A R T E - N E W S

News from the Normandale Art DepartmentA NASAD Accredited Art ProgramNormandale Community College, Bloomington, MNMay 2016

High School Art Day Glass Tile MuralHigh school art teachers participated in creating a glass tile mural to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Art Day. The work is dedicated in memory of long-time Burnsville High School Art Teacher, Tim Hammes. Tim partici-pated in the art day and created one of the tiles of the mural. He passed away in March and is remembered fondly as a dedicated art teacher and exceptional person. The mural is now a part of the Normandale Permanent Art Collection.

Row One: Kristi Colby (Shakopee), Jana Pare (Chanhassen), Alyson Johnson (Farmington), Phil Stanley (Rose-mount), Chris Porter (Apple Valley)

Row Two: Joseph Schulte (Eagan), Heather Van Bellinger (Farmington), Cassie Bernhardt (Chaska), Edi Helper (Chanhassen), Piia Huson (Normandale)

Row Three: Ryan Pedersen (Jefferson), Stephanie Molstre-Kotz (Eagan), Tim Hammes (Burnsville), Kelley Yackel (Kennedy), Dawn Cherwinka (Farmington)

Row Four: Christina Keith (Chaska), Heather Schuer (Kennedy), Martha Wittstruck (Normandale), Dale Brown (Normandale), Steven Showalter (Prior Lake)

Photo: Dale Brown

The Art Department is excited to share news on Kaitlyn Moe, an AFA in Art Graduate from Spring Semester 2015. Kaitlyn has been accepted into Ringling Col-lege of Art & Design’s Computer Animation Program located in Sarasota, Florida and will begin her stud-ies Fall 2016. Additionally, Kaitlyn is a recipient of a Dean’s scholarship – an award of $10,000 per year for her portfolio application! Congratulations, Kaitlyn!

Kaitlyn’s career goals are to work on feature animated films, television, and/or video games doing either computer-generated (CGI) animation or 2D animation (traditional or vector).

Since graduating, Kaitlyn has completed various free-lance commissions, including comics and illustrations. She has focused on furthering her personal studies in animation, character design, and storyboarding.

Kaitlyn Moe

Former student, Krystal Cooper, has been accepted into Masters of Arts, Art Therapy programs at New York University and School of Art Institute of Chicago. She is also considering a program in Ireland. Krystal took several art classes including ceramics, painting, figure drawing, and mixed media to build her application port-folio.

In Krystal’s words:Beauty heals. In a world filled with the im-ages of war and suffering, beauty pierces through the crystal cracked veneer of race, class, status and creed. I learned this early on. After I received my B.A. in International Studies at Macalester College, I moved abroad to do peace work in Northern Ireland and served in the Peace Corps in Rwanda. There I met and worked with an art therapist. She used the creative process as a vessel for both pain and hope. I am now entering graduate studies in art therapy to work as an art therapist in the current refugee crisis in which nearly 60 million people are refugees or internally displaced (UNHCR).

We wish Krystal the best as she pursues her Art Therapy career!

Krystal Cooper

PURCHASE AWARDS:Anders Huft Danica Bleess ART 1122: Electronic Imaging ART 2202: Mixed Media MERIT AWARDS:Joe Rider Mary Schreiner ART 1121: Drawing 1 ART 1127: Painting 1 Isaiah Johnson Leah Erstad ART 1101: Visual Arts ART 1127: Painting 1

Piia Huson Anna Carpenter ART 2202: Mixed Media ART 1121: Drawing 1

Van Nguyen Rikki Decklever ART 1122: Electronic Imaging ART 1121: Drawing 1 POTTERY CLUB AWARD:Shauna RuthenbeckART 1124: Ceramics 1 BLICK ARTS AWARD:Malysa Wathanaphone Sally Clarksean ART 1124: Ceramics 1 ART 1122: Electronic Imaging

Andrea Sanabria Linda Lu ART 1127: Painting 1 ART 1114: Digital Photo

Andren Sorenson Julie Kirihara ART 1114: Digital Photography ART 1120: 3-D Design

2016 Student Exhibit and AwardsThe Annual Normandale Student Art Exhibit was held in the Fine Arts Gallery, March 24 to April 21. Over two hundred student works were exhibited. This special exhibit featured outstanding creations by many Normandale art students. There were paintings, watercolors, digital media, photographs, fused glass, ceramics, felt, card-board and other various media representing student work from Normandale art classes.

The juror was New London-based artist and Hutchinson Center for the Arts Executive Director, Lisa Bergh. She holds a MFA in spatial arts from San Jose State University (CA), and a BFA in printmaking from University of Arizona. Her work has been exhibited at University of MN Morris, Plains Art Museum, Macalaster Col-lege Gallery, and Normandale’s Fine Arts Gallery among others. Along with her husband and partner, Andrew Nordin, she has run numerous public art projects including ARThouse and The Traveling Museum. Ms Bergh presented the awards and spoke about her choices at the awards ceremony held during the Reception on April 4th.

Anders Huft

Danica Bleess

Glass Fusing Demonstrations

Glass artist Chuck Burton instructs Paul Winchester and Aaron Dingman in glass bead making during his visit to the Glass Fusing 2 class.

Deb Warwick demonstrates fine wire wrapping techniques to Glass Fusing 2 students.

Each year the Art Department awards two scholarships to AFA in Art students. Students submit a portfolio and application materials. This is reviewed by the art faculty. The Bryant Art scholarship is awarded for the spring term and the Felicity Abby Jane Mathieu scholarship is awarded for the fall term. We are very pleased to an-nounce that Julie Kirihara was selected to receive the Bryant Art Scholarship and Kathleen (Kat) Kinzer was selected to receive the Felicity Abby Jane Mathieu Scholarship.

Scholarship Winners

Julie Kirihara Kat Kinzer

On April 1st, the Glass Fusing 2 class presented several glass works, including tile murals and coasters inspired by the artist Piet Mondrian, to the Normandale Foundation Director, Colleen Simpson. The students created a Mondrian inspired mural composed of 16 individual glass tiles. Former glass students, faculty and staff created a second mural composed of 9 tiles. Deb Warwich donated several wire wrapped pendants. These pieces will be auctioned at the Gala on April 30th. The money raised through the sale of the work will benefit scholarships at Normandale.

Mondrian Tile Mural Participants:Kaity Gamlin, Melissa Littfin, Sabrina Moren, Derek Sorenson, Shannon Ritten, Blanca Dahlin, Piia Huson, Paul Winchester, Mandi Neset, Jeffrey Chlan, Heather Johnson, Payton Follestad, Beth Heilman, Jon To, Tyler Keller, Aaron Dingman, Dale Brown, Karen Anderson, Orinthia Montague, Chuck Burton, Kristen Cooper, Julie Kirihara, Mitsue Jacobson, Martha Wittstruck

Foundation Donation

On March 3, 2016, fiber artist Becka Rahn discussed her career as a de-signer with students in Art 2202, Mixed Media. She shared a number of garments, quilts, and cloth samples illustrating her passion for digitally designing fabric. As a co-author of The Spoonflower Handbook, she revealed a few, fun secrets. Students enjoyed incorporating her digital knowledge as they transformed personal designs into patterns.

Guest Artist Becka Rahn

Photo: Dale Brown

Congratulations to the 2015-16 Alumni Achievement Award Winner: Jeffrey Stenbom. Normandale alumni often ref-erence a turning point in their time at the college that helped them succeed academically and accomplish their goals. Jeffrey Stenbom has experienced two different occasions where Normandale helped change his outlook on life.

After graduating high school in 1996, Stenbom attended Vermillion Community College in Ely, MN and planned to transfer to the University of Minnesota the following year to pursue sociology. After missing the U of M’s trans-fer deadline, he opted to return to the Twin Cities and attend Normandale. He also decided to take a sculpture and ceramics class as part of his general education requirements. The experience changed his view on what he wanted to do.

“I absolutely fell in love with both of those classes,” he says. “They made me to want to major in art.”After attending Normandale during the 1997-98 academic year, Stenbom transferred to the University of Minnesota to pursue art. But while he enjoyed the art he was creating at the U of M, he struggled to find meaning behind it.

Stenbom decided to take a break from college and joined the U.S. Army as a cavalry scout one week after 9/11. After being stationed in Germany and deployed in Kosovo and Iraq for nearly four years, he came home. Stenbom faced new chal-lenges when he returned, as he was dealing with Post-traumatic Stress-Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and was not sure what to do with his life.

He did know, however, that he wanted to con-tinue his education. So he decided to come back to Normandale to finish his AA degree. He also signed up for Glass Fusing 1, a course that was being offered for the first time at Normandale. That small move made a huge impact on his life.“I originally thought it was glassblowing, but I

quickly found out that was not the case,” Stenbom says, explaining that the course focused on sculpting kiln-heated glass. “I took the class and fell in love with working with glass. It gave me focus. It gave me direction. And it killed the void of what I was missing. It ended up being the therapy I needed to deal with PTSD and some of the other chal-lenges I was dealing with at the time. It was a great environment to be in, and the faculty were excellent.”

After earning his AA degree, Stenbom decided to stay at Normandale and earn an AFA in Art. From there, he attend-ed the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to get his BFA in glass and sculpture, and his BS in Art Education. Along the way he discovered a passion for educating people in art, which he feels originates from his gratitude toward the instructors at Normandale who ignited his excitement for art. He graduated in May 2015 from Tulane University in New Orleans where he completed his MFA in Glass. Since then he has been a resident Artist at Corning Glass in Corning, New York, was selected for the 2015 Stanislav Libenský Award and his glasswork was exhibited in Prague, Czech Republic. Most recently he was one of 45 glass artists selected for Emerge/Evolve 2016 an international juried glass competition in Portland, Oregon.

“I don’t have the words to express what the Normandale Art Department has done for me,” he says. “It provided me with the core of a good art education. I really appreciate what the instructors have done for me as a person. That program is special, and the instructors are phenomenal.

-Written by Steve Geller / Normandale Foundation

Alumni Achievement Award Winner: Jeffrey Stenbom

On February 19th, the Normandale Art Department’s High School Art Day celebrated its 10th Anniversary. The day began with special guest, President Joyce Ester, welcoming the students and teachers and presenting every-one with a custom designed 10th Anniversary pin. Fourteen area high schools attended. Over 160 high school art students and teachers participated in morning and afternoon hands on workshops. Normandale art instructors, guest artists, and art alumni presented fifteen different workshops including; Felted Scarves, Glass Beads, Sheet Metal Sculpture, Tape Sculpture, Handmade Books, Raku, Digital Printing, Light Painting, Water Color Paint-ing, Acrylic Painting, Pinhole Camera and Glass Tiles. Blick Art Materials provided a gift bag of art supplies for all participants. Two large cakes with the design of the Anniversary pin were enjoyed by all. The day was a great success.

In addition to the workshop sessions teachers installed the 30th Annual South Suburban High School Arts Exhibi-tion. Kris Holmgren, Gallery Director, coordinated the whirlwind activity as teachers arranged the display of over one-hundred artworks.

10th Annual High School Art Day

30th Annual South Suburban High School Art ExhibitThe 30th Annual South Suburban Conference Art Exhibit was held this spring in the Fine Arts Gal-lery. All eleven high schools in the conference participated. Each school was permitted to display ten student works. A recep-tion was held March 8th. The juror, Normandale Art Instruc-tor, Lazare Rottach, announced the award winners and spoke to a packed auditorium about the work he selected. Students and their parents, friends and relatives listened as he outlined the crite-ria and process he used to select award winners. He spoke of the merits of each of his selections and why he chose the work. The mixed media on Plexiglas work “Amberline” by Lindsay Hard-wick of Lakeville North received the Normandale Award of Excel-lence. Lindsay will receive a cash award and her work will be on the postcard for the 2017 show.