Autumn Art Auction 2009 by North Dakota Museum of Art

Autumn Art Auction

North Dakota Museum of Art

This Autumn Art Auction and its catalog is dedicated to

JEAN DEAN HOLLAND long-time supporter of the North Dakota Museum of Art

The North Dakota Museum of Art is grateful to our sponsors who have given generously to guarantee that the arts flourish.

The 2009 Autumn Art Auction is underwritten by

DAVID HASBARGEN

AND

WAYNE ZIMMERMAN

residents of the southern Red River Valley.

Cover: Adaptation, 2009. Hand drawing with Adobe Illustrator, printed on archival Hahnem端hle fine art paper, 34.5 x 85 inches.

North Dakota Museum of Art

AUTUMN

Art

Auction

S at u r d a y, N o v e m b e r 7 , 2 0 0 9 Wine and hors d’oeuvres 6:30 pm Auction begins at 8 pm

Auction Preview October 18 until auction time in the Museum galleries Monday – Friday, 9 to 5 pm, Saturday – Sunday, 1 to 5 pm All works to be auctioned will be on display

patrons Clarion Inn Clear Channel Radio Grand Forks Convention and Visitors Bureau Grand Forks Herald David Hasbargen and Wayne Zimmerman

Supporters Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., Debbie R. Albert Avant Hair and Skin Care Studio Blue Moose Bar & Grill Bronze Boot Chester Fritz Auditorium

KVLY TV

East Grand Floral and Gifts

KXJB TV

Farmer’s Insurance Group, George Wogaman

Leighton Broadcasting Minnesota Public Radio Merrill Lynch Office of Academic Affairs, UND River City Jewelers WDAZ TV

Frandsen Bank & Trust Greater Grand Forks Community Theatre Guesthouse International Gustafson Gluek, PLLC HB Sound & Light Hugo’s Ellen McKinnon Museum Café

Sponsors Bremer Bank Dakota Harvest Bakers

North Dakota Eye Clinic Red River Plastic Surgery, Dr. Judson Crow Rhombus Guys Auction Supporters continued next page

Buy local. Read the sponsor pages to learn about those who invest in the Museum. This past year a Museum supporter looked up a realtor in the catalog and asked him to handle a property sale. It works.

Supporters Sanders 1907 Special Olympics Summit Brewing Company Curtis Tanabe, DDS Duc Tran, DDS

—David Hasbargen, Chairman Museum Board of Trustees

UND Alumni Foundation Waterfront Gallery, Northern Plumbing Supply Whitey’s

Contributors Altru Health System Acme Electric/Tool Crib of the North Alerus Financial Axis Clinic Camrud, Maddock, Olson & Larson, Ltd. Capital Resource Management Chad Caya Painting Fine Print Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra Gregory J. Norman Funeral Chapel Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops Letnes, Marshall, Swanson, & Warcup, Ltd. Mayport Insurance Praxis Strategy Group Rite Spot Liquor Salon Seva Sterling Carpet One Xcel Energy Zimney Foster, P.C.

Advertisers Brady Martz and Associates Browning Arts David C. Thompson, P.C. Drees, Riskey, Vallager, Ltd. Economy Plumbing Edward Jones, Mark A. Larsen Forks Chem-Dry Gate City Bank Greenberg Realty, Kelly Thompson Carol Irey Meland Architecture Monarch Travel & Tours Earl Pomeroy Reichert Armstrong Law Office Robert Vogel Law Office, P.C. Shaft, Reis, and Shaft, Ltd. Marie Strinden, Personal Trainer The Toasted Frog Valley Car Wash Vilandre You Are Here Gallery

Ross Rolshoven, Auctioneer

Marie Strinden and Benjamin KliPfel, Chairs

Ross Rolshoven is a many-sided man. Foremost, he is

Marie Strinden was raised in Fargo and attended New

an artist who works in assemblage, hand-colored photography,

York University, receiving her B.F.A. in Acting in 2005. Among

and painting. Among his exhibitions was a solo show of

other projects, she appeared on the Discovery Channel’s short-

assemblages at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2002. The

lived series, “Sensing Murder,” and wrote a one-woman comedy

work was based in the iconography of the West, in historical

about growing up in Fargo which played to sold-out audiences

myths and representations of cowboys and Indians. These themes

Off-Broadway before touring Europe. Several years ago, Marie

overlap with family and relationships, and contemporary life.

started missing the wide open prairie and moved to Grand Forks,

Rolshoven is a collector of early Western settlement and American Indian art and artifacts. Thus he is completing his fourth year on Medora’s North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame Board of Directors. He has been a volunteer for numerous civic events and charities over the past thirty years, including the North Dakota Museum of Art.

where she works as a Certified Personal Trainer. Marie and Ben met and became fast friends, bonding over theater and art, among other interests. Benjamin Klipfel has been a life long participant and supporter of the arts. Since moving to Grand Forks, Klipfel has worked on plays for East Grand Forks High School, the Fire Hall

In addition to making and collecting art, Rolshoven collects and

Theatre and Crimson Creek Players. Klipfel currently serves as

restores vintage boats. He is North Dakota’s only professional

the Executive Director of the Greater Grand Forks Community

boat racer, having finished as high as fourth place in the National

Theatre and Crimson Creek Players. Klipfel is also an award

APBA tournament in Kankakee, Illinois—and totaled a boat or

winning visual designer and photographer, having shot subjects

two along the way.

all over the world. Klipfel serves on the board of directors for the North Valley Arts Council, the North Dakota Ballet Company, the

In everyday life, however, he is a legal investigator who handles

Grand Forks County Historical Society and as president of the

high profile cases involving corporate, civil, and criminal

alumni association for Waldorf College, his alma mater, in Forest

matters. He owns and operates Great Plains Claims, Inc., along

City, Iowa.

with his brother Reid, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His work routinely takes him across the Upper Midwest—a boon to his collecting and his need to acquire endless numbers of objects for making assemblages.

Committee Nicole Derenne

Rolshoven is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of

Bryan Hoime

North Dakota with a degree in Business Administration. He has

Mike Little

three children, his oldest daughter, Ashley, is a professional barrel

Linda Ose

racer living in Texas. Daughter Jensen and son Carsen attend

Kate Proulx

school in Grand Forks.

Museum Mission Statement

MISSION: To foster and nurture the aesthetic life and artistic

Rules of Auction

•

Each registered guest will receive a bidding card as part of

expression of the people living on the Northern Plains through

the price of a ticket. Upon receiving the bidding card, each

exhibitions, programs, and publications which engage the

guest will be asked to sign a statement vowing to abide by

region, the country, and the world.

the Rules of the Auction listed in this catalog.

VISION: To create the richest learning environment possible for

•

Bid Form with Museum personnel in person or by phone, or

experiencing art and developing community that affirms the

bid by phone the night of the auction. Absentee bidders, by

highest level of respect for art, artists, and audiences.

filling out the form, agree to abide by the Rules of the Auction.

VALUES: For the Museum to be successful, our most important resource, our people, must have a clear sense of where we are

•

going, and the collaborative spirit in which we undertake that journey. Our values are guiding principles for how we will go about our work. They are guideposts to daily conduct that speak to the integrity of our behavior.

Absentee bidders will either leave their bids on an Absentee

Each bidder will use his or her own bidding number during the auction.

•

All sales are final.

•

In September, 2002, the Office of the North Dakota State

1) Rural Lens: We interpret rural life through the arts, just as we

Tax Commissioner determined that the gross receipts from

view the art of the world through a rural perspective.

the sales made at the Auction are subject to sales tax at

2) Global Context: We place the lives of artists and audiences

6.75 %. This does not apply to out-of-state buyers who have

within the context of contemporary art and critical thought from

works shipped to them.

around the world. 3) Humanities Focus: We function as a laboratory for all forms of

•

shall either determine the successful bidder or re-auction

artistic, aesthetic and cultural inquiry.

the item in dispute.

4) Collaboration: We build and nourish relationships with artists, visitors and each other.

In the event of a dispute between bidders, the auctioneer

•

Purchasers may pay for items at any point following the

5) Scholarship: Academic rigor and quality research underpin all

sale of a work but must pay for all art work before the

Museum programs and publications.

conclusion of the evening—unless other arrangements are

6) Stewardship: We are stewards of the public trust for the artistic

in place. Absentee bidders will be charged on the evening of

environment of our region, and the human, financial and

the auction or an invoice will be sent the next business day.

physical resources of the Museum.

•

Works of art in the auction have minimum bids placed on them by the artist. This confidential “reserve” is a price agreed upon between the artist and the North Dakota Museum of Art below which a work of art will not be sold.

If we don’t support them, who is going to?

From the Museum Director

Gifts to you! Gifts to the Museum! Ultimately,

is guaranteed to receive the amount of the reserve bid. If work

that is what this auction is all about. Years ago, I decided that the

does not reach minimum bid, it will be bought in by the Museum

Museum should take responsibility for growing an audience for

and returned to artist. Any amount over the reserve bid and the

our own artists. Our mantra became, “If we don’t support them,

Museum’s equal match is split 50/50 between the artist and the

who is going to?” Madelyn Camrud, with the close help of

Museum. Example: If a reserve bid is $200, and the work sells for

Marsonda Schroeder, took on the job. As I look back over the

$395, the artist receives $200 and the Museum receives $195. If

years, I consider this growing audience one of the Museum’s

the same work sells for $500, the artist and the Museum each

greatest accomplishments. Today, art has also become an

receive $250.

accepted part of younger people’s lives. They participate, they buy, they live with art—and all of our lives become richer.

Gradually we have seen the prices for art increase as our buying audience experiences the pleasure of knowing artists and living

Not all of the artists live locally but they all have some

with art. And also gradually, the Museum has begun to make

relationship with either the Museum of Art or the region. And,

some money from the auction as well. It wasn’t long, however,

given that Winnipeg is our closest large city—and a hotbed for

before every art entity in the region began holding their own

artists—we consider the Manitoba art community our own.

auctions—and positioning them to compete with the Museum’s

We could not publish this catalog without the underwriting of our sponsors. Please take your business to these companies and individuals; thank them for their significant contribution; and note how many are locally owned and operated. Sometimes they

auction. Then non-art entities thought, “why not us?” It was as if the Museum threw a pebble into the pond and art auctions rippled out. Fortunately, what is good for artists is good for the Museum—and selling work is very good for artists.

say, “I don’t care if I get an ad, I just want to give to you guys.”

Remember, when you buy through the Autumn Art Auction, the

Supporting cultural life is not in the interest of the “big boxes” but

price includes framing or presentation. Frames are often custom

rather has become the business of the butcher, the baker and the

made by the artists or the Museum staff who use archival

keeper of bees—and of Ellen McKinnon who buys her own ad

materials. This alone adds significant value to most of the auction

because it pleases her.

sales. This year, there are significant works in the auction by

From the beginning, the Museum has never asked artists to donate work, although some do. Instead, we allow them to establish their minimum price, an amount the Museum guarantees. The auction procedures are:

artists who have recently shown with us such as Aganetha Dyck, Zoran Mojsilov, Chuck Kimmerle, Ewa Tarsia with a new body of work, Vivienne Morgan, and Pirjo Berg, a Finnish artist who just moved here from Seattle. Others include Walter Piehl, the first winner of the Bush Foundation’s $100,000 Enduring Vision

DIVISION OF MONEY between the artist and the North

Award; and two new Native artists from neighboring Winnipeg,

Dakota Museum of Art on a work sold in the Auction: The artist

Lita Fontaine and Scott Stephens. Enjoy! —Laurel Reuter, Director

Laurel Reuter, Zhimin Guan, oil on metal, 2009

Lot #1

Keith Johnson Bemidji, Minnesota Untitled, 2009 Steel bowl with cutouts 20 inch diameter, 4 inches deep Range: $175 - 225

Keith

Johnson is a blacksmith from Bemidji,

Minnesota. He works as a general architectural smith who makes railings for multi-million dollar houses in the Twin Cities and Chicago. His skills and his interests, however, vary from making Damascus folding knives that are sold to collectors through knife shows to producing a line of black-powder related items such as knives, tomahawks, and campfire sets for people who rendezvous to re-enact the fur trade, which ended in 1840. Johnson has been smithing full-time since 1986 when he started Great River Forge. He also was village blacksmith in 1986-87 at Smoky Hills in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and at Sawmill Creek, Park Rapids, Minnesota, in 1991. As village blacksmith, he created craft items such as dinner bells, fireplace tools, candleholders, and hooks. Johnson grew up on a Minnesota farm with its own forge. While in high school he took blacksmithing classes. After attending Bemidji State for a year, Johnson moved to Long View, Washington, to study â&#x20AC;&#x153;body and fenderâ&#x20AC;? for two years. Then he joined the Navy and ended up in Pensacola, Florida, working as an aircraft mechanic. Next he built steel buildings and a couple of homes before finally settling in as a blacksmith. Keith founded the Northern Minnesota Metalsmiths and remains a driving force to this day. In 1993, Johnson, along with Bob and Wanda Odegard, forged a bronze globe, six feet in diameter, which is installed near the Mississippi headwaters at Itasca State Park, south of Bemidji.

The original prints by Kent Kapplinger and Jessica Wachter were made as an exchange portfolio for the PEARS Summer Printmaking Workshop 2009. They were printed in the PEARS studio in Fargo. Kapplinger leads the workshop. There were fifteen prints in each edition plus each artist received three Artist Proofs, one of which is in this auction. Summer 2009 Folio Statement: The beauty and permanence of nature is simple yet awesome, providing tranquility, balance, and order in a world sometimes seeming full of chaos. Lot #3

Kent Kapplinger Fargo, North Dakota Resolve, 2009 Intaglio 15 x 11 inches (image) Range: $175 - 225 framed

Lot #2, left

Kent Kapplinger is an Associate Professor of Art at Jessica Wachter

North Dakota State University, Fargo, where he has taught

Bismarck, North Dakota

printmaking and drawing since 1992. He also directs and is

Layers of Love, Life, and Learning, 2009

master printer of the Printmaking, Education and Research Studio

Intaglio

(PEARS). He received a M.F.A. in printmaking from the University

15 x 11 inches (image)

of Iowa and B.A. in Art from Augustana College in Sioux Falls,

Range: $75 - 125 framed

South Dakota. He has received fellowships from the Hungarian Multicultural Center, North Dakota Council on the Arts,

Jessica Wachter is currently a student at North Dakota State University in art and interior design. She studies printmaking under Kent Kapplinger. According to the artist, For this print, I experimented with a new print process of layering many different plates in various directions. As I often do in my work, I chose to draw upon life experiences and strived to express something of myself and my true feelings in this piece. As noted in the title, not only was this print assembled in layers with

Woodstock School of Art in New York, and Vinalhaven Press in Maine. The artist has shown in over 125 individual and group exhibitions and his work is part of more than twenty-five public and corporate collections, including Johnson & Johnson, Thrivent Financial, The Print Consortium, U.S. Art in Embassy Program, The Amity Art Foundation, Museum of Texas Tech University, and Northern Illinois University Art Museum. My work addresses socio-environmental issues and focuses on

love and patience, but in and of itself this piece expresses my

balance, order, and regeneration. Visual layers of structured

view of life: life is a culmination of years of loving, living and

imagery, shape, texture, color, and text are used to initiate

learning that creates the depth that makes us who we are.

dialogue concerning how we impact the quality of life.

Lot #4

John Marsh Tulsa, Oklahoma Pedro’s Band, 2006 Mixed media on wood panel 36 x 36 inches Range: $450 - 550

Lot #5

Doug Pfliger Minot, North Dakota Pair of Old Seesaw Dogs, 2009 Wood, metal and paint 11 x 18 x 5 inches

John Marsh is a self-taught artist who practiced family

Range: $450 - 550

medicine in Tulsa, Oklahoma, until ten years ago when he quit in order to paint full time. He has exhibited widely in Oklahoma. About his painting, Pedro’s Band, he says, the painting was born after extensive trial and error in an effort to create a surface texture similar to stone and composed of water-based non-toxic substances. This surface medium permits the formation of “pectographs” composed of scratches, stabs and gouges and drawings with sharpened bones and wood. I use water-based stains and colored earth solutions for coloration. The overall design of Pedro’s Band, like much of my other work, is taken from an ancient and universal symbol, the cross. The marks on Pedro’s Band include symbols as well as Greek and English alphabet letters. Like my technique, which involves layering, so the meaning of the work is layered, leaving choices to the viewer: the Apostle Peter and his followers? The logo on the side abandoned

Doug Pfliger began his Doug’s Dogs series in 2005,

building? Collection of archetypal forms and symbols drawn

which he originally called Scrap Pile Dogs. The work in this

from within the artist, which connect the “outside” or external

auction, Pair of Old Seesaw Dogs, is from the Sad Circus Series

meanings of events and objects with the human “inside,” or

where things are not always as they seem. The series contains

spiritual meanings?

eighteen new dogs built since June 2009 that range from Siamese

rock-and-roll

bus?

Graffiti

Caroline Doucette is a traditional watercolor

Color. Her mother is an artist as was her grandmother. As a form

painter known for her flowers. In this work, she has captured the

of play, her mother taught her perspective drawing when she was

grasses that grow on the edge of a North Dakota pond. She says,

four years old. At eleven years she got her first camera. Her

I like to use a simple palette of red, blue, yellow—cool and

father, who once worked within the photography department of

warm—so I get nice rich, brilliant, vivid, clean colors that will sit

the U.S. Air Force, taught her the fundamentals of composition.

on my canvas in such a delightful way. I like to make the leaf or stems curl away.

In December 1989, her husband encouraged her to paint full time, suggesting she use watercolors and later to specialize in

Doucette is a signature member of the New England Watercolor

florals. Following his intuition and guidance, she began to win

Society and the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society. She has been

awards and recognition.

published in both the Summer 1996 issue and the Spring 2000 issue of Watercolor magazine.

In November 2000, her husband’s business relocated from Nashua, New Hampshire, to Rugby, North Dakota.

Her painting To Life appears in the book Splash 5: The Glory of

Dog to Pfliger cont. The Bearded, Fat, and Tattooed Lady. Sad Circus builds on the previous Trick Dog series and brings the total of Doug’s Dogs to 165 sculptures. According to the artist, Humor and color tend to dominate my art. My work is narrative, as many in the series have a continuous story or repeating character. The folksy quality of the dogs is intentional, but the fact that each dog ends up having a personality all its own has been quite serendipitous. His tendency is to work within the confines of the wood shapes and dimensions selected, and then alter the forms as needed. The dogs’ pedigrees are at best indeterminate, but their roles as faithful friends and companions are clearly defined. At times I feel like one of Santa’s elves in my workshop as I build, paint, and embellish each dog. Why dogs and not cats? Simply put, I am a dog owner, and therefore partial to the canine form. Dog-shaped household objects such as oil lamps and purely decorative figures of dogs were popular in ancient Roman homes, and the very Roman tradition of an image of a dog inscribed with the words ‘cave canem’ or ‘beware of the dog’ persists today! Doug’s Dogs do not bite, require only an occasional dusting, and will not chew up your favorite shoes. A Hazen, North Dakota native, Pfliger currently teaches art at

Lot #6

Minot State University where he received his B.S. in Art

Caroline Doucette

Education (1984). He taught art in the public school system for

Rugby, North Dakota

thirteen years before pursuing graduate work. He received his

Heart of America, 2009

M.F.A. (1997) from the University of North Dakota and began to

Watercolor on watercolor canvas

teach at Minot State University in 2001. For the past few years,

36 x 24 inches (image)

the artist has explored themes of chairs, houses, toys, and trailers.

Range: $850 - 950 framed

Lot #7

Pirjo Berg Grand Forks, North Dakota Untitled, 2009 Oil on canvas 66 x 66 inches Range: $1,750 - 2,225

Pirjo Berg suggests that color, texture, and shape are at the

moved to Seattle 1991 with her geologist husband, returned to

core of her current paintings. Her paintings are inspired by the

art school in Finland from 1996-2000, and rejoined her

lines, repetition, texture, and geometric forms she sees in the

husband in Seattle in 2000 after graduating with a B.F.A. in

familiar and mostly Finnish textiles she has acquired for her

painting from the School of Art and Media, Tampere, Finland.

home. Berg is interested in space, time, and rhythm. Her

She also studied with the EDGE Program, Artist Trust, Seattle,

paintings reflect the common experiences of a daily life where

Washington, in 2005.

the basic structure is predictable and repeats itself, however, in its own interesting way each day is different and brings pleasant surprises. Similarly, all her paintings follow the same general pattern: yet, they all become unique and surprising.

Career highlights include the six-person exhibition “Paint Local” at North Dakota Museum of Art (2009); a solo show in Seattle’s Gallery 63Eleven, reviewed on NPR’s Washington affiliate by critic Gary Faigin (2008); and a three-person exhibit at Seattle’s

Abstract in nature, her paintings typically raise emotions and

Nordic Heritage Museum (2007). Commissions include one by

feelings originating in the observer. They are tactile and they

the NBBJ (architecture firm) for Valley Medical Center in Renton,

beckon the viewer to touch them. The paintings take one to

Washington; another by the Max-Hotel (Seattle artists each

another world, the world of paint. These paintings are plain and

created work for one guest room. Catalog produced.). She was

simple: colors, contrasts, and lines. The viewer finds them easy

invited on the curatorial team for “Nordic Artists Northwest,” an

to relate to, yet they remain mysterious and intriguing. These are

invitational exhibit at the Nordic Heritage Museum, and

the rhythms of the little worlds, your own experiences, and your

Convergence–Ballard Building C Artists (where she maintained

own spaces.

a studio and helped develop the Ballard ArtWalk). She also was

This Finnish artist was born in Helsinki and grew up there. She

one of the curators for an invitational show at the UpFront Gallery, Issaquah, Washington.

Lot #8

Chuck Kimmerle Grand Forks, North Dakota Untitled, 2009 Pigment on paper 13 x 20 inches (image) Range: $600 - 700 framed

Lot #9

Chuck Kimmerle Grand Forks, North Dakota Untitled, 2009 Pigment on paper 13 x 20 inches (image) Range: $600 - 700 framed

Chuck Kimmerleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photographs are part of a series

The project explores the unique features, both agricultural and

exploring the reticent landscapes of the agriculturally dominated

natural, which adorn the northern plains of North Dakota and

northern plains of North Dakota. The project, entitled The

western Minnesota, giving the place the aesthetic value and

Unapologetic Landscape, features elements that, when taken as

unique personality so easily overlooked.

a whole, give this area itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique identity. According to Kimmerle, The landscapes of the northern plains

These particular images were made in heavy fog just outside of Whitman, North Dakota, in August 2009. The juxtaposition of the

are, like the inhabitants, reticent and unassuming, lacking the

bright white fence, which ran alongside a rural cemetery, and the

visual grandiosity and splendor that adorn much of the rest of

darkness of the heavy fog made for powerful and compelling

the country. As such, it is a land more often driven through

compositions.

at highway speeds than visited as a destination. This area has, however, subtle and unique virtues not easily understood or appreciated through car windows passing by at 70 mph. Even lifelong residents often struggle to find visual merit and meaning from the land on which they live. Yet, this is a proud landscape, unflinching in its directness and unapologetic in its reticence.

Chuck Kimmerle, born and raised in Minnesota, has been a photographer for more than twenty years. He transplanted to Grand Forks in 1996 while working as photojournalist. His subsequent travels throughout the rural areas of the plains gave him an appreciation for the subtleties of the landscape, and the impetus for this ongoing project.

Sponsored by River City Jewelers

Lot #10

Zhimin Guan Moorhead, Minnesota Red River, 2009 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 inches Range: $700 - 800

Zhimin Guan: For the last few years, I have been

in the spring of 1995, Guan moved to the United States. Since

experimenting with creating landscape paintings on various

1998, he has been a professor of art and design at Minnesota

surfaces and scales. My intention has been to blend traditional

State University Moorhead, while acting as visiting professor at

landscape painting with the expressionism, conceptualism and

China Dalian University of Technology, School of Art and

the aesthetics of Oriental philosophy. As a Chinese artist and art

Architecture; Anhui Normal University; School of Art, in Wuhu,

professor working in the United States, I’ve found that the

Anhui Province; and the Dalian International Institute of Art and

northern Minnesota landscape has a sublime, expressive, natural

Design, among others.

and eternal beauty that is close to my heart. In addition to our spectacular autumn view, I have even started to enjoy the snowy winter landscape and see its variety of subtle but rich grey colors in which one can taste a human condition and thoughts.

In the last two years, Zhimin Guan has successfully mounted a large one-man show entitled “Melting Metal, Melding Culture” at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo. Last year he had a solo portrait show, “American Dreamers Series #1,” at the Rourke Art

Guan was born in China in 1962. He started to paint when he

Museum in Moorhead. Twenty of the portrait paintings of

was nine years old, influenced by his father, Chintian Guan, a

individuals from the regional art world were included in the

traditional Chinese calligrapher and ink painter. Zhimin received

North Dakota Museum of Art exhibition “Paint Local” in

rigorous training in calligraphy and ink painting before he was

September 2009. (One of these is reproduced on page 5 of this

fifteen years old. At the same time, he developed a strong interest

catalog, Museum Director Laurel Reuter.) Recently promoted to

in the Chinese philosophy of Taoism and in ancient Chinese

full professor, Guan received a sabbatical award from Minnesota

poetry. During his B.F.A. studies at Fuyang Teachers College in

State University Moorhead. Guan spent one semester traveling

China, he concentrated on oil painting and again received

and serving as a visiting professor in several universities and

rigorous training in drawing and painting in the Western classical

colleges in China. Reinvigorated, Zhimin returned to teaching in

style. From 1985 to 1994, he taught painting, drawing, and

September 2009.

design at Dalian Institute of Industrial Design in Dalian, China. Besides teaching, Guan devoted himself to his art practice. Then

Lot #11

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, a rising star in the

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline Winnipeg, Manitoba

Canadian art world, is originally from Brandon, Manitoba. He

Rupertsland Handicrafts, 2007

has a B.F.A. with honors from the University of Manitoba (2006)

Screenprint on Mylar

and more recently an M.F.A. from Columbia University (2008).

17 x 11 inches each (image)

His explorations have produced a body of work employing a

Range: Suite $2,400 - 2,800

variety of media, primarily painting, which has been featured in

Individually framed

exhibitions in Toronto; at Scope Basel, Switzerland; the University of Dundee, Scotland; as well as in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. He currently is showing in a group exhibition at Deitch Studios Long Island City, New York.

Handicrafts is a folio of four serigraphic prints using both sides of a translucent vellum to make reference to the disintegration or the fractures apparent in his paintings. This series of

The disintegration of the figures in Kaktins-Gorsline’s work is

representational characters depict Canadian archetypes or

unique to his style of painting where characters are both

stereotypes making reference to Rupertsland, a provincial

representational and abstract. Produced at Winnipeg’s Martha

electoral division in Northern Manitoba formerly controlled by

Street Studio (Manitoba Printmakers Association), Rupertsland

the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Lot #12

Adam Kemp Grand Forks, North Dakota Cows, 2009 Acrylic on canvas 14 x 28 inches Range: $350 - 450

Adam Kemp was born in a village forty miles northeast of London. He matriculated with a B.F.A. from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1986. He moved to North Dakota in 1987 and earned an M.F.A. from the University of North Dakota in sculpture. Kemp considers himself at least half North Dakotan, and, according to the artist, “with the support of my wife Tonja,” has tackled a long list of area projects including the renovation of the mini-golf

Daniel Sharbono is a Minot artist, designer, and

course at Stump Lake Pavilion with students from the Nelson

freelance graphic designer whose recent projects include design

County Art Camps. He conducted sculpture workshops at the

work for Main Street Books, 10 North Main, Otis and James

Heritage Center, East Grand Forks, Minnesota; Turtle River State

Photography, Dakota Kids Dentistry, Minot State University, and

Park in rural Grand Forks County; as well as many workshops in

62 Doors Gallery and Studios.

Grand Forks, especially for the North Dakota Museum of Art. Kemp also works with the Lutheran Social Services Day Report Program in Grand Forks creating sculptures with young people. In the Cow Series the artist explores what humans do for work and what they do to put food on the table. Kemp explains, cows are interesting to me because they are also immigrants. How long is something here before it is not an immigrant? There is something relaxing about spending time with cows—Frank and Lucy Matejcek let me traipse all over their land, keeping

Found objects and materials discovered at flea markets, yard sales, old barns and garages, and the occasional curbside shopping trip, are rescued and recycled for use in artwork that gives these objects the opportunity to be appreciated. Most of Sharbono’s work is about observing the things around one and learning to appreciate them for their inherent aesthetic qualities—signs of a personality, loyalty, and a past filled with experiences everyone can relate to.

company with the herd.

Lot #13

Daniel Sharbono Minot, North Dakota Handy Men, 2007 Acrylic, shelf, and found materials 15.25 x 21 x 2.25 inches Range: $350 - 450

Lot #14

Bill Harbort Minot, North Dakota Lust and Love, 2009

Bill Harbort was born and raised just north of New York

Mixed-media collage

City. After receiving his B.F.A. and M.A. degrees from Syracuse

with cast resin

University, he pursued a career in commercial design. Over the

22 x 28 inches

years he worked in New York as a package designer for Revlon,

Range: $350 - 400

as the art director for a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational software company, and as a freelance automobile illustrator. During the 1960s and 1970s, Harbort self-published thirty-one limited edition art prints of American muscle cars. (For the unfamiliar, muscle cars, also called Pony Cars, have giant V-8 engines with super chargers and

graphic design and illustration at Minot State University.

special exhaust. These gas-guzzlers were really fast! Muscle cars

Gradually Harbort, the commercial artist, began to explore fine

reached their epitome in the 1960s with the advent of such cars

art. He states, paint-by-numbers, coupons and clip art are just a

as the GTO, certain Mustangs, Camaros, and some Chrysler

few ingredients often found in our popular culture landfill. Being

models like the Challenger. Unfortunately the energy crisis

a college professor has given me time to explore my painting,

killed the genre.)

which is still driven by pop culture words/images and messages.

While working on the East Coast, Harbort was a member of the New York Society of Illustrators. He became widely recognized for his automotive airbrush work, which appeared in over

Each collage is sealed with a yummy coating of poured-on clearcast plastic. My paintings may be tragic, comical or simply aesthetically pleasing.

twenty-five different automotive publications. Tiring of

The artist lives in Minot with his wife Sandy, sons Nicholas and

commercial work, he moved to North Dakota in 1996 to teach

Tyler, and his family of ex-racing greyhounds.

Lot #15

Kim Fink Grand Forks, North Dakota Engram, 2008 Linocut on Asian paper 16 x 23 (image) Range: $375 - 425 framed

Kim Fink received his B.F.A. degree from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, studying under painter Mike Russo and Clifford Smith, the first Education Director of Tamarind Institute. In 1979, he graduated from Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia, and Rome, Italy, with an M.F.A. in printmaking. Fink grew up in the rich and culturally diverse Central Valley of California. He has taught in Portland and Las Vegas. He moved to Grand Forks in 1999 to teach printmaking at the University of North Dakota. In 2000, Fink founded Sundog Press to allow his UND students to work with professional visiting artists. To date, Sundog Press has editioned prints for many artists including Daniel Heyman, Nancy Friese, Peter Kuper, Audrey Flack, Kim Abeles, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Arturo Sandoval. He has had over 150 solo and group exhibitions. Fink has lectured widely; has taught at the Chautautqua School of Art in New York, and at American University in Corciano, Italy. He directed print workshops such as those in RISDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rome program (Rhode Island School of Art and Design) and held Artist-inResidence positions at KALA Art Institute, Berkeley, CA; the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and the Scoula Internazional de Grafica in Venice, Italy. He attended the Crown Point Press, San Francisco, Summer Etching Workshop in 2008. Fink most often combines printing media. Many recent works primarily employ relief woodcut and linocut, which he mixes with silk screen, etching, photography and lithographyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;just as he chooses images with contradictatory meanings for his art.

Lot #17

Lita Fontaine Winnipeg, Manitoba Shake Dance, 2005 Ink-jet pint on archival paper 18 x 24 inches (image) Range: $550 - 600 framed

Lot #16, left

drum. As a tribal feminist she resists the popular social images of Aboriginal women.

Lita Fontaine Winnipeg, Manitoba

Lita Fontaine’s film work includes photography for the film

Nude Study, 2005

Apples and Indians, a 2006 short produced by the National Film

Ink-jet pint on archival paper

Board of Canada.

24 x 18 inches (image) Range: $550 - 600 framed

Fontaine has participated in many solo and group exhibitions. Her most recent exhibition, “The Sacred Feminine,” was held at the Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg, March 2006. One of Fontaine’s

major

exhibitions,

“Lita

Fontaine:

Without

Lita Fontaine, a Canadian who descends from the

Reservation,” opened at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in January

Anishinabe, Dakota, and the French, was born in Portage la

2002. A catalog was produced, including a scholarly essay by

Prairie, Manitoba. Fontaine holds a M.F.A. in Intermedia Arts

Catherine Mattes.

from the University of Regina (2001) and a Diploma in Fine Arts from the School of Art, University of Manitoba (1997), specializing in black and white photography. Today, she works in photography, mixed media, and installation. As an artist, Fontaine opens the windows to the current issues and aesthetic concerns surrounding First Nation womanhood.

Fontaine’s works can be seen at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba Legislature, and several private collections. Fontaine has received several awards from the Manitoba Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation.

This artist’s montages refer to the effects of colonization, such as

Lita Fontaine is also an arts educator and is currently employed

racial stereotypes, residential schools, and government treaties.

as the Artist-in-Residence with the Seven Oaks School Division

Other motifs include family photographs, beadwork, and the

in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Lot #18

Craig Love Winnipeg, Manitoba Untitled From series Wash Ups 2005 - 2009 Oil on paper Range: $25 - 50

Lot #19 Lot #22

Craig Love Craig Love

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Untitled

From series Wash Ups 2005 - 2009

From series Wash Ups

Oil on paper

2005 - 2009

Range: $25 - 50

Oil on paper Range: $25 - 50

Lot #20

Craig Love Winnipeg, Manitoba

Craig Love says about the work in the auction: The

Untitled

drawings here are part of an on-going process of what I would

From series Wash Ups

call “rehearsal”. . . although this term may be misleading, seeing

2005 - 2009

as how this rehearsal becomes the concert. Little drawings in

Oil on paper

which I am thinking out loud for all to see, which take the form

Range: $25 - 50

of a meander, a grotesque, a notational doodle. It should also be said that these drawings were made in the studio, for the most part, simultaneously with other, more traditional oil on canvas works. So, not only is there a rehearsal/concert going on, but the conductor has two orchestras at once. If all this makes sense, you understand this music completely. The artist lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada. While primarily a painter, he also makes unorthodox books, text works, and

Lot #21

objects. Love earned his M.F.A. in Visual Arts from New York’s Parsons School of Design (The New School) in 2004. Love has

Craig Love

exhibited his work in Winnipeg, Toronto, New York, and

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Istanbul. Most recently Love was awarded a Manitoba Arts

Untitled

Council Grant to research and produce a body of work related to

From series Wash Ups

the diverse social, cultural, and visual histories of the pattern

2005 - 2009

Paisley. This project will take him to Scotland in the winter of

Oil on paper

2010. In 2009 he participated in Plug In ICA Summer School in

Range: $25 - 50

Winnipeg, one of seventeen invited, mature artists.

Lot #23

Marley Kaul Bemidji, Minnesota Generations, 2009 Acrylic on canvas 59 x 39 inches (image) Custom-made frame of cherry wood Range: $3,000 - 3,800

closely related to drawing as it requires a prepared line and value under-drawing to be laid onto the panel in India ink (Value is the difference between light and dark that helps define the shape of objects.) This drawing continues to show through the initial layers of pigment. Since the pigment is translucent, a great deal of over painting is required before the drawing recedes. The work in this auction, Generations is painted with acrylic on

Marley Kaul is one of the region’s most senior artists. As

canvas. Yet Kaul employs the same techniques of under-drawing

during his thirty years of university teaching, he continues to

that is overlaid with thin layers of acrylic paint. The artist is

paint daily in his studio near Bemidji, Minnesota, to exhibit

painting his grandmother’s high chair in front of the window in

generously throughout the region, and to move his art into

his own Bemidji living room as the winter light moves into the

significant private and public collections. At the turn of the

room and onto a family teapot. The mood is one of quiet

century, Kaul was one of seventeen artists commissioned to fill a

restfulness. Paintings such as these are creating an important

room at the Hotel Donaldson in Fargo.

legacy. Years from now, they will be highly prized as historic

Kaul is a prolific painter and a twenty-first-century man

renditions of an earlier time and place.

sensitized by philosophical and political thought who continues

Kaul’s work has been recognized and collected by almost every

to teach through and about his art. He paints interior and exterior

major museum in Minnesota and North Dakota and this speaks

worlds: landscapes, lush with life, fruitful, ever questioning the

volumes about his tireless commitment to his development as a

crossover between public and private life. The paintings of this

painter and his desire to continue to explore new ideas.

important American regionalist are layered with meanings shaded from the casual viewer.

Ultimately, Marley Kaul is a superb painter with a scholarly bent who has become widely respected and loved within the region

For the past seventeen years much of Kaul’s work has been

where he makes his home. In September 2009, he saw his newest

developed through egg tempera processes on carefully prepared,

work installed: a new stained glass window in the First Lutheran

gesso-covered panels, linking him to many early painters and

Church of Bemidji. The church commissioned Kaul, a member, to

their ability to discipline their working habits. Egg tempera is

create a contemporary design and oversee its production.

C. Graham Asmundson was born in 1952 in

artist’s responsibility to help people keep their eyes open to

Winnipeg where he continues to reside. He has been active as an

alternative realities that might arise out of the subconscious, from

artist and cultural worker in the Winnipeg arts scene for the last

dreams, or a hidden force. He equates magic with creativity and

twenty years. He brings to his practice a graduate degree from

enlivens his paintings and installations with secret symbols that

Concordia University, Montreal.

reflect his openness to magic (and perhaps another reality).

Asmundson relies on autobiographical material for the content of

Asmundson looks to his childhood even in his later work—like

his paintings, which are quirky, queer, and sometimes

the time trees did not appear in a photograph, the power of coins

controversial. In 1995 the North Dakota Museum of Art

passed on by grandfathers, and a great-grandfather who was a

produced the exhibition and catalog Autobiography, which

magician.

included Asmundson’s paintings and drawings based upon growing up in Winnipeg’s Bohemian community. The complete body of work is in the Museum’s collection, a gift from the artist.

The artist has always been deeply involved in his son’s life, making art together since Jaimz was young. Jaimz began experimenting with film, video, and electronic music at the

A skilled arts administrator and grant writer, Asmundson has

beginning of his art career. In 1988, Jaimz made The Artist Series

supported himself for years working for such institutions as the

featuring his father. Today, Graham and Jaimz form a remarkable

Manitoba Arts Council and Video Pool. Today he continues to

father-son creative team. C. Graham Asmundson + Jaimz

work part-time as a grant writer for Winnipeg’s Plug In ICA

Asmundson have become known for their forays into

(Institute of Contemporary Art).

transgressive cinema, experimental video productions, and a

His heart, however, is with his art. The work in the auction grows out of earlier explorations into the magical. He feels it is the

sense of camaraderie. Most recently, they collaborated on the wildly-successful short film, Drawing Genesis (2008). Distributed

Lot # 24, left

C. Graham Asmundson Winnipeg, Manitoba Untitled, 2008 Mixed painting and drawing 55 x 77 inches (image) Range: $1,500 - 2,300 framed Lot #26

Herman de Vries Winnipeg, Manitoba Large Bowl, 2008 Hard maple from Ottowa, Canada 7.5 x 17.5 inches Range: $600 - 700

Herman de Vries was born at Ochre River, Manitoba. He received a M.A. in Music Education from the University of Sioux Falls and South Dakota State in the 1960s. Today he is a retired business executive and a former professional singer and Lot #25

music teacher. A self-taught wood turner, he began in 1997 and was teaching classes a year later.

Herman de Vries

The bowl in the auction is rare in that it is turned from a solid

Winnipeg, Manitoba

piece of hard maple from Ottawa, Canada—something only a

Vase, 2008

skilled craftsman could manage. The vase is a classic vase shape,

Figured maple

designed to reveal the “flames” in the figure embedded in the

14 x 3 inches

side of the vessel. According to de Vries, I love the classic forms

Range: $350 - 450

and the challenge of turning continuous curves with no interruptions in the flow of the form—much more difficult on a tall form. He continues, at first, I never considered wood turning as art. For me it is a labour of love. For many years I worked with wood as

Asmundson cont.

an amateur furniture maker, developing pieces in our home. It

by the Winnipeg Film Group, Drawing Genesis is a saturated

wasn’t until 1995 that I acquired my first lathe. Immediately, I

visual compendium which traces C. Graham Asmundson’s

was hooked.

performative gestures as he creates a monumental painting— only to destroy it. With the use of time lapse, still frames, lens obstruction, occult symbolism, subliminal imagery and blatant queer references, the film presents a ritual of artistic inspiration that invokes man’s primal forces, according to press releases. Drawing Genesis was the official Selection of the Ann Arbor Film

A few years later I went to a lonely spot on my parents homestead where I was born. I saw the old maple trees that my father and mother had planted in the early 1920s. Some were dying. Taking the wood from those dying trees and turning it into a piece of turned art became a way of preserving something that represented the future to my youthful father and mother. I am

Festival, Montreal Underground Film Festival, Fabulous Festival

their future, and the tree was their future. If I am able to leave

of Fringe Film, Antimatter Underground Film Festival, Festival des

behind a legacy, it seemed only fair that the tree should be able

Cinemas Different de Paris, and Images Festival.

to do the same. I only helped a little.

Matt Anderson: I grew up in the countryside of

of the natural world. These attitudes toward nature can be seen

Gackle, North Dakota. I received my B.A. from Northern State

in advertisements for new trucks conquering rugged terrain or the

University in 2004 and graduated in August 2009 with an M.F.A.

endless aisles of lawn and garden supplies in the local mega

from the University of North Dakota. I feel as if I am just on the

store. We often perceive the natural environment as an accessory

beginning of my artistic career. I have shown work regionally and

that can be flippantly manipulated without consequence.

have pieces in private and public collections.

Historically, landscape imagery has been used to explore themes

My work comes from my own life experiences viewing the

such as national identity, political agendas, and the divine. For

discontinuity between the good intentions of people and the

example, nineteenth-century American landscape artists helped

consequences of those â&#x20AC;&#x153;good intentions.â&#x20AC;? In my recent work I

shape the way America viewed nature by fostering a sense of

have been focusing on our relationship with the environment.

national pride and divine entitlement. However, within some of

For thousands of years humans have been constructing a world based on ideas of safeguarding us from the natural environment. In some cultures those ideas have grown into beliefs and world views that have actually divorced people from the natural environment, especially in the industrialized nations. As a result

their paintings there is an undercurrent of foreboding peril related to increasing human encroachment on the environment. As the human population continues to grow, human behavior and lifestyles will have an increasing effect upon the natural environment.

of this divorce, social attitudes about how to perceive,

The artwork in this exhibition explores the follies of human

experience, and evaluate nature have often resulted in the misuse

activity and the enduring presence of the natural world. Irony,

Lot #27, left

Matt Anderson Grand Forks, North Dakota Adaptation, 2009 Hand drawing with Adobe Illustrator, printed on archival Hahnemühle fine art paper 34.5 x 85 inches (image) Range: $1,300 - 1,700 framed

Anderson cont.

scale, and apocalyptic imagery engage the viewer in a Lot #29

contemporary conversation about the future of modern humanity. These allegoric images are amplifications of truths about the relationships between the human world, the notion of

Kevin Chamberlain

“progress”, and nature. There seems to be a steadily growing

Iowa City, Iowa

divide separating humans from the natural world. As this divide

Arachnistickamorphopod, 2009

continues to grow, it is becoming apparent that we live in a world

Stoneware, cone 6, low-fire

beyond our control. The natural environment, and our impact

glaze, and found objects

upon it, will be the final arbiter of the choices we make as a

4 x 3.5 feet

society. With Reciprocation, the dung beetles are representative of the

Range: not established Wall mount included Detail left

cyclical nature of our ecosystem. The dung beetles bring back what we have wasted, resulting in the destruction of our constructed environment. The drawing Adaptation is about the

Kevin Chamberlain, who grew up in Moorhead,

rate of human adaptation versus the rate of change within a

Minnesota, finished his B.F.A. in ceramics in May 2009, and was

natural environment. This drawing is an ironic switching of the

accepted into the graduate program at the University of Iowa.

perception of human supremacy over the earth.

The work in the auction was completed for his baccalaureate exhibition and represents his current body of work. Kevin’s ceramics are influenced heavily from techniques and practices learned from years of metalsmith training. Deborah English, Don Miller, Wesley Smith and Donovan Widmer were early influences. Then in 2008, he took a workshop from visiting ceramic artist Lana Wilson. Subsequently, he learned to integrate

Lot #28, left

presentation with the object. Chamberlain’s teapots are the common denominator for the exploration of transformation,

Matt Anderson

mutation, and value. This ceramic vessel has been historically

Grand Forks, North Dakota

designed with function and practicality in mind, which the artist

Reciprocation, 2009

eliminates while continuing to acknowledge the accepted

Hand drawing with Adobe Illustrator, printed

historical image and life within parts of the vessel. Breaking from

on archival Hahnemühle fine art paper

the limits of an iconic teapot allows the manipulation of form to

34.5 x 85 inches (image)

become idea. By combining the body, foot, handle, lid and

Range: $1,300 - 1,700 framed

spout, he arrives at these imagined, metamorphic creatures.

Lot # 30

Gretchen Bederman Mandan, North Dakota and Glendive, Montana Black Horse, White Horse, 2001 Oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches Range: $1,700 - 2,000

Gretchen Bederman combines memories of actual

B.F.A. from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and her

places with a mixture of reality, myth, and dream. She uses the

M.F.A. in Painting from the University of North Dakota. Currently

figure in both human and animal form to tell the story. Women

Gretchen makes art, teaches and Chairs the Art Department at

and horses. Water and bowls. Birds and fire. Trees and earth.

Dawson Community College, and lives back and fourth between

Wax and paint. Story and soul. These are all part of Gretchen

Mandan, North Dakota, and Glendive, Montana.

Bedermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artistic life. I use women and horses to symbolize and visually animate the elements of fire, earth, air and water. The bowls are female. They contain and hold . . . like a nest . . . like a womb . . . birth place of the cosmos. Bederman grew up in Houston, Texas, and settled in North Dakota after a 1980 visit turned into a stay. She received her

Bederman was one of seventeen artists honored with a guest room filled with her art in the Donaldson Hotel, Fargoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;North Dakotaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only ART Hotel.

Lot # 31

Lot # 32

Lot # 33

Scott Stephens

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Crying downward

Round dance for a tbird [T-bird]

Returning home

Yellow Bird Series, 2008-09

Digital and screen printing

on archival paper

19 x 13 inches (image)

Range: $450 - 500 framed

Scott Stephens is an Anishinabe originally from Lac

The Yellow Bird works, which come from the series by the same

Suel First Nations in northern Ontario, who calls Winnipeg home

name, are a reflection of issues faced by Anishinabe in an

(for now). My work addresses a search for identity and a

urban/ultra modern context. How do we maintain traditional

continuing creation of my own personal cosmology, the impact

beliefs and cultural teachings in the face of an overwhelming

of relationships and familial/communal ties, non-conventional

mainstream culture that seems destined and designed, on the

ways of knowing (i.e. dreaming, intuition, blood memory),

surface, to inevitably submerge and ultimately erase any

cultural crisis and underlying threats and danger inherent in

personal belief systems not its own? The yellow bird (osaawaa

searching for personal truth. My work helps sort out the questions

behnesii) is the Thunderbird and my namesake and finding that

that arise in this search.

little bird had a great emotional impact on me. Exploring what that means to me resulted in this series.

Stephens graduated with honors from the University of Winnipeg in Cultural Studies and Psychology in 2002. He participated in the 2008 exhibition “Subconscious City” at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He currently works as a photographer at Winnipeg’s Pagakskel Creative.

Madelyn Camrud has donated the proceeds from the sale of this painting to the Museum of Art

Lot #34

Anton Boubin 1902 - 1973 Team in Winter c. 1970-72 Oil on canvas 15.25 x 35.25 inches Range: Not established Framed

Anton Boubin, who died in Crookston, Minnesota, in

Boubin’s granddaughter, Emily Boubin, writes in her blog,

1997, was a Czech artist who refused to capitulate to

Mission Emily: Because of increased fear of the death of his

Communism. Having served two years in prison from 1948-

family, my grandfather and his family eventually fled from their

1950, he was returned for another year after only two months of

country. Grandfather and his oldest son first traveled to Vienna.

freedom. In retaliation for him stubbornly clinging to the ideal of

Then, using fake passports, my father and grandmother escaped

freedom, his lucrative dental practice in Prague, his home, artist

on the last train to leave Czechoslovakia before the Communists

studio, and all belongings were confiscated. He was forbidden to

closed the borders to travel. My dad’s last memory of his country

practice the dental profession in any manner and, although

of origin was incredible fear that they would be discovered.

allowed to paint, was forbidden the sale of paintings as a means

While on the train, a young boy spat at a Russian soldier. The

of livelihood. He became a farm laborer and woodcutter.

train was stopped and both the young boy and his father were shot and killed. Eventually, in 1969, my dad and his family were

At one time the family of four was forced to move to living

sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Crookston, Minnesota,

quarters that consisted of a six-by-eight-foot room that they

where my Grandfather Anton lived for a couple years before his

occupied for over three years. One day, desperation forced Mrs.

death in 1972. Unable to practice his dental profession, he made

Boubin to sneak a painting from the room in an attempt to obtain

a meager living providing for his family by painting beautiful

money, milk or food in exchange. A neighbor informed and this

paintings from his memories of beautiful Czechoslovakia.

time both his wife and youngest child underwent severe interrogation by the police before they were released. Beatings that followed knocked out most of his teeth. His artist hands were permanently scarred from being stomped on—one can’t practice dental work if one’s hands are broken and mangled—and yet the stubborn spirit and determination of this tiny man, who at that period of his life was sixty-three years of age, remained unbroken. —Excerpt from the Crookston Daily Times, October 28, 1970, by Cathy Wright.

Today Anton Boubin’s “old world” paintings are highly prized, especially by the Czech Republic, which is attempting to buy them back for the national collection. For years many of his paintings hung in the original Sanders 1907 in Grand Forks where his wife worked as a baker.

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson have devoted their lives to art, first individually and ultimately as collaborators. The work in this auction results from over a dozen years working in wood and collage to make collaborations of varying sizes and shifting configurations. Their collaborative art works are in private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe. Davidson and Knudson were both born in northern Minnesota and attended Bemidji State College and the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design). Davidson combined his art with education, first in public schools and later at Bemidji State University where he taught in the Visual Arts Department. Knudson has worked since the late fifties as a sculptor and furniture maker. We are lifetime artists. We have worked for over four decades, both in the Twin Cities and later in Bemidji where we have lived for eighteen years. We think of our lives as an artistic statement. The great art historian Bernard Berenson wrote repeatedly about â&#x20AC;&#x153;life as a work of art.â&#x20AC;? Whereas one never arrives at that state, we find it a worthwhile journey. Making art objects is an everyday part of our lives. We think of our art as a way of explaining ourselves to ourselves. Through it, we try to understand our culture, and to live actively within it. We also explore the past through our artâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially the history of art. While we use a variety of materials, our main source of inspiration is nature and historical art. Lot #36 We worked and lived for twenty years in the Twin Cities and are

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson

aware that our work is informed by the art and artists we knew while living there.

Bemidji, Minnesota Fraternal Twins 2009 Wood and paper 50 x 27 x 2 inches Range: $700 - 900

Lot #35

Don Knudson Bemidji, Minnesota Boot Bench 2002 Wood 32 x 38 x 21 inches Range: $350 - 450

Lot #37

linda Whitney Valley City, North Dakota Da Huttis – They Came Mezzotint, 2009 25 x 18 inches (image) Range: $400 - 600 framed

Mezzotint is a method of engraving a metal plate by systematically and evenly pricking its entire surface with innumerable small holes that will hold ink and, when printed, produce large areas of tone. The pricking of the plate was originally done with a roulette (a small wheel covered with sharp points), but later an instrument called a cradle, or rocker, was used. It resembles a small spade with a toothed edge, and its cutting action throws up rough ridges of metal called burrs. The burrs are scraped away in places intended to be white in the finished print. In the 21st century, the plate is often roughened by working over it in several directions with a carborundum stone —Encyclopedia Britannica

Linda Whitney’s mezzotint is from a series of

Artist, Professor of Art, and Chair of the Art Department at Valley

conversations concerning the effect of the Europeanizing of the

City State University, Whitney is the recipient of the 2002 North

North American continent. According to the artist, Thematically I

Dakota Council on the Arts Fellowship and the 1999 North

am a narrative artist. In this case, images were appropriated from

Dakota Governor’s Award for the Arts. She is also a recipient of

the Mandan–Hidatsa people and filtered through my point of

the Art Midwest / NEA Regional Fellowship Award and the

view to tell the tale of the coming of Lewis and Clark, small pox,

Intermedia Arts Minnesota Interdisciplinary Arts Grant. Her work

and the near annihilation of the people of the Missouri River. This

has been included in numerous regional, national and

historic and grand culture was all but decimated in a few short

international exhibitions with the most recent being a traveling

years, felled by the very people the Mandan and Hidatsa greeted,

solo exhibition, plus inclusion in the North Dakota Art Gallery

fed, and protected from the harsh elements. I tell the story as an

Association’s New Bohemia traveling exhibition, Nicollet

outsider. Although, I trace Native ancestry through my Cree

National, Watermark 08, Lemon Street Gallery 7th Annual, as

great-grandfather, I never knew him nor was I able to experience

well as local exhibitions.

his culture. I live the Native experience, then, vicariously through the stories and traditions of others.

Lot #39

Lot #38

Tim Schouten

Petersfield, Manitoba

further westward (Treaty 4), 2008

Ribbons (Treaty 3), 2005

Encaustic on canvas

8 x 10 inches

Range: $400 - 500

Tim Schouten’s lyrical landscapes in the Treaty Series

signed between the Canadian government and the Ojibwa and

are visually gorgeous, luminous and shimmering, and all the

Salteaux people of the Rainy River regions.

while underpinned by troubling questions of land ownership in North America. The artist researches each treaty site, photographing the landscape, digging through historical files in search of the records of treaty enactment, intent upon understanding the layers of conflict and beauty associated with each specific place. For Schouten, landscape is visual place. Landscape is also the dumping ground of human grief. As the critic Marianne Mays eloquently summarizes, “political questions of property and Aboriginal disenfranchisement beat at the heart of these paintings.”

The painting further westward marks a shift in my work to a greater use of text in my paintings. It is an important transitional work. The words are actually a misquote from the text of the Order in Council Setting Up Commission For Treaty No. 4, P. C. No. 94, which was signed in 1874 between the Government of Canada and thirteen separate Cree and Salteaux Nations at Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. The Order recommended the establishment of a commission, ‘for the purpose of making Treaties during the current year with such of the Indian Bands as they may find it expedient to deal with’ in a portion of the

The painting Ribbons (Treaty 3) is from the series The Treaty 3

territories west of the western boundary of Treaty No. 2. Reasons

Suite (Outside Promises). It was painted from a photograph of a

cited in the text as to the need for treaty, include, ‘the operations

cut in the bush at the side of the road marked by ribbons to

of the Boundary Commission which are continually moving

indicate that this was a logging road. This particular cut marks a

westward into the Indian Country, and also the steps which are

section of the old Dawson Trail in Manitoba which, after its role

being taken in connection with the proposed Telegraph Line from

as a major settler route ended in the late 1800s with the advent

Fort Garry westward, all of which proceedings are calculated to

of the Trans Canada Railroad, became a logging road for hauling

further unsettle the Indian mind, already in a disturbed

timber out of the bush. This particular twenty-mile section winds

condition’.

through the bush from Highway 308 in Manitoba near the U.S. border, down to the mouth of Harrison Creek at the North West Angle Inlet on The Lake of the Woods where Treaty No. 3 was

Schouten is a leading Canadian painter who was born in Winnipeg, left for forty years, and returned to make his home near Lake Winnipeg.

Lot #40

Ingrid Restemayer Minneapolis, Minnesota Eight Fish, 2007 Mixed media print with fiber 30 x 22 inches (image) Range: $700 - 900 framed

Ingrid Restemayer is a printmaker and fiber artist

developing her unique combination of printmaking and fiberart

originally from North Dakota but now living and working in

techniques. She studied overseas in Auckland, New Zealand. In

northeast Minneapolis. Influenced by generations of fine crafters,

1996, she earned her B.F.A. in printmaking, fiberarts, and mixed

Restemayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work reflects traditional embroidery techniques

media visual arts from the University of North Dakota.

while incorporating other process-intensive mediums through

Restemayer is heavily involved in the Minneapolis arts

collage. Her latest body of work features recognizable imagery in

community. She is an active member of the Northeast

the form of intricate etchings on handmade papers, successively

Minneapolis Arts Association, and has served as an officer on its

collaged with fine printmaking papers and punctuated by mock-

board of directors. She has also spent time on the boards of

paragraph forms made from hand-stitched threads. Restemayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

prominent Minneapolis galleries, the Northeast Minneapolis

work has for years had a hint of storytelling or narration with the

Chamber of Commerce, and as a lead committee member for the

use of her intaglio images as pseudo-illustrations for a kind of

development of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District.

story when paired with code-like paragraph shapes formed from

Restemayer is now dedicated full time to producing and

her hand-embroidery.

exhibiting her art nationally and internationally.

Restemayer has spent nearly two decades growing and

Lot #41

Nuclear ambitions: Only 30 years ago, nuclear energy was an exotic, futuristic technology. Today, nuclear energy is America’s

Ewa Tarsia

second largest source of electric power after coal. More than 110

Winnipeg, Manitoba

nuclear energy plants supply more electricity than oil, natural gas

Nuclear ambitions, satellite collision, changing weather

or hydropower. But is nuclear better?

patterns and intellectual discussion about dollar in China...

Satellite collision: Recently, a Russian satellite and an American

Copperplate over digital print on archival paper, 2009

communications satellite collided—the first time in history.

30 x 5 inches (image)

Orbiting wreckage from the crash could damage or destroy five

Range: $1,200 - 1,500 framed

satellites which monitor Earth’s climate. Today thousands of small pieces of both satellites orbit the Earth, which astronomers

Ewa Tarsia is a Polish-born Canadian artist. Whereas she

cannot track and program spacecraft to avoid—our legacy for

works in diverse media including painting, sculpture, tapestry,

many generations.

landscape design, and drawing, she is known internationally as

Changing weather patterns brought about by warming.

a printmaker.

Intellectual discussion about dollar in China: I listen to Charlie

After her exhibition in the North Dakota Museum in 2008

Rose as I work. Recently, a convincing China expert addressed

(shown below), Tarsia made a major change. She returned to

the negative impact of Chinese goods upon the U.S. dollar.

figurative imagery. She says, because we live in such

Giant Panda image: There are only some 1,600 pandas believed

interesting, phenomenal times, I gave myself permission to be

to be in the wild—last counted in 2004. Of these, 180 were

free again, reinvented myself and decided that I want to tell my

raised in captivity. Giant panda is facing the possibility of

stories. Aesthetics are still extremely important but not only

extinction within the next two to three generations as its life

aesthetics. I have always dedicated my ideas to social issues but

collides with rapid economic development—including the

I personally think that I also must explain my concept, or the

destruction of bamboo forests upon which the panda feeds.

thoughts behind my work rather than leaving them as a secret

While environmental issues play a huge role, the panda is famous

known only to myself.

for its low sex-drive. The greatest threat, however, to panda’s

My work functions as a collective expression of the human tragedy caused by wars and the obsession with beauty as a commodity. I’m building again a new visual vocabulary. My use

territory is shrinkage and fragmention with the expansion of human activities such as logging, movement of farming into forest areas, mining, and road building.

of the dot continues as a means of visually recording information

Before the revision of the Criminal Law of China in 1997, a

that also brings beauty into my work—and I care about beauty a

person convicted of killing a giant panda could receive the death

lot, but not as commodity.

penalty, and some panda poachers were in fact executed. According to the revised law, the most severe penalty for panda poaching today is over ten years in prison. How does bamboo, which flowers every 30 to 120 years affect the giant panda? All the plants of a species in one area will flower at the same time, then die. Ten years later bamboo can support a panda population again. Typically at least two species of bamboo are found in a panda habitat area. When one species is in short supply, pandas normally switch to the other, or expand their home range to areas where bamboo has not flowered—no longer an option.

Lot #42

Jack Dale, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been painting for over thirty-five years. Dale is an abstract expressionist painter

Jack Dale

who works in oil. He considers himself a mark maker constantly

Cannon Falls, Minnesota

digging for an image that will define his work. Although

Soft, 2009

composition, line, and texture are all important elements in

Oil on canvas

Daleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painting, it is his masterful use of color that is most

48 x 59 inches

fascinating. His goal is to produce art that the viewer remembers

Range: $1,700 - 2,225

for the feelings that it evoked long after viewing it. He has had many solo and two-person exhibitions in the Twin

Among his awards are: Bloomington Art Center, 2008

Cities area including the Normandale Community College,

(Honorable Mention); 2008 Minnesota State Fair Art Exhibition

Edina; Black Dog Cafe, St. Paul; Hopkins Center for the Arts,

(Honorable Mention); 2007 Figure Show, Lake Elmo Regional Art

Hopkins; Details, St. Paul; Little Nikita Cafe, St. Paul; Lakewood

Center, Minnesota (Cash Award); 2002 Winston-Salem National

Community College (Century), White Bear Lake; Hamline

Juried Show, North Carolina (Purchase Award); 1984 Lakewood

University; Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital, St. Paul; Bethesda Lutheran

Community College (Best of Show); 1982 Minnesota State Fair,

Medical Center, St. Paul; and Phipps Center for the Arts in

St. Paul, (Award of Merit and Purchase); 1981 Lakewood

Hudson, Wisconsin.

Community College, WBL, Minnesota (Purchase Award).

Lot # 43

Lena McGrath Welker Portland, Oregon [chart] folio, 2007 White gampi (paper) folio Folio 6 x 11 inches Case 11 x 19 inches and 6 inches deep Range: $800 - 1,000 Left: work mounted in Plexiglas stand

Lena McGrath Welker for the past twelve years has been working on The Navigation Cycle. Having completed eight parts, she will exhibit parts nine through twelve in her fall 2010 show at the North Dakota Museum of Art. In 2004 she showed four earlier parts of the series, gifting a major installation [text] to the Museum. The Navigation Cycle addresses cultural responses to death, grief, and uncertainty in a very liminal, ethereal, intangible way. The work questions the effect of shifting memory on both the intake of new ideas and the transformation of lived experience into story. Because I am using mostly translucent materials, she says, people will be able to experience the work privately, while being aware of the community of others. With these goals in mind, the fundamental purpose of this greater body of work is to provide a place of wonder, repose, and contemplation, with work that can be felt, but also filled with dense ideological references so as to provide intellectual stimulation. I want to

ongoing Navigation Cycle: [flight], [stillness], [sea change], and [chart]. All four works in this project involve the accumulation and transmission of knowledge and wisdom. The work in the auction, [chart] folio, is a study for the larger installation that is planned for my 2010 exhibition in the Museum. [chart] references both the intellectual and the intuitive, in the form of arcane maps and pierced drawings of the night skies. The installation will occupy the small, intimate space at the top of the Museum stairs leading into the mezzanine gallery. The only light in this space will come from the lighted vitrines holding 130 â&#x20AC;&#x153;map-likeâ&#x20AC;? white and indigo-dyed gampi folios. There will be large drawings on the walls, and incised glass tablets on the tops of the vitrines, all of which have drawn and incised marks that refer to map-making, and also to the tradition of searching the heavens for guidance, both in terms of practical navigation over sea and land, and for spiritual answers.

create a space that allows viewers to collectively and individually explore both physical and metaphysical aspects of

The Jackson Pollack Foundation granted Welker $20,000 for the

absorbing and communicating ideas and feelings. I will fill the

North Dakota exhibition, which she has been working on for

entire North Dakota Museum of Art with the next four parts of the

over three years.

Lot # 44

Vivienne Morgan Vivienne Morgan: I try to connect to my past, and I

Bemidji, Minnesota

look for ways to do that by seeing it through my local landscape. I take some photographs because I am compelled to. Perhaps it’s a composition that becomes apparent, or the light, something that is familiar, some distant memory. It takes a while for me to realize what drove me to even look and then take the photo, but eventually it makes sense.

Sponsored by Office of Academic Affairs, UND

After Sanford Gifford, 2009 Pigmented inkjet print 32 x 40 inches Range: $700 - 900 framed

Nearly thirty years ago back in England, I would sit in the dark

Vivienne Morgan’s solo exhibition opened at the North Dakota

art history classroom and draw the composition of each painting

Museum of Art in November 2008. About that body of work she

as the slides passed by. Rena Neuman Coen was the professor.

said, “My sense of identity is tied to the landscape: to me that has

She had a love of the American Hudson River School painters,

meant finding a way of looking at my local forested landscape

and a sweet spot for the painter Sanford Robinson Gifford. Her

and seeing some trace of England or Europe in order to feel

lectures on the subject were hypnotic; the compositions are

home. I often shoot in the gloaming, letting the low sun soften

etched into my memory.

the landscape and transform the sense of space. Like the 19th century Barbizon painters, I want to make the wild, wooded

I had to take this photograph, After Sanford, one morning on my

landscape a tranquil, pastoral, and orderly place, even if there

own land: a circular window in the composition, a distant lake,

really are wolves in the shadows.”

the trees under-lit, a sense of yearning about it. A painter’s photograph. Now, when I look at this photograph I see Gifford’s

The artist was born in England in 1958. In 1979 she moved to the

Hook Mountain on the Hudson and I hear Rena say, ‘Sanford

United States and earned her M.F.A. from Bowling Green State

Gifford’s circular compositions were like an eye, a window to

University in Ohio. She now lives in the countryside near

another world.’

Bemidji, Minnesota, and teaches at Bemidji State University.

Lot #45 above. Lot #46 right, Lot #47 lower right.

Suzie Smith Winnipeg, Manitoba Forest, 2009 Screenprint Each 18 x 14 inches (image) Range: each $450 - 500 framed

Suzie Smith, born in Winnipeg, uses a variety of different media, including silkscreen, textiles, drawing, and collage to explore oppositional ideas such as fine art versus craft, public versus personal, and the fascination versus the critique of popular culture. Her work has been featured in various alternative gallery spaces and magazines such as Nylon (USA) and Biba (France). In September 2008 she had her first solo exhibition at Open Studio in Toronto. She holds a B.F.A. from Concordia University (Montreal) and is now pursing graduate studies in Glasgow, Scotland. According to the artist, Forest is a series of screen-printed pieces where no two prints are the same. Each print is composed of a variety of hand-drawn trees printed in different places and in different tones on the work. Forest can be viewed as individual prints or in a series of multiple works in a larger installation. Forest is about individuality both in the work and in the process.

It’s always just beginning. Everything is always just beginning. —Jakusho Kwang

Lot #48

PunchGut Fargo, North Dakota Rox Out, 2009 Mixed media on wood 16 x 9 inches Range: $275 - 325

PunchGut: Given the wide array of images that greet any

Some New Town gives a glimpse of the view from a midnight

visitor to the Punchgut Studio’s website, it’s not hard to believe

riverbank fishing trip; and Buckets of Rain shares with

Punchgut when he comments that his favorite piece of his own

non-midwesterners the look of a sheet of rain advancing

art is always the one he’s currently working on, looking at, or

across a field.

fomenting ideas for while in the midst of a late night catfishing expedition. Drawing his inspirations from stimuli as varied as illicit firecracker packages, 1980s video games, distorted photocopies, wood carvings and outsider art, sailor tattoos, and cartoons of every kind, North Dakotan Punchgut (Punchy to his art-nerd friends) jots down sketches as soon as they flit through his brain; any delay, and they’d be lost, scattered to the winds. This way, though, they’re waiting patiently when the time comes for Punchy to rifle through the stack and embark on his next artistic endeavor. From the time he was a scribble-minded kid, Punchgut has created memorable images, and while his grade-school recipecard rainbows never seemed to catch on, nowadays he takes his fledgling artwork from sketch to screen with just the right amount of ambient creepiness to keep each piece sharp. Some of Punchy’s most sought-after creations are his stunningly evocative art prints, illustrating the small joys of prairie life: Squish the Moon shows the silhouette of a small child with the glowing moon held between his thumb and forefinger;

Beyond these, his work can be found on everything from a slew of beautiful but disparate screenprinted and limited edition posters for Americana bad asses, the Drive-By Truckers, to his Jim Flora-esque Three Blind Mice illustration for Microsoft’s Partner Channel, to the so-cute-it’s-threatening Panda Pirate from I Want Your Skull zine, fanzine, magazine. Look for Punchy’s prolific images on bookstore shelves in The Art of Modern Rock, The Art of Electric Frankenstein, and Rockin’ Down the Highway, and stapled to light posts and record-store bulletin boards near you.

Lot #49

Royal Art Lodge Winnipeg, Manitoba The Books I’ve Read, 2008 Screenprint with handwork 11 x 70 inches (image) Range: $1,000 - 1,100 framed Right: detail

The Royal Art Lodge was an art collective that formed in 1996 by undergraduate art students at the University of Manitoba. Believing in collaboration, they shared a large studio clubhouse in Winnipeg’s Exchange district and promptly stuffed it full of their favorite artwork and musical instruments. Founding members were Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Jonathan Pylypchuk, and Adrian Williams. Hollie

disbanded in September 2008. The collaborating artists on this

Dzama and Myles Langlois have also been members. The name

piece are Marcel Dzama, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber.

is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the hunting lodges and field-

The image in The Books I’ve Read was a vehicle to make up

and-stream clubs that pervade the Canadian landscape.

absurd book titles—a potentially

The majority of the works produced by The Royal Art Lodge are small-scale drawings and paintings which often incorporate text—but they also made videos, musical works, stuffed dolls,

infinite exercise (which

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber have expanded on in their more recent collaborations). Royal Art Lodge assumes some of these titles probably exist.

costumes, props, and performances. The group met for several

Some book covers were left blank so that the collaborating artists

years once a week to do many drawings each evening. Generally,

could add more titles, unique to each print.*

at least three of the members contribute to each piece of work in a spontaneous response to the previous artist's work on the page before stamp-dating the work. After a piece is deemed complete, the group then sorts it, along with other work made at the drawing session, into “good,” “OK,” and “bad” piles. The date stamp functions both as a practical means of identifying when the art was made, but also as a unifying feature of the work that indicates the regular meeting process. The method of working relatively quickly on multiple pieces each night means that many of the works retain a simple or naive quality to them that emphasizes the immediacy of the drawing and painting.

Together, the members of RAL have paired their friendship with group and individual art projects and have met with a great deal of success. The Royal Art Lodge’s solo show “Ask the Dust”, curated by Wayne Baerwaldt and Joseph Wolin, toured in 2003 to The Drawing Center, New York; The Power Plant, Toronto; De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands; Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea; Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Detroit; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the North Dakota Museum of Art. In January 2006, they exhibited their new paintings at the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts in San Francisco.

The Books I’ve Read in this auction was the last edition, and one of the last projects, completed at The Royal Art Lodge, which

*Taken in part from Caleb Neelon’s review, “The Royal Art Lodge,” Swindle magazine, Issue 3.

Lot #51, right

Aganetha Dyck Winnipeg, Manitoba Baby Shoes, 2006 Shoes and beeswax Each 2.25 x 3 x 5.25 inches Range: $400 - 600

Lot #50

Walter Piehl Minot, North Dakota Raging Bull: Sweetheart of the Rodeo Acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches, 2009 Range: $3,500 – 4,500 framed

Walter Piehl is a painter who draws, as well as

horses, year after year, never wearying of his subject, never

incorporates drawing into his acrylic paintings. He does not use

despairing in his quest to create contemporary Western art. This

drawing to make studies for paintings but as a primary medium,

master painter, while continuing to live the cowboy life, has

either embedded into paintings or as separate works of art. But

found the means to visually enter the sport. In the process he has

ultimately Piehl is most widely known as a painter. His goal is to

led droves of artists into a new arena called Contemporary

make his surfaces dance with subtle variations. Drips, feathered

Western Art—but most don’t know that this artist from North

edges, scumbled paint, and the judicious use of glazes all

Dakota charted their course.

contribute to his rich surfaces. His fractured spaces, transparency, multiple images and their afterimages cause his images to sing with movement.

In 2008, Walter Piehl won the Bush Foundation’s first Enduring Vision Prize worth $100,000. He earlier received the North Dakota Governor’s Award for the Arts (2005). The artist has twice

Unlike most artists, he was quite young when he decided to make

served on the North Dakota Arts Council, once on the Board of

art from his own life. Born into a family that raised rodeo stock,

Trustees of the North Dakota Museum of Art, and is on the

Walter rode as a matter of course. Likewise, he drew constantly

founding governing board of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of

in a household without television. He went on to paint and draw

Fame in Medora.

Aganetha Dyck is among Canada’s most recognized and celebrated artists who has maintained strong ties with the North Dakota Museum of Art. Most recently, the Museum added Bee House to its permanent collection, a three-year collaboration between the artist, the bees, and the Museum. The work began as a plastic rendition of a tumbling down house south of Grand Forks. After spending three summers in various bee hives, the house emerged transformed. These similarily created baby shoes are a gift to the Museum and to the participants in this auction. Attesting to the quality of her work are recent awards that include Best in Canada 2008, Organic Art, Reader’s Digest, “Bee Intrigued”, p. 51, June 2008. Chris Awards, The Bronze Plaque for CBC Artspots Aganetha Dyck & Bees (Rhonda Bruchanski, Producer), 2007. The Governor General’s Award in Visual and

Aganetha Dyck has donated all proceeds from the sale of these objects to the North Dakota Museum of Art

Media Arts, 2007. The Manitoba Arts Council Award of Distinction, 2006. In 2009 alone, Aganetha Dyck had three significant solo exhibitions at the Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario; the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum, Kitchener, Ontario; and the Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbia.

Brent Braniff: The arts have always played a big part in my life and I’ve never been able to narrow things down to one discipline and stay with it. This leaves a lot of possibilities open either to mix together or fall back on. If my drawing and painting are at a low point, the music takes over. Sometimes both are at a high point, consuming all my time. I was born in North Dakota. I attended Minot State University in Minot, North Dakota, where I studied with Walter Piehl and still live. In my years in college I was part of Art Club and also worked at Studio 311, an on campus recording studio where I began my exploration of music and sound design. While there, I was involved with projects that incorporated visual and audio elements. Currently, I work as a graphic designer, editor and director at a local television station. Besides that and the artwork I continue to do, I still record my music at my home studio and other studios around the area. My music is basically rock/pop, but I also work in electronic/experimental music of which I intend to make a part of my future exhibitions. I have continued to use photos from my past as a part of my art in order to make a more personal connection with the subject matter. In many cases I have drawn or painted over the top of the photos to keep them in the background. I like the statement that makes. It’s a powerful notion to know that your past always guides your decisions today.

Lot #52

Brent Braniff Minot, North Dakota Cry, 2008 Mixed media on board 24 x 24 inches Range: $275 - 325

Lot #54 Charles Beck Fergus Falls, Minnesota Moon Shadows, 2009 21 x 30.5 inches Woodcut Range: $800 - $1,00 framed

Charles Beck is a master woodcut artist who for decades

Beck enrolled at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, in

has responded to the landscape around Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

1941. His professor, Cy Running, influenced him in those early

Beck says, You have to make art from what you’re interested in.

years when he was making watercolors, but ultimately, Beck let

I’d rather make a woodcut of a plowed field with some conviction

go of influence and developed a style, undeniably his own,

than a crucifixion with none. Color and textures are what he takes

which has served him well for a half-century. In 1950, Beck

from the landscape, but the horizon is his biggest influence. He

returned to Fergus Falls with his wife Joyce, having completed

continues, The separation between the sky and what I call vertical

military service and graduate school at the University of Iowa.

space and horizontal space . . . seems to be a part of every

Beck’s art is represented by the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead,

landscape. I seem to feel the need to show the sky in the

Minnesota, and his work is also in that permanent collection as

background. He believes landscapes are extremely exciting

well as the North Dakota Museum of Art permanent collection.

because they constantly change, hourly, daily, weekly.

Linda Everson: Arborglyphs is the name for the graffiti carved by shepherds into aspen trees in the mountains of southwestern Colorado. Arbor pertains to trees and glyph is “a symbol used for non-verbal communication.” My Arborglyphs prints are sometimes derived from tree graffiti made by man, but usually they are created from the natural scarring and peeling of aspen tree bark. I take close-up photographs of tree bark fissures that resemble symbols. The

Lot #53 Linda Everson

images I choose are reminiscent of calligraphy, pictograms, petroglyphs, hieroglyphics, and other symbolic forms that contain mark making.

Arborglyphs: (one symbol #5) ochre, (one

I manipulate and magnify the bark images in the darkroom or on

symbol #7) on bluegreen bark, 2007

the computer using Photoshop. Transparencies of the images are

10.5 x 16 inches, framed 19 x 24 inches

exposed with ultraviolet lights onto solarplates (photosensitive

Monoprint on paper

printmaking plates). The plates are etched in water, and then cut

Range: $350 - 450 framed

into organic shapes. Later the etched plates are inked, and

Gretchen Kottke has donated all proceeds of the sale of this painting to the North Dakota Museum of Art

Lot #55

Gretchen Kottke Cooperstown, North Dakota Untitled, 2009 Oil on canvas 35 x 36 inches inches Range: $800 - 1,000

Gretchen Kottke created this painting while thinking about silence. She says, with so much going on in our planet, it seems that sometimes we must go inside ourselves and remain quiet. The downside of silence comes when people choose to remain silent when they should speak up. Everson cont.

Kottke studied French and art at Jamestown College and the

printed onto paper via an etching press. The textures you see in

University of North Dakota. After college, she left North Dakota

the prints are from the solarplates, while the background colors

and worked in the medical field both as a health care worker

are created from acetate plates that are relief rolled and printed

and as an administrator. Thirty years later, she returned to

prior to the solarplate printing.

Cooperstown, North Dakota, and opened the GK Art Gallery. It

All my solarplate prints are one of a kind. I reprint the plates in different color schemes, or in combination with other plates and printmaking techniques in large formats to create monoprints.

proved to be one of the most rewarding challenges in her life, a gift to the people of North Dakota, and a major support system for artists from the three-state region. According to Museum Director, Laurel Reuter, Gretchenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in Cooperstown is a

Everson was raised in North Dakota in a woodworking family,

stellar example of the difference that one person can make in

where she began making art as a young child. She took her first

creating a lively cultural life in a rural place. Kottke closed the

art classes at the University of North Dakota, subsequently

gallery in June 2003 in order to devote her time to painting.

graduating with a B.A. in Art. Everson became a graphic designer in the fashion industry in New York. Here she gained additional exposure to the fine arts by exploring the contemporary art scene in Soho and the uptown museums. She completed post-graduate studies

multiple

venues.

Today

printmaking,

A Master Gardener, Kottke continues to pursue that interest while working at Renaissance Engineering, a Cooperstown company of which she is a part owner.

with

Kottke has exhibited in group exhibitions in Los Angeles, Denver,

photographic components, remains her primary medium. The

the Puget Sound area, and North Dakota. Her first solo

artist also makes shaped paintings, mixed media work, books,

exhibition was in Tumwater, Washington, and her most recent at

and paper-based art.

the Third Street Gallery in Grand Forks.

Lot #57, above, both images

Lot #56, lower left

Zoran Mojsilov Minneapolis, Minnesota Pouch, 1998 Granite, fieldstone and steel

Zoran Mojsilov Minneapolis, Minnesota Chair, 2008-09 Granite with rose quartz vein 42 x 40 x 36 inches Range: $4,500 - 5,500

39 x 28 x 20 inches Range: $4,500 - 5,500

Zoran Mojsilov: Summer 2009, the North Dakota Museum of Art mounted Zoran Mojsilovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mid-career survey and published his first monograph written and edited by Museum Director Laurel Reuter (hard cover, 96 pages full color, available through the Museum). The work in the auction, Pouch, was featured in the book. It is a maquette for an unbuilt sculpture. The artist was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1955. Throughout his childhood, he spent his summers with his grandma in Vlasi, a small Serbian village in former Yugoslavia. Come winter, he would return to the capitol city where he attended school cumulating in the University of Belgrade from 1975 to 1979. He graduated with an Art Teaching Certificate. During the early 1980s, Zoran was an artist-in-residence in Paris where he met painter Ilene Krug. They married and Mojsilov emigrated to the United States to live and work in Ileneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family home, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Since the late 1980s, Mojsilov has shown regularly at galleries,

Lot #58

James CUlleton Blind Contour Guitar, 2009 steel 40 x 22.5 inches Range: $800 - 900

James CUlleton aka Knick Knackerson: The work in the auction is an example of some of Culleton’s newest works for which he uses CNC technology (computer numerical control) and high pressured water to create steel cut-outs of his blind contour drawings. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, in 1974, this multi-faceted artist studied painting and drawing at the University of Manitoba where he earned his B.F.A. with honors in 1997. In 2006, he received a grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Quebec to rediscover his French roots using blind contour drawing and a Global Positioning System. This resulted in the publication of his 2009 book Contouring Quebec. His art and designs have been shown in New Zealand, Germany, and throughout the United States. He has exhibited throughout the Winnipeg area at The Mojsilov cont.

Pavilion Gallery Museum, St. Boniface College, the University of

museums, and sculpture parks in the United States and France,

Manitoba, Ace Art, The West End Cultural Centre, and the

including such noted art institutions as the DeCordova Museum

Winnipeg Art Gallery.

and Sculpture Park in Massachusetts, Chicago’s Navy Pier Sculpture Walk, and Socrates Sculpture Park on Long Island, New York City. The North Dakota Museum of Art organized his first museum exhibition in 1990, “Nature’s Materials.” Mojsilov has received numerous awards, including grants and

In Grand Forks he is unknown as a visual artist but wins raves for the appearance of his “music outfit” Knick Knackerson & the Minglers at the Museum’s Summer Concerts in the Garden. The son of an Anglophone father and a Francophone mother, Knackerson writes music in both French and English. After a long

residencies from the Athena Foundation, New York (2001); Lacoste

exposure to country music, Knackerson picked up the guitar at

School of Arts, Lacoste, France (1996); South Bend Art Center,

eighteen. A self-taught musician, he has been playing and writing

South Bend, Indiana (1990); and the Pollack-Krasner Foundation,

music with a guitar for the past fifteen years. Recently he has

New York (1990). Minnesota-based awards include the Jerome

added the muck bucket bass (a two-string homemade bass), the

Foundation (1993, 2001), Bush Foundation (1996); Minnesota

kazoo, and the cigar-box guitar. Knackerson has also been a

State Arts Board (1994), and the McKnight Foundation (1987). In

member of Winnipeg bands the Godkings, Mogus, and The New

1985 Mojsilov received the Gold Medal Award for sculpture from

Eastman Stringbusters. Bands from Montreal include The Archaic

the Paris Gallery Central. He was also Artist-in-Residence through

Music Experience, The Delroys, and The Royal Mountain

the La Vie des Formes and Athena Foundation, Chalon-sur-Saône,

Ramblers. As their name suggests, the Minglers have had many

France (1990, 2006).

line-ups since their formation in the late nineties.

Lot #59

Butch Holden Butch holden: When I garden, I am manipulating all

Bemidji, Minnesota

sorts of variables—location, soil, water—all in hopes of a

Untitled, 2009

achieving a thriving plant. I monitor the plants, tweaking

Stoneware

elements each year. Gardening is an incredibly optimistic activity

Each 14 inches diameter, 3 inches high

and for me, pottery is the same. I work the clay with optimism,

Range: $425 - 475 for group

in hopes that the outcome will be what I had planned. Many variables must be successful prior to placing my pieces in the kiln. As with seedlings coming from the soil in his garden, when

ceramics from Indiana University, Bloomington. Today he serves

Butch’s pottery finally emerges from the kiln, the clay has

as department chair for the visual arts department at Bemidji

magically bloomed.

State University where he teaches various levels of ceramic classes and drawing.

In the work in this auction, Holden has combined the circular with straight geometric lines. When hanging on the wall and seen from a distance, these three shallow bowls appear to be convex boxes rather than the concave shapes they are in reality.

Quoted in part from Katie Carter, “The Garden of Holden,” Lake Country Journal, November/December 2008, pp. 34 - 37.

Holden received his B.A. in two-dimensional art from the

When I’m able to combine a variety of design elements so that each is evident, yet fluid with the others, I’ve created an aesthetic tickle which I find incredibly satisfying.

University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and his M.F.A. in

—Butch Holden

The artist recently named a solo exhibition “Around the Block,” taking his reference from childhood: As a kid, whether we rode, walked, or pushed, we always did so around the block. I have always thought it interesting.

Mayport Insurance

North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees

North Dakota Museum of Art Foundation Board of Directors

Kjersti Armstrong

W. Jeremy Davis

Victoria Beard, Vice Chair

Kevin Fickenscher

David Blehm

Nancy Friese

Julie Blehm

Bruce Gjovig

Chad Caya

David Hasbargen

W. Jeremy Davis

Margery McCanna

Virginia Dunnigan

Laurel Reuter

John Foster

Al Royse

Bruce Gjovig David Hasbargen, Chair

North Dakota Museum of Art Staff

Kim Holmes Rick Mercil

Brittney Blake

Dianne Mondry

Miriam Clapp

Laurel Reuter

Justin Dalzell

Alex Reichert, Treasurer

Deb Douglass

Pat Ryan

Sharon Etemad

Wayne Zimmerman, Secretary Corinne Alphson, Emerita Barb Lander, Emerita Darrell Larson, Emeritus Robert Lewis, Emeritus Ellen McKinnon, Emerita Douglas McPhail, Emeritus Sanny Ryan, Emerita Gerald Skogley, Emeritus Anthony Thein, Emeritus

Suzanne Fink Guillermo Guardia Carol Irey Kathy Kendle Brian Lofthus Laurel Reuter Vembu Teske Gregory Vettel Matthew Wallace Katie Welsh Student Employees Jacob Bell Stephanie Clark Steven Davitt Adam Fincke Ioannis Korosides Max Maltese Andrew Yost and over fifty volunteers