A u t u m n A r t A u c t i o n

N o r t h D a k o t a M u s e u m o f A r t

The North Dakota Museum of Art

is grateful to our sponsors who have

given generously to guarantee

that the arts flourish.

The 2008 Autumn Art Auction is underwritten by

Karen Stoker Burgumwho developed North Dakota’s first art hotel in Fargo:

Hotel Donaldson

Cover: Brian Paulsen, Fox Fields, 2008, watercolor, 13 x 9 inches.

This Autumn Art Auction and its catalog

is dedicated to

Sanny Ryanwhose on-going financial gift

of $60,000 annually

supports museum staff salaries.

North Dakota Museum of Art

A U T U M N A r t A u c t i o nS a t u r d a y , O c t o b e r 2 5 , 2 0 0 8

Wine and hors d’oeuvres 6:30 pm

Auction begins at 8 pm

Auction PreviewOctober 14 until auction time in the Museum galleries

Monday - Friday, 9 to 5 pm, Saturday - Sunday, 1 to 5 pm

All works to be auctioned will be on display.

patronsClear Channel Radio

East Grand Floral

Grand Forks Herald

High Plains Reader

Holiday Inn

Hotel Donaldson

KVLY TV

KXJB TV

Leighton Broadcasting

Minnesota Public Radio

Merrill Lynch

Prairie Public

Office of Academic Affairs, UND

SponsorsBremer Bank

WDAZ TV

SupportersAltru Health System, Truyu

Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc.

Avant

Blue Moose Bar & Grill

Bronze Boot

Chester Fritz Auditorium

Choice Financial

Community Bank of the Red River Valley

Red River Plastic Surgery, Dr. Judson Crow

Curtis Tanabe DDS

Farmer's Insurance Group, George Wogaman

Greater Grand Forks Community Theater

Gustafson Gluek, PLLC

HB Sound & Light

Ellen McKinnon

Museum Café

North Dakota Eye Clinic

North Dakota Quarterly

Auction Supporters continued next page

SupportersRhombus Guys

Sanders 1907

Mary Ann and Don Sens

Special Olympics

Suite 49

Summit Brewing Company

Third Street Gallery

UND Alumni Foundation

Valley Bone and Joint

Waterfront Gallery, Northern Plumbing Supply

Whitey’s

ContributorsAcme Electric Tool Crib of the North

Axis Clinic

Camrud, Maddock, Olson & Larson, Ltd.

Capital Resource Management

Columbia Liquor

Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra

Gregory J. Norman Funeral Chapel

Letnes, Swanson, Marshall, & Warcup Ltd.

James S. McDonald, DDS

Praxis Strategy Group

Rite Spot Liquor

River City Jewelers

Salon Seva

UND Writers Conference

Wells Fargo

Xcel Energy

Zimney Foster P.C.

AdvertisersBrady Martz and Associates

Browning Arts

Burger King

Chad Caya Painting

David C. Thompson, P.C.

Drees, Riskey, Vallager, Ltd.

Edward Jones, Mark A. Larsen

Fine Print

Forks Chem-Dry

Gate City Bank

Hovet Roofing, Inc.

Meland Architecture

Monarch Travel & Tours

Earl Pomeroy

Reichert Armstrong Law Office

Robert Vogel Law Office, P.C.

Valley Car Wash

Vilandre

Buy local. Read the sponsor pages

to learn about those who

invest in the Museum.

Please return their investment. —John Foster, Retiring Chairman

Museum Board of Trustees

Burton Onofrio recently retired as Attending Neurosurgeon at the

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, where he also served as

Professor of Neurosurgery in the Mayo Medical School. His first

job after retirement was as Senior Consultant for Pain Disorders,

Neurosurgical Service, Massachusetts General Hospital in

Boston. His training includes an M.D. degree from the Medical

College of Cornell University (1957); a surgical residency at the

New York Hospital Medical Center (1958); and a fellowship at

the Mayo Clinic in neurosurgery (1964), all of which resulted in

a life-time career at the Mayo Clinic.

As busy as his professional career has been, he has also lived a

wonderful life within the arts. It began when he married Judy, a

self-taught potter who has emerged as a sculptor of national

stature. Judy was deeply involved in the Rochester Art Center,

and Burton soon joined the Board of Directors. Most recently—

another retirement job—he co-chaired the Capital Campaign

Building Committee of the Rochester Art Center. The new

building opened in the spring of 2004 with the central gallery

named in honor of Judy and Burton Onofrio—gifted by a former

patient.

In another corner of his life, Onofrio runs art auctions. For

twenty-six years he was the auctioneer of the Rochester Art

Center annual auction, most often organizing it as well. Both the

Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis and the University of

Minnesota Art Department have called upon him to serve as

auctioneer. For twelve years he has been the announcer of the

Rochester Art Center Art Festival. Onofrio’s days, however, are

spent in Judyland, the garden he created with his wife. And

finally, this is a man who loves animals, in particular his

menagerie of cats who have full run of the garden.

Burton Onofrio, Auctioneer Becky Sefcovic Uglem and Amy Lyste, Chairs

Becky Sefcovic Uglem and Amy Lyste, Chairs, are

Directors of the Third Street Gallery on Kittson Avenue in

downtown Grand Forks. The two women became friends while

attending the University of North Dakota where they graduated

with B.F.A. degrees. Uglem went on to complete an M.F.A. from

UND, while Lyste worked in the field of graphic design.

In March of 2006, they opened the non-profit Third Street

Gallery, which exhibits the work of local and regional artists. To

provide more exhibition space for artists, they moved to a larger

space on Kittson Avenue.

Uglem lives in downtown Grand Forks with her husband

Shannon P. Uglem, an attorney who practices in Northwood, and

their daughter, Lola. Lyste also lives in Grand Forks with her

husband, Dr. Derek Lyste, and their daughter, Emma. Dr. Lyste is

a second year resident in Family Practice at Altru in Grand Forks.

The staff of the Museum and the Third Street Gallery consistently

support each other’s work. The Museum sent the Third Street

Gallery’s opening announcement to its entire mailing list. Matt

Wallace, the Museum’s Director of the Rural Arts Initiative,

serves on the Board of the Third Street Gallery. And now Becky

and Amy Jo are chairing the Autumn Art Auction to the benefit of

all artists.

Rules of Auction

q Each registered guest will receive a bidding card as part of

the price of a ticket. Upon receiving the bidding card, each

guest will be asked to sign a statement vowing to abide by

the Rules of the Auction listed in this catalog.

q Absentee bidders will either leave their bids on an Absentee

Bid Form with Museum personnel in person or by phone, or

bid by phone the night of the auction. Absentee bidders, by

filling out the form, agree to abide by the Rules of the

Auction.

q Each bidder will use his or her own bidding number during

the auction.

q All sales are final.

q In September 2002 the Office of the North Dakota State Tax

Commissioner determined that the gross receipts from the

sales made at the Auction are subject to sales tax at 6.75 %.

This does not apply to out-of-state buyers who haveworks

shipped to them.

q In the event of a dispute between bidders, the auctioneer

shall either determine the successful bidder or re-auction

the item in dispute.

q Purchasers may pay for items at any point following the

sale of a work but must pay for all art work before the

conclusion of the evening—unless other arrangements are

in place. Absentee bidders will be charged on the evening of

the auction or an invoice will be sent the next business day.

q Works of art in the auction have minimum bids placed on

them by the artist. This confidential “reserve” is a price

agreed upon between the artist and the North Dakota

Museum of Art below which a work of art will not be sold.

MISSION: To foster and nurture the aesthetic life and artistic

expression of the people living on the Northern Plains through

exhibitions, programs, and publications which engage the

region, the country, and the world.

VISION: To create the richest learning environment possible for

experiencing art and developing community that affirms the

highest level of respect for art, artists, and audiences.

VALUES: For the Museum to be successful, our most important

resource, our people, must have a clear sense of where we are

going, and the collaborative spirit in which we undertake that

journey. Our values are guiding principles for how we will go

about our work. They are guideposts to daily conduct that speak

to the integrity of our behavior.

1) Rural Lens: We interpret rural life through the arts, just as we

view the art of the world through a rural perspective.

2) Global Context: We place the lives of artists and audiences

within the context of contemporary art and critical thought from

around the world.

3) Humanities Focus: We function as a laboratory for all forms

of artistic, aesthetic and cultural inquiry.

4) Collaboration: We build and nourish relationships with

artists, visitors and each other.

5) Scholarship: Academic rigor and quality research underpin all

museum programs and publications.

6) Stewardship: We are stewards of the public trust for the

artistic environment of our region, and the human, financial and

physical resources of the Museum.

Photograph by Mike Mohaupt

Museum Mission Statement

Landscapes and ideas about landscape seem

to dominate this year’s auction. Clearly, this reflects the influence

of our climate and topography upon we who live here. In many

parts of the world days go by with no mention of the weather.

We, on the other hand, open endless conversations with the

weather. It is our bridge to everywhere. Over the years the

auction has grown into the venue where you can find the very

best of what our own artists are making, and this includes art

about life on the northern plains and woodlands.

The overriding goal of this auction is to build a buying audience

for the artists who live among us. For decades, the only artists

who could stay in northern Minnesota and North Dakota while

continuing their professional careers had to find a different way

to make a living—usually teaching on the college level. Our

mantra became, “If we don’t support them, who is going to.” Art

has also become an accepted part of younger people’s lives. They

participate, they buy, they live with art—and all of our lives

become richer.

Not all of the artists live locally but they all have some

relationship with either the Museum of Art or the region. And,

given that Winnipeg is our closest large city—and a hotbed for

artists—we consider the Manitoba art community our own.

We could not publish this catalog without the underwriting of

our sponsors. Please take your business to these companies and

individuals; thank them for their significant contribution; and

note how many are locally owned and operated. Sometimes they

say, “I don’t care if I get an ad, I just want to give to you guys.”

Supporting cultural life is not in the interest of the “big boxes” but

rather has become the business of the butcher, the baker and the

keeper of bees—and of Ellen McKinnon who buys her own ad

because it pleases her.

From the beginning, the Museum has never asked artists to

donate work, although some do. Instead, we allow them to

establish their minimum price, an amount the Museum

guarantees. The auction procedures are:

DIVISION OF MONEY between the artist and the North

Dakota Museum of Art on a work sold in the Auction: The artist

is guaranteed to receive the amount of the reserve bid. If work

does not reach minimum bid, it will be brought in by the

Museum and returned to artist. Any amount over the reserve bid

and the Museum’s equal match is split 50/50 between the artist

and the Museum. Example: If a reserve bid is $200, and the work

sells for $395, the artist receives $200 and the Museum receives

$195. If the same work sells for $500, the artist and the Museum

each receive $250.

Gradually we have seen the prices for art increase as our buying

audience experiences the pleasure of knowing artists and living

with art. And also gradually, the Museum has begun to make

some money from the auction as well. It wasn’t long, however,

before every art entity in the region began holding their own

auctions—and positioning them to compete with the Museum’s

auction. Then non-art entities thought, “why not us?” It was as if

the Museum threw a pebble into the pond and art auctions

rippled out. Fortunately, what is good for artists is good for the

Museum—and selling work is very good for artists.

Remember, when you buy through the Autumn Art Auction, the

price includes framing or presentation. Frames are often custom

made by the artists or the Museum staff who use archival

materials. This alone adds significant value to most of the

auction sales.

—Laurel Reuter, Director

From the Museum Director

Morgan Owens has specialized in drawing and

painting since 1995. His subject matter varies from still life, to

non-objective abstraction, to off-beat juxtapositions of images

creating sometimes humorous and, other times, highly

introspective works. In 2006, he took to animation to explore the

illustrative nature and sequential structure of film to tell stories.

According to Owens, The abstract drawings I’ve made are

expressions of what I sense in my mind and body. A decade ago,

I didn’t have the words or images in my mind to connect with my

sensations so I drew without words or recognizable images. I

think an artist may create a painting of dancing lovers or a flower

bathed in morning light. In doing so that artist connects the

sensation in his mind and body with that image giving the viewer

a place to begin to understand that sensation. There are also

moments in an artist’s life when sensations in the mind and body

cannot be matched to a recognizable image. When I made my

abstract drawings, I had to put charcoal to paper and react to the

Lot #1

Morgan OwensSan Francisco, California

‘Night Dreams Fade’ from series Looking In, No. 47

Charcoal and Acrylic on Rives BFK Paper

30 x 42 inches

Range: $350 - 400

marks, lines and tones on the paper. Now, it has been almost ten

years since I created those drawings and I’m just finding the

words to match those sensations.

Owens, who grew up in North Dakota, received his B.F.A degree

in 1995 from the University of North Dakota, and attended the

M.F.A. program at Illinois State University, Bloomington. In

2009 he will graduate with his M.F.A. from the Academy of Art

University where he studies animation. This includes traditional

2-dimensional animation and 3-dimensional computer

animation with a specialty in character animation, character

development and design, story boarding and layout, and

animatics and full animation.

He has been an Artist in Residence at the Arrowmont School of

Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, at Studios Midwest in

Galesburg, Illinois, and the Fresno Art Museum in California.

After graduating from the University of North Dakota, Owens

worked as a freelance artist for two years, before founding the

education department at the North Dakota Museum of Art

(1997-2001). This was followed by three years as Curator of

Exhibitions at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum in California. He

has recently opened his studio in San Francisco.

His pieces have been exhibited at the Arrowmont School of Arts

and Crafts, Fresno City College, Knox College in Galesburg, the

North Dakota Museum of Art, and various galleries.

Lot #2

Jordan OchsnerVermillion, South Dakota

Art and Craft 2007

Stoneware

Each approximately 12.75 x

14.25 x 2.75 inches

Range: $300 - 400

Art \ärt, ∂rt\,-noun (Middle English, fromOld English eart, akin to Old Norse est,ert).1. The conscious use of skill andcreative imagination especially in theproduction of aesthetic objects, also works so produced.2. The quality, production, expression, orrealm, according to aesthetic principles, ofwhat is beautiful, appealing or ofmore than ordinary significance.3. The class of objects subject toaesthetic criteria; works of artcollectively, as paintings,sculptures, or drawings: a museum ofart, an art collection.

Jordan Ochsner’s interest in art began during

childhood on a farm in South Dakota. Like most active rural

children, his life was anchored in the outdoors. He now realizes

that this background is what sparked his curiosity about organic

forms and surfaces.

Coming to the University of North Dakota in 2004, Ochsner

discovered clay. He was initially drawn to thrown, functional

work, but gradually developed an interest in unique alterations of

traditional forms. After working closely with fellow UND

ceramicist Guillermo Guardia, Ochsner began to experiment

with representational techniques. This led to his incorporation of

graphic surface elements into a work such as Art and Craft.

Guillermo's work inspired Ochsner to think more passionately

about expression, and to use the inherent surfaces of functional

work as a platform for engaging ideas. Art and Craft represents a

step in Ochsner's journey towards combining innovative design

Craft\'kraft\ - noun (Middle English,strength, skill, power, from Old Englishcræft; akin to Old High German kraftstrength).1. A profession requiring manualdexterity or artistic skill,involving the skillful making ofdecorative or practical objects,crafts such as pottery, carpentry, andsewing.2. Skill; dexterity: The silversmith workedwith great craft.-transitive verb (used with object)1. :to make or produce with care,skill, or ingenuity: is crafting a newsculpture; a carefully crafted story.

with function and concept. It is unique in that it touches upon a

subject close to his heart, one that has often been debated,

defamed or denied: Art and Craft.

Even though Ochsner attends medical school at the University of

South Dakota, he continues to work with clay under professor

Michael Hill at the University of South Dakota.

Lot #3

Todd StrandMinneapolis, Minnesota

Storm Clouds Along Highway 41

North of Velva, North Dakota,

July 6, 1990

Black and white ink jet photograph

16 x 39.5 inches

1990 / 2008

Range: $400 - 600

Todd Strand: January 1951, I came into this world at or

near a point considered to be the Geographical Center of North

America, Rugby, North Dakota. My dad was a photographer in

Rugby for forty years. He used to pack his Graflex cameras, his

large suitcase full of film holders and flash bulbs and me into our

’53 green Ford and head for a wedding at one of the country

churches, usually in the direction of the sand hills south of town.

The parishioners were always very considerate and hospitable.

There was usually a place reserved for the photographer to park

in front of the church and a hot meal waiting afterwards.

While dad worked inside the church, I would sit in the warm June

sun and entertain myself by musing over my brother’s baseball

trading cards or by wandering through the cemetery next to the

church while the wedding was in progress.

I returned to that church twenty years later and found it converted

to a hay barn. I mention this not only for the sake of nostalgia, but

to point out that my photos are very much related to my origins.

This photograph was taken with a Widelux panorama camera

along Highway 41 just north of Velva, North Dakota. The scene

shows my trusty 1968 Chevy Impala with altocumulus clouds

(marshmallow clouds) overhead. The scene was photographed at

10:15 pm, June 6, 1990. Tornadoes touched down shortly after

my photo session.

Strand attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota,

from 1969-1971 and went on to earn his B.A. in Printmaking

from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1974. He

participated in the 1976 Dakota Photo Documentary Project,

which was a photo survey of every single town in North Dakota.

In 1978 he became the photo archivist for North Dakota’s State

Archives and Historical Research Library Division. His colleagues

honored him with the Staff Award for Excellence in 1999. He left

the Historical Society in 2000 and moved to Minneapolis where

he works for a children’s book publishing company (Lerner

Publishing Group) as a photographer and photo archivist.

Todd Strand is known for his black and white photographs

wherein he attempts to capture "honest and indiscriminate"

scenes, primarily of North Dakota. He mostly takes photos with

a Widelux camera that has a rotating lens, which produces a

panoramic image, often with a Funhouse effect. Fargo Forum

writer Sylvia Paine has described his work as producing a

“sensitive record of moods and attitudes of other senses besides

the visual.” Since 1975, Strand has exhibited photographs

annually at the Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead. Most recently,

Strand showed a large body of work in the North Dakota

Museum of Art’s exhibition Remembering Dakota.

Lot #4

Guillermo GuardiaGrand Forks, North Dakota

and Lima, Peru

Adam, 2008

Cone 6 ceramics, underglazes

16 x 11 x 8 inches

Range: $500 - 800

Guillermo Guardia (Memo) was born in Lima, Peru,

in 1975. He comes from an ancient ceramic culture of pre-

Columbian Peru. From the time he was little he was steeped in

the images and materials of those early potters. From his family,

his teachers, television, and classroom visits to museums, he

learned to venerate the early traditions. In particular, he loved

the work of the Mochica culture, a pre-Incan civilization that

flourished on the northern coast of Peru from about 200 B.C. to

A.D. 600, known especially for its pottery vessels modeled into

naturalistic human and animal figures.

Guardia intuitively carries the past forward in his ceramics,

preferring narrative work based on the figure. His unglazed or

underglazed and burnished surfaces allow the clay itself to

dominate the sculpture. The work in the exhibition, Adam,

breathes with life, both contemporary and ancient. Guardia has

created a work for the auction that refers to both his Puzzle

I had to go to Peru and immerse myselfin pre-Columbian ceramics before Iunderstood Guillermo’s work. Giventhat context, I believe he is creating

important contemporary art deeply embedded in the past.

Laurel Reuter, DirectorNorth Dakota Museum of Art

Series—human figures made from puzzle pieces—and his Baby

Devil series.

Guardia is currently completing six Baby Devils that have been

commissioned for a major Latin American collection based on

human rights. He holds a B.F.A. in Industrial Design from the

Universidad Católica del Peru (1999). As part of his studies he

took a ceramics class and found himself fascinated. Soon he

began to apply to graduate programs in ceramics in the United

States. In 2005 he completed his M.F.A. in Ceramics from the

University of North Dakota and is currently enrolled at UND in

a second graduate degree program, seeking a Master of Science

in Industrial Technology.

Most recently the artist mounted a solo exhibition at the Third

Street Gallery in Grand Forks.

Barbara Hatfield: A recent review of Hatfield’s

work likened it to “the bare bones of a Barnett Newman” and

”bits of Agnes Martin.” “Without aesthetic flourish or apparent

utility, its presence remains mysterious. It is from this shadowy

zone between the organic and the inorganic that Hatfield’s work

draws its power.” With a practice consistently grounded in

drawing, Hatfield continues to produce works that invite

intimacy and contemplation. Often visually spare, the work

exudes a quiet strength and simplicity. Discovery, questioning,

and process are defining characteristics of her practice and her

work of art.

Raised on a farm in eastern North Dakota, Hatfield writes, “My

vision and sensibility is shaped by the openness of my native

landscape and further developed by my study of poetic and

philosophical lessons and traditions of Asian art. Nature’s

directness and its paradoxical strength and fragility are a strong

underpinning and motivation for my work. Installations,

paintings and works on paper all exemplify my willingness to let

the abstract speak and allow viewers their own inquiry and

imagination.”

Hatfield received her M.F.A. from Parsons the New School for

Design in New York City. She has exhibited at the Unit B Gallery

in San Antonio; the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks;

FiveMyles, Brooklyn; Dinaburg Arts, New York; Long Island

University Salena Gallery, Brooklyn; La Mama La Galleria, New

York; and Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, among

others. Her works are in the permanent collection of the North

Dakota Museum of Art and private collections in the United

States, Switzerland, Germany, France and Japan.

Lot #5

Barbara HatfieldNew York, New York

Drawing 10.25, 2007

Ink & graphite on paper

12.5 x 9.5 inches

Range: $550 - 650

Lot #6

Alana BergstromGrand Forks, North Dakota

Flamingo, 2007

Acrylic, gauche, watercolor, and

graphite on canvas

40 x 30 inches

Range: $550 - 650

Alana Bergstrom has been watching and painting

birds most of her life. According to the artist, birds in their habitat

have always captivated me. They are elusive, but always present.

I form relationships with creatures I can neither talk to nor touch.

Within each of these paintings, a bird form commands the

composition. As the series evolved, my own habitat began to

corrupt the bird’s environment. Natural elements are

manipulated through graphic lines and contemporary colors.

These dualities explore the reality of nature.

Time is essential in all the paintings in this series. The viewer is

invited to explore abstract spaces. Colors clash, textures collide,

and images of birds form themselves. These contrasting elements

create an irreverent sense of time. As the viewer moves

throughout, the tempo changes fortuitously. This is the essence of

birding: subtle elements are exposed just as quickly as they

camouflage themselves again. As smaller details coincide, the

overall tone is materialized.

Bergstrom graduated with distinction in 2007 with a B.F.A. in

Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art. She won several

scholarships including the Lawrence Kupferman Memorial

Award in 2007 and the Massachusetts College of Art Auction

Award, Spring 2005. While an art student, she showed regionally

in Northampton, Amherst, and Boston.

Born in Rapid City, South Dakota, she lived there until age ten

when her mother died. She then moved to Manistee, Michigan,

where she stayed through her sophomore year in high school.

She completed high school in 2001 at Red River in Grand Fork,

while living with her brother. Following high school Alana spent

a year in Minneapolis and a second in Northampton,

Massachusetts, before entering college. In Northampton she

worked in a birding store, a job she held throughout her college

years. She returned to Grand Forks in 2008 where she continues

to build her portfolio before applying to graduate schools.

Lot #7

Zhimin GuanMoorhead, Minnesota

Autumn

Oil and wax on metal

14 x 17 x 1 inches, 2007

Range: $600 - 800

Zhimin Guan speaks of his painting process: I am

amazed to see how painting materials and gesture marks

transform each other into a spiritually and physically integrated

autonomy. I strive to establish a vital breath and universal

harmony through forms, colors, space and dynamic gestures. In

my art career, I have always incorporated the traditional with the

experimental, the figurative and the abstract. I wish to continually

change through aesthetic modification over time and discover the

right form and metaphor among endless possibilities.

The artist was born in China in 1962. He started to paint when

he was nine years old, influenced by his father, Chintian Guan, a

traditional Chinese calligrapher and ink painter. Zhimin received

rigorous training in calligraphy and ink painting before he was

fifteen years old. At the same time, he developed a strong interest

in the Chinese philosophy of Taoism and in ancient Chinese

poetry. During his B.F.A. studies at Fuyang Teachers College in

China, he concentrated on oil painting and again received

rigorous training in drawing and painting in the Western classical

style. From 1985 to 1994, he taught painting, drawing, and

design at Dalian Institute of Industrial Design in Dalian, China.

Besides teaching, Guan devoted himself to his art practice.

When he lived in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, Guan

was only five minutes from the Yellow Sea. Then in the spring of

1995, Guan came to the United States, driven by the desire to

examine the complexities of Western contemporary arts. After

three years, he earned his M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing at Fort

Hays State University, Kansas. Guan has successfully blended his

academic training in visual art with the aesthetics of Eastern

philosophy. As an artist, he is deeply committed to unifying the

West with the East in his own distinctive manner—a new

synthesis of technique underpinned by a holistic philosophy.

Since 1998, he has been a professor of art and design at

Minnesota State University Moorhead, while acting as visiting

professor at China Dalian University of Technology, School of

Art and Architecture; Anhui Normal University; School of Art, in

Wuhu, Anhui Province; and the Dalian International Institute of

Art and Design, among others.

Guan’s art has been exhibited throughout China and the United

States in such institutions as the China National Art Gallery in

Beijing; China Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Hangzhou;

Singapore Asian Arts Gallery; the Salmagundi Club, New York;

CCC/USA, Philadelphia; The Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts;

Dunton Gallery in Chicago; Fraser Gallery, Washington, DC;

Museum of Southwest Texas, Corpus Christi; North Dakota

Museum of Art, and a solo exhibition in 2007 at the Plains Art

Museum, Fargo.

She received the 2002 North Dakota Council on the Arts

Fellowship and the 1999 North Dakota Governor’s Award for the

Arts in recognition of her work with children, and as an artist and

teacher. She also received the Art Midwest / NEA Regional

Fellowship Award and the Intermedia Arts Minnesota

Interdisciplinary Arts Grant. Her work has been included in

numerous regional, national, and international exhibitions with

the most recent being a traveling solo exhibition through the

North Dakota Art Gallery Association’s New Bohemia traveling

exhibition program; the Northern National Art Competition,

Nicollet College Art Gallery, Rhinelander, Wisconsin; Watermark

08, Southeastern Community College, Whiteville, North

Carolina; and Lemon Street Gallery Annual, Kenosha,

Wisconsin, as well as area exhibitions.

Lot #8

Linda WhitneyValley City, North Dakota

Lady IX, 2007

Mezzotint, Edition of twenty

11.75 x 8.75 inches

Range: $150 - 250

Linda Whitney: Throughout history portraits have been

manifested as idealized images, pictures of physical likeness,

psychological profiles, symbolic storyboards, and / or various

combinations. Today, if the hindsight of historic approaches is

added to all known and possible techniques, the contemporary

framework of the portrait may tell us as much about the artist as

it does about the sitter.

My mezzotint portrait images concern (individual) personal

realities, dreams, desires, accomplishments, and disabilities

rather than physical likeness. Individuals are much more a sum

of experiences, wishes, and accumulations than what facial

features and the body language might express. Also, few

individuals are endowed with enough idealized beauty or classic

physical characteristics to make an interesting work of art for

anything more than sentimental reasons. Also, my sitters do not

sit. Their visual impressions are created through research,

through intense looking, and by my aesthetic responses to years

of knowing, cumulative conversations, and witnessed events.

Their stories, much like the oral tradition, are filtered through my

interpretation. My intent is to allow the viewer the freedom to

revalue both the image and the response.

Artist, professor of art, and Chair of the Art Department at Valley

City State University, Linda Whitney holds a B.A. and an M.F.A.

from the University of North Dakota.

Lot #9

Linda WhitneyValley City, North Dakota

Queen Meresankh III, 2008

Mezzotint, edition of twenty

11.75 x 8.75 inches

Range: $150 - $250

Lot #10

Daniel SharbonoMinot, North Dakota

Made in Hong Kong

Acrylic and found materials, 2007

15.25 x 21 x 2.24 inches

Range: $350 - 450

Daniel Sharbono is a Minot artist, designer, and

freelance graphic designer whose recent projects include design

work for Main Street Books, 10 North Main, Otis and James

Photography, Dakota Kids Dentistry, Minot State University, and

62 Doors Gallery and Studios.

Found objects and materials discovered at flea markets, yard

sales, old barns and garages, and the occasional curbside

shopping trip, are rescued and recycled for use in artwork that

gives these objects the opportunity to be appreciated.

Most of Daniel’s work is about observing the things around you

and learning to appreciate them for their inherent aesthetic

qualities—signs of a personality, loyalty, and a past filled with

experiences everyone can relate to.

Lot #11DanielSharbono

Minot, North Dakota

Tools, 2007

Acrylic and found materials,

43.75 x 5.5 x 1.25 inches

Range: $800 - 1,200

Lot #12

Bill HarbortMinot, North Dakota

Strippers and Gold Diggers

Mixed-media collage

with cast resin

28.5 x 52.5 x 2.5 inches

2008

Range: $400 - 600

Bill Harbort was born and raised just north of New York

City. After receiving his B.F.A. and M.A. degrees from Syracuse

University, he pursued a career in commercial design. Over the

years he worked in New York as a package designer for Revlon,

as the art director for a children’s educational software company,

and as a freelance automobile illustrator. During the 1960s and

1970s, Harbort self-published thirty-one limited edition art prints

of American muscle cars. (For the unfamiliar, muscle cars, also

called Pony Cars, have giant V-8 engines with super chargers and

special exhaust. These gas-guzzlers were really fast! Muscle cars

reached their epitome in the 1960s with the advent of such cars

as the GTO, certain Mustangs, Camaros, and some Chrysler

models like the Challenger. Unfortunately the energy crisis killed

the genre.)

While working on the East Coast, Harbort was a member of the

New York Society of Illustrators. He became widely recognized

for his automotive airbrush work, which appeared in over

twenty-five different automotive publications. Tiring of

commercial work, he moved to North Dakota in 1996 to teach

graphic design and illustration at Minot State University—and he

loves it.

Gradually Harbort, the commercial artist, began to explore fine

art. He states, paint-by-numbers, coupons and clip art are just a

few ingredients often found in our popular culture landfill. Being

a college professor has given me time to explore my painting,

which is still driven by pop culture words/images and messages.

Each collage is sealed with a yummy coating of poured-on clear-

cast plastic. My paintings may be tragic, comical or simply

aesthetically pleasing.

The artist lives in Minot with his wife Sandy, sons Nicholas and

Tyler, and his family of ex-racing greyhounds.

Lot #13

Kim BromleyFargo, North Dakota

Scott, 2006

Collage and oil on canvas

Range: $1,800 - 2,200

Kim Bromley created Scott as part of his Billboard Series.

In real life, billboards are changed on a regular basis by slapping

a printed sheet—or sheets—of paper on top to cover up the last

message. After the billboard accumulates approximately eight

layers, they are all stripped off, not unlike removing layers of old

wallpaper. Then the accumulation begins anew. Bromley goes to

the billboard company and selects scraps of layered paper, which

he collages onto his canvas with rabbit-skin glue, over which he

commences to paint and draw. The billboard scraps suggest the

layering of time.

According to the artist, The concept of billboards has always

fascinated me. First and foremost, they create an immediate and

powerful visual impact. They follow principles of design. They

mark their territory and influence how we think. Yet, they merely

illustrate a specific idea. My challenge in working with

billboards is to create something visually powerful going beyond

illustration.

This work is about being a billboard and comments on their

effect on our society.

Bromley’s second work in the auction, As Time Passes, is from his

Pond Series. These works were painted on location at a pond on

his family's rural property not far from Pelican Rapids. These lush,

Lot #14, right

Kim BromleyFargo, North Dakota

As Time Passes, 2007

Oil on canvas

Range: $3,000 - 3,500

colorful works of art are about color, light and a celebration of

life.The Pond paintings were shown at St. John’s College in

Collegeville, Minnesota, during the summer of 2008.

Artist Bromley is an Associate Professor and Academic

Coordinator of the Art Department at North Dakota State

University. He earned his M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing,

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1986), and an M.A. in

Painting and Drawing, University of Northern Iowa (1983). He

has completed painting residencies in Cedar Falls (2004);

Chicago (1998); Badlands, South Dakota (1997); Cuba (1994);

Jamaica (1993); Ecuador (1992); and in Mexico (1987 and 1990).

His work is represented by Yvonne Rapp Gallery, Louisville,

Kentucky.

This artist has another life as a performing hypnotist. In graduate

school I was always taken aback with how one day a painting

would just flow off the brush. The next day was a struggle to

make anything on the canvas go right. Why was one day any

different from the next? Then, in the early 90s I saw a stage

hypnosis show. I had used hypnosis for pain control at the

dentist’s. But seeing the creative things this hypnotist could

direct his subjects to do was fascinating. I started using self-

hypnosis in my studio and saw a difference. I thought, if

Lot #15

Jerrel HolmValley City, North Dakota

Badlands Thorn Vessel

Porcelain, 2007

31 x 8.75 inches

Range: $500 - 600

Jerrel Holm: According to Holm, the harsh, rough, and desolate

land surrounding my former studio in western North Dakota often seems at

odds with the delicate, smooth, and pure porcelain being formed on my

potter’s wheel. This western environmental influence is apparent in the forms

I make today ranging from barrel shapes to squat, bulbous, mushroom-like

pieces. The simple taut forms with clean hard lines expand and contract from

a base and conclude with a small opening on some, while others remain

completely closed. The forms become more complex and unusual as the

smooth surface is interrupted by the rhythmic repetition of points, resulting

in a sense of tension. This tension is repeated in the torn rims of porcelain

bowls and sculptural forms to create a natural organic image. Other works

begin as vessels but at the end of the forming process are bestowed with

masculine and feminine characteristics to become sculptural. Some pieces

are left naked of glaze to express harsh, frozen winters. An ash-type glaze

coats the surface of others, reminiscent of hot arid summers. My sculpture

survives the winter season out-of-doors. Porcelain is the most exacting of

clays, demanding a special kind of respect and patience. I find the slow

meticulous way I work in tune with my nature.

Following graduation from Minot State with a B.S in education, Holm taught

art in the public schools in Minnesota for twelve years while completing his

M.S. at Saint Cloud State University. In 1981 he began teaching in Watford

City, North Dakota. In 1992, while still teaching, he completed his M.F.A.

at the University of North Dakota. After teaching for twenty-four years, it

seemed time to become a studio potter, which filled the next ten years. He

then returns to the classroom in 2004 at Valley City State University where

he continues to teach.

hypnosis is opening me up to my creativity, surely it can assist

students with theirs. So I received my hypnotherapy certification

and developed what I call my "Creativity Enhancement

Workshop." In 2000 I linked up with Dr. James Council of the

Psychology Department at NDSU. We have been researching

the significance of hypnosis on creativity and have found it to be

significant. My use of hypnosis in the studio and my hypnosis

research continues.

Lot #16

Albert BelleveauPuposky, Minnesota

Autumn Bench, 2006

Cut steel with stone. Cushion by

Minnesota textile artist Pat Black

Range: $1,800 - 2,200

Albert Belleveau is involved in a life-long love affair

with two of northern Minnesota’s most plentiful resources: rocks

and metal. “Rock Iron Art” is the syntheses of his transformation

of these materials into sculpture wherein he creates humorous

life forms, unique functional furniture, and decorating

accouterments.

He collects the rounded, wind and wave softened stones during

his frequent kayaking trips on Lake Superior. Back home in

Puposky, he turns them into sculpture. He selects the rocks

according to size and color, and then thrusts them into cherry red

cages of steel, formed and tightened under enormous pressure

and subsequently welded into sculpture. The finished sculpture

is sandblasted to even the surfaces, and sealed with two coats of

lacquer, or allowed to weather and oxidize. Such a work was

part of the Museum’s exhibition REAL: Artists and Landscapes,

summer 2006 and curated by Vance Gellert.

Born in Minneapolis in 1959, Albert Belleveau began working

with metal in his father’s fabrication shop at the age of five. He

writes, I moved to my grandparents’ farm in 1970 and continue

to roam the hills and valleys of Maple Ridge Township. I live in a

log house surrounded by the fullness of nature, the inspiration for

many of my works. I have primarily created with metals in my

mature years but I have always collected sticks and stones and

glued them together to create little sculptures—I did this

primarily between the ages of 7 and 16. At age 17 I began to

work as a welder. I often spent my coffee and lunch breaks

welding sculptures. The last ten years I’ve worked vigorously

developing “Rock Iron Art.”

Still today, Belleveau continues to interpret his world experience,

often humorously, in rocks, metal, wood, and found objects. He

has created large-scale sculpture and ornamental structural-iron

projects for both public and private commissions. His smaller

works have traveled the world. The artist and his family continue

to reside in Maple Ridge township of northern Minnesota, a land

of rocks and iron.

I consider this work not anexploitation of nature, but rather a fusion of nature

and the human spirit to form a new creation

that can transcend both.—Albert Belleveau

Marley Kaul is one of the region's most senior artists. As

during his thirty years of university teaching, he continues to

paint daily in his studio near Lake Bemidji, to exhibit generously

throughout the region, and to move his art into significant private

and public collections. At the turn of the century, Kaul was one

of seventeen artists commissioned to fill a room at the Hotel

Donaldson in Fargo.

Kaul is a prolific painter and a twenty-first century man

sensitized by philosophical and political thought who continues

to teach through and about his art. He paints interior and exterior

worlds: landscapes, lush with life, fruitful, ever questioning the

crossover between public and private life. The paintings of this

important American regionalist are layered with meanings

shaded from the casual viewer.

For the past seventeen years much of Kaul's work has been

developed through egg tempera processes on carefully prepared

gesso-covered panels. This links him to many early painters and

their ability to discipline their working habits. Egg tempera is

closely related to drawing as it requires a prepared line and value

under-drawing to be laid onto the panel in India ink (Value is the

difference between light and dark that helps define the shape of

objects.). This drawing continues to show through the initial

layers of pigment. Since the pigment is translucent, a great deal

Lot #17

Marley KaulBemidji, Minnesota

Looking for the Bee

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 44 inches, 2008

Range: $2,800 - 3,300

of over painting is required before the drawing recedes.

The work in this auction, "Looking for the Bee,” is painted with

acrylic on canvas. Yet Kaul employs the same techniques of

under-drawing that is overlaid with thin layers of acrylic paint.

The artist was sitting in his living room painting what he saw as

he looked out the south window. He recorded the everyday

plants of his Minnesota home, and with great deftness, the

reflections through the window. The mood is one of quiet

restfulness. Paintings such as these are creating an important

legacy. Years from now, they will be highly prized as historic

renditions of an earlier time and place.

Kaul’s work has been recognized and collected by almost every

major museum in Minnesota and North Dakota and this speaks

volumes about his tireless commitment to his development as a

painter and his desire to continue to explore new ideas.

Ultimately, Marley Kaul is a superb painter with a scholarly bent

who has become widely respected and loved within the region

he calls home.

Lot #18

Herman de VriesWinnipeg, Manitoba

Box Elder Platter

Turned box elder wood

16 x 2 inches, 2008

Range: $225 - 300

Lot #19

Herman de VriesWinnipeg, Manitoba

Redwood Platter

Turned redwood

14 x 3 inches, 2008

Range: $250 - 350

Box Elder Platter: I received a phone call from a lady looking for

someone to cut down a huge box elder tree in her back yard. She

had inherited the home from her grandparents and remembered

swinging in the tree, which she called a “Manitoba Maple”—the

common name for the tree. She was devastated that it was dying

and needed to be taken down. I turned several small pieces for

her and used a couple of pieces from a crotch in the tree to turn

platters. This piece shows the division in pattern commonly seen

in the crotch of a tree. Unfortunately, most of the tree was not

suitable for turning as it was decayed.

Redwood Platter: It is crafted from old growth redwood

recovered from stumps of redwood trees cut down long ago in

California. I was fortunate to obtain some nicely figured redwood

and the dimensions of the raw wood dictated a platter form. The

unusual aspect of this piece is a continuation of several platters

and shallow bowls that I have done which use a “rolled rim”

effect. To hollow the rolled rim is very difficult and requires the

woodturner to create his own special tools. Additionally, the

wood has a “flame” figure that is not commonly found in

redwood, showing a chatoyance (like a holograph) not often seen

in this wood.

Herman de Vries was born at Ochre River, Manitoba. He

received an M.A. in Music Education from the University of

Sioux Falls and South Dakota State in the 1960s. Today he is a

retired business executive and a former professional singer and

music teacher. A self-taught wood turner, he began in 1997 and

was teaching classes a year later.

At first, I never considered this a art. As time went on, the wood

itself began to “speak” to me, and soon every piece of firewood

was a fresh opportunity.

It came full circle when I went to the a lonely spot where my

parents homesteaded and where I was born. I saw the old maple

trees that my father and mother had planted in the early 1920s.

Some were dying. Taking the wood from that dying tree and

turning it into a piece of turned art became a way of preserving

something that represented the future to my youthful father and

mother. I am their future, and the tree was their future. If I am

able to leave behind a legacy, it seemed only fair that the tree

should be able to do the same. I only helped a little.

Lot # 20

Adam KempGrand Forks, North Dakota

Dandelions, Lincoln Park, 2007

Acrylic on canvas

54 x 72 inches

Range: $1,500 - 2,300

Adam Kemp, Grand Forks’ unofficial Artist in Residence,

was born in 1962 and grew up forty miles northeast of London

in the Essex countryside. From age fourteen through nineteen,

Adam sketched with watercolors because I could take them

anywhere. At about sixteen, I noticed there were a lot of things

that could be painted on—and I did. He graduated from

Newcastle upon Tyne with a B.F.A. in 1986 but not before

studying for a year at a wood restoration school in Florence, Italy,

and working with a Newcastle blacksmith for six months.

While in college he realized he was a failed watercolor painter.

I put on too much paint so I would have to give my pictures a

bath in the tub. Finally he switched to the sculpture department,

which was grounded in the tradition of the British Modern

School—Sir Anthony Caro, Henry Moore, and most importantly,

Barbara Hepworth, whom his parents had taken him to visit

when he was a child. Her studio in Cornwall “looked like my

bedroom so I figured there was hope.”

Kemp earned an M.F.A. degree from the University of North

Dakota where he learned to cast bronze in the new foundry. In

addition to paintings and sculpture, Kemp’s work includes a

monumental commissioned wall mosaic at the Hotel Donaldson

in Fargo (summer 2003). Kemp continues to teach popular

sessions in the Museum’s Summer Art Camp and to run the You

Are Here gallery in downtown Grand Forks, of which he is half-

owner. But most importantly, Kemp has made art a living

presence in everyday life in Grand Forks. The fish sculptures he

and thirty children made in Kemp’s first art camp grace public

parks and restaurants. The Museum garden always houses the

most recent camp spectaculars. And people take his work home,

paintings that are based in our own home landscape, paintings

to be treasured and passed on to following generations.

Lot #21

Stuart KlipperMinneapolis, Minnesota

Trail County, North Dakota, 2008

Type C print, 12 x 38 inches

18 x 11.5 inches

Range: $1,300 - 1,700

Stuart Klipper’s panoramic landscapes are ordered by

themes of permanence and change. This includes his celebrated

photographs of Antarctica, which were shown in New York’s

Museum of Modern Art in 1991. (In November, 2008, his

photographic book The Antarctic from the Circle to the Pole will

be published by the Chronicle Books and National Science

Foundation Office of Polar Programs Artists and Writers Program.

Over the course of twenty-five years, he was a five-time grantee.)

Klipper, ever the wanderer, has also photographed the Outback

of northern Australia, the deserts of Israel and the Sinai, the rain

forests of Costa Rica, the Far North regions of Greenland,

Iceland, Svalbard, Alaska, and Lapland (where he photographed

the area irradiated by the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster).

And most recently, North Dakota.

Klipper writes, I made it out to Dakota Territory—South

Dakota—the first couple of times around 1980. First as a camera-

carrying visiting artist; and then, a bit later on, just to wander

about and work on a corporate art commission.

Visually and culturally whetted, north of the border next

beckoned. Its primary allure was that it was emptier even than its

southern counterpart. I finally crossed the Red River from

Minnesota in the wet summer of 1988. Via research, I knew I had

to first focus on the state’s upper right hand corner. This is where

cadres of ocean- (but apparently not wind) hating Icelanders—

the scions of the Norse whose history and culture had long held

a strong fascination for me—once had settled to break the prairie

and to farm.

I had already visited Iceland over six times (and Greenland

once), and I was keen to see the mid-continental landlocked

haven that had drawn these -sons and -dottirs of the old country

(and prompted them to cross the ocean one last time). So, I lit out

to Pembina and Cavalier counties to give a look-see. Town

names were tell-tales, runic inscribed headstones too; but,

disappointingly, nary a grocery store I asked in stocked skyr.

I returned to the state again this past January (2008). I had been

persuaded to ride shotgun with a friend who had some business

to attend to in Grand Forks. She hadn’t much need to inveigle, I

very much wanted to go to North Dakota again.

For one, I had to taste the fabled chocolate-dipped potato chips

of Widman’s chocolate shoppe. And a tad more challenging, I

had a yen to make pix out on these High-Lined plains in mid-

winter, when it was good and cold and the northern tier states

were snow-covered.

I was not disappointed—I’ll put it this way, if a mere smidgen of

agriculture were ever introduced to the Antarctic, that’s what

winter looks like in North Dakota. I spent a couple of chilly

wind-driven days on the road amply confirming this. The high

point of this foray was finding the KVLY-TV mast, the planet’s

tallest structure. It occurred to me to perhaps shoot it in a vertical

format.

Born in 1941, this Bronx, New York, native graduated with a B.A.

in architecture and design from the University of Michigan.

Klipper currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His

photographs have been exhibited and are collected by the Art

Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Minneapolis

Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center, International Center for

Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the North Dakota Museum of

Art, and numerous others.

Lot # 22

Dan JonesFargo, North Dakota

Sheltered Bales, 2008

Charcoal on paper

31 x 50.25 inches

Range: $3,200 - 3,800

Dan Jones, who lives and works in Fargo, has long practiced

plein aire painting, gathering with a group of fellow artists and

going to the countryside to sketch and paint, most recently with

Carl Oltvedt and Robert Crawford Crowe for their joint exhibition

at the Plains Museum in Fargo in 2007. The landscape of the Red

River Valley provides him with endless subjects.

According to Museum Director Laurel Reuter, the drawing in the

auction is among Dan’s very best. And so simple: two round bales

of hay coming out of darkness. The light is moving in from

behind the trees, from the back of the painting, gleaming through

the upper trees, casting shadows into the lower foreground,

turning the hay bales into monoliths.

Jones is a master at making monumental charcoal drawings on

paper, pulling from his simple materials the essence of blackness,

of the gloaming, of the twilight, the time after sunset and before

dark. His drawings suggest gloaming, to be or become dark,

shaded, or obscure. To make despondent, sadden. Yet, the light is

ambiguous. It might be the full light of day casting deep shadows

in the underbrush. Only the presence of the artist’s gesture is

solid, real.

Jones, who studied at North Dakota State University and the

University of Minnesota, exhibits widely in the Midwest. His

paintings are included in many museum, corporate and private

collections including the National Endowment for the Arts, the

Plains Art Museum in Fargo, and the Rourke Art Museum,

Moorhead.

According to the artist, Anyone who has followed my career for

the past few years knows I have a certain fascination with hay

bales. Round or rectangle, the shape doesn’t really matter to me.

I love the way they catch the light, the shadows they cast, and the

way they physically inhabit the space they are randomly placed

in. Viewed from a distance, they add to the patterns created

when cut and bundled, but close up they have their own

personality, like big hairy beasts resting in the grass.

Lot # 23

Gretchen BedermenMandan, North Dakota

Circle, 1998

Oil on canvas

48 x 72 inches

Range: $1,700 - 2,000

Gretchen Bederman’s painting in this auction is

both beautiful and surreal. According to Museum Director Laurel

Reuter, these pastel ghost horses might tread on a lunar

landscape. They could be the horses of a dream, washed as they

are in the intense light of a mirage. Maybe they stepped out of a

Cormac McCarthy novel. The horses emerge out of drawing,

wispy, shifting, not solid, but dominating the flat, unknown

landscape. Like all Bederman’s best paintings, the viewer is given

the essence but left to wonder. What is this painting? What is it

about? What was the artist’s intention?

The artist responds, for over 20 years, the predominate theme in

my artwork has been an expression of the elemental forces of our

earthly life, a spiritual quest of sorts, an attempt at fusing matter

and spirit symbolized by women, horses, birds, vessels, and

trees. For the most part, I’ve created these images from my mind’s

eye, looking within to memories and impressions with the

intention of imparting a universal and soulful essence.

Bederman grew up in Houston, Texas. She has lived in North

Dakota since 1980, and she has a home in Mandan. In

September 2006 she moved to Glendive, Montana, where she

heads up the art department at Dawson Community College. She

completed her undergraduate work at Minnesota State University

Moorhead and received an M.F.A. in painting from the University

of North Dakota.

Lot # 24

Melanie RocanLa Broquerie, Manitoba

Pony

Oil on canvas

54 x 42 inches

Range: $1,300 - 1,600

Melanie Rocan: Born in 1980, this bilingual Franco-

Manitoban graduated with a B.F.A. from the University of

Manitoba and completed her M.F.A. in 2008 at Concordia

University, Montreal. She has recently been nominated as a

semifinalist in the 8th annual RBC [Financial Group] painting

competition. Her work is part of a group exhibition traveling to

galleries across Canada including the Musee d’art contemporain

de Montreal, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto and

the Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver. In 2005, she was in

an exchange program with the Glasgow School of Art in

Scotland. In 2007 she was participated in a Too-Sicks group

show at the Harvey Levine Gallery in Los Angeles.

My recent work speaks of the fragility of human beings and the

reality of the subconscious state. I want to capture a distressed

beauty in the work which suggests the inner emotional

condition, highs and lows, a psychological unease. There is a

dichotomy between the difficulty to comprehend the reality of

the internal world and a reaction to the outside world’s fragility

and the present state of the earth. I use the environment to

address issues concerning identity. and, by isolating the figure,

the ever growing disconnect between us and our environment is

emphasized.

I rely on an intuitive process to create these works which gives

me the freedom to search and make discoveries. I find the

struggle of creating work by intuition and memory makes me in

constant search to re-invent and build the work within the

internal domains of my conscience. This process also allows

room for balance from my hand and the medium itself to

communicate. I use a variety of languages and diverse

techniques combined on one surface, a pastiche in the imagery

as well as in the way I paint. By using these techniques I want

to capture and evoke inconsistencies of emotions, making the

work linger in between a darkness and a playfulness, to be able

to affect and give sensations.

I am interested in illustrating opposing forces in my work, and by

unifying and combining these dualities, they can exist together

as one entity, one cannot exist without the other. As stated above,

I want to evoke an inconsistency of emotions, making the work

linger in between a darkness and a playfulness.

Anton Boubin, who died in Crookston, Minnesota, in

1997, is a Czech artist who refused to capitulate to Communism.

Having served two years in prison from 1948-1950 he was

returned for another year after only two months of freedom. In

retaliation for this stubbornly clinging to the ideal of freedom, his

lucrative dental practice in Prague, his home, artist studio and all

belongings were confiscated. He was forbidden to practice the

dental profession in any manner and, although allowed to paint,

was forbidden the sale of paintings as a means of livelihood. He

became a farm laborer or woodcutter.

At one time the family of four was forced to move to living

quarters that consisted of a six-by-eight foot room which they

occupied for over three years. One day desperation forced Mrs.

Boubin to sneak a painting from the room in an attempt to obtain

money, milk or food in exchange. A neighbor informed and this

time both his wife and youngest child underwent severe

interrogation by the police before they were released.

Beatings that followed knocked out most of his teeth. His artist

hands were permanently scared from being stomped on—one

can’t practice dental work if his hands are broken and mangled—

and yet the stubborn spirit and determination of this tiny man,

who at that period of his life was sixty-three years of age,

remained unbroken.

—Excerpt from the Crookston Daily Times, October 28, 1970, by Cathy Wright.

Lot #25

Anton Boubin1902 - 1973

Apple Trees in Spring

c. 1970-72

Oil on canvas

23.25 x 31.25 inches

Range: Not established

Boubin’s granddaughter, Emily Boubin, writes in her blog,

Mission Emily: Because of increased fear of the death of his

family, my grandfather and his family eventually fled from their

country. Grandfather and his oldest son first traveled to Vienna.

Then, using fake passports, my father and grandmother escaped

on the last train to leave Czechoslovakia before the Communists

closed the borders to travel. My dad's last memory of his country

of origin was incredible fear that they would be discovered.

While on the train, a young boy spat at a Russian soldier. The

train was stopped and both the young boy and his father were

shot and killed. Eventually, in 1969, my dad and his family were

sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Crookston, Minnesota

where my Grandfather Anton lived for a couple years before his

death in 1972. Unable to practice his dental profession, he made

a meager living providing for his family by painting beautiful

paintings from his memories of beautiful Czechoslovakia.

Today Anton Boubin’s “old world” paintings are highly prized, especially by the

Czech Republic, which is attempting to buy them back for the national collection.

For years the paintings hung in the original Sanders 1907 in Grand Forks

where his wife worked as a baker.

Madelyn Camrudhas donated the proceedsfrom the sale

of this painting to the

Museum of Art

Lot #26

Tim SchoutenPetersfield, Manitoba

Looking Out On Lac Seul from the

Kejick Bay Island (Treaty 3 Suite)

Diptych, encaustic on canvas

Each panel 24 x 24 inches, 2008

Range: $ 2,500 - 3,500

Tim Schouten‘s Treaty 3 Suite (Outside Promises)

comprises fifteen paintings in encaustic on canvas. The suite is

one of eleven elements of The Treaty Suites Project. The Treaty

Suites Project was conceived in 2003 as a series of eleven suites

of paintings, each based on photographs taken at the exact

locations of the signings of each of the eleven “numbered

treaties” between First Nations and Canada. The project grew to

include the locations of adhesions to the Treaties, which were

signed in years following the initial signings. This whole series is

an extension of the Treaty Lands project that has made up the

major part of my practice since 1998.

This series is based on photos taken at a number of locations in

Manitoba and Ontario within Treaty 3 territory. Treaty 3 was

signed between “Her Majesty the Queen and the Saulteaux Tribe

of the Ojibbeway Indians” on Harrison Creek at the North West

Angle of Lake of the Woods in October of 1873. Once the site of

a Métis community called Norwest and a Hudson Bay Company

trading post on the Dawson Trail, this location has now almost

completely reverted to bush. Traces of Dawson’s Route remain,

but little else. The area is home to several Ojibwa First Nations

on both sides of the Canada/United States border. Harrison Creek

still provides good wild rice harvesting in years when the water

levels aren’t too high.

Adhesions to Treaty 3 were signed at Lac Seul and at Fort Francis

in 1874 and 1875 respectively. The Fort Francis adhesion is

outstanding in that in an isolated incident of treaty activity,

specific provisions were included for people of mixed blood in

the Rainy River area, who in the wording of the document, “by

virtue of their Indian blood, claim a certain interest or title in the

lands or territories . . . the said Half-breeds have elected to join

in the treaty . . . it being further understood that the said Half-

breeds shall be entitled to all benefits of the said treaty.”

—Tim Schouten, November 2006

The lyrical landscapes of the treaty series are visually gorgeous,

luminous and shimmering, and all the while underpinned by

troubling questions of land ownership in North America. The

artist researches each treaty site, photographing the landscape,

digging through historical files in search of the records of treaty

enactment, intent upon understanding the layers of conflict and

beauty associated with each specific place. For Schouten

landscape is visual place. Landscape is also the dumping ground

of human grief. As the critic Marianne Mays eloquently

summarizes, “political questions of property and Aboriginal

disenfranchisement beat at the heart of these paintings.”

Schouten is a leading Canadian painter who was born in

Winnipeg, left for forty years, and returned to make his home

north of the city near Lake Winnipeg.

Lot #27

Ali LaRockBismarck, North Dakota

Everybody Leaves, 2008

Mixed media on canvas

12 x 8 inches

Range: $350 - 450

Like most artistic people I have been interested in art

since I was young. Much of my artwork now

still has that same childlike quality it did when I was a child.

—Ali La RockAli La Rock, who grew up in New Town, North Dakota,

lives in Bismarck. In 1998 she received her B.F.A. in painting from

Minnesota State University, Moorhead. In addition to working as

an artist, she is active in the Artists-in-Residence program

sponsored by the North Dakota Council on the Arts. Through her

own studio she runs art birthday parties, gives private lessons, and

teaches at the International Music Camp, through Bismarck’s

Parks and Recreation Office, at after school classes for the Theo

Art School, and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo.

LaRock says about her art, The raw and primitive quality of my

paintings is the most honest way for me to work and express

myself. Many of my painted images are taken directly from my

sketchbook and visual journals. I feel that I am able to translate

the freshness and intentions of the original sketches into paint by

using the materials in a way that is most natural and immediate

to me.

The canvas becomes a place where the chaos of the adult world

can meet and become woven together with the wonder of the

childlike world. This intertwining is not only represented

psychologically, but in a physical way as well. The paint itself is

often aggressively scraped away, built up thick, pushed around,

and layered. In my more recent paintings, cut and torn fabric is

collaged onto the canvas as a background and almost becomes a

comfort blanket or clothing to soften the intense energy of the

image and message.

Text is also an important part of my art. Often the idea for the text

and the image happen together in the dialogue that is created in

my sketchbook, so it seems only natural to keep them this way

once they become a painting. The words I use in my art not only

help to further convey my ideas, but they also become an

important element of the composition that can be experimented

with and manipulated, in much the same way that I work with

the paint.

Lot #28, right

Angela LuveraWinnipeg, Manitoba

Dance of Bees, 2005

Mixed media on canvas

12 x 21.25 inches

Range: $450 - 550

Lot #29

Doug PfligerMinot, North Dakota

Trick Dogs IX, 2008

Wood, metal, paint

17.5 x 8 x 5 inches

Range: $350 - 450

Doug Pfliger began his Doug’s Dogs series in 2005,

which he originally called Scrap Pile Dogs. The folksy quality of

the dogs is intentional, but the fact that each dog ends up having

a personality all its own has been quite serendipitous.He

searches for the components for the dogs at thrift stores, dollar

stores, and hardware, hobby, and lumber stores in the area.

His tendency is to work within the confines of the wood shapes

and dimensions selected, and then alter the forms as needed. The

dogs’ pedigrees are at best indeterminate, but their roles as

faithful friends and companions are clearly defined. According to

the artist, At times I feel like one of Santa’s elves in my workshop

as I build, paint, and embellish each dog—At present there are

over 130 dogs that are in my possession or have been released to

good homes.

Why dogs and not cats? Simply put, I am a dog owner, and

Angela Luvera: “My art explores the tension between

organic and geometric forms, both in relation to our past and

present.” This Winnipeg artist and architect/landscape architect,

obtained her degrees from the Rome Academy of Fine Arts and

the Universities of Rome and Genoa. Her background as an

artist is in the areas of painting, printmaking and large scale

sculptural works.

Luvera has received awards and other recognition in both

Canada and Italy, including two major Manitoba Arts Council

Awards, a Canada Department of Foreign Affairs grant, the

Premier Award in the University of Modena’s national sculpture

competition, and the Gold Medal in Painting at the 20th Annual

Marina di Ravena National Arts Competition. She was a winner

of Ottawa’s 2002 national outdoor sculpture competition.

Luvera maintains private studios in Winnipeg and Rome.

therefore partial to the canine form. Dog-shaped household

objects such as oil lamps and purely decorative figures of dogs

were popular in ancient Roman homes, and the very Roman

tradition of an image of a dog inscribed with the words ‘cave

canem’ or ‘beware of the dog’ persists today! Doug’s Dogs do not

bite, require only an occasional dusting, and will not chew up

your favorite pair of shoes.

A Hazen, North Dakota, native, Pfliger currently teaches art at

Minot State University where he received his B.S. in art education

(1984). He taught art in the public school system for thirteen

years before pursuing graduate work. He received his M.F.A.

(1997) from the University of North Dakota and began to teach

at Minot State University in 2001.

Lot #30

Ingrid RestemayerMinneapolis, Minnesota

The Nature of Things, 2008

Mixed Media print with fiber

30 x 45 inches

Range: $1,200 - 1,800

Ingrid Restemayer is a printmaker and fiber artist

originally from North Dakota but now living and working in

northeast Minneapolis. Influenced by generations of fine crafters,

Restemayer's work reflects traditional embroidery techniques

while incorporating other process-intensive mediums through

collage. The Nature of Things comes from a body of work which

features recognizable imagery (Koi, or Carp) that have been

intricately etched on handmade papers. The etchings are

collaged with fine printmaking papers and punctuated by

paragraph-like forms made from hand-stitched threads. The

running threads provide the grids that anchor the floating fish.

For years Restemayer's art has alluded to storytelling or narration

through the use of her intaglio images as pseudo-illustrations

which suggest a story when paired with code-like paragraph

shapes formed from her hand-embroidery.

Restemayer has spent more than a decade growing and

developing her unique combination of printmaking and fiberart

techniques. She studied overseas in Auckland, New Zealand

and in 1996 earned her B.F.A. in Printmaking, Fiberarts and

Mixed Media Visual Arts from the University of North Dakota. In

the past several years she has shown extensively and gained

gallery representation across the United States and overseas.

As well as being dedicated full-time to producing and exhibiting

her artwork, Restemayer is heavily involved in the Minneapolis

arts community, serving on the Board of Directors of the Rosalux

Gallery and as a lead committee member for the development of

the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District.

Lot #31

Ewa TarsiaWinnipeg, Manitoba

Eyes Wide Open, 2008

New Polymer media on canvas

30 x 60 inches

Range: $2,500 - 3,500

Ewa Tarsia is a Polish-born Canadian artist. Whereas she

works in diverse media including painting, sculpture, tapestry,

landscape design, and drawing, she is known internationally as

a printmaker. She has showed in international print biennials in

Spain, France, Poland, Austria, United States, England, Germany,

Japan, and Korea. Most recently, Tarsia was included in the New

York’s International Print Center’s NEW PRINTS 2008/Summer.

As a printmaker, Tarsia is part of a tradition of artists who

acknowledge that their plates—the pieces of metal, plastic,

wood and linoleum that they print from—are the true objects of

their affection. Covered with marks, lines, and subtle traces of

color, printing plates are often as interesting as the images pulled

from them. Each plate is visually complex, offering a fully active

and engaged surface that, once transformed into sculpture,

reveals both the artist’s obsessive process and the beauty that

motivates her to continue. As an environmentalist, Tarsia sees the

irony of using plastic and paper to create images that celebrate

the beauty of the natural world. “It reflects our society,” she says

of the work. “Plastic is everywhere.” The success of her artistic

career in Canada was celebrated in June 2007 when she was

inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts.

The work in this auction, Eyes Wide Open, represents the

evolution of Tarsia’s printmaking into personal techniques that

meld the actual Lucite printing plate into relief paintings on

canvas. The highly-textured painted surfaces of the canvas foil

the smooth surface of the Lucite panels—for the printmaking

plates are placed face down upon the canvas. Adding to the

complex rhythm of the work is the highly-textured undersurface

gleaming through what appears to be the smooth surface of the

Lucite panels. The rich gold in all its variations dances across the

painting from left to right.

The success of her passion for garden design was celebrated in

the January 2008 issue of Manitoba Gardner. In August 2008 she

opened her solo show at the North Dakota Museum of Art. The

galleries resembled the blaze of color and the plant complexity

of a summer garden, just as her own Winnipeg garden is widely

praised for both its brilliant color and the plethora of plants that

are only supposed to flourish much farther south. Her husband

Ludwik grows rhododendrons; Ewa grows everything else.

Eva Tarsia was born in Gdansk, Poland in 1959. She studied at

the School of Fine Arts in Gdynia from 1974-79. In 1988 when

she moved to Vienna, Austria, with her husband. While in

Vienna, she pursued the study of sculpture. They arrived in

Winnipeg in 1991 where they continue to make there home.

From 1995 – 2000, Ewa worked as a graphic designer while

studying Advertising Art and Computer Graphics at Winnipeg’s

Red River College. She received her diploma with honors.

The artist is in the following public collections: Agentur Barth,

Germany; Consulate of the Netherlands, Winnipeg, Manitoba;

Éditions des Plaines, Winnipeg, Manitoba; French Embassy,

Gdansk, Poland; Intercity Papers, Winnipeg, Manitoba; The Keg

Restaurant, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Limberg Zeichnung Atelier,

Vienna, Austria; Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Manitoba;

Tama University, Tokyo, Japan; the North Dakota Museum of Art,

plus numerous private collections.

Lot #32

Mariah MasilkoMinneapolis, Minnesota

Initiation, 2007

Oil on canvas

16 x 20 inches,

Range: $300 - 500

Mariah Masilko: As a child in North Dakota, Mariah

Masilko acquired a love for stormy skies, long grass moving in the

wind, and lonesome patches of trees. Since 1987, when she

explored her first abandoned building, she has been attracted to

the beauty of their loneliness, their desolation, their quiet

melancholy. The forgotten abandoned structures are a

disappearing link to the past.

Masilko bases her oil paintings and colored pencil drawings on

photographs she takes on her explorations. She uses water-

mixable oil paints, which have the same pigments and quality as

traditional oils, but can be thinned and cleaned with water. In her

work she explores light, shadow and contrast, and recently has

been experimenting with color: fanciful colors that give a

dreamlike quality to an otherwise realistic scene.

Masilko grew up in Grand Forks and graduated from Central High

School in 1992. She briefly studied architecture at the University

of Oklahoma, before moving to Minneapolis and graduating with

a Bachelor of Arts in studio art from the University of Minnesota

in 1997. Her work has been in many local exhibitions and was

displayed from January through June of 1997 at the North Dakota

Heritage Center in Bismarck.

Engraving is a method of cutting or incising a design into

a material, usually metal, with a sharp tool called a burin.

Engraving is one of several intaglio techniques for making prints.

The print can be made by inking the incised (engraved) surface.

“Engraving” may also refer to a print produced in this way.

Most engraving is done by first laying out the broad, general

outline onto the plate. After this step is complete the artist can

begin to engrave the work. The burin is pushed along the plate

to produce thin strips of waste metal. After the metal is displaced,

a scraper (a sharp-edged tool) is used to remove the burs as they

will be an impediment to the ink. By using a mirror to do the

drawing, the printer accommodates the reversal that occurs in

printing.

To tell if the print is done on copper or on steel, one can look at

the date. If the print is done before 1821, it is done on copper

and if after 1830, it is most likely incised by the engraver on steel.

If there is no date, the lines are further apart and appear heavier,

and there is a warmer sense, it is a copper print. With steel

Lot #33 - 37

Anonymous ArtisansEngravings

Various sizes from 6 x 3 inches

Range: $75 - 125 each

Lot #33, Queen Anne Lot #34, King Edward IIV Lot #35, Admiral Vernon

Lot #36, Queen Mary II

Lot #37, Phylip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke

engravings there is often a silvery tone with parallel lines and

cross hatching closer together.

These engravings are most likely from books of biographies. The

prints were often copies of paintings or other prints. The artist

who painted the portrait may be noted on the edge of the print,

as well as the engraver's name under the title of sculptor.

Sometimes the print publisher is also included.

What still fascinates us today is the extreme effort required of the

engraver. The handwork is meticulous. These prints are tributes to

the dedication and craft of the engraver. The lines reveal the

person and an intensive system of abstract organization and

detail. More recently the biographies of engravers have become

available and many are now known for their own particular style

and abilities.

Nancy Friese advises that viewers take a magnifying glass and

examine these portrait engravings to see the beautiful

interweaving of lines and marks used to construct a likeness of a

specific historical person. In Friese’s eyes, “these are remarkable

works to collect.”

Nancy Friese has as donatedthe proceeds from the sale of these engravings to the

Museum of Art

Lot # 38

VivienneMorganBemidji, Minnesota

Tangle Trees, 2008

Archival digital print on

Innova

30 x 45 inches

Range: $1,200 - 1,500

Vivienne Morgan has donated theproceeds from the sale

of this photograph to the Museum of Art

Vivienne Morgan: It's been nearly thirty years since

I came to Minnesota from England and I'm still whining about

winter. I want to see soft lush greens and color year around, not

the hardness of the white winter, so I stay inside and try not to

notice. One ice crusted morning I dragged myself out of the

warmth of the studio. I finally saw the overwhelming blue sky.

Tangle Trees was taken that morning before the sun banished the

frost from the branches.

The artist will be spotlighted at the North Dakota Museum of Art

with a solo exhibition November 2, 2008 through January 5. She

has developed a new body of work about which she says, "My

sense of identity is tied to the landscape: to me that has meant

finding a way of looking at my local forested landscape and

seeing some trace of England or Europe in order to feel home. I

often shoot in the gloaming, letting the low sun soften the

landscape and transform the sense of space. Like the 19th

century Barbizon painters, I want to make the wild, wooded

landscape a tranquil, pastoral, and orderly place, even if there

really are wolves in the shadows."

Vivienne Morgan was born in England in 1958. In 1979 she

moved to the United States and earned her M.F.A. from Bowling

Green State University in Ohio. She now lives in the countryside

near Bemidji, Minnesota.

Lena McGrath Welker had a solo exhibition at the

North Dakota Museum of Art in the fall of 2004 and at that time

gifted a major work to the Museum from her Navigation Series.

She will open her second exhibition in November 2010. The

Jackson Pollack Foundation granted this Portland artist $20,000

for the North Dakota show, which she has been working on for

three years.

The sale of Aphelion, the work in this auction, will help fund her

2010 show. Aphelion is a diptych that connects loss of place, loss

of lives, and loss of the language to partly describe these events.

The artist describes the work:

Aphelion: noun: the point of a planet’s or a comet’s orbit most

distant from the sun.

Every day I rise at 4:00 A.M. to read, write, study, and have a

period of solitude before starting my work day. In December of

2002, as the U.S. Government was sending troops into

Afghanistan and preparing to invade Iraq, I went outside as usual

to bring in the newspaper, and also as usual to look at the night

sky. That morning, and every single morning since that day, I have

looked up at the stars and moon and thought about all the people

Detail

Detail

Lot # 39

Lena McGrath WelkerPortland, Oregon

Aphelion (diptych), 2007

Collage of paper, books, scrolls, silk

weaving, stitching and pigment

78 x 64 x 6 and 34 x 26 x 6inches

Range: $3,000 - 6,000

around the world who are looking at the same stars through the

terrible filter of war. At first I thought specifically of Iraq, but it

wasn’t long before I had extended my thoughts to all people

everywhere suffering through wars in their own homelands.

Only now, five years later, do I understand this to be a rather

uncanny and long-lasting reaction to a single event; certainly it is

not the first of its kind in my lifetime.

I recently came upon the word “aphelion,” and understood that

there was a sense of loss built into the word, and also that it was

time to make some work about this daily experience of mine.

Only after composing two pieces, one smaller than the other,

with papers nestled inside one another, or nudged up against

each other, did I realize that it wasn’t “people” around the world

that my heart had been calling out to, but women and children,

and that I had unconsciously described this in the very fabric of

these two collages.

The books, scrolls, and single folios are filled with drawings and

stitched imagery of Ptolemy’s diagrams, star measurements,

constellations, and also with counting marks and abstract writing

that references names. In only the third time in ten years of

making art filled with illegible writing, I have embedded

fragments of ‘real’ words and phrases, all related to the heavens,

from the poems of Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachman, and Georg

Trakl. Each of these poets survived terrible wars and wrote about

them in connection with their own personal experiences with

loss. I have also quoted the contemporary poet Mei-mei

Berssenbrugge, a woman of abiding love and goodness, whose

fragments about the stars help incrementally to adjust the

equilibrium of the unspeakable sorrow of the other poets’ words.

As I work, I am thinking about Baltic, Armenian, Afghani, Greek,

Serbian, Iraqi, Palestinian, African, Irish, Columbian women and

children, and countless others who have died or witnessed death

and torture all around them, under the indescribably exquisite

and lonely galaxy that covers us all.

an icy wind blows from our stars—Georg Trakl, from Downfall

Lot #40

Gaetanne SylvesterWinnipeg, Manitoba

Nine Months “Neuf Mois” #2

Paper clay, 2001

15.5 x 15 x 9.5 inches

Range: $500 - 700

It’s always just beginning.Everything is always

just beginning.—Jakusho Kwang

Gaëtanne Sylvester has donated the proceeds from the sale

of this sculpture to the Museum of Art

Gaetanne Sylvester: I am fascinated with the fact that

I started as a microscopic dot . . . and how that dot came into

being . . . and what my mother’s role was in this mysterious

event. I realize my experience as a woman and mother is very

personal, but it is also universal. My work celebrates the

historical relevance of the feminine element and is an attempt at

placing that element in a contemporary setting. I take inspiration

from rituals, fertility symbols, societal attitudes, and the impact of

new medical developments, particularly surrounding DNA, have

all inspired me.

Clay has a special significance to me: it best conveys both the

power and the fragility of life. It is tactile and sensual in its raw

form. I have taken many risks with it as a medium, silkscreening

computer generated images on wet clay, and using it like a

canvas with oil paint. In this series, the work Nine Months is

intended as an ambivalent metaphor for the genome as well as

for feminine sensuality. It emphasizes the fragility of life while

underlining its tenacity, and the importance of the genetic bridge

from the past to the future.

Born in Manitoba, Sylvester pursues her art career in Winnipeg

where she maintains a studio in the Exchange District. She has

participated in exhibitions across Canada, in New York, Denver,

Hong Kong, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

In 2001 she was included in the Manitoba exhibitions Knowing

Bodies at Saint Norbert Arts Center; Histoire de sens at Maison

des artistes; and was featured in a solo exhibition at Source at the

Centre culturel franco-manitobain. In 2003, she participated in a

national in/situ project, Parallaxe, in Saint-Boniface. In 2004, she

was included in Homecoming, a juried alumni exhibition at the

University of Waterloo Gallery, and in Noir et blanc at Maison

des artistes. In 2005 she was included in the Manitoba Craft

Council’s annual juried exhibition and invited for a printmaking

residency at Graff in Montreal. In 2007 she was selected for a

residency of digital arts at Centre Sagamie, Alma, Québec. She

was featured in a duo exhibition, Sparks and Whisperings at

Maison des artistes; a group exhibition, Treasures from the

Collection, Buhler Gallery, Curated by Pat Bovey at the Saint

Boniface Hospital; and a group exhibition Rencontres:

Encounters at the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec in

Montreal, curated by Denis Longchamps.

Lot #41

Madelyn CamrudGrand Forks, North Dakota

Devils Lake, 2007

Acrylic and pencil on paper

24 x 22 inches

Range: $700 - 800

Madelyn Camrud has donated theproceeds from the sale of this painting to the

Museum of Art

Madelyn Camrud, born in Grand Forks and raised in

rural Thompson, has lived all but nine months of her life in North

Dakota. Like most significant creations, her poems and her art

work are deeply anchored in this private life and the places she

knows as home.

Madelyn Camrud’s beautiful painting, Devils Lake, provides a

lesson in the history of landscape painting over the last two

centuries. This work echoes the luminosity of J.M.W. Turner, the

English Romantic landscape and marine artist who lived

between 1775 and 1851. Known as the painter of light, Turner’s

watercolors and canvases, with their chromatic palette and

broadly applied atmospheric washes of acrylic, speak to

Camrud’s Devils Lake. Her paintings, like Turner’s, are more

about light than the details of a specific place.

Turner’s influence crossed the Atlantic to be taken up by the

Luminists, a group of American painters who worked between

the 1850s and the 1870s (most importantly, Fitz Hugh Lane

(1804-1865), John F. Kensett (1816-1872), Martin J. Heade

(1819-1904) and Frederick E. Church (1826-1900). The effects of

light in landscapes, a poetic atmosphere, and a suggestion of the

sublime characterized their work. Unlike Camrud’s painting,

however, those artists often painted from an aerial perspective

and their brush strokes were invisible. Camrud’s perspective is

looking directly into Devils Lake with its towering sky. Not only

are her brush strokes visible, she has built up the canvas with

thick layers of paint and then written across the face of the

painting—flowing, illegible calligraphy that only suggests poetry.

Choosing pencil rather than a denser medium like charcoal, the

writing becomes wispy, threading in and out of her clouds.

Clearly, the Impressionists, who were beginning to show their

work in Paris in the 1860s, are between the Luminists and

Camrud. Their loose brush strokes, grand gestures, and fractured

light resonate in Devils Lake. Anyone who has spent time at or

on Devils Lake will sense the spirit captured in the painting. The

wind is up; the sky is tumultuous, backlit by sun streaming

through the cloud bank. It is clear that being within that

landscape is sublime.

The painting seems more like an object than a painting because,

unlike watercolorists, Camrud didn’t tape her paper to a board.

Instead the wet paper is allowed to curl as it dries, another way

of suggesting movement.

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees,

but what he feels, what he tellshimself about what he has seen.

—Pablo Picasso

Walter Piehl is a painter who draws and incorporates

drawing into his acrylic painting. He does not use drawing to

make studies for paintings but as a primary medium, either

embedded into paintings or as separate works of art. But

ultimately Piehl is most widely known as a painter. His goal is to

make his surfaces dance with subtle variations. Drips, feathered

edges, scumbled paint, and the judicious use of glazes all

contribute to his rich surfaces. His fractured spaces, transparency,

multiple images and their afterimages cause his images to sing

with movement.

Unlike most artists, he was quite young when he decided to make

art from his own life. Born into a family that raised rodeo stock,

Walter rode as a matter of course. Likewise, he drew constantly

in a household without television. He went on to paint and draw

horses, year after year, never wearying of his subject, never

despairing in his quest to create contemporary Western art. In the

beginning he worked alone, one of the very first to turn his back

on the established ways of painting rendered into cliche by

followers of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell.

Lot #42

Walter PiehlMinot, North Dakota

Fearsome Freddy: American

Minotaur

Acrylic on canvas

48 x 36 inches, 2008

Range: $3,500 – 4,500

This master painter, while continuing to live the cowboy life by

roping and calling the rodeo, and by teaching his sons to ride and

rope, has found the means to visually enter the sport. In the

process he has led droves of artists into a new arena called

Contemporary Western Art.—but most don’t know that this artist

from North Dakota charted their course.

Piehl has twice served on the North Dakota Arts Council, once

on the Board of Trustees of the North Dakota Museum of Art, and

is on the founding governing board of the North Dakota Cowboy

Hall of Fame in Medora. Walter Piehl received the North Dakota

Governor's Award for the Arts in 2005.

As Piehl moves through his sixth decade, he is at the height of his

creative powers. His large paintings are magnificent, and the

more abstract they become, the more they are saturated with

color, the more the temperatures shift between warm and cool,

the more they encompass the real energy of the raging bull, the

minotaur, or the Sweetheart of the Rodeo—the bucking horse.

Walter Piehl wins Bush Foundation’s First Enduring Vision Prize

worth $100,000.

Lot #43

David KrindleWinnipeg, Manitoba

Untitled

Woodfired stoneware with ash glazes

18.75 x 14 inch diameter, 1983

Range: $400 - 600

David Krindle has been a full-time potter for twenty

years. Prior to this, he worked as a teacher and visual artist.

David's work emphasizes the qualities of earthiness found in

pottery. He uses coarse clays and local unrefined materials in his

glazes to create a sense of age, earthy origins, and the human

marks of the potter. He fires most of his work in a wood burning

kiln because the wood fire adds an elemental look to the finished

pot, as the work in this auction illustrates.

David's larger pieces are currently moving in a more sculptural

direction with combined thrown and hand-built parts. He is

combining different clays, slips and marking methods to produce

work that is more challenging visually and conceptually.

David's functional work retains some of the simplicity of

traditional hand pottery. The warm clays and muted, earthy

colors help create a sense of connection to the past. His shapes

and decoration is in the tradition of the local country potter.

The less refined approach, local materials, recycled clay, and the

marks of the fire speak of the process of turning earth into a

vessel for human use. In our increasingly technological and

complex society where the objects around us may come from

halfway around the world and where the object's earthly origins

are thoroughly disguised, these pieces are a reminder of an

aspect of life that, as we sit in front of our computers, is easy to

forget. More and more we are divorced from our natural place in

the scheme of things. In a small way, the mug beside your

computer helps us keep you in touch with who we are.

Lot #44

Marlon Davidson & Don KnudsonBemidji, Minnesota

Kyoto, 2008

56 x 24x 2 inches

Mixed media

Range: $1,500 - 2,000

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson have

devoted their lives to art, first individually and ultimately as

collaborators. The work in this auction results from over a dozen

years working in wood and collage to make collaborations of

varying sizes and shifting configurations. Their collaborative art

works are in private and public collections throughout the

United States and Europe.

Davidson and Knudson were both born in Northern Minnesota

and attended Bemidji State College and the Minneapolis School

of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design).

Davidson combined his art with education, first in public schools

and later at Bemidji State University where he taught in the Visual

Arts Department. Knudson has worked since the late fifties as a

sculptor and furniture maker.

We are lifetime artists. We have worked for over four decades,

both in the Twin Cities and later in Bemidji where we have lived

for eighteen years. We think of our lives as an artistic statement.

The great art historian Bernard Berenson wrote repeatedly about

“life as a work of art.” Whereas one never arrives at that state, we

find it a worthwhile journey. Making art objects is an everyday

part of our lives. We think of our art as a way of explaining

ourselves to ourselves. Through it, we try to understand our

culture, and to live actively within it. We also explore the past

through our art—especially the history of art. While we use a

variety of materials, our main source of inspiration is nature and

historical art.

We worked and lived for twenty years in the Twin Cities and are

aware that our work is informed by the art and artists we knew

while living there.

Kyoto, the work in the auction, captures

the fragility of traditional Japanese

architecture in the ancient city of Kyoto.

The sticks that form the structure suggest

the balance and the economy of bamboo

structures, humble in both intent and

execution. The delicate drawing on paper

reminds one of light coming through

shojo screens and doors. The painting

reflects muted, pastel, Japanese colors

washed by the mist of island humidity.

Kyoto epitomizes the balance, elegance,

and grace of traditional art. —Laurel Reuter

Lot #45

Nancy FrieseCranston, Rhode Island

River, 2007

Watercolor

19.5 x 24.75 inches

Range: $1,00 – 1,200

Nancy Friese has donated theproceeds from the sale of this watercolor to the

Museum of Art

Nancy Friese’s watercolor River is painted on smooth,

non-absorbent synthetic paper, which gives a watery sense to the

overall image. The painting site is along the banks of the Red

River in Lincoln Park, Grand Forks. The critic and author Debra

Bricker Balken writes "for the past thirty years or so, Nancy Friese

has worked en plein air, casting the ephemeral dimensions of the

landscape as resplendent, sometime near abstract shapes."

Friese, who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design,

purchased her grandparents’ homestead near Buxton as a

summer retreat. She serves on the North Dakota Museum of Art

Foundation Board and was included in the Museum’s

Remembering Dakota exhibition in the summer of 2008.

She is a painter and printmaker who has shown extensively both

nationally and internationally in over thirty solo and 100 group

exhibitions. She has received three National Endowment for the

Arts Fellowships, including the U.S./Friendship Commission six-

month grant to Japan. Nancy received the College Art Association

and Reader’s Digest Giverny Grant, a Blanche E. Colman Award,

and a George Sugarman Foundation Award for painting. Her

artist-in-residences include the MacDowell Colony, Millay

Colony, I-Park, and with the City of Pont-Aven, France.

Friese has an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art,

graduated from the University of North Dakota with a B.S. in

nursing, and the Art Academy of Cincinnati with a B.F.A.. She

also spent a year in graduate school at the University of

California, Berkeley.

The artist is working on a new body of large-scale watercolors for

an upcoming show in Austin, Texas. Her recent paintings from

the Emerald Necklace park system in Boston will be shown at

the Trustman Gallery in April 2009, and her twelve foot

landscape paintings will be featured in A Place in Time

exhibition at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery in California

in November.

Lot #46

Brian PaulsenFox Fields

watercolor

13 x 9 inches

Range: $800 - 1,500

Brian Paulsen: My memory isn’t too good for what

is useful or necessary. Mostly I remember in a collage fashion,

memory of bits and pieces, the way I make art today.

I always react to the utility of a work, the formal aspects, a sunset,

a house against a tree. I am less good at looking at art and trying

to understand the artist’s intention, or perceiving the artist’s

philosophical underpinnings. I not good at making connections

between symbols and intentions. The historical and the

philosophical grasp elude me.

When I create a painting I am looking at it formally, a memory,

or the association the image has with my own life experiences.

Regarding the painting in the auction, my son-in-law has a farm

outside of Grand Forks. One day he found a fox scull and gave it

to me. I was doing a series of paintings with this piece of stripped

cloth, which I really like, so the painting became a picnic. The

cloth is the tablecloth. I placed the fox scull on a plate. The

setting is a field on my son-in-law’s farm in the Red River Valley.

I liked the idea of painting the shadow of the skull on the plate.

If one is looking for a “message” it can be found in the

juxtaposition of images that, for me, are historical memories

from my life.

My watercolor technique is methodical, slow and preplanned in

steps. I draw out the composition on tracing paper so that I can

make corrections easily. I transfer the drawing to watercolor

paper. I then apply wet watercolors next to, or on dried color

areas, with synthetic white hair lettering brushes. I paint two

paintings per sheet of stretched paper. The artwork is small,

which facilitates finishing an idea quickly and moving on to the

next work.

Paulsen is one of North Dakota’s important, senior painters who

taught at the University of North Dakota from 1973 until he

retired in 2007. UND named him a Chester Fritz Distinguished

Professor, their highest honor. He has been a visiting artist at

dozens of colleges and universities, and juried eight exhibitions.

Since 1962, Paulsen has shown in over 1001 juried group

exhibitions, eighty-two solo exhibitions, 204 invitational

exhibits, and been invited to include prints in seven print

portfolios in the United States, Canada, and abroad. In 2007 the

North Dakota Museum of Art mounted a solo exhibition which

will result in a book about Paulsen’s work (2008).

Each watercolor is a collage of vague, symbolicimages of remembered life experiences. My

father built homes and hunted. My mother cuthim some slack . . . . I sat and watched.

—Brian Paulsen

Lot #48, upper right

Shaun MorinWinnipeg, Manitoba

Midnight Special

Mixed media on paper

6.5 x 5 inches, 2005

Range: $200 - 300

Lot #47, upper left

Shaun MorinWinnipeg, Manitoba

See Ya’ Latter

Mixed media on paper

6.5 x 5 inches, 2005

Range: $200 - 300

Shaun Morin is a hot young artist in a city that has become a hub

for hot young artists: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Well entrenched in

the practices of young artists is the instinct to join together in

collectives. It began in 1996 when the Royal Art Lodge came into

being and went on to win international success. They came to the

North Dakota Museum of Art in 2000 with their exhibition

Garage Video (Just as bands are formed in the family garage with

instruments bought at garage sales for 10¢, beginning video

artists work in borrowed spaces on a shoestring.).

Morin is a founding member of 26, or two-six, Too-Sicks, etc., as

is Melanie Rocan who also has work in this auction. According

to Rocan, Too-Sicks collective is a group of artists that work

individually but together, they share ideas and feed off of one

another. There's always someone to talk to about your work and

give criticism.

According to Winnipeg artist/critic, Cliff Eyland, although

barely out of art school, Two-Six are already successful artists

with street ‘cred’ and art world sanction.

Two-Six makes paintings and drawings and art videos and music

CDs. In galleries they install, along with large stretched paintings,

collections of small wall works they call ‘Shame Walls,’ a

punning reference on Halls of Fame. Like Winnipeg's Royal Art

Lodge . . . 26 makes ‘all-media-any-venue’ art, initiating their

own shows not only because that is how most young artists

introduce themselves to the art world, but also because it gives

them total control over their work. Artists like 26 regard any

exhibition space as more-or-less equivalent to any other, and

they put as much loving attention into a telephone pole

installation as a group show at the local kunsthalle.

The collective 26 had its first exhibition together in 2002 at the

Graffiti Gallery in Winnipeg, two years before Morin graduated

from the University of Manitoba. Just as he jump-started his

exhibition career, Morin won many scholarships during his

college years beginning in 201 and 2002 with the National

Aboriginal Achievement Foundation Fine Arts Scholarships.

Likewise, Morin has been successful in establishing his

individual career with solo exhibitions in Winnipeg, Montreal,

and Toronto where the Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art

Gallery handles his work.

Lot #48

Sarah HultinFargo, North Dakota

Rural Landscape

32 x 26 inches

Oil on canvas

Range: $250 - 400

Sarah Hultin was born in Hoople, North Dakota. Her

interest in art was ignited at a young age. It seems she always

drew and painted. .Clearly, she came to understand her small

world through visual language. In 2004, she enrolled at

Minnesota State University Moorhead in graphic design.In 2007

she switched to painting and plans to complete her B.A. in the

fall of 2009.

According to the artist, Through distance and time, I have learned

to value the serenity of the rural lands. Focusing on the essence

of nature, Rural Landscape provides a sense of solitude and

sincerity within the seemingly mundane. This setting grounds

people to the past while fastening a sense of emotional and

physical well being to the present. The silent land bestows a

feeling of comfort through the spirit of nature while the space

behaves as a powerful resistance to change. The distortion of the

landscape proposes a disconnection due to the separation from

rural surroundings—the landscape appears a distant memory.

The loose brushstrokes used to apply oil paint brings energy and

excitement to the natural essence of the rural landscape. Color

interacting with emotion suggests both movement and time.

Explore . . . Endure . . . Evolve . . .

North Dakota Quarterly, Merrifield Hall Room 110, 276 Centennial Drive Stop 7209, Grand Forks ND 58202-7209, (701) 777-3322 e-mail: ndq@und.edu www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndq

North Dakota Quarterly is proud to

support the North Dakota Museum

of Art’s Autumn Art Auction—part

of our ongoing support of art and

artists in the upper Midwest. Kimono, a collage of thread,

pigment, and acrylic on washi (Japanese paper), by Timothy

Ray of Moorhead, Minnesota, is on the cover of our current

issue, available for $8 each in the Museum shop. North

Dakota Quarterly is local in origin but national and

international in its range, as in our recent Translation Issue

featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Wilbur, William Jay

Smith, W. D. Snodgrass, and world famous authors like

Sophokles and Pierre Corneille.Timothy Ray, Kimono

© 2008 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC. (118367_10689) wellsfargo.com

When people work together, there’s nothing that can’tbe accomplished. We’re proud to be part of the team.

Wells Fargo Is Proud To Honor The North Dakota Museum Of Art

North Dakota Museum of ArtFoundation

Board of DirectorsNorth Dakota Museum of Art

Board of Trustees

Kjersti Armstrong

Victoria Beard, Vice Chair

David Blehm

Julie Blehm

Ann Brown

Chad Caya

W. Jeremy Davis

Virginia Dunnigan

John Foster

Bruce Gjovig

David Hasbargen, Chair

Jean Holland

Kim Holmes

Sandy Kaul

Rick Mercil

Dianne Mondry

Laurel Reuter

Alex Reichert, Treasurer

Pat Ryan

Wayne Zimmerman, Secretary

Corinne Alphson, Emerita

Barb Lander, Emerita

Darrell Larson, Emeritus

Robert Lewis, Emeritus

Ellen McKinnon, Emerita

Douglas McPhail, Emeritus

Sanny Ryan, Emerita

Gerald Skogley, Emeritus

Anthony Thein, Emeritus

W. Jeremy Davis

Kevin Fickenscher

Nancy Friese

Bruce Gjovig

Daniel E. Gustafson, Vice Chair

David Hasbargen

Margery McCanna

Betty Monkman, Chair

Laurel Reuter

Al Royse

North Dakota Museum of Art Staff

Justin Dalzell

Sharon Etemad

Suzanne Fink

Elizabeth Glovatsky

Amy Hovde

Kathy Kendle

Brian Lofthus

Laurel Reuter

Gregory Vettel

Matthew Wallace

Justin Welsh

Katie Welsh

Student Employees

Stephanie Clark

Rachel Crummy

Adam Fincke

Andrew Yost

and over fifty volunteers

North Dakota Museum of Art, 261 Centennial Drive Stop 7305, Grand Forks, North Dakota 58202-7305 USA