[ Here is the complete text from our recent Northfield News article from that paper’s Progress Edition. All of these topics remain unlinked in this article, we ask you to use the search box in the lower left corner of this website to get more information on the topics in this article. The article we sumbitted was slightly longer than what appeared in the Progress Edition. ]

Last year was ArtOrg’s first invitation to submit a report to the Northfield News Progress Edition, and we thank you again for this opportunity. Our group has made much progress during the last year, and this provides a great forum to reflect on that progress.

This year, we would like to simply get right to the heart of what is important to us: action and results. We submit this year a simple list of what ArtOrg has done to help artists, the City of Northfield, and the greater art community. We have tried to keep the list brief and focus our attention to the most important points.

Last year, we helped found and facilitate Northfield’s first-ever Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) Celebration. I have often been a bit skeptical about projects that talk about bridging gaps between different cultures and such, but in this case the power of this November 1 celebration and the events leading up to it was overwhelming. Our event attracted over 400 people from what we might call both the Anglo and Latino communities. We exhibited our 104-foot-long steamroller print (created by mostly Latino artists), had a community “Ofrenda”, offered traditional foods, heard a special Norteno band, and gave the traditional marigold flower to everyone in attendance. This celebration will be held again this year, so hold open Thursday, November 1, at the Northfield Armory.

Our Day of the Dead Steamroller Print project is counted here in a separate category, because it seems to have developed a life of its own. The 104-foot-long print was created with over 100 people in attendance, and that creation can be seen in a very nice video on our website. That long print was displayed at our Nov. 1 celebration, at the Catholic Church on Nov. 2, and St. Olaf College on Nov. 3 and 4. It then traveled to the California Building in Northeast Minneapolis for display. Paper versions of each artist’s plate were made in very limited quantities, and one was purchased by no less than the Director of one of the biggest art museums in Minnesota. Still another of the paper steamroller prints, measuring 4 foot by 8 foot in size, will be displayed at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago this fall. Also, about half of the prints will be exhibited in a show at Medtronic this fall. It is rather shocking to think that our little group has achieved notoriety of this nature.

We have developed a very active internet presence, and the amount of important content we have on the internet and the number of “hits” we achieve is impressive. We have over 1500 hits per month on our online gallery, we have over 20 videos with over 10,000 hits on our video service, and have over 1300 photos organized in 54 different photo galleries on our photo service. Our website also is organized as a blog and has about 100 content-rich posts. Please check it out at www.artorg.info. We urge you to take some time to look over this content, and judge for yourself if we are an effective organization for the arts in Northfield.

We held a wonderful jazz concert with the band “The Bad Plus” and sold over 300 tickets at $18 a piece. This does a bit to disprove the myths we hear that Northfielders won’t pay for events, and that big events won’t work when the colleges are not in session. The month after our concert, The Bad Plus played to over 35,000 people at a jazz festival in Finland, and the band is playing at the Guthrie Theater on September 24. We had a Brazilian band Rob Curto’s Forro For All open the concert, and then later that night, about 10:30 pm, opening our well-received “Summer Solstice” gallery exhibit. The last person left the gallery about 2:30 am!

The fourth of our collaborative print projects has begun and has really caught fire. “The Twenty Views of Dundas” is truly a wonderful collaboration between artists, printers, community groups such as the Dundas Women’s Study Group, and buyers of wonderful art. We have nearly twenty artists who will each contribute a piece of art in the way of a traditional hand-made print. The subject is the history of Dundas, Minnesota–it is after all, the Sesquicentennial of Dundas. So far, artists and printers include: Andy Lum, Carolyn Swiszcz, Diane Schrader, Fred Hagstrom, Fred Somers, Gaylord Schanilec, Hope Cook, John Saurer, Kari Alberg, Mac Gimse, Marty Harris, Nick Sinclair, Nick Woblewski, Ray Jacobson, Scott King, Sharol Nau / Pat Lampe, Meg Ojala, James Boyd Brent, and Scott West. This group of artists represent Dundas and Northfield well, but also St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges and other regional artists. Please look to the Northfield News and other outlets as significant arts of this project are completed.

We developed the technology to use a big steamroller for the Day of the Dead print set, but also a smaller version of that that we have taken to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and also The Anderson Center in Red Wing. Using a smaller steamroller, we printed for over 100 kids on a rain-soaked day at the Institute. One of or highlight of last year had to this event, where we saw ArtOrg’s logo displayed right beside the MIA, and all accomplished by over a dozen volunteers from Northfield!

We worked with many people and groups to submit a film to the world-wide “48 Hour Film Project”. This project is growing and this year had over 80 entrants from Minneapolis alone. The basic idea is that the project organizers give each group the same three elements–a line of dialog, a character, and a prop–which must be integrated into each film. The maximum seven-minute film must then be shot and editing within the next 48 hours. With this experience, we hope to jump start even more groups from Northfield to take part in the project next year. Who knows, if we could really get the ball rolling, maybe Northfield could be made an organizing location–and that would bring excitement! Also in the film area, we will hold our 4th Annual Japanese Animation Festival this October in collaboration with Carleton.

Last year at this time, we offered over 250 hours of art instruction, and whereas that is now smaller, the offerings have been significant. Our glassblowing classes, collaborating with The Anderson Center in Red Wing, have now expanded to an open glassblowing studio every first Saturday of the month. Still other activity was seen in our printmaking studio, where Prairie Creek students, Belle Plaine high schoolers, and Carleton’s Wellness Center all had short introductions to printmaking.

Still a personal highlight of mine doe not relate directly to ArtrOrg, but to the Northfield Arts Guild. I tried out for the play “Glengarry Glen Ross” and was really blown away by the amount of fun the audition process was. I made it through the first round of auditions and was called back, but alas, was not chosen in the final decision. We have also suggested a collaborative print project to the NAG and its writer’s group and look forward to that project, should it happen.

In order to close, we ask that you support ArtOrg. Not because we are another nonprofit looking for money, but because you like what we do and want us to actually help to make Northfield and “Arts Town” by action and results. Support us by purchasing one of our wonderful print projects–we only have two of the eight Northfield Governor’s Ball prints left, and some of the Day of the Dead Steamroller Prints are sold out already–or look to the historic “Twenty Views of Dundas” print project which brings so many wonderful artists together. Thank you in advance.