NPSAI 2021

Student / Staff Exhibition

June 25, 2021 - September 6, 2021

Starion Bank Gallery

The second annual Northern Plains Summer Art Institute (NPSAI) is a two-week intensive art program for Native American high school and college-aged students seeking an art education that mixes fundamentals in art and a connection to their cultural identity. Students spent two weeks with their peers learning from active Native American professionals in multiple disciplines of the art world. Developed by the Creativity Among Native American Artists initiative, the program is free for all who attended, and included housing, meals, coursework and all art supplies.

The majority of classroom instruction took place at Circle of Nations School, in Wahpeton, ND with daily lessons including a fundamental drawing course, painting class, printmaking in Hannaher’s Inc. Print Studio, and Indigenous art history courses. The two-week experience incorporated a one-of-a-kind Indigenous designed mural on Circle of Nations’ outside basketball court, and included trips to Plains Art Museum.

This year’s program includes five students: Phoenix Schaan (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), Nina Holding Eagle Bushaw (Three Affiliated Tribes), Parker Arntsen-Beaudin (Lac Courte Oreilles), Delilah Erickson (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), and Darrell Twiss (Oglala Lakota). Each student spent nearly 13 hours a day learning and practicing art from Indigenous artists Inkpa Mani (Aztec, Tarahumara, Dakota), Laura Youngbird (Minnesota Chippewa, Grand Portage Band), Gerald Cournoyer (Oglala Lakota), as well as Kevin Bowman (Montgomery College, MD), printmaker Amanda Heidt (Fargo, ND), and Chelsea Steffes (Fargo, ND).

This program is generously supported by Windrose Fund of the Common Counsel Foundation.

left to right: Delilah Erickson, Collage, 2021, Mixed media, Courtesy of the artist • Phoenix Schaan, Inkpa, 2021, Charcoal on paper, Courtesy of the artist • Parker A. Arntsen, He’s not a Monster, 2021, Mixed media on ledger paper, Courtesy of the artist • Collaborate Screenprint • Inkpa Mani, My Grandmother’s Dream, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, Courtesy of the artist

Ongoing Exhibitions

No Time For Despair

Ongoing
No Time For Despair

To say that right now is the ideal time to make art that speaks directly to the people about social justice is an understatement. Because the very nature of art is to undertake or assume the role of a healer by shading light on the human condition.

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Bee in Flight

Ongoing
Bee in Flight

Community artist and school art teacher MeLissa Kossick, who guides youth classes at the Museum on art, gardens, and pollinators, has created an enchanting mosaic design in the Creativity Pathway in the Serkland Gallery called Bee in Flight.

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S.P.A.C.E.

Ongoing
S.P.A.C.E.
Kaleidoscope

The S.P.A.C.E. (Sculpture Pad Art Collaborative Experiment) project is a public art initiative undertaken collaboratively between Plains Art Museum, and the college art departments at North Dakota State University, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and Concordia College.

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The North Dakota Mural

Ongoing
The North Dakota Mural

Drawing on his childhood memories of the Great Plains, he created a work that speaks to the wide open spaces, huge vistas, and ocean-like skies of the region.

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Fragile Preservation

Ongoing
Fragile Preservation
A Tallgrass Community

While the Tallgrass Prairie is a community made up of a great diversity of species, Fragile Preservation represents a selection of them.

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