OPENS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16 AT 3PM. “The Twenty Views of Dundas” is a collaborative print project to honor the history of the small town of Dundas, Minnesota, which celebrated its 150 year anniversary in 2007. Twenty artists are each interpreting one aspect of the City’s history in a work of art, and working together with an art printer to create hand-pulled sets of prints in a very limited edition size. In this way, important aspects of Dundas will be memorialized in art, and accessible to many to contemplate and enjoy for years to come. Join us for the opening of this exhibit on Sunday, November 16 from 3 to 7pm at the ArtOrg Moving Walls Gallery at 200 Division Street (Riverside Entrance) in Northfield, Minnesota. Hours are by appointment, and Thursdays and Fridays from 6 to 8pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4pm until December 7.

Dan Riggens of Goodbye Blue Monday Coffeeshop recently pointed out that the latest copy of Art News contains a local scene. There is a full-page announcement of a solo gallery show in New York City of the artist Linden Frederick, and it appears that one of the paintings is the storefront of the Touchette Electric Building at 801 Division Street in Northfield, Minnesota. The painting frames the right-hand side of the building that contains a tuxedo rental business. Good catch, Dan! A link to the artist Linden Frederick can be found here, and his representation by the Forum Gallery here. The Spring 2007 issue of The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship Newsletter however provides a strong clue: “This summer Linden Frederick (Belfast, Maine) is riding a bicycle from Seattle to Boston as a part of his two-year project, “American Studies,” which will culminate in a show of the same title at the Forum Gallery in New York…”

[Here is a photoset of this completed event, enjoy!] On Tuesday, October 28 from 10am to 2pm, ArtOrg will be participating in the Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) celebration of the important holiday Day of the Dead, or Dia De Los Muertos. We will be setting up the 104-foot-long Northfield Day of the Dead Steamroller Print in the college atrium. There will be food like Pan de Muerto and Mexican hot chocolate, posters, and ofrendas. This event is sponsored by the Chicano Latinos Unidos Club of MCTC. For background on this holiday, please see this recent post by ArtOrg of a couple weeks ago. Join us if you are in the area!

ArtOrg was formed 5 years ago in Northfield, Minnesota, and at that time ArtOrg founders suggested the Visual Arts be a separate division within another group called the Northfield Arts Guild (NAG). That proposal was turned down in August of 2004, and ArtOrg has proven itself with actions and enjoyed some good results in the meantime. Recently, the vacated Executive Director position at the NAG afforded an additional opportunity. ArtOrg Director Dave Machacek applied for that spot, and suggested that ArtOrg be integrated with the NAG. Dave did not make the final cut in that hiring process, but we would like to sincerely thank the directors of the NAG for the consideration. We would also like to thank the many people who expressed their support and also to those who wrote letters on Dave’s behalf: Ray Jacobson, Doug Padilla, Susan Jacobsen (MIA), Mac Gimse, Peter Dahlen, and Fred Rogers. This post is just a simple way for us to inform our members and other stake-holders of this concrete attempt to work together. We felt that each organization would benefit–and that’s the simple reason why we suggested it. (However, now stay tuned for the impending announcement of the “Twenty Views of Dundas” exhibit opening, and much more!)

ArtOrg has built two new “fan” pages on the popular social networking site MySpace for the illustrator John Berkey and the singer Winnifred Green Alberg. John Berkey enjoyed a long and wonderful career in illustration, and local Northfielder Winnifred Alberg (née Greene) was a top soloist for the St. Olaf Choir. Winnifred’s page includes some seldom-heard recordings such as an 1948 interview and performance from the Arthur Godfrey show. Enjoy!

The above photo slideshow shows highlights from the ArtOrg project called the 1000 Print Summer as it traveled to ten different places this summer and printed for (mostly!) kids with a steamroller. The final print tally in the end was 1180. Whew! Locations included The Walker Art Center, The Anderson Center in Red Wing, Owatonna, Crazy Days and Just Food Co-op Harvest Festival in Northfield, The Rochester Art Center, Stillwater, St. Cloud, and Peavey Plaza on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. All of the prints can be seen here in our 1000+ photo archive. Congratulations to all participants, and especially those volunteers who got home bone-tired after a few of those long 200-print days. (Stay tuned for phase two of the project where we reprint all 1180 blocks into a big mural-like print measuring 40 feet tall by 80 feet wide!).

The print suite “The Twenty Views of Dundas” has been accepted into a charity auction at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Organized by the 85-year-old “Friends of the Institute” group, the September 26 Art Perchance event raises money to bus kids to classes and events at the Institute. ArtOrg is very proud that the set made it through the acceptance process and has been chosen to be sold at silent auction. Through this event, the set will be seen by many people, and bring well-deserved regional attention to the project and its artists. (ArtOrg has donated similar projects in the past–for example the large Northfield Governor’s Ball Lithograph raised $4600 for the Northfield Sesquicentennial, and $2000 for the Laura Baker school.)