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 Past News & Events
News: MSU Art Department wins awards Stacy Jaeger, Bismarck, earned a Gold Addy for her "Crush Olive Oil" package design. Jaeger also earned the Judges Choice Award and a $500 scholarship. The other award winners are listed alphabetically:
Bill Harbort, associate professor of graphic arts at Minot State, also received a Silver Addy in the professional logo category for his "amphibian growth project" logo. All Gold Addy-award winners will move on to the regional competition in mid-March and compete against work by other students from Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota and North Dakota. The AdFed is an association that binds the mutual interests and collective powers of advertisers, agencies, media companies, suppliers, local advertising associations and college and high school advertising students. Their mission is to promote education in advertising, marketing and communications. 
At last year’s event, MSU Art student, Eric Benz, is screen printing while Chicago artist Jay Ryan and two MSU art students watch.
3-color screen printed poster for the band, The Submarines, by Aesthetic Apparatus, 2006
Live art & music combine to rock Minot State MSU NOTSTOCK, a second-year event, plans to rock the Beaver Dam at Minot State University, as four popular artists and 20 local bands converge to offer a unique art and music experience Oct. 28-30. Minot State will host four nationally-known rock poster artists: Miss Amy Jo, Punchgut, DWITT and Aesthetic Apparatus. All of the artists are published in "The Art of Modern Rock" and create work for the most popular alternative bands. "MSU NOTSTOCK will be a great laboratory in which to observe artists working, as they demonstrate technique and share vision," said Conrad Davidson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "Students, faculty and the community will benefit from the artistic experience the artists bring to the MSU campus." Along with three days of producing posters, editions and experiments in silk screening, the artists will be joined by some of the hottest modern, alternative and local rock bands. These bands include the following groups: The Morning Red, Carly Ann, Alone in Cadence, Joshua Gagne, Atom’s Rite, Jazmine Wolff, Galaxies, Stay Out Late, Jesse Dylan Watson, Echo’s Answer, Mitchell Nelson, Headshott, Diabolic Octopus, The Earth and Everything In It, Father Son and Holy Smokes!!!, Black River, Potential Caskets, Crooked Gospel of Western Civilization, Diabolic Dakota and Myles Alexander Barcomb. "Too few people have had the chance to hear the singers, song writers and amazing musicians that are working in this town (Minot)," said Rick Watson, instructor of humanities at Minot State. "MSU NOTSTOCK is a perfect opportunity for the region and nation to hear all the talent available throughout the upper Midwest." In addition, there will be a special roundtable/presentation by the artists at 7 p.m. on Oct. 29 in the Beaver Dam, followed by a reception in the Student Center atrium. On Oct. 30, the artists will present "The Artist as Entrepreneur" from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Missouri Room on the third floor of the Student Center. All parts of the three-day event, held throughout the Student Center on the campus of Minot State University, are free and open to the public. The artists will have posters for sale and will be available to sign other collected works. You can visit www.msunotstock.org for an event schedule as well as band and artist links.
Minot State University Art Department Wins Awards 
The Advertising Federation of Bismarck/Mandan is an association that binds the mutual interests and collective powers of advertisers, agencies, media companies, suppliers, local advertising associations and college and high school advertising students. AdFed is open to professionals in the graphic arts, advertising, marketing, photography, public relations and other related fields. AdFed's mission is to promote education in advertising marketing and communications. AdFed gives the students a satisfaction of being a part of a civic-minded organization that provides opportunity and scholarships to high school and college students.
"Visions of Blackness," an exhibition of works by Minot State University senior art major Breon Waters II, will open Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at the Northwest Art Center’s Library Gallery. The public is invited to a reception with the artist from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Gordon B. Olson Library on the MSU campus. The exhibition features collages, scratchboards, and acrylic paintings which explore the theme of black identity. Some of Waters’ works explore black stereotypes, while other pieces celebrate black individuals he admires. Chicago-based, rock poster artist, Jay Ryan will be here soon! Jay has created posters for Pearl Jam, the Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill, Melvins, Shins, Interpol, Fugazi, Ben Harper, QOTSA, and many more. On Thursday, October 18th Jay will be silkscreening all day in the Student Union Beaver Dam. Art students will be assisting Jay in the production of a special edition of prints that will promote a Minot State premier concert featuring Crawling Inward and Standard Thompson. Jay will also give a public presentation of his work at 7:30pm in the MSU Conference Center on Thursday, October 18th. All of the Jay Ryan events are free and open to the public. [ Additional Information ]
Student Photography Show at MSU The show features black and white as well as color photography by spring semester students in Photography II and III, instructed by Linda Olson. Students in the class explored a variety of techniques, including blue-toned "cyanotypes" and digital photography. Students prepared the exhibition as a final project for the class, as an exercise in the framing and professional display of their works.
Exhibit at 62 Doors Gallery
MSU at the Mall
A Screening in Five Parts [03/26/07] This month, Madansky has been working with Student-Artists Cindi Finley, Kelly Kollobakken, Melissa Ditalo and Timothy Eisenzimmer on three minute video projects based on their views of the subject of war. As well, Cynthia and Angelika Brudniak will be screening a 15 minute work in progress which is in her terms, a filmic portrait of the city of Minot. The public is hereby invited to experience these works and engage in dialogue with these artists. 
"Cockroach Anatomy 101" by Tara Bulow received Best of Show
MSU Art Department Wins Awards [02/27/07] This years three out-of-state judges only awarded gold and silver in the student competition; there were no bronze honorable mentions. MSU earned four Gold ADDY awards and five Silvers. Tara Bulow, graphic design student was awarded the judges $500.00 BEST OF SHOW award for a magazine layout assignment, "Cockroach Anatomy 101". All of the Gold ADDY's will move on to student regionals in mid-March competing against other student work from Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota and North Dakota. The Advertising Federation of Bismarck/Mandan is an association that binds the mutual interests and collective powers of advertisers, agencies, media companies, suppliers, local advertising associations and college and high school advertising students. AdFed is open to professionals in the graphic arts, advertising, marketing, photography, public relations and other related fields. AdFed's mission is to promote education in advertising marketing and communications. AdFed gives the students a satisfaction of being a part of a civic-minded organization that provides opportunity and scholarships to high school and college students. 
Weisman Art Museum - U. of Minnesota
2005 Minneapolis Art Club Trip Never, under any circumstances, spend 5 days in close proximity with your professors. Who knows what you may find out about them? I recently had such an opportunity. And I will do my best capture and communicate the abstractness of such an extended encounter to you the reader. With any luck you'll get a taste of just how splendid an experience it can be. You see, I took a class this semester called Art 299 (Special Topics). Part of the required curriculum was a trip to Minneapolis to see real live actual art. I know what you're thinking, but I can assure you art exists outside of a dull humanities class slide presentation. And we saw it. No lie. But I digress. I was talking about the teachers who will, as soon as they read this, no doubt be reevaluating my grades. It's a touchy thing to write about the people who hold your academic career in the collective palm of their hand. Journalistic integrity requires a strict adherence to the facts. So I'll do my best to suck up be completely honest. There is a hypothetical question a friend once asked me. It was "Could God make a sandwich so big that he himself could not eat it?" There is no provable answer to this question. However if the question had been "Could God create enough coffee and cigarettes for Jon Olson?" My answer would have to be 'no'. Another thing I learned is that when Bill Harbort got 5 days away from changing diapers he went a short sight near giddy with sleep. Which is bizarre when you consider how little sleep we actually got. But you will also know exactly how his day with the kids might have gone merely by being audience to his daily phone conversations with his young, and soon to be beautifully corrupted, progeny. And Linda Olson is strange... What?
Thursday April, 14th On our stop in Grand Forks we also picked up a friend of Jon's who had some work to do in Minneapolis. His name was Nick, I later learned. He was getting his masters in poetry, and we shared a fondness for Arthur Rimbaud. Then we made sweet passionate love. No, we didn't. Men can like poetry. Seriously. Drop it already. We got into Minneapolis late Thursday night, and after only a few wrong turns (and an insane man screaming in surprising falsetto at a bus) we arrived at the Youth Hostel where we would be residing for the trip. It was a big brick affair with a Victorian interior. We learned the rules of the kitchen, and communal bathrooms. Things this article has nothing to do with. After settling in, getting bed and key assignments and such, a group of us absconded to a bar. Getting a table outside away from the din of the nightlife, we talked about art. These table discussions happened nearly every night and where what made the trip for me, for reasons I'll explain later. 
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Friday April, 15th Down the street maybe half a block sat the Rosalux Gallery. This is a gallery for new regional artists. Jon Nelson and Amy Rice were featured. It had art in it. I know, it surprised me too. It was encouraging to see new art being supported. Next stop was the Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota Campus. The Weisman is a huge shiny steel thing in which I saw a giant Roy Lichtenstein. I had seen Lichtensteins before in books, but that doesn't really give you the sense of seeing all 18 feet of one. Again we saw art. I can't properly articulate this experience in words. And I'll save you the excruciating boredom of just listing off names. Next we stopped at the Susan Hensel Gallery where we greeted by (surprise surprise) Susan Hensel. She had just opened doors in Minneapolis. As a matter of fact the vinyl name was being placed on one of the windows as we drove up. Susan opened the gallery as a place to showcase her own work as well as the work of artists she believed were making something new in the world of art. It was good to see an artist brave enough to strike out on her own. Determined to make something happen rather than just let it happen to her. It was a busy day, and we finished at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for an MFA reception. We students got to see other students struggling with similar problems and faring about as well as we. I don't know about the rest of my fellow students but it gave me hope to know that MSU students could compete with MCAD in the work we were producing.
Saturday April, 16th I was allowed to sleep in because we only had to walk across the street to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Lots of names I recognized. I almost wished I had gotten up earlier as I could have spent days in there. They allowed photography. I burned through 100 pictures easily. Digital cameras are proof that god loves us. From there we went to the "Outsiders and Others" gallery opening and reception. This was awful. Not the experience, the art. It was tripe of the worst kind. Self-important tripe. I felt bad being there at first. Because I hated the art so much. I was hoping that the disgust didn't show on my face, as the artists were present. Then, thankfully, they spoke. And all my reservations regarding tact melted away. First I had better explain that the gallery was called "Outsiders and Others" because all the artists in the gallery were not formally educated in art. Which is fine. Francis Bacon was self-educated and he's considered one of the greatest American painters ever. However the claims they began making while front and center explaining their art made me want to beat them all with large pointed things. Most of them seemed convinced that the education they missed out on for various reasons would have been bad. Which is much like hating that vacation to Paris you never took. 'Those French... they would have been so uppity... you know... had I gone'. One claimed that she would have had a horrible time working with strangers in a school setting and was much happier having 'art day' with her friends. I immediately took this opportunity to tell everyone on the trip with me that I hated them. And because of this I felt uncomfortable working with them. If only they had been friends from high school or work. Then I could avoid ever updating the phone numbers in my cell. I wish I could make friends. Another claimed that he attended college for a few semesters, but left because the teachers tried to tell him how to work. It's much like the time I asked my dad how to change the oil in my car, and he actually had the cajones to tell me how. When I take a class I expect to be left alone to continue doing things exactly as I had been doing them before. The nerve of some instructors. They think they can just instruct you, and that's it. All of them fell back on the crutch statement "I'm just staying true to myself". These things they said made my brain work (just a little) to refute them. But this process of rejecting the obviously false forced me to make decisions about my own beliefs. One of them I wrote in my notebook was: "Technique doesn't distract from your ability to remain true to yourself. Technique is the language that allows you to communicate yourself. In that way all artistic products are merely technique. But good art should be unhindered by your ability (or lack there of) to communicate yourself through it." In this way the Gallery was more helpful than seeing something I would have enjoyed. I'm glad I slept-in as I was wide-awake for the Walker opening that night. For those of you not in the know the Walker is 'the' gallery in the Twin Cities. I got separated from the group a little and ended up at the end of a line that stretched for two blocks. Apparently all 6 thousand of the ticket holders were being herded through one entrance to save confusion. I saw things in there that would have made me wet my pants had I slowed down enough to look at them. However, I had lost my group as you recall, and there was a crowd of six thousand to get through to find them. On my way to finding them I met a man in his late fifties, early sixties. He asked me if I was an artist. Mistake #1: I said 'why do you ask?' He had seen me at a gallery yesterday. I told him I was part of a group of students touring the cities galleries. He asked me if I knew who Rimbaud was. He claimed I looked like him. Let me tell you I look nothing like him. Thinking this was coincidentally like the conversation I had with Nick earlier I replied "Arthur Rimbaud? Yeah, 'A season in Hell'... good stuff". He then introduced himself as Lawrence Perlman and recommended I check out the room he bought which was just up the stairs behind me. It was then that I saw my group and made Mistake #2. I smiled and said I would. I also said I was "pleased to meet him". I then rejoined my group.
So I continued on as if nothing potentially life changing had occurred. Realizing my folly painfully the next day. I took in a Matthew Barney movie (think a more abstract David Lynch) and a Tracy and the Plastics concert at the opening. I would marry Tracy (real name Wynne) without hesitation if luck of the Lyle Lovett magnitude presented me with that unlikely opportunity. On the balcony of the Walker we discussed this. We also discussed my inability to get any form of female attention. Then we discussed how Greg should shut his mouth before I slap it off. We actually spent most of that night talking about 'Cremaster 2' the Matthew Barney film we saw. It's based loosely on a murderer named Gary Gilmore and has some obvious signs of narrative. Half the fun is finding it and understanding what the abstraction process was saying about the events in the film. These are the dialogues that I looked forward to every night. To be able to talk about art, something I am growing to love more all the time, and not sound pretentious or out of place. It's fulfilling to be able to just talk 'art' without fear of being judged by the subject rather than what you said about it.
Sunday April, 17th All the art we had seen in books, and all that we read about what we see above the captions cannot compare to being in the presence of art. It's like the difference between being in a party and just looking at pictures of a party to which you weren't invited. This is what education is. There is no way that Jon Olson could ever tell us in the middle of Art 299 to direct our attention to the Rothko at his right. No way to describe the difference between a 2 inch photo of a Robert Motherwell and the real 12 foot by 4 foot thing you could touch if it wouldn't result in your immediate bludgeoning by the Machiavellian looking character in the corner. It's the difference. It's all the difference. This is what art is about. Nothing written, heard, or duplicated can compare. This is why you shouldn't spend too much time with your teachers. Their passions have a way of eeking into you. Now I'm stained with this need to see more, and do more, and be more. And now I have to try and make some sort of life out of this art gibberish. Afterward Dan Sharbono, his wife who shall remain nameless (take that Alyssa), and I ate tacos. The punk/Mexican themed taco shop allowed you draw in crayon on the tablecloth, which was no cloth at all, but in fact, a ream of paper. Over the coarse of the discussion we ended up filling the table. And I actually got my piece cut out and hung. It was my first gallery opening. I gave a small speech at which the waitress only stared blankly. She was obviously not at my level yet. Perhaps my words will impact her later in life when she has grown wise enough to properly grasp the concepts they represented. 
Lunalux
Monday April, 18th We visited 3 design studios on our last day in Minneapolis. This part of the trip had the most practical applications for us students. It gave us a taste of what life was like for a designer in the real world. It also helped shape goals, and find contacts for us. Spunk Design Machine was an independently owned and operated design firm working with high end clients like Target on product packaging and in some cases total identity creation. The entire firm was run out of a small office of a half a dozen employees two blocks from the owner's house. The owner was friendly and personable, and you got the feeling that he enjoyed his work. He worked for organizations of his choosing, and probably hired people whose attitudes were as good as their abilities. Lunalux was a design and print studio that also ran a traditional letterpress. If it could be helped there were no computers used in production. This was a family owned business that was keeping to it's roots. Publishers rarely use traditional letterpress anymore. But what is lost in efficiency is gained in a unique style that would be hard to duplicate on a computer. Duffy & Partners design firm was the last stop. This office was exactly where you'd want to end up as a designer. When we got there they were working on a new look for Sprite. Their client list includes Ralph Lauren, Minute Maid, Jim Beam, Starbucks, BMW, and of course Coke. And they get these clients for a reason. These places demonstrated a level of excellence we now know we have to push ourselves to. If we want to make it. The bar is set, and we have to raise it. 
Minnesota Institute of Art
Tuesday April, 19th So... what do you say? Can I get an extension on my final, or what? | |||||||||||||
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Two Minot State University seniors, MaryAnn Hintz and Amanda Crawford, will have an exhibit of their paintings at 62 Doors Gallery from May 27 through June 24, 2007. The exhibition will feature recent work including some experimental mixed media pieces. A reception for the artists is scheduled for the evening of Sunday, May 27th from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.