Thank you, French Paper!

The paper used by this year's printmakers was provided by the generous folks at French Paper. Thanks again, Brian French and French Paper Co., and look for images of the prints created at this year's event on the blog later this week. Gonna be great!

Lampshade Brigade Performs at NOTSTOCK

New this year at NOTSTOCK are opportunities to view theatre productions. The Lampshade Brigade, an alternative forms theatre group, will present An Exploration of Improvised Forms to Delight All Sensibilities in the Black Box Theatre, Hartnett Hall, Thursday and Friday (Oct. 4-5), 10:30-11:30 a.m. Come check them out!

Beaver Brew Cafe Goes NOTSTOCK!

The Beaver Brew Cafe decorated their digs in NOTSTOCK decor. Stop in, check it out, and get yourself some coffee! Then get over to NOTSTOCK, October 4 through 6.

Located in the Beaver Ridge Plaza (next to Jimmy Johns)
1100 North Broadway Suite 150
Minot, North Dakota 58703
(701) 837-5588

If you see a poster you'd like to purchase, contact Laurie Geller (701) 858-3282, who has additional stock available. All poster sales support future NOTSTOCK events.

JAY RYAN RETURNS

NOTSTOCK is thrilled to have Jay Ryan return to NOTSTOCK. Ryan is from Chicago where he makes posters, art prints, and other work at his shop, The Bird Machine. Ryan was the first guest of NOTSTOCK, back when it was a one-person, one-table show in 2007. Since then, and partly due to Ryan's generosity and amazingness while at MSU, NOTSTOCK has grown significantly.

Ryan will screen print live all day Thursday through Saturday (Oct. 4-6) in the Beaver Dam in the Student Center on the Minot State University campus. He will give a presentation of his work on Friday (Oct. 5) at noon in Aleshire Theatre, Hartnett Hall. His work will be for sale at the event and on display at 62 Doors Gallery & Studios, downtown Minot, where the NOTSTOCK closing reception will be held Saturday (Oct. 6) at 7 p.m.

If you didn't get to see Ryan in 2007, don't miss this opportunity to see him work, give him a high five, and view and buy some of his work.

Mogwai Poster by Jay Ryan

"The Commute" Art Print by Jay Ryan

Andrew Bird Poster by Jay Ryan

Andrew Bird Poster by Jay Ryan

Jay Ryan Poster by Jay Ryan

Hum Poster by Jay Ryan

The Breakfast Club Poster by Jay Ryan

JUSTIN SANTORA

NOTSTOCK is honored to have Justin Santora as its guest. Santora hails from Chicago and creates gorgeous, crazy, awesome posters, art prints, and other illustration and design work. Santora will screen print live all day Thursday through Saturday (Oct. 4-6) in the Beaver Dam in the Student Center on the Minot State University campus. He will give a presentation of his work on Thursday (Oct. 4) at noon in Aleshire Theatre, Hartnett Hall. His work will be for sale at the event and on display at 62 Doors Gallery & Studios, downtown Minot, where the NOTSTOCK closing reception will be held Saturday (Oct. 6) at 7 p.m.

"A Walking Tour of Urbana II" Art Print by Santora

The Barr Brothers Poster by Santora

"Structural Instability" Art Print by Santora

The Vaccines Poster by Santora

"A Walking Tour of Here" Poster by Santora

"Spring Is Here" Art Print by Santora

BIG TABLE STUDIO

NOTSTOCK is happy to have Minneapolis/St. Paul artists Nick Zdon, Kelly Perlick, and Peet Fetsch. They will speak about their work at 9 a.m., Friday (Oct. 5) in Aleshire Theatre.

They will also be holding screen printing workshops from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 4) and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday (Oct. 5). If interested, please contact Bill Harbort at (701) 858-3108 or Bill.Harbort@minotstateu.edu.

About the Artists

Fetsch is cofounder of Big Table Studio, a working design and print studio, located in beautiful downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's a completely unique store front, where designers and printers rent a seat at the Table, getting access to print facilities, a studio to use as an office, and access to selling their hand made products through the BTS retail shop.Check out this article on BTS.

Fetsch at Big Table Studio (BTS)

Charlie Parr poster made at BTS.

Zdon is a graphic designer living and working in St Paul, Minnesota. He’s also an adjunct professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and The College of Visual Arts. For the past two years he’s been a collaborator and contributor to Best Made Co.; writing for their Projects blog, and making woodblock posters on vintage road and topographic maps. He is a moderator the Best Made Co. Twitter feed and an admin for their Facebook page.

Kontextür Poster by Zdon

To St. Paul Destination Poster by Zdon

Perlick is a graphic designer and cook, currently living and working in Minneapolis – trying to stay cozy in a tiny house with no less than 5 animals at all times. Always committed to excellence, she never hesitates to take on any project that comes her way with the intent to create innovative, effective, and clever solutions.

BE NICE. VOTE NO. Poster by Perlick

Vintage Vonnegut Book Series by Perlick

Brewmaster Dinner Poster by Perlick

Charlie Parr Concert!

Please join us for a special concert with folksinger and songwriter, Charlie Parr, on Friday, October 5 at 8 p.m. in Aleshire Theatre, Hartnett Hall. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

Opening band: A Frankenstein's monster of Diabolic Octopus, Crooked Gospel, The RoughRiders, Atom's Rite, and a hint of Potential Caskets.

Then join us at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 6 in the Student Center Beaver Dam for a workshop/chat/jam session with Charlie. Screenprint a T-shirt while you're there. Don't miss it!

Sarah Snavely, POTSTOCK Guest

Sarah Snavely makes sculpture out of clay, inspired by living with her pack of Greyhound dogs in North Dakota. Sarah will participate in POTSTOCK October 4 & 5 outside the Student Center Beaver Dam picnic commons from approximately 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.. She will also join the fun at the NOTSTOCK reception at 62 Doors & Studios so come say hello.

Sarah's work can be viewed on her site as well as her facebook studio page.

Poster Offensive Show at NOTSTOCK 2012

Poster by Amy Jo Hendrickson

Poster Offensive, a poster show dedicated to the promotion of peace and democracy through the medium of posters, will be part of NOTSTOCK 2012.

Poster Offensive (PO) was created by Jeff Johnson, owner and creative director of Spunk Design Machine, as a direct response to the re-election of George W. Bush as President of the United States in 2004. After the success of the first PO show, four more PO shows were held.

View Poster Offensive October 2-26, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, October 6, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Northwest Arts Center Gallery in Hartnett Hall on the MSU campus. You can also check out the PO show October 4 at 8 p.m. following Shaun Griffin's 7 p.m. poetry reading in Aleshire Theatre.

Also, come hear artists Peet Fetsch of Big Table Studio, Nick Zdon, and Kelly Perlick speak about Poster Offensive and their work at 9:00 a.m., Friday, October 5 in Aleshire Theatre in Hartnett Hall.

Poster by Steve Jockisch

Poster by Bill Moran

Poster by Jeff Johnson

Poster by Dustin Yerks

Poster by Ben Levtiz of Studio on Fire

Winged Shadows: Life Among Birds

MSU will host the Winged Shadows: Life Among Birds exhibit during NOTSTOCK, on loan from the North Dakota Museum of Art. The exhibit will be in the Missouri Room on the third floor of the Student Center October 4 & 5 from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and October 6 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on the Minot State University campus.

Winged Shadows: Life Among Birds is the NDMOA’s seventh traveling exhibition through its Rural Arts Initiative program. We who live in the woodlands; the moraine ridges, washes and sloughs of the Northern Plains; or along the Central Flyway—that migration route from the Arctic to South America—live among birds. Collected in this exhibition are dozens of ways of looking at birds through paintings, photographs, prints, video, and electronic media by artists including Barbara Bosworth, Terry Evans, Kenojuak (Ashevak), David Krueger, Victoria Neel, Guido van der Werve, Rebecca Norris Webb, and others. The artists, from the United States, Canada, and Europe, have created works of art that remind the viewer of the sheer beauty of birds and the various relationship that exist between them and humans.

Ready-made lesson plans for Winged Shadows are available for educators. Don't miss the opportunity to see this exhibit in person!

NOTSTOCK Welcomes Poet, Shaun Griffin

Shaun Griffin, poet translator, editor, and activist, will be a guest at NOTSTOCK 2012. He will lead WordStock events including “makeshops” in which participants will generate words and graphics on the theme: POWER. The works created at these makeshops will all be posted on the third floor stairwell in Hartnett Hall.

Shaun will also give a reading of his work on Thursday, October 4 at 7:00 p.m. in Aleshire Theatre.  A reception and book-signing will follow. Please join us! All events are free and open to the public.

Shaun Griffin is the co-founder and director of Community Chest, a rural social justice agency serving northwestern Nevada since 1991.  This Is What the Desert Surrenders, New and Selected Poems, came out from Black Rock Press in 2012.  He recently completed editing a book of essays on the late poet and critic, Hayden Carruth, From Sorrow’s Well, to be published by the University of Michigan Press in 2014.  He received the Rosemary McMillan Lifetime Achievement in Art Award in 2006, awarded by Sierra Arts Foundation, Reno, Nevada, and the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1995.  For over twenty years he has taught a poetry workshop at Northern Nevada Correctional Center, and published a journal of their work, Razor Wire.

The Fallen Season

In the distance, a stream sings

in the rose hips—winter has stripped

its shores to icy prayers of green.

All the way from the hot springs

you mumbled words to pines—and did

they listen, encumber your burden

down the snowy road?  On the porch

of sage, came the highest squeak—

a flycatcher weeping and then the wasp—

were they out of season?  The hand

that loves the fallen wood broke twigs

and bulrushes to the stream, no path

to ford save rock and water in a gorge

of willow stems.  I yelled when you fell

in the rose hips—and held the river wind,

waiting for a sign.  Sun left the valley—

we sank the snowmelt to the house,

gathered bark and blew the night air

through the roof beams.  An aging poet

lit the owlish sky of two beside the fire

and under them, crossed the lantern coals.

And then I let the ash go, tossed

in the bed until your skin set me down

to that cold water that runs between.

     —Shaun Griffin