Please join us on Tuesday, March 18 for an Artist Reception for our Around the Farm Art Exhibit at our NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to all.

Reception is from 5 to 8 PM. At 6 PM the Northern Jazz Band will play.

Around the Farm

Featuring the Artwork of Beau Bakken 

With Rock Bakken, Aimee Ross, Betsy Saurdiff, Stephanie Olson, Jessica Lundeen, Cindy Kolling, Debbie Aune, Janet Knutson, Therese Masters Jacobson, Ross Hier, Annethea Novacek, Loreen Hanson, Alice Hamness, and Kate Hammer

Open Through April 25 at the

This exhibit includes 27 pieces of art created by 15 artists in acrylic, watercolor, pen and ink, photography, ceramic, and mixed media. Beau Bakken, the featured artist, has twelve 2' X 3' acrylic on canvas paintings of tractors, elevators, trucks and farmers from NW Minnesota. Many of the pieces are for sale.

In addition to the pieces by Beau Bakken, artists from throughout the region contributed to this showcase, including Rock Bakken of Hallock, Aimee Ross of Fisher, Betsy Saurdiff of Grygla , Stephanie Olson of rural Thief River Falls, Jessica Lundeen of Thief River Falls, Cindy Kolling of Gully, Debbie Aune of Gatzke, Janet Knutson of Gully, Therese Masters Jacobson of Alvarado, Ross Hier of Crookston, Annethea Novacek of Greenbush, Loreen Hanson of Thief River Falls, Alice Hamness (deceased), and Kate Hammer of Roseau.

Farming is more than a job or a career. It is fundamental to our community's way of life, part of our region's cultural identity and history, and deeply rooted in where and how we live, work, and play. This art exhibit celebrates farm life and farming and will highlight the importance of agriculture in the lives of residents of our northwest Minnesota region through art. Art is around the theme of farms, farming, farm machinery, harvest, farmland, agricultural heritage, farm animals, and farm life.

Featured Artist Beau Bakken of Hallock explained, “Ten years ago or so I was working on a farm and found visual inspiration from my boss’s farm trucks. They were decades old, rusty, and full of battle scars. But at the turn of a key, their engines fired and were ready for the day’s work. I filed away in the back of my brain to paint a picture of at least one of these modern workhorses. I’m good for packing away more ideas than I ever have time to put into reality, so this inspiration sat dormant for almost a decade. But over the last year or two, I’ve finally leaned into painting pictures of trucks, tractors, and machinery and quite enjoyed it. Most have been painted from personal photos but also from generous photograph lenders. I never took a photo of the 1960-something green Ford truck that first inspired me, but a photo recently was given to me of my former boss pouring grain out of the old Ford’s back gate. The painting titled, “Ron and the Ford” was a meaningful capstone for me and this farm art project in many ways. Ron Petersen, now with Jesus, was a great boss, farmer, and man of God.  If I continue painting farm related pictures, I hope to find more ways to depict farmers along with their machinery.”

Of her two pieces in the exhibit, Artist Stephanie Olson said, “Both pieces incorporate traditional quilt square patterns, combined with personal feelings and witness to current times."

Aliza Novacek-Olson shared:  "I love paintings of red barns, so I was excited when I heard about the topic of the upcoming exhibit. I own a painting done by my grandmother, Alice Hamness (deceased) about 60 years ago. Alice is the mother of my mom Annethea Novacek and my aunt Loreen. I thought it was special to see paintings of the same subject matter from three different women in the same family, so I convinced my Mom and Loreen Hanson to submit their paintings, too."

You won't want to miss this interesting exhibit open through April 25 at the NWMAC Gallery at NCTC in Thief River Falls.

Watch this video for a virtual tour of the exhibit at https://youtu.be/NoQwejK5jmI

The NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls is at 1101 State Highway 1, Thief River Falls 56701. The gallery is open during Monday-Friday from 8 - 5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. Please call to make sure the college is open before making a special trip. Hours can change. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free. 

For more information about this exhibit, visit our website at NWArtsCouncil.org, or if you are an artist interested in exhibiting a body of work with NWMAC, please contact Trey Everett at (218) 280-4917 or email NWArtsCouncil@gmail.com. Please sign up for our e-newsletter on our website home page to see the latest news and grant announcements. Email director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.

Artist Reception is Nov 21 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Immersed in Color Inspired by Culture an exhibit open through November 21. This colorful exhibit includes 29 pieces of art created by four artists in acrylic, watercolor, beading, collage, and an award-winning hockey stick design.

NWMAC Showcase Specialist Trey Everett explained, "Our latest exhibit features three Native American Minnesota artists and one non-Native artist. It's a fantastic display of multifaceted creativity. Acrylic, watercolor, beading, mixed media, and college are all part of this unique exhibit." 

You won't want to miss this incredible exhibit open through November 21 at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. An artist reception will be held on Thursday, November 21 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and everyone is welcome to attend. Please join us!

Please join us for an artist reception on Wednesday, September 18 from 5 to 7 PM at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. Take advantage of the opportunity to tour our current exhibit The Portrait Gallery and meet the artists who created this body of work — Pamela Edevold, Jessica Ross, Therese Masters Jacobson, and Heidi Danos. Some of the art is available to purchase. Snacks and drinks will be provided. There is no charge for this event and everyone is welcome to attend!

Artist Pamela Edevold will give a special presentation at 5:30 PM about the Native portraits. You won’t want to miss this!

Awareness: within and without

Artist Reception with Cindy Kolling and Gail Ose is Wednesday, July 10 from 6 - 8 PM

Northwest Minnesota Arts Council Gallery

NCTC in Thief River Falls through July 2024

This exhibit is open from May 30 to July 31 and features 54 pieces of artwork by Gully Visual Artist Cindy Kolling and Thief River Falls Visual Artist Gail Ose and is open through July at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls.

Showcase Specialist Trey Everett shared, “Cindy Kolling is a master at capturing the life cycle of plants through her pen and ink and silkscreen artistry. Gail Ose's visionary and highly symbolic work is a fascinating process as well as mesmerizing to gaze into. This exhibit is a complementary combination of two distinct styles which give careful attention to the form and the formless, what is without and what is within." 

Cindy Kolling’s work includes two sets of 12 silkscreen prints of the life cycle of native plants white sage and blazing star plus other work. These are different handprints of one plant in a continuing series originating from pen & ink drawings of Cindy’s that reference her field sketches, artist’s photos, and observation experiences.

Gail Ose is a visionary artist and founder of Serendipity Art Hub based in Thief River Falls. She explained, “I am honored to be paired with Cindy Kolling as one of the showcase artists in this exhibit and very grateful to the Northwest Minnesota Arts Council for supporting me and working with me in my endeavor to bring this dream of mine into the light as an emerging artist. It is my sincere hope that my paintings touch and inspire something inside visitors as they explore their unique images. Each of my portal paintings are sacred acts of allowing myself to be a vehicle for sharing an energetic message and each is infused with symbolic meaning designed to carry a specific energy of intention cohesive to its message. Each of my portal paintings are exercises in communing with spirit to bring forth the unseen realm and bridge it with the visible in the form of a painting. My portal paintings usually have a lot of symbology that usually invites the onlooker into wonderment and curiosity. They usually provoke introspection.”

Watch this video for a virtual tour of the exhibit at youtu.be/Rcys2dLpwlg

Reminder: Artist Reception is Wednesday, July 10

An artist reception at the gallery will be held at Northland Community and Technical College on Wednesday, July 10 from 6 – 8 PM. Everyone is welcome to join us for this free event. Many pieces of art in this exhibit are for sale. You are welcome to purchase at any time and pick up when the exhibit ends.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8 -5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. Please check to make sure the college is open before making a special trip to see the exhibit. Summer hours can change. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free. 

Questions? Please contact Trey Everett at (218) 745-8886 or email NWArtsCouncil@gmail.com. Please sign up for our e-newsletter on our website home page to see the latest news and grant announcements. Email director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.

Fiddle Tunes, Fiber Folk & Prairie Prints

Featuring Jeanne Griffin O’Neil and Erin Jeanne O’Neil

An artist reception at the gallery will be held at Northland Community and Technical College on Wednesday, April 24 at 6 PM. Everyone is welcome to join us for this free event. There will be live music by the O’Neil Family Band and light refreshments.

Northwest Minnesota Arts Council Gallery

NCTC in Thief River Falls through April 2024

Artist Reception Wednesday, April 24 at 6 PM

The Northwest Minnesota Arts Council (NWMAC) is pleased to announce the opening of Fiddle Tunes, Fiber Folk & Prairie Prints Featuring Jeanne Griffin O’Neil and Erin Jeanne O’Neil. This exhibit is open through April at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls.

Jeanne O’Neil explained, “The focus of this show is the celebration of Erin's recently completed book, Twenty of Plenty, in which twenty of her original fiddle tunes are transcribed. We are both folk musicians and visual artists, and it is fitting to bring these forms of artistic expression together, as the tunes and art are both inspired by the rural landscapes we live in.”

The newest prints in this show come from a series of sketches made over the past summers on Jeanne’s land. “Walking the fields and pathways every day, year after year, the colors, contrasts, textures and lines of trees, grasses, sky, river are impressed in my mind, creating an accumulated knowledge of these places. The making of each print creates a deeper knowing and a stronger connection to that knowing.”

Jeanne’s daughter Erin O’Neil learned to play the fiddle by the age of seven. Erin plays by ear and the Twenty of Plenty tune book project was an effort to get some of her tune compositions transcribed so that they could be introduced into wider circles of musicians who read music. With a grant from the Northwest Minnesota Arts Council through funding from the McKnight Foundation, she collaborated with a folk musician originally from Norway. The descriptions and illustration throughout the book offer insight into the meaning of the compositions. The cultural influences for these tunes include French Canadian, Irish, Scandinavian, Scottish traditional fiddle music, New England Contra Dance music, Old Time Appalachian music, and Metis fiddle tunes.

Erin also has Rag Folk pieces in this exhibit. The Rag Folk represent preservation of what has been used in everyday life and creating new lives out of old scraps and rags. The Rag Folk contain memories and essences of what has passed, and the joy of childhood carried forward and honored in adulthood. Erin started creating these pieces with a passion for recycling and reducing waste and a desire to connect with others.

Jeanne and Erin both play in the O’Neil Family Band. Erin plays the fiddle and feet, while Jeanne plays the banjo and concertina. The band holds many community dances in our region.

Watch this video for a virtual tour of the exhibit at https://youtu.be/AP5HH1ae-Bw.

Many pieces of art in this exhibit are for sale. You are welcome to purchase at any time and pick up when the exhibit ends.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30-5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.

director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.

Artist Reception for

Pulled in Many Directions

Photographs by Andy Hall

Wednesday, January 24 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm

Northwest Minnesota Arts Council Gallery

NCTC in Thief River Falls

Andy Hall has been a full-time photographer for more than 23 years. He lives in Climax and owns Sweetlight Gallery in Crookston. There are 45 pieces in this exhibit that are either wrapped in canvas or framed canvas. All are for sale. Andy can tailor make any print to multiple sizes and on a variety of mediums from framed or unframed canvas to metal.

Watch this video for a virtual tour of the exhibit at https://youtu.be/81b-LEr1S8c

Everyone is welcome to join us for this free event. There will be live music, drinks, and dessert.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30-5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.

The exhibit is open through February 26, 2024.

For more information about this exhibit visit northwestminnesotaartscouncil.org/blog/pulled-in-many-directions-exhibit-photography-by-andy-hall-is-open or for other information look to our website at www.NWArtsCouncil.org, or if you are an artist interested in exhibiting a body of work with NWMAC, please contact Trey Everett at (218) 745-8886 or email NWArtsCouncil@gmail.com. Please sign up for our e-newsletter on our website home page to see the latest news and grant announcements. Email director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.

Please join us for an Artist Reception for our Art & Spirituality Exhibit. The reception will be held at our gallery at NCTC from 6 to 8 pm. Refreshments will be served. George French will be playing some piano pieces. There is no cost to attend.

Art & Spirituality, featuring the art of Sister Denise Schonhardt, also includes artwork by Trey Everett, Gail Ose, Elizabeth Wavra, Betsy Saurdiff, and Noah Hanson and is open through September 29 at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls.

Sister Denise Schonhardt of Crookston is an accomplished painter who “grew up among the hills, lakes, and trees,” which is evident in her art. She explained that her “paintings are about how colors interact, how they push and pull, how they change each other, and how they convey emotion.”

The 35 pieces in this exhibit include oil and acrylic paintings, ceramic art, and pen and ink and depict the nuances and breadth of spirituality. Showcase Specialist Trey Everett explained, “I am very happy with our newest exhibit "Art and Spirituality." It is difficult to convey in words and sentences what spirituality is to us let alone our personal spiritual experiences. However, art, in any form, can express the transcendent. The artwork in this exhibit is highly varied and a very intimate expression of what spirituality is to each artist. Sister Denise's hypnotic and prophetic artwork gave the whole gallery a surreal orange-red tint when it was installed. The religious philosopher Rudolf Otto coined the word Numinous from the Latin word numen which means a "divine majesty" or "presiding spirit." He believed "that the essence of holiness was to invoke in the observer a feeling of awe, wonder, and even dread." He called this the "Numinous." I hope when people interact with this exhibit, they experience the numinous, a sense of peace and awe as well as a sense of unease and challenge.”

For more information about this exhibit visit northwestminnesotaartscouncil.org/blog/art-amp-spirituality-exhibit-featuring-sister-denise-schonhardt-is-open or if you are an artist interested in exhibiting a body of work with NWMAC, please contact Trey Everett at (218) 745-8886 or email NWArtsCouncil@gmail.com. Please sign up for our e-newsletter on our website home page to see the latest news and grant announcements. Email director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.

Please join the Northwest Minnesota Arts Council for an Artist Reception honoring the artists of the Student Exhibit featuring K-12 Artwork from NW Minnesota.

Where: Northwest Minnesota Arts Council Gallery

NCTC in Thief River Falls Tuesday, June 27 6 to 8PM

The exhibit features art by area students throughout northwest Minnesota, including the schools of Sacred Heart in East Grand Forks, Crookston, Warren-Alvarado-Oslo, Kittson Central in Hallock, Ada-Borup West, Fosston, Tri-County in Karlstad, and Roseau.

Watch this video for a virtual tour of the exhibit at https://youtu.be/UQX4C4upQqg.

An artist reception at the gallery will be held on Tuesday, June 27 from 6 to 8PM in conjunction with the 101 Dalmatians play at Northland Community and Technical College. Refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome to join us for this free event. Children’s author Wanda Nelson will be signing her books during the reception.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30-5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. During the summer, the college may be closed on Friday afternoons so please confirm before making a special trip. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.

For more information about this exhibit visit northwestminnesotaartscouncil.org/blog/student-art-exhibit-featuring-k-12-artwork-is-open-through-july-26 or for other information look to our website at www.NWArtsCouncil.org or contact Trey Everett at (218) 745-8886 or email NWArtsCouncil@gmail.com.

Please join us for an Artist Reception with Christine Foster and Bert Foster at the NWMAC Gallery at NCTC in Thief River Falls on January 31.

Meet the artists. See the Art. Refreshments will be served.

The NWMAC Gallery is located at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30-5 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.