We have a new website at www.artorg.com. This old site is quite comprehensive, and will remain as an archive. Thanks!

The ArtOrg project called the “Children’s Gift to Norway” is progressing, and we would like to offer the smaller version of the project, the so-called “Lion Show”, to your art-based or Norway-based gathering. Basically we travel to your event and set up an entire exhibit that showcases the Children’s Gift to Norway. The huge fabric print that measures 50 x 100 foot (15 x 30 meter) is simply too big for most venues to exhibit easily. It is bigger than a basketball court! As a result we constructed a 10 x 20 foot (3 x 6 meter) print in the same way as the larger work, and it depicts a Lion. (There is rich history about image of the Lion representing the country of Norway.) We bring set up the Lion print, the Trunk (with the huge CGTN print inside) and other interpretive materials. We can also give a presentation about the project. So far, we have had good response to ongoing Lion Show presentations at Pauline Fjelde Lodge of the Daughters of Norway, The Easter gatherings at the St. John’s Church in Northfield, the main entrance hall at the Rockford Illinois City Hall, and at our good friends at the HDMG company in Minneapolis. Our goal is to begin “Lion Show” exhibitions to all of the 15 venues where the children created 1500 prints built the foundation for the entire project. We have interest from several venues on the West Coast of the USA for shows and we hope to be able to organize a West Coast trip.

ArtOrg is now taking reservations for the 2015 season of the Thousand Print Summer. The ArtOrg Thousand Print Summer uses a small steamroller to make prints for both kids and adults. You check in, and get your materials, then sit down under the tent to cut up stuff to make your printing block. You give it to us, and we roll your block up with ink. Then, your inky block gets put on the runway with a piece of paper on top. We start up the steamroller and roll over it, and peel back the paper to reveal a wonderful print. It’s over to the “signing table” to sign your name on it and put on some special stamps. There you go! A wonderful steamroller print! We attract nearly 100 kids and adults on average to every event, and some venues consistently hire us year after year. Book now to avoid disappointment and future regret.

About this time of year, a certain page on our website called “Learn About Day of the Dead” becomes very active, as people start thinking about the Latino holiday Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos. ArtOrg has had several Dia de los Muertos projects over the years with Latino artists and groups and we have collected all of the information on one page. We recommend that people visit the page, and really take some time to see the art that was created and hear the artists talk about their work in their own words. Of particular interest may be two hour-long videos we have showing the Poet Ray Gonzalez talking about his experiences, and the late Scholar Juanita Garcia-Godoy talking about her book “Digging the Days of the Dead”. There are also photos that show ArtOrg’s collaborative print from 2006 that collected all of the Day of the Dead 4-foot-by-8-foot steamroller prints on one piece of fabric. That 104-foot-long artwork has been display at Minnesota Day of the Dead festivals almost very year since its creation in 2006 in Northfield, Minnesota.

ArtOrg was incorporated as a non-profit in the State of Minnesota exactly ten years ago today. Our many projects and educational events can be seen on our website, and we bring particular attention to our ongoing Thousand Print Summer program and our many past projects, We are particularly proud of three projects that were accessioned to permanent museum collections. We would also like to use this opportunity to recount some of our statistics: over 12 major projects creating some 100 artworks (43 artworks in museums), 10K educational prints created at 116 venues, 14K photos on Flickr in 300 albums with 400K views, 37 videos on Vimeo with 10K plays, 700 likes on Facebook, 250 posts and 250 static pages on our main website with over 100K views. We have amassed a wonderful collection of printmaking and other artmaking equipment. We have an ongoing project to renovate and move to a building we purchased in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. We remain thankful for the art-related grants we have received, most notably a $62K grant from the Minnesota Arts Board. Our mission remains clear to focus on education and projects which bring artists together to collaborate.

ArtOrg reached the 10,000th person taught at its small steamroller printing event called the “Thousand Print Summer” at the Minneapolis Monarch Festival today. Traveling to one-hundred-sixteen venues across the State of Minnesota, the event started on a rainy day at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2006, expanded due to an important Project Grant from Forecast Public Art in 2008, and was in part fueled by the passage of the so-called Arts and Cultural Legacy Amendment for the State of Minnesota. We are very proud to have reached such a milestone, and reach on a consistent basis, a yearly educational outreach of over 1000 students per year. Thanks, Minnesota, and congratulations to all of the artist who made beautiful printed artworks. “This activity is funded through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.”

ArtOrg worked with the Center for Rural Design to develop a project to complete a Concept Master Plan for its facility in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Head of the Center for Rural Design, Dewey Thorbeck FAIA FAAR, worked together with ArtOrg to put together the $15,500 plan, which we happily report was funded through a grant from the Southeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships of the University of Minnesota Extension. Erin Meier heads the Southeast office of RSDP, and has been involved in some food-related projects in Cannon Falls. For a summary of SERSDP’s activities in 2014 please see this report. The ArtOrg plan is being worked on now, and our desire is that the City and other surrounding stakeholders to participate. The text of the press release from SERSDP is here:

“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2014

CONTACT:
Dave Machacek, Erin Meier”

ArtOrg’s director Dave Machacek took part in the “Rural Design Conference: Thriving by Design II” on July 30-31 at University of Minnesota Crookston. The conference was put on to highlight the good work that the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, a part of the University of Minnesota Extension. Dave took part in several seminars, and met various people such as Tom Fischer, head of the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. Dave also met with Center for Rural Design’s Dewey Thorbeck and talked extensively about the ArtOrg Concept Master Plan project in Cannon Falls.

ArtOrg has worked in the St. Cloud area on many projects including the “St. Cloud Cult Print“, various exhibits of projects such as the “Seat Suite“, and has also performed the Thousand Print Summer printmaking event many times at Granite City Days for the St. Cloud Arts Commission. The Great River Regional Library also contracted with ArtOrg to do the printmaking event 17 times in 19 days in June of 2010 for its member libraries. Now, we have taken the print blocks from a couple of the events, and selected several cool examples to reprint and hang on streetlamps in the downtown arts district. ArtOrg supplied a total of 24 full-size robust banners. We think they turned out great!

ArtOrg appears on a full page in the 25th Anniversary issue of Public Art Review. The page, located across from the table of contents on page 6, documents all of the work that is going into the “Children’s Gift to Norway” project. The advertisement is structured like a social media stream, but we also add some older forms of “social media” such as the Kensingston Runestone to the stream. Depending on your view on the authenticity of the Runestone, it enters our stream either 116 years or 652 years ago! Congrats to Forecast Public Art and the Public Art Review on this important milestone.