…

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​Ide and Seek

August 19th, 2015

Photo by Sabrina Hornung

508 Oak is a commercial property owned by Scott Nelson. One of the properties houses a Crossfit gym and the other houses the Crossfit Ice House. But the most compelling part of the property is a 110-foot weathered fence exhibiting an original spray paint mural by Fargo artist Paul Ide.

Nelson wanted to draw attention to his commercial properties and after looking at Ide’s sketchbook he let him have at it. Four weeks later the fence contained a beautifully twisted dynamic mural.

“For…

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