The Executive Committee of the Northfield Sesquicentennial Celebration has selected ArtOrg to create a special piece of art that will be unveiled at the Governor’s Ball Celebration on December 17, 2005. The work will be a series of large prints created by local artist Kari Alberg in conjunction with ArtOrg Printmaking Department.

The prints will be created on an over-100-year-old printing press that makes use of the process called “lithography”. Lithography was invented over 200 years ago in the Franken region of Germany, and was still being used around 1900 by artists like Toulouse-Lautrec to create his wonderful images of French nightlife. This printing press was recently rescued from the former AC Schultz Litho / Williamson Press company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The press had to be disassembled and lowered down a condemned elevator shaft! It is believed that this press is one of the few oldest and largest presses of its kind that still remain.

Kari Alberg will be creating the art for the piece and has in the past been successful in creating similar images for clients such as the San Francisco Opera. Her pieces for their 100th anniversary of La Boheme several years ago have won many awards. These works were designed to look like Toulouse-Lautrec’s stone lithographs, but were really made using other techniques. These prints for the Northfield Sesquicentennial’s Governor’s Ball, however, will be made in the traditional lithographic techniques. The size of these prints will be large and measure nearly four feet wide by six feet tall. It is believe that at least one of these original prints will be on display at the Governor’s Ball, and possible be for sale that evening, but those details are to be determined.