2016 Autumn Art Auction Catalog

Autumn Art Auction Volume 18, 2016

North Dakota Museum of Art

North Dakota Museum of Art North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees

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

Julie Blehm

Ann Brown

Nancy Friese

Ashley DiPuma

Bryan Hoime

Kristen Eggerling

Laurel Reuter

Susan Farkas Annie Gorder, Treasurer Darrell Larson Sally Miskavige Natalie Muth Jim Poolman Nicole Poolman Laurel Reuter

Trustees of the North Dakota Museum of Art

Board of Directors

Julie Blehm, Chair

Carson Muth

The 2016 Autumn Art Auction is underwritten by the

Foundation

Lynn Raymond Tammy Sogard Linda Swanston, Secretary Kesha Tanabe Kelly Thompson, Vice President Lois Wilde Joshua Wynne

North Dakota Museum of Art Staff Matt Anderson Sarah Bowser Sungyee Joh Greg Jones Laurel Reuter, Director Heather Schneider Gregory Vettel Matthew Wallace, Deputy Director Brad Werner Part-time Staff Sara Anderson

David Hasbargen, Emeritus Kim Holmes, Emeritus Douglas McPhail, Emeritus Gerald Skogley, Emeritus Anthony Thein, Emeritus Wayne Zimmerman, Emeritus

Brittney Christy Sheila Dalgliesh Kathy Kendle Wayne Kendle Kelly Kennedy Charles Larocque Rebecca Mundfrom Brady Niebolte Marie Sandman

Front cover: Armando Ramos, Association Day, 2012. Archival pigment print, 30 x 20.5 inches.

Back cover: Meghan Kirkwood, Water #23, 2016. Archival pigment print, 23 x 27.75 inches.

Curtis Longtime Sleeping and over fifty volunteers

North Dakota Museum of Art

AUTUMN

Art

Auction

S at u r d a y, O c t o b e r 2 9 , 2 0 1 6 Wine and hors d’oeuvres at 6:30 pm Auction begins at 8 pm

Auction Preview Wednesday, October 19, until the auction in the Museum.

Hours: 9 to 5 pm weekdays and 1 to 5 pm weekends.

All works to be auctioned will be on display.

Autumn Art Auction is

sponsored by the following businesses, not-for-profits, and individuals:

patrons — $1,000 All Seasons 54 C&M Ford 63 HB Sound & Light 71 Hugo’s 76 Minnesota Public Radio 64 Plains Chiropractic & Acupuncture P.C. 50 Rhombus Guys 74

Auction Walk-about Laurel Reuter, Auction Curator, will lead an informal discussion about works in the Auction Thursday, October 27, 7 pm, in the galleries.

Supporters — $500 Acme Tools 52 Amazing Grains 60 Avant Hair and Skin Care Studio 56 Badger-Tanabe Dental Group 57 Blue Moose Bar & Grill 75 Bremer Bank 59 Dr. Denise Wood 58

Wall’s Medicine Center 67

Edgewood Management Group, LLC 68

William F. Wosick, MD 51

Empire Arts Center 70 First State Bank 72 Grand Forks Country Club 62 Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra 68 Greenberg Realty 58 Ground Round 69

Auction Supporters continued on next page

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Supporters — $500 Icon Architectual Group 66 JLG Architects 73 Julie Blehm 55 Little Bangkok 70

Buy local. Read the sponsor pages to learn about those who invest in the Museum.

Almost all are locally owned and operated.

Museum Cafe 80 North Dakota Eye Clinic 65 North Dakota Quarterly 53 Prairie Public 77 Reichert Armstrong Law Office 73 River City Jewelers, Inc. 79 Sky’s 61 Tanabe Law 52 Trojan Promotions 77 Truyu 78 Waterfront Kitchen & Bath 61

Contributors — $250 Alerus Financial 62 Baymont Inn & Suites 53 Capital Resource Management 60 Crary Real Estate, Annie and David Gorder 79 Culvers 56 Dimensions Emporium 72 EAPC Architects and Engineers 57 Family Day at the Museum 80 Economy Plumbing 65 Grand Forks Parks District 55 Myra Presents: Classic Concerts in the Galleries 80 OhFer Creative 69 Opp Construction 78 Simonson Station Stores 59 Sterling Carpet One 75 Swanson & Warcup, Ltd. 72 UND Theatre 57 Xcel Energy 53 YMCA 75 You Are Here 59

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Advertisers — $125 ArtWise 66 Behl’s Photography 66 Brady, Martz & Associates, P.C. 55 Demers Dental, Chelsea R. Eickson, D.D.S. 60 Elite Carpet Cleaning 66 Family Institute, PC 69 Garon Construction 69 Guillermo Guardia 78 Hillary Kempenich 62 Industrial Contract Services, Inc. 78 Inna Photography 79 I.T. Works 66 Knights of Columbus Insurance, Adam Jordan 79 MayPort Insurance 65 Kelly Thompson, Oxford Realty 60 Quotable Kids 56 Sarita Bansal, Coldwell Banker’s Forks Real Estate 65 Shaft Law Office 62 Urban Stampede 55 Vilandre Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. 56

ANUBHA BANSAL

Ross Rolshoven, Auctioneer

Auction Committee

Ross Rolshoven is a many-sided man. Foremost, he is an artist who works in assemblage, hand-colored photography, and painting. Among his exhibitions was a solo show of assemblages at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2002. The work was based in the iconography of the West, in historical myths and representations of cowboys and Indians. These themes overlap with family, relationships, and contemporary life.

Rolshoven is a collector of early Western settlement and

CHILLY GOODMAN

Lisa Johnson

American Indian art and artifacts. He is completing his seventh year on Medora’s North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame Board of

Anubha Bansal and Chilly Goodman

Directors. He has been a volunteer for numerous civic events and

are full-time mothers and community

charities over the past thirty years, including the North Dakota

volunteers. Eric Johnson is Associate

Museum of Art.

Professor at the UND School of

In addition to making and collecting art, Rolshoven acquires and restores vintage boats. He was North Dakota’s only professional boat racer for a number of years, having finished as high as fourth place in the National APBA tournament in Kankakee, Illinois— and totaled a boat or two along the way.

Medicine and Health Sciences in the

Department

of

Family

and

Community Medicine. He is also

Eric Johnson

Assistant Medical Director for the Diabetes Center at Altru. Lisa Johnson works with community projects and

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

supports the arts. Mike Little is

high profile cases involving corporate, civil, and criminal

Manager of Primary Care Programs at

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

Altru Hospital, and Hillary Davis

with his brother Reid, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His work

Kempenich is a Turtle Mountain artist

routinely takes him across the Upper Midwest—a boon to his

working in Grand Forks.

MIKE LITTLE

collecting and his need to acquire endless numbers of objects for making assemblages. In 2015, Ross donated a South African Ndebele beaded, married-woman’s fancy apron from the early 1900s to the Museum’s African collection.

Rolshoven is a Summa Cum Laude University of North Dakota graduate and father of three children.

Hillary Kempenich

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Rules of the Auction

•

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Each registered guest will receive a bidding card as part of

Welcome to the eighteenth annual Autumn Art Auction. The

the price of admission. Upon receiving the bidding card

Museum originally started the auction in order to build a regional

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

support system for the artists who live in our region. Galleries

by the Rules of the Auction listed in this catalog.

were few and far between; there wasn’t an established regional

Absentee bidders will either leave their bids on an Absentee Bid Form with Museum personnel in person or by phone, or arrange to bid by phone the night of the Auction. Absentee bidders, by filling out the form, agree to abide by the Rules of the Auction.

•

• •

sales have become commonplace. Original art is the norm in locally owned restaurants. Young people are filling their homes with art from our own artists.

This Auction set the reginal precedent for paying artists before

the Auction.

paying ourselves. We never ask artists to donate art—although

All sales are final.

In September 2002, the Office of the North Dakota State the sales made at the Auction are subject to sales tax of 6.75%. This does not apply to out-of-state buyers who have works shipped to them.

•

market. Thankfully, this has changed in North Dakota, especially in Grand Forks and its surrounding communities. Auctions and

Each bidder will use his or her own bidding number during

Tax Commissioner determined that the gross receipts from

•

From the Museum Director

some do. For the first 17 years of this auction, we allowed artists to set a minimum price, which they were guaranteed to receive.

Work that didn’t reach the artist’s minimum was brought in by the Museum and returned. Any amount over the reserve was split 50/50 between the artist and the Museum. Finally, we feel confident that the prices for art have stabilized. The artists and the Museum will split the sales 50/50 in the 2016 Art Auction.

In the event of a dispute between bidders, the auctioneer shall either determine the successful bidder or re-auction

Others in the region have adopted our policy of paying artists.

the item in dispute.

Instead of always being asked to donate, artists can expect actual

Purchasers may pay for items at any point following the

income from auctions sponsored by art entities. And, bless you

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

buyers for not forgetting that this is also a benefit for the Museum.

conclusion of the evening unless other arrangements are

We value your generosity.

in place. Absentee bidders will be charged on the evening of the Auction or an invoice will be sent the next business day.

•

Proceeds from the sale of works of art will be split between the Artist and the Museum 50/50. At times, the House will bid if representing absentee buyers. The range indicates artist’s established price for similar works.

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Remember, when you buy through the Auction, the price includes framing. Frames are often custom made by the artists or framed by the Museum staff with archival materials. This adds significant value to most artworks, often as much as $400 in the Grand Forks market but considerably more elsewhere. Please note that sales tax is charged on all art that stays in North Dakota.

The Artists

The Museum

#33. Susana Amundaraín

We could not publish this catalog without the underwriting of

Listed by lot number

our sponsors. Please take your business to these companies and

#1. Bennett Brien

#34. Marley Kaul

individuals, thank them for their significant contributions, and

#2. Helge Ederstrom

#35. Marley Kaul

note how most are locally owned and operated. Sometimes they say, “I don’t care if I get an ad, I just want to give to you guys.”

Supporting cultural life is not in the interest of most chains but rather has become the business of the butcher, the baker and the keeper of bees: that is, those who live among us. Thank you.

The Museum’s own collection continues to grow. Above is Terry

#3. Kim Fink

#36. Ignacio Iturria

#4. Ned Krouse

#37. Rachel Papo

#5. John Hitchcock

#38. Rachel Papo

#6. Butch Holden

#39. Tonya Stuart-Melland

#7. Butch Holden

#40. Armando Ramos

#8. Bill Harbort

#41. Bradford Hansen-Smith

#9. Mollie Douthit

#42. Kent Kapplinger

#10. Kelly Thompson

#43. Matt Anderson

Evan’s photograph Oil Pad and Sand Pit Near Williston, April

#11. Dan Jones

#44. Gretchen Kottke

2012, from the “Fractured: North Dakota Oil Boom” exhibition.

#12. Dan Jones

#45. Patricia Marquard

In the spring of 2016, Terry gave the whole collection of 44

#13. Vivienne Morgan

#46. Anthony Pinata

photographs to the North Dakota Museum of Art. Valuable to any

#14. James Culleton

#47. Pirjo Berg

collecting institution, they are expecially important to us as they

#15. Sarah Tancred

#48. Pirjo Berg

record through the eyes of an artist an historic time in North

#16. Casey Opstad

#49. J. Earl Miller

#17. Guillermo Guardia

#50. Tim Lamey

#18. Ryan Stander

#51. Mike Lynch

Dakota’s history.

The Museum also added significant bodies of work from our Spirit Lake collaboration. This included 88 paintings of Spirit Lake people and landscapes by Canadian artist Tim Schouten.

Eleven Spirit Lake photographs by Rena Effendi of Baku, Azerbaijan, also entered our collection. Judy Onofrio’s Delicate Balance, a 14 x 10.5 x 5 foot circus wagon came to the Museum

#19. Micah Bloom

#52. Walter Piehl

#20. Deborah Mae Broad

#53. Peter Dumans

#21. Deborah Mae Broad

#54. William Rerick

#22. Meghan Kirkwood

#55. Adam Kemp

#23. Dan Sharbono #24. Tina Brown #25. Iosefa Faiai

as a gift from the artist. And there are more.

#26. Brock Drenth

Without question, the biggest gift of all was the renovation of our

#28. Marlon Davidson &

#27. Michael Strand building: new roof, skylight, wood floors in the galleries and

Don Knudson

flooring in the rest of the public areas, all wrapped up in a paint

#29. Caroline Doucette

job to make the 110-year-old building sparkle. We are grateful to

#30. Caroline Doucette

Ray Holmberg and the North Dakota Legislature.

#31. Kelli Nelson

—Laurel Reuter, Director

#32. Susana Amundaraín

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Lot #1

Bennett Brien Belcourt, North Dakota Untitled, 1981 Unnumbered print 26 x 21 inches Range: $250 – 500

Brien’s art bridges a world of modernity and blended diversity as he keeps his life deeply connected to the values of Native pride, in part by depicting some of the most notable icons of the Ojibwe and Northern Plains tribes, such as the buffalo, turtle, and horse.

Brien knows and understands the tumultuous Native history of the Northern Plains—he lived through some of it—and his sculptures honor that history. To this day, his work continually reflects through symbolism the significant past.

Bennett Brien, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, has been creating art from a young age, with a strong focus on his Métis heritage. He attended the Turtle Mountain Community High School and took his BFA in Drawing and Painting, and his MFA in Sculpture from the University of North Dakota. Just out of high school, he studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Brien’s work in this auction was the first artwork he made after returning from school in Santa Fe. The unnumbered print is based in a romantic theme of the American Indian, an image that reoccurs throughout his art-making life. Like much of his painting and drawing to follow, the work echoes past icons of the American Plains Indian culture that remain just as powerful as they were then.

The artist is best known for the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux sports-team logo. He is also identified with his large-scale sculptures made out of rebar. The sculpture reinforces the sense of strength in his subjects by the use of this material; represents the majestic nostalgia of the vast plains by their size; and is solidly tied to the cultural 6 roots of his heritage and the region.

His first iron rebar sculpture, and certainly his most famous, was of a bison (1986). It was sited on the grounds of the North Dakota State Capitol by the North Dakota Museum of Art, which sought and received $20,000 from Dayton’s headquarters in Minneapolis to purchase the work from Brien and install it at the entrance of the Heritage Center in Bismarck. Brien created the sculpture while working on his MFA at the University of North Dakota. Other public sculptures include Soaring Eagle on the UND campus, Rebar Grouse outside the North Dakota Game and Fish Department; sculpture at Sky Dancer Casino, Belcourt; Rebar Beaver at Minot State University; and others at the Polk County Museum and the North Dakota Scenic Highway #43.

Within the strength and beauty of his sculpture there is an intricacy to the work that inspires awe if one closely examines it—a juxtaposition between the use and perception of raw iron, according to a fan. The same counterpoint could be applied to some of his controversial work, such as the Fighting Sioux logo. Some might say regarding Brien that his life, personality and work echo “living honorably.”

According to the artist, “There’s always something Native that is recognizable in my work.”

All proceeds from the sale of the Helge Ederstrom painting go to the Museum of Art

Lot #2

Helge Ederstrom (1908 – 1987) Untitled (railroad bridge) 1982 Watercolor 11 x 15 inches Range: $300 – 500

Helge Ederstrom was born on February 28, 1908, in Torsas, Sweden to Herman and Alma Ederstrom. He came to America with his family in 1912 and settled in Rockford, Illinois. He received his BS from Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1937. After he received his MS and PhD from Northwestern University in Chicago, he taught there and at the medical schools at the University of Missouri and St. Louis University.

In 1952, Ederstrom came to the University of North Dakota to teach Physiology and Pharmacology. He never forgot his first impression of North Dakota. “When I stepped off the plane in Grand Forks all those years ago,” he said, “and looked at all that flatness, I said to myself, ‘Oh, my! This is no place for a painter.’”

It wasn’t long, however, before he discovered a special kind of beauty here that was soon transferred to his drawing pad—stately grain elevators he called “cathedrals of the prairie”; graceful silos; resolute, weatherbeaten houses silhouetted against an endlessly changing sky or surrounded by vast fields of snow.

Over the years he earned distinguished awards for his outstanding teaching ability as well as for important research in the area of heart function. His research was on the correlation between cold weather and heart disease.

As a painter, Helge was of an unusual breed. Just as his scientific research was focused on the cold weather, so was his art. Typically dressed in a heavy jacket, boots, a wool cap and carrying a camping stool, he would head

out into a blustery, below-zero North Dakota afternoon to the edge of town, pull up alongside some old railroad track and hike through deep snow toward the back of a grain elevator he had not yet painted, a centuries-old cottonwood tree, or another view of the Red River. Helge found that as a painter he was well suited to North Dakota because he prefered fall and winter scenes for painting, when there is strong variation in color and shadow. “In summer everything is too green.”

His painting gloves didn’t hamper his sketching ability.

When you paint outdoors, he said, you learn to deal with the weather. If a wind is blowing, I just pin my paper to the ground with stones. And on really cold days I heat up a brick and carry it with me to keep my tubes of paint from freezing. Earlier he had experimented with adding antifreeze to his paint but his hands still got too cold.

Although Helge took one evening painting course while living in St. Louis, he flourished as a self-taught painter who loved contrasts and textures—rusting metal, peeling paint, weathered wood.

He retired in 1977 and continued to paint until his death in 1987.

—Emily Johnson, Horizons

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Lot #3

Kim Fink Salem, Oregon Eagle’s Nest, 2014 Woodcut, silkscreen, Bakken oil on paper Edition 4 of 10 16 x 19.25 inches Range: $400 – 600

Below: Lot #4 Ned Krouse Prairie Song, 2016 Wheel thrown, slip decorated, raku fired 7 x 8 x 8 inches Range: $300 – 400

Kim Fink: In March 2014, Minot State University’s Flat Tail Press hosted guest artist Kim Fink. During his visit, Fink completed a suite of prints inspired by North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. According to Fink, the images are produced not by an active participant or resident of the region, but by an “observer” through “hearsay.” The prints expound upon rumors and conjectures passed along by word of mouth or voices of the media, often touching on the environmental impact of fracking.

His art explores issues of comparative culture and what is termed “cultural memory,” implicit as well as explicit. He attempts to create a fusion of cultural realities that examine objective verses, subjective visions, and a synthesis between image and meaning, all of which define qualities that form us as individuals, as a group, and ultimately as a nation. Fink likes to quote the poet Richard Hugo’s observations of the West’s ancient newness: “. . .

Out West . . . the only thing new is neon.”

Fink received his BFA in Painting from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, and his MFA in Printmaking from Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art. He began teaching printmaking at the University of North Dakota in 1999. Fink founded Sundog Multiples in 2000, a press designed to augment the education of printmaking grad-students by giving them hands-on experience working with professional visiting artists. In January 2016, NDMOA mounted Fink’s retrospective, his farewell to 8 North Dakota as he retired to Oregon in August 2016.

Ned Krouse was born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana in 1946, and taught 5th grade until 1975. While teaching elementary, Krouse began taking night classes in ceramics. ”I reached a point where I decided I wasn’t going to teach spelling and handwriting for the rest of my life,” Krouse said. His education in clay started at the Ft. Wayne School of Art. He also spent three years in Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington. In the summer of 1978, he was a Monitor at Penland School of Craft. He received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in 1981. Krouse taught at Minot State University in 1990 and returned many times for workshops and visiting artists presentations—and to see Walter Piehl. When Ned

Lot #5

John Hitchcock Madison, Wisconsin Minot War Horse, 2014 Screenprint. Edition 3 of 50 24 x 18 inches Range: $300 – 450

John Hitchcock In the fall of 2014, John : Tail Press during Minot State Hitchcock worked with Flat University’s annual NOTSTOCK Festival. He collaborated with MSU students to produce the Minot War Horse edition. John’s diverse body of art combines imagery from both United States military and hybrid mythological animals from the Wichita Mountains of Western Oklahoma, which enables him to explore the long relationship between the two entities.

Ned Krouse cont. first started at Minot, he said he heard Piehl walk down the hallway, stop at his office and toss a pair of cowboy boots in, telling him to wear them. Piehl has been supplying Krouse with used cowboy attire ever since.

In 2014, he exhibited his work at Minot’s Taube Art Museum. His teaching career spanned over 40 years and included public schools, colleges and universities, and art and craft centers around the country. He maintains a studio in Haslett, Michigan where he offers raku workshops to local potters. At age 70, he retired from teaching to devote his time to pottery, golf, gardening and cooking, “all of which influence my artwork.”

According to the artist, My work is slip decorated and raku fired. While the piece is leather hard, I brush on layers of colored slip and carve and etch through the layers to reveal the colors underneath. Today raku pieces are fastfired to 1900 degrees, removed while red hot and placed in a barrel of combustible material such as straw, sawdust or newspaper. The rapid cool down crazes the glaze, enhanced by the smoke from the combustible. The multiple colors of slip allows me to alternate colors in the layering and produce many different combinations.

Hitchcock descends from Comanche and NorthernEuropean people. He creates art out of his own heritage blended with humor and pathos. His ideas are based in the loss of language, spiritual beliefs, and culture due to the influence of Indian boarding schools, welfare programs, and the notion of assimilation and control that is reinforced through government systems. He grew up on indigenous lands (U.S. Government lands) in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma (a wildlife refuge) next to Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma (the largest fieldartillery military base in North America). Today he serves as Graduate Chair and Professor of Art on the main campus of the University of Wisconsin.

Hitchcock continues to make collaborative printmaking projects. He also brings the art directly to the viewer by exhibiting in non-traditional venues such as public transportation, billboards, signage, the Internet, and on reservations. He was one of six artists selected by NDMOA for inclusion in the “Songs for Spirit Lake” project. His residencies include the American Culture Center, Shanghai, China; Frans Masereel Centrum for Graphix in Kasterlee, Belgium; the Proyecto’ace International Center for Visual Arts in South America, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Venice Printmaking 9 Studio, Venice, Italy.

Butch Holden: When I garden, I am manipulating all

sorts of variables—location, soil, water—all in hopes of achieving a thriving plant. I monitor the plants, tweaking elements each year. Gardening is an incredibly optimistic activity and for me, pottery is the same. I work the clay with optimism 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 Holden’s pottery finally emerges from the kiln, the clay has magically bloomed.

Lot #6

The artist holds a BA in two-dimensional art from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and an MFA in ceramics from Indiana University, Bloomington. Today he serves as department chair for the Visual Arts Department at Bemidji State University where he has been on staff since 1983, and currently is Professor of Technology, and Art and Design. In addition to his frequent service as an exhibition juror and art grant panelist, the artist has shown his work in local, regional, and national competitions, including several solo exhibitions.

Butch Holden Bemidji, Minnesota Vessel, 2014 Stoneware 18 x 14 x 14 inches Range: $300 – 400

In a 1989 exhibition at the Talley Gallery at Bemidji State, Holden installed “Unnamed Ghosts,” a wall of raku masks bathed in diffused light, which spilled organically as shells on a beach. The masks and his contrasting plates and vessels speak of different aspects of human understanding: the beauty and meaning of life organized by the intellect; while the masks expressed the beauty and meaning of life given order by intuition.

“For me, pottery is the making of containers for ideas.

Enjoy,” muses the artist.

Lot #7 Butch Holden Bemidji, Minnesota Mask, 2006 Slab-built concave and embellished earthenware 13 x 14 x 4 inches 10

Range: $250 – 400

Lot #8 Bill Harbort Minot, North Dakota Soul Mates, 2016 Mixed media 32 x 48 inches Range: $600 – 800

Bill Harbort or William Charles Harbort, aka Billy Chuck, a pseudonym that is taken from his first and middle names. Bill Harbort is best known for his pop art, mixedmedia collages that celebrate calendar girls, clip art, advertisements, and ephemera from pop culture. He has long exhibited at lowbrow art galleries. However, his success in NDMOA’s auctions forced him to raise his also lowbrow prices.

Paint-by-numbers, coupons, clip art photographs, the shiny surfaces of plastics, and resin are just a few of the ingredients often found in our popular culture landfill, according to the artist. I am fascinated with each individual ingredient and the infinite messages that can be expressed by combining and juxtaposing them. It is through this process that I discover meaning and express thought.

Allusion, suggestion and investigation become an important part of the viewing experience. He continues, Love, true-love, lust, temptation, luck, loss, and life and death are recurring subject matters in my work. Harbort also brings good humor, wit, flexibility, an egalitarian spirit, energy, and joy to his teaching, collaborations, and art making. And the art he makes is, of, and for the people.

Bill Harbort is a professor in the art department at Minot State University. He teaches art foundations, graphic design and illustration courses. He is a co-founder and coorganizer of NOTSTOCK, MSU’s signature, live arts event that spotlights the arts on campus and in the community.

Prior to teaching, he worked in New York as a package designer for a major cosmetics company, an art director for

a children's educational software company, and built a reputation as an award-winning automotive artist. He specialized in airbrush renderings of muscle cars and his work has appeared in over twenty-five different popular automotive magazines.

The artist muses, My commercial art background taught me the importance of marketing, sales and hustle; my time in North Dakota taught me to live in a new culture.

Harbort simply adores his life of teaching, his family and his greyhounds, living and working in North Dakota, and constantly making art.

Harbort was one of six artists commissioned by the North Dakota Museum of Art to work with the people of North Dakota’s Spirit Lake Reservation to create a body of artwork about contemporary life on the Reservation. An exhibition of the first round of work was shown at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Project Space in New York’s prestigious Chelsea Art District in June 2013, followed by a tour to Fort Totten on Spirit Lake, and finally to the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks.

During the second year of the Rauschenberg collaborative project, Harbort returned to Spirit Lake to create more work, this time about North Dakota seasons and basketball. These artworks are permanently installed in the Cankdeska Cikana Community College at Fort Totten on the Spirit Lake Reservation. Funding was provided to NEA by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation.

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Lot #9

mollie douthit Grand Forks, North Dakota and Ireland Red in the Shed, 2014 Oil on gessoed paper Image 4.5 x 4.5 inches, 13.25 x 13.25, x 1.5 framed Range: $600 – 1,000

mollie douthit, born in 1986 in Grand Forks, is a painter who currently resides in Ireland where she moved for graduate school after receiving her BFA from UND. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Hennessy Craig Award from the Royal Hibernian Academy. In 2014, Douthit’s work was advanced to Stage II of the John Moores Painting Prize, and was highlighted through Saatchi Art’s “Invest in Art Series.” Completing her MFA from The Burren College of Art, Douthit was shortlisted for Saatchi Art’s New Sensation Prize. Her recent exhibitions include “Continental Shift” in the Saatchi Gallery, London, The Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, and “If I Show You the Roses,” Rubicon Projects, Dublin. In 2015, Douthit held a solo show at the RHA Ashford Gallery in Dublin and she was the Tony O’Malley Artist in residence in Callan, Ireland. Her work has been published in 2013 New American Paintings, The Irish Arts Review, and Irish Independent. Reviews of Douthit’s work have been published in the Irish Times and Sunday Times Culture.

About her work she writes: The continual undercurrent to my work is a curiosity in using paint to represent objects, spaces, or people that are important to me. The material of paint allows an equalization of importance to these subjects, and through the use of brushwork, color, and composition I can express my emotional connection to them. The attraction to these subjects has occurred naturally, and on par with the affection I have for oil paint.

I paint from life. My attitude towards application is that any method is fair game but I tend to naturally stack or 12 build paint through tonal variations rather than modeling.

In maintaining open dialogue with application methods, I am able to engage in my process more confidently and clearly—allowing paint to be the subject as well as what I am observing. Sustaining this attitude and trust in the process allows a constant flow of discovery, challenge, and engagement with the material. Sometimes this process leads to waiting and a painting may sit for an extended period of time before I have a sense of where it is to go.

Seeing colors rest next to each other to create a conversation as well as relate to a subject delights me. To fully investigate color I have committed a significant amount of time maturing my palette and have developed a personal color chart system. This system enables me to experiment with color mixing, as well as to keep a record of how to remake complex combinations. This process has increased my passion for rich, vibrant color, and my enjoyment of paint’s physicality. For this reason I use brushes that are stiff and can be fully loaded, allowing thick application.

Historically I place my work in relation to the 18th century still-life painters forward, beginning with Jean-BaptisteSiméon Chardin and his work based on his own everyday items. Contemporary influences include Alice Neel, Lucian Freud, and Vincent Van Gogh. On a material level these painters typically employ raw, direct mark making to explore their subject; but with their own language they extend something beyond the surface of a painting to capture an essence of their subject.

Theoretically, I am interested in painters talking about their own process of painting, and appreciate when critics investigate finished work of the artist, as well as the artist’s process. A specific example would be Martin Gayford’s biography on sitting for a Lucian Freud portrait Man with a Blue Scarf. Viewing work in person is crucial to my practice, I often go to cities seeking out specific bodies of work, and most recently I spent time in Amsterdam to research the work of Van Gogh.

Kelly Thompson’s painting is sponsored by Wall’s Medicine

Lot #10

Kelly Thompson Grand Forks, North Dakota Mission, 2016 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches Range: $1,100 – 1,500

Kelly Thompson, a Grand Forks native, draws

the auction, consists of fifty individual wood panels, each

inspiration from the central northern plains of the United States

depicting impressionistic fieldscapes of the northern plains.

where he resides. There, the landscapes, flat as table-tops, spread

Heavily dominated by horizontal composition, the singular

across the horizon in infinite sheets of rich soil, black as coal.

panels are installed in a strict linear pattern representing the

Thompson’s landscapes reflect these linear perspectives, vast

perfect square-mile divisions of farm fields.

ocean-like plains broken only by shelterbelts and islands of oak and cottonwood groves providing refuge to the farmsteads

Thompson’s recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at ecce

nestled within.

gallery in Fargo, group shows at the North Dakota Museum of

In describing his work, Thompson states, Our landscape, with its

New York City. He resides in Grand Forks and is a graduate of the

balance of land and sky, divided sharply by the horizon, is

University of North Dakota. He currently serves as Vice

something that I always come back to in my work both in

Chairman of the North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees.

Art, The Rourke Gallery in Moorhead, MN, and Dacia Gallery in

impressionistic landscape paintings and abstract pieces. The passing imagery, often from peripheral vision, imprints itself on my mind as I travel the region’s highways, emerging later in trailing brush strokes and deep overlapping colors. The minimalism of my work reflects my artistic drive to simplify, reduce and uncomplicate an image. For me the implied imagery of what isn’t present can be as impactful as that which is shown.

Thompson’s current project, with images similar to the work in

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All proceeds from the sale of Winter Sky go to the Museum of Art, a gift from Dan Jones

Lot #11

Dan Jones Fargo, North Dakota Winter Sky, 2015 Oil stick on paper Image 20 x 20 inches, 27.5 x 27 framed Range: $1,800 – 2,200

Dan Jones is best known as a painter of the landscape of western Minnesota and southeastern North Dakota. This Red River Basin provides Jones with endless subjects. A native of Fargo where he currently resides, the artist has long practiced plein air painting, gathering with a group of fellow Fargo-Moorhead artists—especially Carl Oltvedt and Robert Crowe—to go into the countryside to sketch. In 2013, the North Dakota Museum of Art published the book Dan Jones: Charcoal written and curated by NDMOA Director Laurel Reuter. The following are excerpts by Jones: Realism: I went to parochial schools. No art education either there or in public schools. But my mother loved art and always had reproductions. Poster of Miro painting in my bedroom. Posters of Picasso but also Rembrandt.

Michelangelo’s David reproduction was on the library table. All the religious stuff illustrated by old masters. Story about Lazarus . . . . My earliest exposure was to old masters. Norman Rockwell always fascinated me with his drawing ability to illustrate something almost photographically. Kind of like golf. It’s a game you can never win; all you can do is play. Draw and draw and draw. Jacque David said that in order to learn to draw you have to do 10,000 drawings but they are never good enough. I haven’t completely shaken off the yoke of 14

realism but I am less concerned than I used to be. Milton Avery helped me out of that. A big black shape on a canvas can read as a big plowed field.

Sometimes I still wonder if I am a painter. I didn’t start until late, maybe in the early 1980s when I quit construction and enrolled in architecture at NDSU. I didn’t care for it; I was always a little ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) but I had to take a drawing class so ADD was almost instantaneous with starting class. My drawing instructor was Catherine Mulligan and I couldn’t understand anything she said. Picture planes, chiaroscuro, oblique angles. I knew nothing about art. She taught me how to see things differently, things I never would have noticed.

Wayne Tollefson’s enthusiasm about art was catching, infectious. He would get so excited talking about art. Jerry Vanderlin was head of the department. He had all the technical information. I wanted to learn how to paint.

Vivienne Morgan: I love paths; they are filled with metaphors, and old cliches too. Paths are easy to understand; we make them ourselves. This path alongside a lake is one I know so well. It's a short path, comforting, with the sound of water to the right and the wind in the trees to the left. Habitually, I stop at the same places, look at the same things; I am drawn to the same pools of light.

Habitually, I make the very same photograph, seeking something. I am not sure if it’s a search for change, or a matter of clinging to the security of a place that hasn't changed, but either way, always seeking proof.

Evening Path evolved out of a Polymer Photogravure workshop the artist took in December 2015 from Keith Taylor at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking. According to Morgan, It was a great opportunity to test the process before diving right in, I plan to continue working in this media as it lends a lovely quality to the work. Evening Path is one of my test prints. The process is a form of intaglio printing for photographic images.

Lot1#13

Vivienne Morgan Bemidji, Minnesota Evening Path, 2014 Polymer photogravure Image 4.5 x 7 inches Range: $ 400 – 500

Vivienne Morgan was born in England in 1958. In 1979, she moved to the United States and earned her MFA from Bowling Green State University, KY. Today, she lives near Bemidji. In 2008, the North Dakota Museum of Art mounted a solo show of Morgan’s photographs.

Lot #12

Dan Jones Fargo, North Dakota Nocturne: Pelican Lake, 2016 Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches Range: $3,000 – 4,000

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James Culleton’s Bicycle is sponsored by Rhombus Guys

Lot #14

James Culleton Winnipeg, Manitoba Bicycle, 2015 Waterjet cut steel and shadows 33 x 48 x 1.2 inches Range: $900 – 1,200

James Culleton developed the process for creating steel sculpture such as Bicycle while making his musical instrument series, several of which have appeared in previous auctions. According to Culleton, First I sketched the instrument as a blind contour drawing, then I redrew the piece in AutoCAD and finally that drawing was used to guide a CNC waterjet which cut the piece out of steel.

James Culleton studied art at the University of Manitoba where in 1997 he received his BFA with honors. In 2006 while living in Montréal, he received a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec to rediscover his French roots. He published his first book in 2009, Contouring Québec, in which he used a GPS and blind contour drawings (made quickly while looking at the subject and not down at the pen or paper) to document his movements through Québec.

In 2010, Culleton was awarded a commission to create a series of steel sculptures for the facade of the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2011, he published Lyrical Lines, a book of drawings and paintings that depict a visual Who’s Who of Canada’s roots music scene in some of Winnipeg’s most venerable music venues. In 2012, he released his fourth music CD, Memento. By 2014, his practice included public art in the 16 form of light displays and labyrinths.

The artist is currently an instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg. He is known for his furniture designs and in 2015 he won a Pinnacle Award from the American Society of Furniture Designers.

In 2013, 2014, and 2015, the artist was a resident at McCanna House, NDMOA’s artist-in-residence compound in McCanna, ND. It was bequeathed to the Museum by the late Margery McCanna. During this time, the artist dug back into the history of McCanna, McCanna Farms, the Bonanza wheat farming days, and its pioneer family. This evolved into a multimedia performance and exhibition at McCanna House and in the Museum, opening on September 24, 2016. Under the banner Dear Margery, he unveiled drawings, watercolors, and sculpture in the Museum. That same afternoon he released his video and his album “Vanished Days” in a celebration at the house in McCanna, which spotlighted Culleton’s song Dear Margery. He wrote and arranged the song based on letters he found from the 1940s between Margery and Charles McCanna, her Uncle Charlie who ran the farm during Margery’s growing-up years and where she returned every summer. The title track of “Vanished Days” describes the glory days of wheat farming in the Red River Valley in the 1890s. Culleton said, I wrote and arranged this song based on an old poem I found written in the 1940s by Eva K. Anglesburg from Thompson, North Dakota.

The highest bidder will select six objects from the installation hanging in the Mezzanine Gallery

Lot #15

sarah Tancred Moorhead, Minnesota Hardly Any Work at All, 2015 Porcelain and glaze Installation 21 x 44 x 2.5 inches The 60 individual works vary in size Range: $50 – 75 each

sarah Tancred: My current work primarily focuses on domestic objects used or made by women in the postWorld War II kitchen. This work is intended to investigate the dynamic of women’s role during this era, while also commemorating the societal expectation of being both a working woman and a caretaker of the home. I do this by utilizing objects that are stereotypical staples of the American kitchen. The objects I choose to employ reflect the "golden age of advertising," with propagandistic imagery geared specifically towards middle-class women during this time period.

With more women entering the work force, products focusing on "quick meals" emerged, claiming to make the woman's life more manageable. Working with references of the Jell-O phenomenon, I intend to explore the dichotomy of the precise nature of the gelatin molds with the seemingly inexpensive ingredients used to make "salads" as family meals. Additionally, I have chosen to replicate quintessential kitchen tools, executed in a way that visually reflects the mid-century aesthetic.

My choice to use porcelain as the primary medium with this work ultimately reflects my desire to conceptually elevate objects that would otherwise be seen as ordinary.

My intention is to remove these objects from their original context while also omitting the functionality. I hope this will allow the viewer to embrace the content of the original objects rather than being focused on the idea of using them. Like much of my previous work, I aim to create an environment that will potentially critique socially constructed gender roles, while also questioning how much these constructions have changed over time.

The artist grew up in southeastern Ohio. In 2014, Sarah earned her MFA with a Graduate Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies from the University of Montana and prior to that she received a BFA from Bowling Green State University in 2008. She has also completed artist residencies at St. Petersburg Clay Company in Florida and Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana.

Sarah has taught at the University of Montana, Black Hills State University and the University of New MexicoGallup. Currently, Sarah lives in Moorhead, MN and is a Resident Artist at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

She maintains an active studio practice, investigating societal expectations and media representations of women throughout history.

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Lot #16

So why would I drive a painting over 1,500 miles just so I can show it to you? Because I believe Art redeems us. Art makes it all worthwhile.

Casey Opstad

—Casey Opstad

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Skylights and Smokestacks, 2016 Oil and acrylic on canvas 25.5 x 77 inches Range: $1,800 – 2,300

Casey Opstatd: The history of Skylights and Smokestacks goes back to the “Ivy Style” show at the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). That is where this painting’s skeleton, or stretcher, came from.

According to the artist, if you look at the painting’s backside you’ll see it’s not your typical stretcher.

I was working at FIT when I returned to New York City in the fall of 2011 after graduating with my MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I had worked at FIT before, but this time the higher-ups asked me if I would paint a mural for this exhibit. Having just returned to New York with my MFA, I was more confident in my abilities so I agreed to paint the mural.

After “Ivy Style” closed the displays needed to be taken down, repurposed, recycled, and in some cases demolished. Three decorative window frames were being thrown into the dumpster when my friend, the person who built the frames, mentioned that they would make great painting stretchers. I suddenly had three new painting stretchers measuring 25 x 77 inches. The stretchers moved with me on the subway from Manhattan to my studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Later that year, the stretchers moved again to my home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. I tried painting some abstract ideas on the three stretchers, but 18 they weren’t very good so I set them aside for a time.

In early 2016, I grabbed the stretchers and repainted the canvas to start fresh. Then I took them up onto the roof.

Going to the roof in Brooklyn is the best way to get away from people. You don’t see anyone unless you creep up close to the edge and look over at the sidewalk. In New York City you are constantly inundated with people and for me, a North Dakota native, I needed an escape from everyone and the roof was the place.

Now we find ourselves in the fall of 2016, and I am living in Philadelphia, not because of my girlfriend Carson Wentz although it helped, but mainly because of the Philadelphia Flyers and Dave Hakstol, the old UND hockey coach—just joking. Carson got a great job at University of Pennsylvania working at The Morris Arboretum and I wanted to concentrate more on painting and less on client work based in New York City. Then I heard from Adam Kemp that the North Dakota Museum of Art was looking for paintings for its fall auction. I had mentioned to Adam that I was planning a trip back to Grand Forks and Minot in October and the timing worked out. I packed up this painting, drove it back to Grand Forks, and framed it at my mother’s place on South 5th Street right here in this lovely city of Grand Forks.

Casey Opstad was born in Grand Forks and took his BFA from UND in 2000. From 2000 to 2008, he sold luggage, waited tables, built theater sets, washed rocks, painted fences, printed wedding invites, and did whatever other odd jobs needed to pay the rent before returning to graduate school in Minneapolis.

Lot #17

Guillermo Guardia Grand Forks, North Dakota Cora II, 2015 Ceramic 24 x 14 x 12 inches Range: $2,500 – 3,500

Guillermo Guardia (Memo) was born in Lima, Peru, in 1975. He hails from an ancient pre-Colombian ceramic tradition. From the time he was little, he was steeped in the images and materials of those early potters.

In particular, he loved the work of the Mochica culture, a pre-Incan civilization that flourished on the northern coast of Peru from about 200 BCE to 600 ACE, one of many cultures that developed before Spaniards arrived in the New World. It was known especially for its pottery vessels modeled into naturalistic human and animal figures.

With Cora II, Memo continues his “Puzzle Series.” Cora means “fertility figure” in Quechua, the Amerind language of about 8 million people in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina, the language of the Inca empire destroyed by the Spanish in the 16th century. In the Inca tradition the fertility figure appears as the female consort to the Sun. As in many cultures, such female figures were related intimately to the earth and its fertility in the form of Pacamama or Mother Earth, most prominent at the time of Southern Hemisphere planting in August when through ceremonies she nurtured the welfare of young seedlings throughout the Inca Empire.

According to the artist, as a child he was mesmerized by the puzzles his older sister put together with great ease while he never could figure them out. Not surprisingly, he found working on the puzzle pieces was and is a

collection of personal and social emotions. All of us have been through that feeling of emptiness or missing something in our lives that we cannot describe. It might be a person, personal goals, places, or the search for an answer to an unknown question. This body of work started with a human body filled with jigsaw pieces holding one single piece. His whole body is completed, no single space is empty, but he is holding one and wonders where it goes.

I think that puzzle piece can represent how one can or cannot fit into a particular group of people, or what we wanted or want to be. Cora II remains a puzzle no longer clearly understood.

Guardia came to Grand Forks in 2002 to pursue his MFA in ceramics at UND. He stayed on at the University to finish an MS in Industrial Technology. He then joined the staff of the North Dakota Museum of Art as the artist-inresidence which sponsored him for his green card, a permit issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows individuals to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis. It came through late in 2014, thus allowing him to resign to become a full-time independent studio artist. He maintains his studio at Muddy Waters Clay Center in Grand Forks. Memo has been included in many important juried art exhibitions throughout the United States.

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Lot #18

Ryan Stander Minot, North Dakota Untitled, 2016 Digital and lithographic processes Image 16 x 11 inches Range: $300 – 400

Ryan Stander: The curious account of Jesus’ ascension into heaven is the climax of Luke’s gospel narrative, marking the end of his earthly stay and the beginning of the earliest church. Jesus gathered his friends, gave them a blessing and a set of instructions, and then “was carried up into heaven.” Jesus’ departure introduces a time of transition for his followers: their mentor has left and yet they have been given a significant job to do. The narrative says, in spite of his absence, his followers were filled with “deep joy.” In goodbyes one is often faced with contradictory emotions. On one hand, one may celebrate advancements, graduations, and retirements of friends and mentors. And on the other hand, people often feel disoriented, and left behind looking into the sky for guidance.

Originally from the farmlands of northwest Iowa, Ryan is a transplant to central North Dakota. His education alternated between art and theology (BA in Art from 20 Northwestern College in Iowa, MFA from the University of

North Dakota, MA in Theology from Sioux Falls Seminary).

Drawing upon his theological background, the themes of memory, identity, and place often rise to the fore in his artwork.

As a photographer and printmaker, his work has been exhibited internationally in South Africa, China, Central and South America; nationally in New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and widely across the UpperMidwest.

Stander is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Minot State University in Minot, ND, where he teaches photography, directs the BFA program, and co-directs Flat Tail Press and Gallery.

Lot #19 Micah Bloom Minot, North Dakota Ananias and Sapphira, 2015 Lithograph on BFK paper 18 x 14 inches Edition 2 of 3 Range: $450 – 550

Micah Bloom: This lithograph was hand-drawn on a limestone block and illustrates the following biblical story.

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.’ When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, ‘Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is the price.’

Peter said, ‘How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the

Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.’

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

—Acts 5:1-11, New International Version

Micah Bloom is an artist and educator, born in 1975 in Owatonna, MN, who lives in Minot. He teaches at Minot State University. Bloom holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Iowa and has been selected for numerous artist-in-residence fellowships. His works have been published in literary and art journals, and he has shown work nationally and internationally, including private galleries in China and at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. His multi-media project of flooded books was exhibited at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2015. Married for 15 years, Micah and his wife Sara share four daughters and one son, and they all love to make things.

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Deborah Mae Broad is one of the top practitioners of wood engraving in the United States, according to Museum Director Laurel Reuter. She makes large-scale wood engravings with screenprinted colors, copper plate etchings, and stone lithographs. This master printmaker retired from teaching from Moorhead State in 2003 to work as a full-time artist. She works in a renovated granary and chicken coop (Prairie Press) on her farmstead in Hawley, MN. She earned her BFA from Virginia’s Hollins College and her MFA in printmaking from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. For Broad, animals serve as standins for human beings and their foibles. This is a device as old as Aesop. The animals are pictured in clear relief against neutral backgrounds. She says, We are meant to examine and interpret their attributes as universal characteristics.

She continues, My work started with a love for animals, which has been a constant influence throughout my life. I am grateful to now live among the animals I draw and have the luxury of time to observe them. Some subjects have continued to interest me over the years. Many times my animals do simple things in daily life, which gives me ideas. Every animal is an important individual to me. I believe that they have emotions and abilities beyond our imagination. I like the idea that the animals who live here on my farmstead with me give me a way to do my work full time and I am able to give them a good home because of my work.

Lot #20

Deborah Mae Broad Hawley, Minnesota Dawn, 2015 Wood engraving Edition 7 of 15 18 x 24 inches, 34 x 27 framed Range: $600 – 900

Lot #21

Deborah Mae Broad Hawley, Minnesota Our Prairie Home, 2015 Etching Color trial proof 13 17.5 x 23.5 inches 26 x 32 inches framed Range: $600 – 900

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Lot #22

Meghan Kirkwood Fargo, North Dakota Water #23, 2016 Archival pigment print 23 x 27.75 inches framed Range: $450 – 550

Meghan L. E. Kirkwood: The state of Iowa, not unlike North Dakota, has some of the nation’s most polluted water bodies, some with concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen among the highest in the world.

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, over 90 percent of nitrogen and over 80 percent of the phosphorus found in Iowa waterways come from nonpoint sources, specifically agricultural fields. The remaining percentages originate from “municipal and industrial discharges,” which are the only sources currently subject to state and federal regulation. Excessive collections of phosphorus and nitrates in Iowa feed algae blooms in water bodies and create anoxic environments harmful to fish and other aquatic species.

This image, Water #23, depicts a selection of a small-scale waterway in northwestern Iowa, a region characterized by an abundance of wetlands and streams, many of which are preserved on public state lands. The series of which it is part, “Iowa Waterways,” highlights a tension between the toxic and aesthetically pleasing natures of these environments that feature so prominently in a region celebrated for its agricultural production and gamebird and fish habitat.

Meghan L. E. Kirkwood (b. 1981) is an Assistant Professor of Art at North Dakota State University where she teaches Photography and Foundations courses. She earned a BFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 2006 before completing her MFA in Studio Art at Tulane University in 2009. She has received numerous fellowships, including funding to participate in artist residencies through the National Parks Service, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Lakeside Lab (Iowa).

Kirkwood’s photographs has been exhibited throughout the United States, in Europe, and South Africa.

Kirkwood’s photography ranges in scope from discussions of individual relationships to national histories to proposals for a landscape photography representative of Aldo Leopold’s “land aesthetic.” Her experiments with landscape images and research into the history of the genre represent a long-term interest in the ways artistic representations of land help generate and sustain values and attitudes toward the natural environment. In addition, Kirkwood is engaged in efforts to develop and further collaborations between artists and scientists aimed at advancing and communicating research related to the study of land.

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Dan Sharbono is a Minot artist, designer, and free-

lance graphic designer. He is known for his threedimensional murals and painted assemblages. He rescues objects and materials from flea markets, yard sales, old barns and garages, and the occasional curbside to recycle into his artwor, thus drawing attention—and hopefully appreciation—to things that pass unnoticed in everyday life.

According to the artist, my lovely wife Alyssa and I own and operate 62 Doors Gallery and Studios, a community of artists comprised of a small group of crazy art people in downtown Minot. We’re lucky to have such an amazing arts community in our small northern plains town. It keeps us busy, makes us nuts, and keeps us all making art.

Being part of a group is a great way to learn to appreciate individuality, which is more obvious when we are given the opportunity to compare and contrast ourselves with others. Our strengths and weaknesses together make us each invaluable parts of the whole group.

Lot #23

Dan Sharbono Minot, North Dakota Still, 2015 Found materials 32 x 13 x 11 inches Range: $300 – 400

Tina Brown: The Spined Serranus Over Music is part Below: Lot #24

Tina Brown Minot, North Dakota Spined Serranus Over Music (Red), 2016 Mixed media 24 x 30 inches Range: $150 – 250

of a series called “Fresh Air.” According to the artist, I create mixed media art because I enjoy the process of beginning with a white canvas, a pencil, and an initial idea. Next I add layers over layers using different materials from acrylic paint, watercolor, colored pencil, and sheet music to melted glass or a piece of burned wood. I am inspired by my experiences. It could be a song I hear, a sports story I read, a fishing adventure, seeing a sunset or sunrise, anything that gives me the goose bumps. I use that experience to create a piece of art.

Inspiration is everywhere. Lots of research goes into my paintings. It is not only fun to learn interesting facts about a fish, but also to create an image on canvas that is interesting and fun to look at. Ultimately, I would like to teach art techniques so others can become better artists. I teach at Bishop Ryan Elementary School in Minot and work at Margie’s Art Glass Studio and the Minot Area Council of the Arts.

Born in Des Moines, IA in 1976, Tina Brown grew up in Hannaford, ND, and graduated from high school in nearby Cooperstown in 1995. She earned her BA in art in 2000,

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specializing in Graphic Design.

Lot #25, Left to right: A. B. C. D. E

Iosefa Faiai was born in San Diego, CA in 1981. He discovered his love for drawing at age 9 and pursued art throughout his junior high and high school years. He started college at Minot State University in 2000 and graduated with a BA in Graphic Design in 2005. Shortly after graduation, he joined the 62 Doors Gallery and Studios as one of its original members. He has been employed as a conductor for BNSF Railway since 2010 and divides his time between railroading and freelance work. Faiai currently resides in Minot with his wife Cassie and their three children: Sefa, Aisi and Teia.

I have been fortunate over the years to be supported in these artistic endeavors by my awesome family and friends. I am lucky to have such a strong support system; I work everyday to make them proud. They inspire me to work hard and become better at what I do, he says.

The five pieces submitted are part of my “Heroes and Villains” series done for an exhibit at Minot State in 2009.

Iosefa Faiai Minot, North Dkota Dread Series, 2009 Mixed media on five panels Each 46 x 11 to 11.5 inches Range: $300 – 400 each

Being a fan of comics since I was a kid, I was excited at the chance to showcase some new work influenced by my love of these characters. There were 30 pieces done in the first run with plans to complete more in the future. All were made with acrylic and ink on wood.

In 2009, Faiai illustrated the children’s book The Life of Rhiney the Rhino: Rhiny Goes to School, which was 25 awarded five stars on Amazon.

Michael Strand is a Professor of Art and Department Head of Visual Arts at North Dakota State University. With a background as a functional potter, Michael’s work has moved seamlessly into social and community engagement while remaining dedicated to the traditional object as he investigates the potential of craft as a catalyst for social change.

Lot #26

Brock Drenth Jamestown, North Dakota Lanterns, 2014 Oil on canvas 13.5 x 17.5 inches framed Range: $200 – 400

Brock Drenth was born in Jamestown, ND in 1981 and received his BA in 2005 from Jamestown College.

He attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he earned his MFA in 2011. While there, he studied under the painters Jung Han Kim, Dean Larson, Craig Nelson, Tomutsu Takashima, Baoping Chen and Zhaoming Wu. Drenth’s representational paintings explore subject matter ranging from the human figure to landscapes and still life.

With both drawing and painting he uses composition and color in order to evoke emotions. Drenth’s paintings are like an exchange among the artist, the subject and viewer—a conversation about the underlying facets of the object under observation. For inspiration Drenth looks to contemporary artists, like Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, and Wayne Thiebaud, and to past masters such as Vilhelm Hammershoi, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and many others.

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This past May Michael’s international project Misfit Cup Liberation was featured at the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. This work is an extension of recent national and international projects that led to Strand being named “2015 Ceramic Artist of the Year” by Ceramics Monthly.

Strand also completed a Bush Foundation Fellowship that focused on the potential of functional design to facilitate cross-cultural communication extending from Brazil, Taiwan, South Africa and Europe in addition to wellness and recovery initiatives involving craft.

Strand’s work has been published internationally, with articles in American Craft, Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics Art and Perception, Studio Potter, the Iranian design publication, Neshan, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Public Art Review. His work is also included in the Yale University Press publication 40 Under 40: Craft Futures and the recently published Bloomsburg Press publication Nation Building: Craft and Contemporary Culture, authored and edited by Smithsonian curator Nicholas Bell.

Strand travels extensively with recent engagements at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.; the Estonian Academy of Art; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts; Society of North American Goldsmiths–Boston Conference; The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Asheville, North Carolina; The Model in Sligo, Ireland; American Craft Council; University of Kentucky; University of Florida; Kansas State University; New York State College of Ceramics-Alfred; the University of Nebraska; Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR; SOFA-Chicago; Glassell School of Art in Houston; The Ohio State University; University Federal San Joao Del Rei in Brazil; and Universidad Caxias Do Sul in Caxias Do Sul, Brazil.

Recently, Strand has been named to the American Craft Council Board of Trustees and was elected to the International Academy of Ceramics, a UNESCO affiliated organization with 500 members from 50 countries.

Lot #27

Michael Strand Fargo, North Dakota Ceramic collaboration

Michael Strand’s collaboration is sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio

Range: $400 – 600

Dinner for Two Michael J. Strand

A custom-made dinnerware set created for you and that special someone.

Process

During a mutually selected date, I will Skype with you (and your significant “other” if this is not a surprise) from my studio in Fargo, ND. During this Skype connection we will discuss the kinds of foods that are made for these special occasions. This conversation will happen while I am at the wheel throwing several vase forms that I will work with you and talk through shape and expression of form. I will then utilize this form as a basis to design a special dinnerware set for two.

Includes

2 Plates 2 Tumblers 2 Bowls Lobster Bisque and homemade bread? Not just any ordinary bowl will do.

Hot Dogs and Mac-n-Cheese? With a raised eyebrow, I gotchya’ covered.

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Lot #28

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson Bemidji, Minnesota Winter Etude, 2015 Mixed media 34 x 60 x 3 inches Range: $800 – 900

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson are collaborative artists who have lived in the Bemidji area for three decades. They have individual art careers but have been producing collaborative work for about 30 years.

Their art is in private and public venues and they are represented in collections across the United States and Europe. Their collaborative wall work, Great Wave, hangs in the commons area of the University of Denmark. Both artists were educated at Bemidji State College (now Bemidji State University), and at the Minneapolis School of Art (Minneapolis College of Art and Design).

Marlon has had a long history in the area of art education, as a teacher in the public schools of West St. Paul and later as a fixed-term instructor at Bemidji State University. Don 28 worked for some years as a display artist for the Emporium

Department Store in St. Paul. He is also a furniture maker and sculptor who makes assembled works for the wall as well as standing objects. The artists once owned and operated a bed and breakfast, Meadowgrove, in the Bemidji area but they now devote full time to art production. They are life partners who have lived together for 57 years.

The artists feel that their primary inspiration derives from nature. They attempt to combine natural elements with contemporary design concepts. They both are perpetual students of art history. They read and listen, they travel and they look at art. Marlon says, We are a collection of influences from our mentors, from other artists, and from the wide world of fine arts. The artist must absorb and then select, finding a voice that speaks for him or her, hoping to achieve some universal truth in seeking perfection throughout a lifetime.

According to the artists, We are especially grateful to the North Dakota Museum of Art, to the director, and to the community which offer us an opportunity to have our work seen. We have gained new friends, and have been thrilled by the warm reception our collaborations have received among area people.

Right: Lot #30

Caroline Doucette Below: Lot #29

Caroline Doucette Rugby, North Dakota Delicious, 2013 Watercolor 29 x 22 inches, framed 42 x 35

Rugby, North Dakota Sunshine Smiles, 2013 Watercolor 29 x 22 inches 45 x 38 framed Range: $1,600 – 1,800

Range: $1,600 – 1,800

Caroline Doucette: I really like to paint flowers.

They’re fun and they can be played with. Originally, I found flowers so simple but then I found I could play with the wonderful colors and shadows and get right down into them like some magical fairy. I like to use a simple palette of red, blue, yellow, cool, and warm so I can get nice rich, brilliant, vivid, clean colors that will sit on my hot press paper in such a delightful way. I like to make the leaf curl away and the petal look soft and fuzzy. It is how the peach has weight and the autumn leaf crunches under foot. The more I painted flowers and gardened, the more I viewed myself, and flowers, as survivors, with a quiet strength that’s bold and has a beauty despite any flaws. In the flower is the continuous circle of life with the dreams of tomorrow.

Caroline Doucette is a signature member of the New England Watercolor Society and Pennsylvania Watercolor Society. She has been published in both the Summer 1996 issue and the Spring 2000 issue of the Watercolor magazine. Her painting “To Life” appears in the book Splash 5: The Glory of Color. Doucette’s paintings are in a number of collections including the Taube Museum of Art, Minot, ND and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. Her mother is an artist as was her grandmother. As play, her mother taught her perspective drawing when she was 4 years old. With her first camera when she was 11 years old, her father taught her the fundamentals of composition. He had once worked with the photography department in the US Air Force. In December of 1989, her husband encouraged her to paint full time, suggesting she use watercolors and later to specialize in florals. Following his intuition and guidance, she began to win awards and recognition.

In November 2000, her husband’s business relocated 29 from Nashua, NH to Rugby, ND.

Kelli Nelson’s painting is sponsored by All Seasons Garden Center

Near right: Lot #32

Susana Amundarain Minot, North Dakota

Nest and Egg Equal Yellow, 2008 Collage, mixed media on paper 15 x 21 inches, framed 20 x 26 Range: $1,300 – 1,600 Far right: Lot #33

Susana Amundarain Minot, North Dakota Wisp Parachute, 2008 Collage, mixed media on paper Lot #31

Kelli Nelson

15 x 21 inches, framed 20 x 26 Range: $1,300 – 1,600

Minneapolis, Minnesota Liz and Quin, 2016 Oil on canvas 46 x 36 inches Range: $600 – 900

Kelli Nelson is a Minneapolis-based painter and educator. Her recent work rests precariously between reality and imagination, evoking familiar, yet enigmatic images of plant life, horizons, and bodily forms. Nelson holds a BFA in Visual Art with a minor in Art History from the University of North Dakota. She earned a MFA in Visual Studies with a concentration in painting and drawing from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2013.

30 Since graduation, she has continued her dedication to the

arts as a professional artist and educator by exhibiting her work regionally and actively teaching drawing and painting to children, teens, college students, and adults in the Minneapolis area.

Nelson’s work is currently exhibited at the State Capitol Building in Bismarck, in numerous private collections, the University of North Dakota Permanent Art Collection, and she is represented by ecce art gallery in Fargo. In late August, she returned from a three-week artist residency at NDMOA’s McCanna House in eastern North Dakota and currently teaches drawing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. While at McCanna, Kelli created Liz and Quin for the Autumn Art Auction.

black being dimensional the arc going in—another leaves “coming from somewhere going to somewhere” nest and egg equal yellow oval

Susana Amundarain and poet Carol Ciavonne published Birdhouse Dialogues in 2013. As seen above, Susana’s collages were matched with words from Ciavonne’s poems. Gracielo Kartofel introduction reads: In these works Susana expands the value of drawing.

Labeled as mixed media because of the use of diverse materials, the denomination goes beyond itself, revealing how painting embraces drawing with the artist’s gesture.

Drawings, paintings, and poems illuminate a friendship that shelters in a little birdhouse—created by Suellen Einarsen. Whether hummingbirds, water, stones decorating the walls of the house, or a spike of grain appears, the intensity of the colors is vital. On the paper Susana dances gestures and Carol dances words.

Speed predominates in the gesture. Life and death intertwine in each drawing. The creation announces the ephemeral in an endless cycle of flights, flutters and falls.

Black paper and a luminous friendship draw the pathways of some imaginary bird. Susana Amundaraín and Carol Ciavonne are two artists on two shores—visual arts and poetry. In Carol’s texts the reader discovers the history behind the drawings and the poems take the road of visual poetry. In Susana’s drawings, the words dissolve in lines, curves, dots and zigzags of vibrant colors. The eyes rest on the velvety drawings evoking the plumage of birds and the nimble velocity of their flights. Space is significant in the

bird next upside down a wisp parachute red egg falling

work of both artists. The poems traverse the page, inspiring as well as chasing the drawings. The drawings allow the call. One inhabits the other. Both expressions encourage each other, and consequently it is unfair and impossible to speak of the pictorial only. The navel of the world curves and straightens itself to say something in front of the birdhouses.

—Gracielo Kartofel, Art Historian and Independent Curator

Susana Amundaraín is a Venezuelan-born American artist.

She holds an MFA, with emphasis in painting and performance art from the University of Denver in Colorado. She has also been a Visiting Scholar in Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She currently is adjunct faculty in Art at Minot State University where she directs the Northwest Art Center. Amundaraín has developed set designs for plays staged in Venezuela, and worked as the scenic designer in residence for choreographer and director André Koslowsky, with TanzTheater in Pennsylvania. Her artwork is represented in museums in South America and the United States, as well as in many private and corporate collections, such as PepsiCo, Alcoa, and Minitab.

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Marley Kaul’s paintings are sponsored by Hugo’s

Lot #34

Marley Kaul Bemidji, Minnesota The Cellerage, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 58 x 40 inches Range: $4,500 – 5,500

Marley Kaul’s paintings in both content and energy emphasize his connection with natural forms and poetic metaphor. Born and raised in Good Thunder, MN, Kaul was educated at Mankato State University and the University of Oregon. Now retired, he was long-time chairman of the Art Department at Bemidji State University. Kaul’s work has been collected by almost every 32 major museum in Minnesota and North Dakota, which

speaks to his tireless commitment to his development as a painter and his desire to explore the world around him. In 2009, he completed the design for a stained glass window for the First Lutheran Church in Bemidji, where in 2001 he had designed another window for the chapel and created a painting for the altarpiece.

Ultimately, Marley Kaul became a superb painter with a scholarly bent who is widely respected and loved within the region he calls home. Like Northern European artists of long ago, Kaul paints domestic life: the world surrounding his home in Northern Minnesota, his garden, what he sees out of his windows, the birds who come to the feeders, his grandmother’s tea pot, and all the other utensils and accruements of daily existence. During my career as a painter, Kaul says, my artistic concepts have revolved around ecological issues, natural growth and decay, and

All proceeds from the sale of the Ignacio Iturria silkscreen go to the Museum of Art, a gift from Laurel Reuter

Lot #36

Ignacio Iturria Left: Lot #35

Marley Kaul Bemidji, Minnesota The Watchover, 2016 Egg tempera on panel

Montevideo, Uruguay The Table, c. 2000 Silkscreen 14.5 x 21.25 inches Range: $500 – 700

24 x 12 inches Range: $2,700 – 3,200

Marley Kaul cont. what I witness every day in my yard, garden, and community. He describes his approach to art these days as meditative—one stroke after another, one layer on top of another. (It’s another reason the egg tempera discipline suits him.)

Egyptians and others discovered that egg tempera mixed paints really stick. Egg-yolk-based paints have been found on Egyptian sarcophagi. If you've ever left egg smears on a plate and then tried to get it off, well, people discover that in their own kitchens. In addition to painting natural forms found near his farm, he arranges objects of interest to develop a narrative or dialogue for the viewer. Kaul estimates he has completed 90 egg tempera paintings and over 350 acrylic, gouache, and casein paintings during an art career that began back in the 1960s. Few artists practice egg tempera painting because of the care and time dictated by the process. This is reflected in the higher cost of owning a Kaul tempera painting on panel. He also commissions cherry frames tailored for each painting.

Kaul released the book Letters to Isabella, Paintings by Marley Kaul in fall of 2015. Written by the artist, 77 egg tempera paintings are reproduced in full color. A letter to his granddaughter accompanies each painting, offering an intimate look at the artistic process and the personal and professional influences reflected in his work.

Ignacio Iturria makes art about being human— supposedly all artists do. Iturria, however, starts within the intimate confines of the home, charging his personal territory with human life. We get up in the morning and take our place at the family table. We collect our things and go to the office, school, or studio, where we settle at our table or our desktop. In the afternoon we return home and repeat the same routine. Our lives run out on a succession of plates, tabletops, counters. The table becomes the human theater, the chair the repository of family history. The grandfather who is no longer with us sat here; and generations succeed without ever replacing one another, only adding to the texture of family life. The past, present and future keep company in Iturria’s art, like the person the world perceives and the person one imagines or wants to be jointly sit at the same table.

Born in Montevideo in 1949, Iturria grew up on the Río de la Plata. His work reflects this connection, often featuring the earthy, muddy tones of the river’s merging with the Atlantic Ocean. In 1977, he traveled to the Mediterranean coast of Spain for a time, where he came into contact with the vivid colors and lifestyle of the Spanish. There, he says, he “calmed his expressionism, clarified his palette, and transformed linear drawing into painting.”

In 1984, Iturria returned to Uruguay. In the 1990s, he won a number of prizes for his work, including the Grand Prize at the 4th International Biennial in Cuenca, Ecuador in 1994, and the “Cassa di Risparmio” Prize in the Venice Biennial in 1995. In 1996, he had a solo exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art—the only NDMOA opening in history canceled because of a raging snow storm, much to the wonderment of the visiting Latin Americans. Today his paintings, prints and sculpture can be found in major collections throughout the Americas, Spain, and in China. 33

Lot #37

Rachel Papo Berlin, Germany Nastya Before Class, St. Petersburg, Russia #23 From the series “Desperately Perfect” Archival pigment print. Edition 1 of 20

Lot #38

All proceeds from the sale of Rachel Papo’s photographs go to the Museum of Art, a gift from Trustee Kesha Tanabe

16 x 20 inches Range: $500 – 800

Rachel Papo Berlin, Germany Waiting for Hand Granade Practice, Southern Israel, 2005 Series: “Serial No. 3817131” Archival pigment print, Edition 3 of 20 16 x 20 inches Range: $500 – 800

Rachel Papo was born in 1970 in Columbus, OH and was raised in Israel. She began photographing as a teenager and attended a renowned fine arts high school in Haifa, Israel. At age 18 she served in the Israeli Air Force as a photographer. She earned a BFA from Ohio State University (1991-96), and an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2002-05).

Rachel's photographs are included in numerous public and private collections, and have been exhibited and published worldwide. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Berlin, Germany, working on personal projects, as well as accepting commissioned projects.

Rachel’s first monograph, “Serial No. 3817131”, was published by powerHouse Books in 2008. She has been selected as finalist for the “Santa Fe Prize for Photography,” and was awarded a New York Film Academy Fellowship in 2006. In 2009, Rachel won a Lucie Award for “Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year.”

Rachel Papo writes about the series, “Desperately Perfect:” In these times of reality TV and instant stardom, in a 34 country that is constantly evolving towards western

culture, there exists an institution in which the old ways are still practiced. From the age of 10 until 18; twelve hours a day; 6 days a week; on the barre or in a classroom—for the students of this school there are no shortcuts.

This project is a look into the lives of a group of adolescents who, in their hope for a better, wider life, spend the majority of their youth in fierce competition.

Based on my own memories of being a ballet student for 9 years of my childhood, never being the best in class, the images emphasize the emotional side of these children’s uncompromising realities. They stretch their bodies further every day, desperate to stand out, while constantly being encouraged by their instructors to be uniform—identical to one another. Engaged in endless repetition of physical phrases, these students obsessively strive for a level of perfection that is always out of reach.

Regarding “Serial No. 3817131”: At an age when social, sexual, and educational explorations are at their highest point, the life of an 18-year-old Israeli girl is interrupted.

She is plucked from her home surroundings and placed in a rigorous institution where her individuality is temporarily forced aside in the name of nationalism. During the next

Rachel Papo cont. two years, immersed in a regimented and masculine environment, she will be transformed from a girl to a woman, within the framework of an army that is engaged in daily war and conflict. She is now a soldier serving her country, in a military camp amidst hundreds like her, yet beneath the uniform there is someone wishing to be noticed, listened to, and understood.

Lot #39

Tonya Stuart-Melland Minot, North Dakota Beers, 2015 Silkscreen 6 x 17 inches, 10 x 20.5 framed

Almost 15 years after my mandatory military duty ended, I went back to several Israeli army bases, using photography as a vehicle to re-enter this world. This series represents my effort as an adult to come to terms with the experiences of being a soldier. My service had been a period of utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness. I was too young to understand it all. Through the camera’s lens, I tried to reconstruct facets of my

Range: $100 – 150

military life, hoping to reconcile unresolved matters.

Walking onto an army base after all these years was very disorienting, as memories began to surface and blend with feelings of estrangement. The girls I met during these visits were disconnected from the outside world, completely absorbed in their paradoxical reality. Their language was now foreign to me, using phrases like “Armored Cavalry Regiment” and “Defense Artillery.” Would it have made any difference to explain to them that in a few years all they might remember is their serial number?

Photographing these soldiers, I saw my reflection; I was on the other side of a pane of glass—observing a world I once knew, yet I could not go back. It felt like a dream.

The photographs in this project serve as a bridge between past and present—a combination of my own recollections and the experiences of the girls whom I observed. Each image embodies traces of things that I recognize, illuminating fragments of my history, striking emotional cords that resonate within me. In some way, each is a selfportrait, depicting a young woman caught in transient moments of introspection and uncertainty, trying to make sense of a challenging daily routine. In striving to maintain her gentleness and femininity, the soldier seems to be questioning her own identity, embracing the fact that two years of her youth will be spent in a wistful compromise.

Tonya Stuart-Melland was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1985. In 2010, she completed a BFA in graphic design and a BSE in art education at Minot State University. Upon graduating, she received the award for Most Outstanding Art Student. Currently she works as a graphic design/sales manager for BHG/Northern Sentry, the Minot Air Force Base newspaper. She is a member of 62 Doors Gallery & Studios in Minot (see page 24).

Tonya predominately works as a graphic designer but also makes serigraphs (silkscreens), paintings and sculpture.

When asked about her work in this auction she said, Beers was literally influenced by beer. I hand-silkscreened an edition of 40 for the micro-brewery in Minot.

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Lot #40 Armando Ramos Santa Barbara, California Association Day, 2012 Archival pigment print 30 x 20.5 inches Range: $450 – 700

am able to step back and remake these iconic figures into toy-like objects that reveal their vulnerability as ambassadors of the adult world. I use clay, wood, and the printed image in a way that emphasizes the bulk of the material and the two dimensionality of the image. My works are faceted as though cut from a single stone, simplifying their features and giving an impression of awkwardness.

Armando Ramos was a generous and vibrant force in

the North Dakota art scene after moving in 2009 to teach at Valley City State University, according to Museum Director Laurel Reuter. He grew up in Texas but left the state for college. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Kansas City Art Institute and graduate studies at Montana State University. In the years following graduate school he lived and maintained a studio in San Francisco.

In the fall of 2016, he returned with his family to California as Professor of Sculpture at Santa Barbara City College.

Ramos says, My art practice is intended as a playful counterpoint to the darker images and ideas that inundate us through mass culture. I use irony and humor to evoke a sense of parody in my work. As an artist I am interested in the manipulation of images from everyday life and popular culture and how this visual information can be redirected and give life in my creations.

Much of my work references childhood obsessions, toys and iconic figures from my own personal past. The images of the boxer and the wrestler were larger than life to me as 36 a child and represented an adult invincibility. As an adult I

The found image allows me to connect immediately with my viewers while allowing them to place their own associations within the work. I seek to emphasize the intricacies of everyday life, which allow us to relate to each other while stirring a sense of the odd or unique that thrives in every one of us. The core of my work lies in the stories of the characters I explore and how they act as placeholders for a time that can no longer be visited, one that takes us back to a time of playfulness and naivetĂŠ in our ideas about the world.

Ramos has been artist-in-residence at The Richard Cartier Studios (Napa, CA), Vermont Studio Center at Johnson, and at California State University at Long Beach. He was awarded a 2012 Individual Artist Grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

His work has been exhibited at the Virginia Brier Gallery (San Francisco), The Oakland Museum (Oakland, CA), The Dairy Art Center (Boulder, CO), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), Studio Couture (Detroit, MI) and the North Dakota Museum of Art where he had a solo exhibition in the summer of 2015. It was part of the Art Makers Series funded by Dr. William Wosick which allows the Museum to support two artists a year and add a significant work from each to its permanent collection.

Lot #41

Bradford Hansen-Smith Grand Forks, North Dakota Extension, 2013 Sixty folded paper circles 9 x 14 x 9 inches Range: $350 – 500

Bradford Hansen-Smith moved to Grand Forks a few years ago. An established artist in New Mexico, he faced a blank wall in North Dakota. No one ever heard of a grown man who folded paper plates to make art. So he bagan teaching children in the Museum’s Art Education programs—and the parents gathered around to watch.

Twenty-six years ago I found no precedent for folding paper circles in math, art, not in any discipline, so I took that on as my job. It proved easier than casting bronze and welding steel I had done up to that point in my life, and as it turned out, far more engaging. The inherent mathematics and beautiful proportions, the relationships being generated with possibilities for reforming and creating complex systems with multiple circle units intrigued and challenged me. By folding the circle in half and using that information to generate creases forming a triangular grid, I found unexplored potential in subsequently transforming and joining circles. There is nothing in art or math that offers this kind of self-ordered unity to which nothing is added or taken from, where everything happens in the same spherical envelop of movement through sequencing of time. Seeing 2- and 3-D geometry, mathematical functions, and proportional beauty of a diversity of forms seen in the natural world generated from this simple folded grid, I wanted to know what else there was. Through the years I have explored the inclusive nature of the circle, from geometry to developing biological forms through folds in the circle, not as illustrations or generalizations of what exists, rather of

In my opinion, Brad is a genius when it comes to constructive solid geometry of spatial structures.

—Mo Shahinpoor, Regents Professor, University of New Mexico possibilities of those that do not, or have not yet, or might never exist in our reality, but certainly close relatives in the design of living systems we find in the natural world. The included piece is more of a colonial organism that extends itself from a central tetrahedral core, reforming smaller circles with potential for detachment, extending through generational separation a continuation of circle unity.

All reforming of circles comes from a single triangular grid that reveals the three primary symmetries for understanding patterns of formation. This makes folding circles more comprehensive than folding any other shape; everything folded is interrelated to everything else in ways nothing but the circle can demonstrate. There is no cutting or measuring, nor is any math necessary to fold a circle.

Drawing, painting, and sculpture have always been tools I use to explore in understanding the world we live in; eventually writing became another window into this pursuit. Art helps me grasp what it is that we are experiencing and to what purpose we educate ourselves to the awareness of greater beauty and the truths that surround the goodness in our lives. Folding circles offers a clear comprehensive transformational process that satisfies my need to make things with my hands, explore with my 37 mind, and with the spirit that moves me to do so.

Lot #42

Kent Kapplinger Fargo, North Dakota Talking Green, 2014 Transfer, pastel, color pencil, shellac 32 x 22.5 inches, 38 x 30.25 framed Range: $600 – 800

Kent Kapplinger: My work addresses socioenvironmental issues and focuses on balance, order, and regeneration initiating dialogue on the quality of life. I consider my work collaborative in nature, inspired by authors, reporters, and researchers of environmental and cultural issues interpreted through my own rural-based background.

Talking Green focuses on technological advances that promised increased convenience, efficiency, and productivity, yet at times reveal unique distancing and undetermined long-term effects. In this image the objects are hand corn-sheller patent designs I discovered while looking for information about my grandfather Ted, whom I’d heard had been Minnesota State hand-corn-picking champion during the 1920s. Though I found nothing about grandpa’s achievement, I found a cache of varied designs ranging from pure function to over-the-top ornate designs 38 complete with eagle-shaped handles.

To make the work, I selected and scanned the patent design from either a U.S. patents website or an illustration from one of my father’s farm equipment parts manuals. The toner print was then transferred to Rives BFK paper using a solvent and press pressure. Reacting to the transferred image, I scribed lines into the paper and rubbed in charcoal or graphite powder. Areas of the sheller imagery were shellacked and color added throughout the image with pastel and watercolor pencil.

Kapplinger is a Professor of Art at North Dakota State University where he has taught since 1992. He received his MFA in printmaking from the University of Iowa and BA from Augustana College in South Dakota. In 1998, he founded the department's Printmaking, Education, and Research Studio (PEARS) and continues as director and serves as master printer. He has received multiple fellowships over the years and his art has been shown in 260 individual and group shows and is collected widely.

Matt Anderson’s drawing is sponsored by Plains Chiropractic & Acupuncture

Matt Anderson grew up outside of Gackle, ND where he spent most of his time exploring the outdoors. In 2004, he graduated with a BA from Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD and in 2009 with his MFA from the University of North Dakota. He primarily draws with ink, watercolor, and digital media. For him drawing has been a practice that’s allowed me to grow in understanding the world and to direct my creative impulse.

According to the artist, My drawing Perseverance is based on a painting by Théodore Géricault titled Raft of the Medusa. Géricault drew his inspiration from the account of two survivors of the Medusa—a French Royal Navy frigate that set sail in 1816 to colonize Senegal. It was captained by an officer of the Ancient Régime who had not sailed for over 20 years and who ran the ship aground on a sandbank. Due to the shortage of lifeboats, those who were left behind had to build a raft for 150 souls—a construction that drifted away on a bloody 13-day odyssey that was to save only 15 lives. The disaster of the shipwreck was made worse by the brutality and cannibalism that ensued. The Raft of the Medusa portrays the moment when, after 13 days adrift on the raft, the remaining 15 survivors view a ship approaching from a distance.

According to an early British reviewer, the work is set at a moment when ‘the ruin of the raft may be said to be complete.’ The painting is on a monumental scale of 16 x 23 feet, so that most of the figures are life-size and those in the foreground almost twice life-size, pushed close to the picture plane and crowding onto the viewer, who is drawn into the physical action as a participant.

Géricault chose to represent the shipwrecked sailors’ vain hope: the rescue boat is visible on the horizon but sails away without seeing them. The whole composition is oriented toward this hope in a rightward ascent culminating the figurehead on the raft. The painting stands as a synthetic view of human life abandoned to its fate.

In my drawing Perseverance, the emaciated figures and

Lot #43

Matt Anderson Grand Forks, North Dakota Perseverance, 2009 Digital drawing 56 x 34 inches Range: $1,400 – 1.800

sinking raft have been replaced by healthy penguins and an oversized floating air conditioner. The penguins play and their young rest in the safety of the group. They may be jostling for room on the crowded air conditioner, but hope is on the horizon in the form of skyscrapers poking out of the water like little tips of artificial icebergs. In this post-apocalyptic world the only evidence of people is the air conditioner and the city, which have both been overtaken by water and vanity. Don’t worry; no penguins 39 were harmed in the making of this dark comedy.

Lot #44

Gretchen Kottke Cooperstown, North Dakota The Larger Obstacles, 2016 Oil on canvas 24 x 24 inches Range: $400 – 800

Gretchen Kottke: Outside of drawings with various media, I work primarily in oil. I love oil as it has the flexibility that I need as I make a piece. Often, the work has been in process in my mind for hours, days— sometimes years—and that could be the reason that I love oil so much, not only for flexibility but for the work time it allows.

It is also true that I may look at a piece made years ago and it no longer represents my original intent; it changes and I change. Some canvases remain unsigned for a long time. I am interested in making work that represents something.

That is my passion and has been for over sixty-three years.

Once my work leaves the studio for a new home, it usually finds a place where it is comfortable.

Gretchen Kottke was born in Bemidji, MN and grew up in Cooperstown, ND. She studied French and art at Jamestown College and the University of North Dakota.

After college, she left North Dakota and worked in the medical field both as a health-care worker and as an 40 administrator while taking classes from Blair College and

Evergreen State College. Thirty years later, she returned to Cooperstown, and opened the GK Art Gallery. It 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 for 8 years. Kottke closed the gallery in June 2003 in order to devote her time to painting.

She concludes, For me, painting is a language that I have used for as long as I can remember. Oftentimes I think that it is my first language, which I believe is true for most people since the beginning of time.

Lot #45

Patricia Marquard Minot, North Dakota Kirkland’s Warbler, 2015 Watercolor 26.5 x 29 inches, 28.25 x 36 framed Range: $300 – 500

Patricia Marquard: This watercolor, Kirkland’s Warbler, was a new direction for me. As a watercolor artist my genres had been “Gothic Cathedrals,” “Hawaiian Flowers,” “North Dakota,” themes, and meandering around in a splash of various other topics. I chose Kirkland’s Warbler as my interest was piqued by the yellow breast, maybe reminiscent of the coloring of the North Dakota state bird, the Western Meadowlark. The other draw on my attention was the idea of setting the bird in a budding maple tree, or a jack pine, as they are also called jack pine warblers.

I have been following the path of Abstractionism, close on the heels of Impressionism. My inclinations are often to paint with water, and a small brush, releasing dots of Hooker’s green, Alizarin Red, Cobalt Blue, Payne’s Gray, occasionally Ochre, and Cerulean Blue in the same space.

My students say a person has to look closely to see what is in my paintings.

I am a product of the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point Art Department and the Minot State University Art Department. North Dakota has been my home most of my life. I love the open, honest life on the North Dakota prairies. Kirkland’s Warbler, is not native to North Dakota, but rather to the states of Michigan and Ohio. This small songbird of the New World warbler family was named after Jared P. Kirtkland, an Ohio doctor and amateur naturalist. Nearly extinct just 50 years ago, it is well on its way to recovery.

Painted in 2015, the Warbler has been part of my watercolor exhibition tour for the North Dakota Art Galleries Association (NDAGA), titled, “Tone Poems of Color,” stating a possible connection between short symphonies and visual art. “Tone Poems of Color,” followed a previous NDAGA watercolor gallery tour of my work, “Upward Spirals,” featuring statuesque cathedrals painted in 2007.

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Lot #46

Anthony Pinata Oakland, California The Elements, 2015 Acrylic on wood Each 6 x 6 x 3 inches Range for all three works: $500 – 800

Anthony Pinata: In high school I studied the basics of art with Oakland-based artist Charlie Milgrim and mostly followed the routine of the classroom assignments.

Both of my parents are artists, graduates of the California College of the Arts and Crafts, so the notion of practicing art was familiar. Both of them studied under well-known Bay Area artists such as Robert Bechtle and Marvin Lipofsky.

After studying at University of California Davis for a couple years, which included a summer in Siena and Rome, I became more focused on becoming an artist. I was lucky at UC Davis to study with artists Tom Bills, Mike Henderson, David Hollowell, Ari Marcopoulos, and Gina Werfel. After Davis, I went to the University of Connecticut, first earning an MFA in printmaking. I spent my time between printmaking and painting, though mostly the former. My mentors were Deborah Dancy, Augustus Mazzocca, Olu Oguibe, and Laurie Sloan. Just months later, I entered an MA program in Italian literature where I spent two years closely studying the texts of Dante Alighieri, Ludovico Ariosto, Vincenzo Consolo, Umberto 42 Eco, and Niccolò Machiavelli.

In the studio for the past couple years, I have been primarily concerned with abstraction. I am drawn to maps and grids and have been fascinated by the order of such man-made structures, especially those on the grander scale. Several times I have driven across the country and I have been captivated by the seemingly endless highways, where the lines can appear to drift into the horizon.

Ultimately I always find the colors and forms present in my paintings are drawn from my immediate experience and environment.

In 2016, Anthony Pinata spent three weeks in the North Dakota Museum of Art’s artist-in-residence compound, McCanna House, and four weeks at the Jentel Artist Residency Program, Banner, WY. His 2016 exhibitions include “Elegant Simplicity,” Nightingale Gallery, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, OR; “To Be the Void: Sublimity and Contemporaneity,” International Cultural Center of Krakow, Krakow, Poland; “What Cannot Be Said,” Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA; and “Linear Paths,” NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA (Solo).

Pinata’s work life includes Exhibitions Project Coordinator at the Oakland Museum of California (2011–2015) where he also served as Technical Specialist from 2009-2011.

During 2009–2011 he also worked as Facilities Manager and Exhibitions Assistant at the nearby Richmond Art Center while concurrently teaching Italian at the Alameda Adult School.

Lot #47 Pirjo Berg Grand Forks, North Dakota Pieces of Moments, 2015

Lot #48

Pirjo Berg’s paintings is sponsored by William F. Wosick, MD

Watercolor on Yupo paper

Pirjo Berg Grand Forks, North Dakota Ideas in the Wind, 2015 Watercolor on Yupo paper

10.25 x 8.25 inches

10.12 x 8.75 inches

Range: $200 – 250

Range: $200 – 250

Pirjo Berg: The stripes in these watercolors are inspired

by Finnish traditional rag rugs and wall hangings, which fill the floors and walls in our family homes in Finland.

When I was a child my mother, grandmothers and aunts were busy designing and making them, they were always based on beautiful stripes. Even today those striped designs remind me of my home and childhood.

My paintings are based on color, texture, and shape. The stripes, repetition, and texture are found not only in the familiar textiles, but also in geological formations. Over the years I traveled with my geologist husband everywhere (Nepal, Greenland, Arctic Spitsbergen, Baja California, Alaska, United States South West Canyon Lands, Sierra Nevada and so on) as his field assistant. The landscape, especially the sedimentary rocks, and layers (or beds as geologist call them) are elements which have became familiar to me. In geological formations, such as canyon walls, I see familiar striped patterns, but in an enormous

scale and representing much longer time periods.

My paintings have layers (or beds) of landscapes, which are squeezed by time and “flattened.” Some of the pigments I use in painting come from rocks, and the way pigments mix with water imitates the geological — not, however, these watercolors. While I am painting stripes they turn into inner emotional landscapes. One can recognize the landscape in them, but they are in motion all the time as if you were watching a movie where you can slide back and forward in time and space.

Pirjo Berg is a painter and a mixed media artist who lives in Grand Forks. Born in Helsinki, Finland, she received her Master’s degree in Regional Planning at the University of Tampere, Finland, before moving to the USA in 1991. In 1996, she moved back to Finland to study painting at the School of Art and Media in Tampere, returning to Seattle in 2000. She was awarded several residencies these past 43 years in both Europe and the United States.

Lot #49

J. Earl Miller Fargo, North Dakota What Lies Beneath, 2014 Mixed media photograph with insert and Bakken oil 11.5 x 17.25 inches, 24 x 30 framed Range: $800 – 1,200

J. Earl Miller photographs the North Dakota landscape, but not any landscape. While wandering the byways and gravel back roads, he stumbles upon the weird, the out-of-place, and the misforgotten, and out of it comes another of his skewed images that reveal much about the accidental, the banal, and the surreal that marks most human lives.

Aberdeen and Rapid City, Laramie, Boulder to Moab and Salt Lake City, Utah; and up through Ely, Nevada. Miller put between 4- and 5,000 miles on his car; the result was a collection of 10 images. The prints were larger in size than Miller’s typical prints, as he sought to reinforce the vastness and variation of the scenes from his trip, according to critic Brittany Negaard.

Like an Australian walkabout—known as “temporal mobility,”— Miller wanders, but he is a car wanderer. He sets off, sometimes with an end place in mind, sometimes not. He doesn’t mind spending hours by himself, driving through the countryside and scoping out unique and often unnoticed opportunities for photographs. As long as he has National Public Radio, he says he doesn’t get bored.

As unique or even as weird as some of the images Miller captures may seem, none are Photoshopped. He does, however, intervene, as in What Lies Beneath. He started with a photograph of what appears to be the low-lying abandoned shack and pipes of what was once an oil well against the landscape of Western North Dakota. Then, using an Xacto knife, he cut out a shape that echoes the structure, making it large in the center foreground of the photo. He surrounded it with an oil pad and loosely painted in the red color of the sikora dirt that dresses the unpaved roads in the area. Behind the shape (an inch or so deep) is a second photograph of ladders leading down into a real pool of Bakken oil—one mustn’t turn the framed work on its side or the oil will create a real oil spill.

“Dakota Moniker,” his long-term project, has led him through most of eastern and southwestern North Dakota over the last three years. The project has three installments meant to capture the weird and intriguing aspects of the rural countryside of North Dakota that many drive by without noticing. Moniker routes are not predetermined.

Miller spends hours and hours venturing through random dirt roads, turning directions on a whim.

Once, he was going to a friend’s wedding via a five-day trip to Las Vegas. Instead of flying, the photographer opted to take the scenic route, which would afford him the opportunity to visit friends and take photos along the way.

His roundabout trip took him through the back roads of 44 South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada; through

J. Earl Miller is a freelance, working photographer from Fargo, with most of his editorial photos published in the High Plains Reader, and in advertisement campaigns throughout the area. His father started him photographing when he was 10 years old. He studied photography at Central Lakes College in Staples, MN and later at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

Lot #50

Tim Lamey Fargo, North Dakota Cannonball Concretions, 2015 Archival pigment print on paper 12.7 x 19 inches, 21 x 27 framed Range: $450 – 550

Tim Lamey: My artistic practice encompasses landscapes

in the broadest sense: large and small, natural and manmade, sprawling and intimate, and real and abstract. I am fascinated by landscapes that are close at hand but often overlooked.

My work surveys the subtle as well as the overwhelming ways in which human actions are shaping the land that surrounds us. Logging, farming, and ranching alter plant and animal communities, roads and railroads disrupt animal migration patterns and facilitate movement of invasive species. Mining, oil, and gas development which require roads and infrastructure, bring disturbance, traffic, and pollution and leave behind pump jacks, wastewater stations, pipelines, gravel pits, tailings ponds, and open pit mines. Climate change alters temperature and precipitation patterns that upend ecosystems by altering the suitability of environments for species of plants and animals. If all environments now bear the mark of human influence, what is nature?

I use photography to document the interplay between the natural and human-altered, to bear witness to moments of landscape transformation, and to dissect popular notions of nature. The center of my photographic wandering is the Upper Midwest and western Great Lakes region (North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) where I explore the Great Plains and Northern Forests biomes (a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g., forest or tundra).

Tim Lamey makes digital prints from either scanned film or digital images. A few images are only available as traditional gelatin silver prints. He personally prints one image at a time using archival materials to maintain control over the quality and appearance of each print.

A “concretion” is a hard, compact mass of matter formed by the precipitation of mineral cement within the spaces between particles and is found in sedimentary rock or soil.

Concretions are often ovoid or spherical in shape, although irregular shapes also occur. The word “concretion” is derived from the Latin con meaning ”together”and crescere meaning “to grow.”

Cannonball concretions are large spherical concretions which resemble cannonballs. These are found along the Cannonball River within Morton and Sioux counties in North Dakota. They were created by early cementation of sand and silt by calcite.

Concretions are usually similar in color to the rock in which they are found. The giant, red concretions occurring in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park are almost 3 meters (9.8 feet) in diameter. —Wikipedia Tim Lamey is pursuing an MFA in Studio Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is close to graduating. In 1992, he took his PhD in Zoology from the University of Oklahoma, preceded by his MS in Biology, University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a BS in Biology from the University of Minnesota in 1984.

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All proceeds from the sale of Mike Lynch’s lithograph go to the Museum, a gift from Jon Swenson and Bernice Ficek-Swenson

Lot #51

Mike Lynch Minneapolis, Minnesota Mt. Athos in Duluth Harbor, 1987 Lithogaph Image 9 x 12 inches Range: $500 – 600

Mike Lynch’s realist style is rooted in American Regionalism of the 1920s and 30s. His poetically rendered Minnesota subjects include urban landscapes such as grain elevators, taverns by the side of the road, industrial loading docks, ships in the Duluth/Superior harbor, and small town streets. The moody romance of these scenes is heightened by his use of nocturnal or early dawn light.

In 1987, former North Dakotans Jon Swenson and Bernice Ficek-Swenson invited Lynch to create a portfolio of lithographs in their Minneapolis Land Mark Editions studio. The artist would spend up to two days patiently drawing an image onto the lithograph stone before turning it over to Master Printer Jon Swenson to print. Mt. Athos in Duluth Harbor comes from that portfolio.

Mike Lynch won many of Minnesota prestigious awards including the McKnight Distinguished Artists Award in 2003. Noa Staryk, Chair of the McKnight Foundation, wrote: As one of his friends points out . . . the designation ‘distinguished artist’ doesn’t rest comfortably on Mike Lynch. Lynch’s painterly world of back streets and industrial monuments portrayed in darkness or at dusk—often just before the wrecking ball strikes—is decidedly ordinary.

But, as rendered by Lynch, these mundane landscapes are extraordinary emotional documents. Dimly illuminated by a corner lamppost, Lynch’s silent streets attest to the soon46 to-be-forgotten moments that make up daily life.

Lynch’s mostly realist art is widely collected by individuals and corporations throughout Minnesota. He exhibited at virtually every major Minnesota art museum. He illustrated books for notable Minnesota writers Garrison Keillor and Jon Hassler. Yet his name is hardly a household word. Why? Perhaps because he is so profoundly Minnesotan, in the way Midwesterners like to think of themselves. He is modestly dedicated to creating his art rather than promoting it. Fame tends to follow those who are quotable and flamboyant, who stand out from the crowd. To Lynch, it is the work, more than recognition that counts. It is no secret to anyone who knows him that he has made many sacrifices to live as an artist, accepting the frugality and insecurity that accompany such a choice.

Mike Lynch may not feel “distinguished,” but his dedication to his craft is clear to anyone who sees his work. It is reflected in sublime quality, which, along with his humility and work ethic, influenced succeeding generations of Minnesota artists. His art reveals the fleeting beauty of everyday life and reminds us to cherish the time we have.

At the age of 72, painter Mike Lynch traded his brushes for harmonicas and keyboards. He played for years with Mercs, a local bar band that performed monthly at Merlin's Rest on Lake Street in Minneapolis. With Mercs, Lynch mainly played the harp, a long-time hobby.

Walter Piehl’s painting is sponsored by C & M Ford, Hallock

Lot #52

Walter Piehl Minot, North Dakota Blue Boy Bad II, 2014 “American Minotaur Series” Acrylic on paper 39 x 29 inches, 51 x 40 framed Range: $4,000 – 5,000

Walter Piehl draws and incorporates drawing into his acrylic paintings. He does not use drawing to make studies for paintings but as a primary medium, either embedded into paintings or as separate works of art. His goal is to make his surfaces dance with subtle variations.

Unlike most artists, Walter Piehl was quite young when he decided to make art from his own life. Born into a family that raised rodeo stock, Walter rode as a matter of course.

Likewise, in a North Dakota household without television, he drew constantly. He went on to paint and draw horses, year after year, never wearying of his subject, never despairing in his quest to create contemporary Western art.

This master painter, while continuing to live the cowboy life, has found the means to visually enter the sport. In the process he has led droves of artists into a new arena called

Contemporary Western Art—but most don’t know that this artist from North Dakota charted their course years before.

In 2008, Walter Piehl was awarded the Bush Foundation’s first Enduring Vision Prize worth $100,000. Earlier, he received the 2005 North Dakota Governor’s Award for the Arts. The artist has twice served on the Board of the North Dakota Council on the Arts, for several years on the Board of Trustees of the North Dakota Museum of Art, and is on the founding governing board of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora. He continues his affiliation with Minot State University, his work home for decades.

In 2013, United Limited Art Editions (ULAE) created a 30edition print with Walter for the benefit of the North 47 Dakota Museum of Art. Only 3 prints remain unsold.

Lot #53

Peter Dumans Winnipeg, Manitoba Spirit Fire, 2014 Steel embellished with paint Diameter 25 inches, 1.5 inches deep Range: $300 – 500

Peter Dumans started working in metal in high school and while in college took off-campus courses in metal work. He considers the world around him as his inspiration and the welding torch his paintbrush. He predominately creates in copper, brass, stainless steel, steel, and chrome. His sculptural forms also incorporate multi-textural techniques using clay and wood. He enjoys the physical participation in the medium: cutting, pounding, shaping, and welding.

Lot #54

William Rerick Grand Forks, North Dakota Untitled, 2015 Mixed media on paper 15.25 x 14 inches Range: $200 – 300

William Rerick: Luckily my mother was a teacher at UND, so I was able go to the University of North Dakota’s preschool. It was there that I found my love for making art.

At the artmaking section, we students would tape sheets of printer paper together ‘till they were sometimes 8 or more feet long, then we would compete to draw the most ferocious monsters. I would not return to work of that scale until I returned to UND for my BFA, yet drawing representational imagery was always prevalent as I grew up. Throughout the years I have slowly transitioned from focusing on imaginary creatures to studying the human form, such as in figure drawing class. I also moved from realism to abstraction.

A Grand Forks native, Rerick received his BFA from UND in 2016.He is now preparing his portfolio for applications 48 to graduate school.

Adam Kemp’s painting is sponsored by HB Sound and Light

Lot #55

Adam Kemp Grand Forks, North Dakota Drone Love, 2016 Fiber, stitching, paint, glitter 58.5 x 58 inches Range: $1,500 – 2,000

Adam Kemp’s paintings are highly biographical or made in response to the world around him. I primarily paint straight from the tube rather than mixing paint. Or I will mix on the canvas. It is a fair criticism to say I could be a more accomplished painter if I mixed paint on the pallet but I like the urgency of painting fast and messy.

Drone Love, however, is a fabric painting: an old bedsheet for background, topped with an expensive Marrimekko print from Finland with a swatch of drop cloth sewn onto the bottom. Adam cut the “drone” out of the Andy Warhollike flower print to expose the printed bed sheet underneath. Then he slathered paint and sprinkled glitter on the surface. He explains, Drones are here whether we like it or not. They delight some and terrify others. They are the growth industry of the Red River Valley, dark presences flying through our bed of flowers.

Laurel Reuter muses, When kids enroll in Adam’s workshops they are covered in paint from the first day, just as Adam is when he paints. Adam exudes joy and heightened energy. Simply put, he is a natural painter with rigorous European schooling under his belt. He is also

Grand Fork’s unofficial painter-in-residence: teaching workshops and passersby, working with special needs kids, talking about their art with younger artists, generously showing his work on the streets and in local galleries, giving paintings away, fighting with the powers that be whenever he finds too many rules and regulations for his version of a proper life, selling a painting whenever he can, and turning friends and strangers into collectors. Our region is blessed to have such a force living among us.

Kemp was born in Ugley, Essex, England. In 1986, he received a BFA from Newcastle-upon-Tyne where his classes were based in the intense study of technique and art history. He came to Grand Forks to cast the sculpture that stands on the southwest corner of University Park, having studied bronze casting in Italy. He stayed to earn his MFA from UND in 1989.

When asked about his life, he concludes, I still look at the landscape around here as a pleasantly surprised outsider, an immigrant like the new Americans arriving today in our communities.

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North Dakota Museum of Art North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees

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

Julie Blehm

Ann Brown

Nancy Friese

Ashley DiPuma

Bryan Hoime

Kristen Eggerling

Laurel Reuter

Susan Farkas Annie Gorder, Treasurer Darrell Larson Sally Miskavige Natalie Muth Jim Poolman Nicole Poolman Laurel Reuter

Trustees of the North Dakota Museum of Art

Board of Directors

Julie Blehm, Chair

Carson Muth

The 2016 Autumn Art Auction is underwritten by the

Foundation

Lynn Raymond Tammy Sogard Linda Swanston, Secretary Kesha Tanabe Kelly Thompson, Vice President Lois Wilde Joshua Wynne

North Dakota Museum of Art Staff Matt Anderson Sarah Bowser Sungyee Joh Greg Jones Laurel Reuter, Director Heather Schneider Gregory Vettel Matthew Wallace, Deputy Director Brad Werner Part-time Staff Sara Anderson

David Hasbargen, Emeritus Kim Holmes, Emeritus Douglas McPhail, Emeritus Gerald Skogley, Emeritus Anthony Thein, Emeritus Wayne Zimmerman, Emeritus

Brittney Christy Sheila Dalgliesh Kathy Kendle Wayne Kendle Kelly Kennedy Charles Larocque Rebecca Mundfrom Brady Niebolte Marie Sandman

Front cover: Armando Ramos, Association Day, 2012. Archival pigment print, 30 x 20.5 inches.

Back cover: Meghan Kirkwood, Water #23, 2016. Archival pigment print, 23 x 27.75 inches.

Curtis Longtime Sleeping and over fifty volunteers

Autumn Art Auction Volume 18, 2016

North Dakota Museum of Art