Now that we’re getting back into our routines after the holiday season, it’s a perfect opportunity to take in one (or two, or more) of our upcoming activities and get inspired to build more creativity into your day-to-day life. Here’s a look at what we have coming up.

For the kiddos

Kid Quest, our popular art-making event for the whole family, continues into the new year and continues to inspire the next generation of artists. To register for a free Kid Quest event, call 701.232.3821 ext. 101, or click here to register online. Upcoming dates are:

• February 4 – Furious Felters. Get your hands into fabric and felting, just like the artists in this year’s Unglued Craft Fest to be held Saturday, February 25 at the Museum.
• March 10 – The Great Art Free for All. We give you the supplies, you take them into bold new directions.
• April 7 – Don’t Throw That Away. Celebrate Earth Day by re-purposing your rubbish into fun creations.

Kid Quest is sponsored by Xcel Energy Foundation, Village Family Magazine, and Minnesota Public Radio.

Art for Two

Our Art for Two events are a perfect way to spend creative time with a child (aged 5-12) and encourage them to expand their abilities. These workshops are $22 for Museum members, $25 for non-members. Call to register, or register online here.

• Saturday, February 11, 2 – 4 p.m. My Personal Piggy Bank. Get a handle on your finances with a recession-proof, paper maché piggy bank.
• Saturday, April 14, 2 – 4 p.m. Your Own Storybook. Explore the world of book art by recreating your own story in a one-of-a-kind art book.

Activities for adults

Learn some new skills with your digital camera and stretch out in our sunrise-lit 3rd floor raw space.

• Artful Yoga at PAM. Tuesday mornings at 8:30 a.m., January 31 – February 28. $5/class for members, $10 for nonmembers. Drop-in, no registration required. Instructor Knoedel will lead you through a one-hour beginner’s class to limber you up for the day.
• Digital Photography for Beginners. Five Saturdays, January 21 – February 18, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. $80 for members, $88 for nonmembers. Get better photos from any digital camera by learning more about your camera and learning about composition and subject matter. You’ll need to supply your own camera, but any camera will do. Call 701.232.3821 ext. 101 to register, or register online here.

Health and wellness might not seem like the usual topics of conversation to come from an art museum, but consider this. As preventable health issues like obesity become a national concern, it’s important for all of us to tackle them through whatever avenues we have at our disposal. The conversations surrounding a healthier life don’t all have to happen at your dinner table, your gym, or your doctor’s office. They can also happen at your friendly neighborhood museum and, through recent events like the Ramp Jam and the Bike Jamboree, we’ve been showing that art and the creative life don’t have to be independent from fun physical activity.

We’re proud, then, to present a set of programs this fall that are in line with “Let’s Move!,” an initiative announced last year by First Lady Michelle Obama to eradicate childhood obesity within a generation. Let’s Move! recognizes, too, that the responsibilities of a healthier life don’t fall on just one or two sectors of our society:

Everyone has a role to play in reducing childhood obesity, including parents, elected officials from all levels of government, schools, health care professionals, faith-based and community-based organizations, and private sector companies. – letsmove.gov

We agree, and we hope you’ll consider taking part in these great upcoming activities to get (or keep) the ball rolling on a healthier lifestyle for you and your family:

• Artful Yoga at PAM. Tuesdays at 8 a.m., October 18 to November 29. A one-hour beginner’s yoga class with instructor Jan Knoedel up in our beautiful 3rd floor space; plenty of natural light and plenty of room. All classes are drop-in; no registration needed. Bring a mat. $10 per class/$5 for PAM members.
• I Ran Away with the Circus Movement Workshop. Saturday, October 22, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Choreographer Laurie Van Wieren will lead a movement workshop for visual artists, performance artists, and actors and dancers from the novice to experienced. Inspired by Judy Onofrio’s circus themes, she will focus on movement techniques of clowns, circus barkers, animal trainers, animal performers, and acrobats. For high school age to adults. Wear comfortable clothes to move in. Limit 20. $20/$15 for PAM members. Click here to register for this event, or call 701.232.3821. Van Wieren will also develop a new solo dance work at the Museum 10 a.m. to noon and one to three p.m. Monday, October 17 through Friday, October 21. Drop by to see this new performance piece in the making and talk with Laurie about her ideas and process.

In addition to these activities, we’re also happy to offer high-quality, nutritious lunches in Cafe Muse through our friends at Mosaic Foods, where you’ll find plenty of healthy and delicious menu items to keep your healthy lifestyle on track.

Kids getting crafty at camp.

Art doesn’t always need to be in a frame, you can find it anywhere. Campers at this summer’s Summer Art Camp, “The Eyes Have It!” will embrace this outlook by making their own glasses to see the world as artists do and appreciate things they may not necessarily think of as art. From there, they’ll go to Dawson Studio to create projects with the new eyes of an artist. Su Legatt, an artist and educator who has had work on display in the Museum will lead the camp. “I’m so excited to see the fun and creative activities the campers will do while wearing their ‘artist eyes,’” Museum Director of Education Sandy Ben-Haim said.

This camp runs Aug. 8 – 11 from 9 a.m. to noon. To enroll your child entering grades 2 – 5 or to find more information about our Summer Art Camps click to “The Eyes Have It!” or call 701.232.3821. Deadline for registration is Aug. 3. The Museum is dedicated to providing the best art education experiences in the region through tours, gallery activities, games, and art-making experiences.

The contents of the 'Guilty of Being Indian' art case with work by David Bradley.

Many rural communities in our area struggle with access to arts education. With tight budgets and long drives to cities that have standalone arts organizations, a structured arts curriculum can be hard for students to come by.

Our Art Case program is designed to provide art education resources to classrooms in our region that have little or no formal art education in place. Each case is packed with a miniature exhibition of works by regional artists and comes with an education guide that encourages classroom participation. Also, some art case content is supplemented by online material. We are able to offer these cases free of charge thanks to support from the Wyeth Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education, and the North Dakota Council on the Arts through an appropriation from the North Dakota Legislature. Best of all, educators pay no shipping fees.

Educators who have used the cases in their classrooms report an overwhelmingly positive experience. One educator writes:

Just an amazing teaching kit, so beautiful. The students were in awe of the contents and very engaged. I want to thank you and your museum for sharing the amazing trunk with the contents and context. It make the Native American culture come alive for them and honored the Native students we have. The smell of sweet grass greeted each class as they walked into the art room. Curiosity came next. Thank you again for being so generous with the time frame. It made the end of the year extra special for us.

This year, we have two additions to the art case family. The new art cases are entitled Expressions of Home and Tactile Art; the first highlights Minnesota and North Dakota artists who visually explore the meaning of “home,” while the latter contains work meant to be touched as well as seen. The three original art cases, focusing on the work of David Bradley (Chippewa Family, Powwow Princess in the Process of Acculturation, and Guilty of Being Indian (Mankato), are also available. To reserve a PlainsArt Case for the upcoming school year, contact Museum Education Director Sandy Ben-Haim at 701.232.3821 ext. 109 or by email at sbenhaim@plainsart.org.

The excitement is building for our 15th Annual Spring Gala, “Masterpiece Masquerade,” to be held on May 7. Tickets are selling fast and we’re expecting a superb evening of masks, costumes, and the celebration of art, all to help benefit our arts education programs.

In anticipation of this evening, we asked the kids at our last Kid Quest event to help us out with the decorations for Gala night . As you can see from the photos below, their response was outstanding. Several dozen of these designs will be hung around the Museum to set the mood for a really fun masquerade party.

If you’re planning on attending the Gala, consider making your own mask (if you choose to wear one … you don’t have to). You’ll get the opportunity to flex your creative muscle and you’ll end up with a look for Gala night that will be all your own.

Are you excited for Gala night? What are your plans for a mask/costume?

Last fall, fourth and fifth graders from Ellen Hopkins Elementary School toured the Museum while studying the work of James Rosenquist. Taken with the idea that Rosenquist was once a billboard painter, they set to work with a plan to create a large-scale piece of their own. They used the National Art Education Association’s slogan “You gotta have ART,” and symbols representing North Dakota much like Rosenquist did for The North Dakota Mural.

The mural is comprised of 27 separate panels and, at about 18 feet long and eight feet high, it is the largest work currently hanging in the Museum aside from The North Dakota Mural. Each star was placed by a student who worked on the mural. It will hang on the south wall of the third floor during Sunday’s Youth Art Month reception.

Over the past year, we saw a full spectrum of events, activities and happenings, from the grandiose to the modest. On the big end, we unveiled a really, really big work of art. On the smaller end, individuals – from children to adults – walked through our doors and simply allowed art to be part of their everyday lives. We’re equally proud of our accomplishments, big or small, and we’re happy to have contributed to the community over the last year.

The Mighty Quinn, a five-person bicycle that was used to power a bike-in movie during Bikes, Art and Community Health Week

Here’s Part I of a snapshot of the year that was. If you attended or were part of any of these programs, please leave your thoughts in the comments:

• In January, we kicked off our year in exhibitions with Individual to Icon: Portraits of the Famous and Almost Famous from Folk Art to Facebook, an innovative exploration of portraiture that drew together over a dozen artists from across multiple disciplines. The show had numerous highlights, from Christopher Baker’s Hello World, or How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise, an immersive video installation, to photographs by Annie Leibovitz.
• January also brought another great year of Kid Quest, our popular, free art experience for families. Held the first Saturday of most months, Kid Quest has become one of the most vital services we offer here at the Museum, serving dozens of families each month.
• We offered portraiture classes, sculpture classes and watercolor classes in early 2010 through our Experiences for Life program. Our classes are geared toward both children and adults, often working together in the same class. Experiences for Life also offered opportunities for local arts educators to share their expertise.
• March was Youth Art Month, and to celebrate the Museum exhibited works by hundreds of grade-school and high-school students from across the region. We also had a spectacular, albeit brief, exhibition of birdhouses custom made by NDSU architecture students.
• As spring continued, we opened the exhibition The White Album: The Beatles Meet the Plains, a mashup of works from our permanent collection with The Beatles’ 1968 The Beatles, popularly known as “The White Album.” The response to the exhibition was tremendous, drawing Beatles fans and visual art fans alike. In May, we held our 14th annual Spring Gala, raising money for our education programs while having a great time.
• We were incredibly active this past summer offering summer camps for youth and furthering public art projects through Plains Inside Out activities – Hip Hop Don’t Stop; the In the Heart of the Beast residency and program; Bikes, Art and Community Health Week; and Defiant Gardens for Fargo-Moorhead, where the Museum worked with community leaders in Moorhead to determine the future of the Moorhead Power Plant site.

Next, we’ll round out 2010 with a look back at the autumn months.

Sue Geihl, an art teacher from Ellen Hopkins Elementary, leads her class in a question and answer period while visiting The Frederick B. Scheel Photography Collection: A New Gift to the Plains this afternoon.

What do Cream of Wheat and fine art have in common? Summer Art Campers are learning this and much more this week at the Wild and Wacky Portraits camp led by art educator Lindsay Palczewski. The campers were inspired by artwork in the Individual to Icon: Portraits of the Famous and Almost Famous from Folk art to Facebook exhibition and created a plethora of self portraits using various media including yarn, clay, and even seeds & beans:

Literary works of art in the form of picture books were also part of the fun. So when the campers learned that Matisse liked to sketch in the art galleries of Paris, the campers decided they wanted to do some gallery sketching as well. “Sometimes I get the best ideas from my students,” Lindsay says. “I like to be flexible and accommodate their suggestions, because when children see their ideas are valued, they are all the more inspired.”

If your child missed Wild and Wacky Portraits, not to worry. Two more art camps are scheduled this summer:

Rock out with Art
July 12-15, 9 am – noon
Camp Leader: Sarah Dotzenrod
For children going into grades 4-6
The focus will be on self-portraits using the magic of photolithography.

See the Music, Hear the Art
Aug. 16-19, 9 am – noon
Camp Leader: Marcia Dronen
For children going into grades 3-5
Campers will explore the White Album: Beatles Meet the Plains exhibition and create a symphony of artwork that can be seen and also heard!

And by the way: What does Cream of Wheat and fine art have in common? I’m not telling! But you can visit the Individual to Icon exhibition and check out the artwork of Lillian Colton to find out for yourselves.

To register or find more information about our Summer Art Camps, click here or call 701.232.3821.

Sandy Ben-Haim is the Director of Education for Plains Art Museum. She can be reached via email at sbenhaim@plainsart.org.

As the theme for the evening suggested, our 14th Annual Spring Gala on May 1 was definitely “Ordinary to Extraordinary.”

Gala attendees were treated to an array of delights; a spectacular silent auction of art, hearty eats by Mosaic Foods (including candied bacon!), a gigantic wine tasting by Happy Harry’s, tunes by Julie Buck and Company, dance music courtesy Betty Does, spirits from the Sidestreet, coffees by Moxie Java, a knockout fashion show from MeJeanne Couture and … omigosh … incredible desserts by Nichole’s Fine Pastry. Ordinarily, these are experiences that, by themselves, would be notable. Put together in one place, it was extraordinary. We thank our vendors, sponsors, staff and donating artists for helping us make that happen.

The Museum, like its inhabitants for the night, was extraordinary as well. Many thanks to all of those who helped with planning and decoration, particularly to our volunteer committees. On her own she’s a gorgeous building, but with a little love, extra care, and sexy lighting she really comes alive.

Attendance? Well, how can we consider those who came to the Gala as nothing more than extraordinary? You really made it happen. Through ticket purchases and the silent auction, our Gala raised almost $35,000 for Museum educational programs. Thanks to you, we will be able to provide services like our Kid Quest events and tours for visiting student groups. We can’t stress enough how important this is to the Museum and to our community as a whole. In order to function properly as a full-service arts institution, we need the efforts of extraordinary people like those who came to the Gala. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Were you at the Gala? Share your experience in the comments.

(If you’d like to see more photos of the evening, you can visit the Milestones Photography blog here. You can also browse and purchase prints from the evening here.)