Thursday evening at the Taube Museum of Art, patrons can visit with both of the artists whose works are on exhibit there.
From 5:30 to 7 p.m. hors d'oeuvres and wine will be served at the reception which is free and open to the public. The exhibits "Native Americans: The New Town Portraits 2010" by photographer Herbert Ascherman Jr. in the main gallery and "Peaces of Me" by painter and sculptor Joan Hansen in the lower gallery will be on display at the Taube through June 18.
"Joan Hansen is displaying her master's exhibit thesis," said executive director Nancy Walter. "She's been teaching for 33 years, not all in Minot, but she's teaching art at Central Campus currently."
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Terry J. Aman/MDN - - “Native Americans: The New Town Portraits 2010” by Herbert Ascherman Jr. on display in the Taube Museum of Art.
Hansen's work comprises a wide diversity of mediums and subject matter in rich, vibrant colors. She has pieces of ceramics, photography, mixed media and paintings.
"My masters is in education with a concentration in art at MSU," Hansen wrote in her statement. "I ... believe in order to teach art, you must be able to create what you teach. Being able to watch your students develop skills and learn to create is absolutely the greatest reward any art teacher could have."
Her collection is named for the pieces of herself that go into each creation, she said, and that creative process which gives her peace.
'Native Americans'
Ascherman's goal for many years had been to make a study of elders and descendants of many of the famous Indian chieftains, and he spent several weeks in Fort Berthold producing a portrait portfolio.
The Ohio photographer is following in the path of photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) who devoted his life to the documentation of American Indians.
Ascherman's statement says, "Working with a large format view camera and sheet film, and printing in the magnificent 19th century handmade process of platinum, I have produced portraits which are simultaneously classic and contemporary. My subjects are the traditional as well as current faces of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Tribes from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota."
The platinum process is considered the most durable of all processes, producing images of sufficient stability to survive an estimated thousands of years, and with a broad range of tonal gradients in what appears at first to be simple black-and-white photos.