CANU hopes art show will kick-start local art

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- With a museum gallery filled with paintings, drawings, sculpture and an above-average opening night crowd, the Council for the Arts in New Ulm is hoping the positive response will last.

The organization, which was founded 12 years ago to promote and support the arts in New Ulm, holds a juried art show each year in the main gallery of the Brown County Historical Society museum.

This year's version of the show featured 82 selected works of art made by 46 local artists. On Friday night, an estimated 150 people attended the show's opening reception, where a judge's awards were presented to winners in three categories.

By comparison, only 10 artists were featured in last year's show.

The turnout, needless to say, has CANU board members like Jerry Chamberlain and Brown County Historical Society members like Sue Ullery enthusiastic about the show's potential.

"This is by far the best show in years," said Ullery, a New Ulm school teacher. "It's so diverse and there are so many types of art. There's just so much of it."

Volunteers spent much of Thursday getting the main gallery ready. By Friday evening, each of the selected works had been judged and each winner was selected. The show featured sculptures and many different kinds of paintings submitted by artists ranging from 14 years old to 80 years old that come from New Ulm, Mankato, Springfield, Clements and as far away as Minnetonka. About 100 works were submitted for consideration.

Chamberlain says he considers the response to the show to be a sign of the potential that the arts have in New Ulm. He said interest in CANU has ebbed and flowed over the course of the group's history and attributed the renewed enthusiasm to a flux of new members and new leadership.

"People need to understand that this isn't like the city council," he said. "Everybody gets involved. This gives us a chance to reflect on past progress and maybe bring back things like Arts In the Park."

For young artists like Ursula Christ, Charis Carmichael and Amber Rahe, the show is simply a chance to show off their work. This year's show attracted a number of art students from nearby colleges and universities, some who have taken part in student art shows before and some who are making their first gallery opening.

Christ, a New Ulm native and Minnesota State University-Mankato graduate, won a prize for her sculpture "Sarcophagus", said it was a love of papier-mache and the human form that led her to mold a screen in the shape of a human body. She said her work allows her to explore her background in art history. Christ said the 2004 CANU show was her first showing.

This year, Rahe, of New Ulm, won the Best in Show award for her painting "Feels Like Home." Rahe, a graduate of MSU's art program, has won two shows before Friday night. She said her painting came about as she was experimenting with oil paints and cake decorating techniques. As the colors began to mix, Rahe said she was reminded of a window in her grandmother's house. She added peacock feathers later.

"I grew up at my grandmother's house and she had lots of blue and green glass and she had a big bouquet of peacock feathers," Rahe explained. "Having no pre-conceived ideas is my theory of art."

Carmichael said she decided to mount her egg tempera painting on a chair simply because she couldn't find the appropriate frame to mount it in. She said she and her boyfriend spent a month working on the chair, which is hand made from wood.

The CANU show closes on Feb. 27. The Brown County Historical Society is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1-5 p.m. on Saturdays.