Dickinson Museum Center

Call to artists: UPCYCLE

2009-07-06T19:36:00.002-06:00

Announcing a call to artists for the "UPCYCLE" Juried Art Exhibition to be held September 21, 2009 to January 15, 2010 at the Dickinson Museum Center in Dickinson, North Dakota. The theme is a reflection, celebration, and analysis of recycling, upcycling, and going green. This juried exhibition is open to all interpretations on the theme. All media accepted. Deadline: August 28, 2009. Early submissions encouraged. For more information, download the prospectus/registration form here, contact Danielle Stuckle at danielle.stuckle@dickinsongov.com , or call 701.456.6225.

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-02T09:47:00.002-06:00

Things are pretty busy here at the museum. Our visitation is up and we've got a full program schedule for the summer. We even opened up new sections for our Art-in-the-Park program since we had so many kids on our waiting list. Saturday, July 4th, our living history demonstration will be knitting, and possibly some quilting. We'll keep it low key as we don't know how busy we'll be. However, we will have some activity going on for anyone who stops in to visit us here at the museum.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July.

Fabulous Fibers

2009-06-23T10:39:00.001-06:00

At 10:00 am Saturday, June 27, the Dickinson Museum Center will be presenting a demonstration on working with fibers. Museum staff will be working with various fibers to spin yarn and make rope. The demonstration is free, open to the public. Learn about different methods of making yarn and rope, and different fibers that can be used to accomplish these projects.

The demonstration will be held in the Dickinson Museum Center adjacent to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum. For more information about demonstrations and other museum events, visit our website at dickinsonmuseumcenter.org.

Candlemaking

2009-06-16T11:35:00.001-06:00

At 10:00 am Saturday, June 20, the Dickinson Museum Center will be presenting a demonstration on historical and modern candle making methods. The demonstration is free, open to the public, and will run approximately until noon. Learn about different methods of making candles including rendering bee’s wax, and rolling, pouring, and dipping candles.

The demonstration will be held in the Dickinson Museum Center adjacent to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum. For more information about demonstrations and other museum events, visit our website at dickinsonmuseumcenter.org.

Mod Mosaics at the DMC

2009-06-16T11:25:00.000-06:00

The Dickinson Museum Center will be holding Mod Mosaics for area teenagers during the month of August. The program is designed for students in grades 7 through 12. Participants will have the chance to design and create a mosaic mural that will be on display at the Dickinson Museum Center. Everyone is encouraged to bring their friends for this group project. The program is free, and refreshments will be provided. To register, please contact Brianna McNelly at 456-6225 or info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org

Art in the Park

2009-06-14T10:10:00.003-06:00

Good news to report on the Art in the Park program. We are having a fantastic turnout, and almost all of our classes are full with a waiting list. If we get more volunteers for the program, we would have room in our classes for the additional kids on the waiting list. This would be a fantastic opportunity to increase museum programs. The classes have been going pretty well too. The kids have done a few art and science projects so far including mosaics, working with natural dyes, and soap making. We've got a summer packed full of art, science, and history projects for them, and we'll be displaying some of their projects in our classroom so stop by and check it out sometime.

Living History Demonstrations at the DMC

2009-06-14T09:54:00.004-06:00

Tentative Schedule—Subject to Change

All demonstrations begin at 10:00 a.m. Mountain Time, and run until approximately noon. All programs are free and open to the public.

June 6: Knitting
June 13: Soap Making
June 20: Candle Making
June 27: Spinning Wool and Rope Making

July 4: Knitting and Spinning Wool--Possibly more Soap Making
July 11: Basket Weaving
July 18: Story Telling
July 25: Making Butter and Ice Cream

August 1: Quilting
August 8: Slab and Coil Pots
August 15: Printmaking
August 22: TBA
August 29: Leather Working

September 5: Soap Making
October 3: Wood Burning
November 7: Metal Working
December 5: Spinning Wool and Rope Making
January 9: Knitting
February 6: Soap Making
March 6: Candle Making
April 3: Quilting
May 1: Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt

MORE THAN 50 ART WORKS TO BE DISPLAYED THIS SUMMER

2009-05-04T16:09:00.000-06:00

Fifteen regional artists will be displaying more than fifty works of art at the Dickinson Museum Center this summer as part of the GreatPlains/GreatArt exhibition. The works will be on display from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.

Artists from all over the state will be represented through a variety of work including paintings, photographic prints, fiber, and pottery. “It is exciting to be able to feature quality art that represents our region so well,” stated Museum Assistant Emily Bradbury. Members of the Southwest North Dakota Museum Foundation are invited to a special artists’ reception on Friday, May 15th to get an early preview of the exhibit. The reception will feature live music and refreshments.

For more information contact Danielle Stuckle at 456-6225 or info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org

Ice Cream Machine

2009-04-24T13:22:00.002-06:00

Our brand new hand-cranked ice cream maker has arrived straight from Lehman's catalog. We'll be making home-made ice cream this summer as a fundraiser for museum programs. We even had a book of old fashioned recipes to try out. We also got our hand cultivator for our historic garden, and a big order of gift bags for our new gift shop. It's a flurry of boxes and packing peanuts around here!

Big Plans for the Summer

2009-04-24T09:55:00.002-06:00

The Dickinson Museum Center will be closed Wednesday, April 29 so staff can attend a grant writing workshop at the Strom Center. I'll be out of the office Friday to attend the Preservation North Dakota annual conference in Bismarck (the museum will still be open). This Saturday I'll be attending a garden show in Mandan were the featured speaker will be talking about xeriscaping in North Dakota. During the next couple of weeks we will be getting our art submissions in for the GreatPlains/GreatArt exhibition, and May 15th we'll have our open house/artists' reception.

Wow, we are busy! Also, it is my 3rd anniversary here at the museum. Officially I started May 2nd, but Terri Thiel at the Dickinson CVB has already given me a lovely anniversary gift. Thanks Terri!

Things are really moving along at light speed for us, and we have a full program schedule planned for the summer. Check our website at dickinsonmuseumcenter.org for more information about all of our plans and programs.

Demonstrations at the DMC

2009-04-23T12:59:00.001-06:00

Beginning in the summer of 2009, the Dickinson Museum Center will be presenting a series of living history and art demonstrations at 10:00 am each Saturday starting in June. Demonstrations will include a variety of topics such as:

Arts and Crafts:
Printmaking, pottery, wood working, leather working, and metal work.

Living History:
Heritage gardening, sewing, quilting, knitting, making butter, ice cream, and other products, making rope, spinning wool, weaving, and other fiber arts

Demonstrations will be held either in the Dickinson Museum Center (Joachim Museum) adjacent to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum, or in Prairie Outpost Park (weather permitting). All demonstrations are free and open to the public. Volunteers wishing to get involved in this project are encouraged to contact Danielle at 701-456-6225. For more information about demonstrations and other museum events, call 701-456-6225 or e-mail info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org.

Things are Hopping

2009-03-13T09:54:00.002-06:00

It must be spring if I'm putting bunny references in the title, right? Well, things are hopping here at the museum.

We've got a ton of projects we are working on to keep things fresh and interesting. We just changed the look and layout of the blog, and hopefully some updates to our website will be soon to follow. We are also working on a number of summer programs and living history demonstrations, and have a couple of new exhibits in development.

Our big exhibits for the summer will feature GreatPlains/GreatArt and Dickinson: A to Z. We are also developing a heritage garden, Art in the Park, and tours as usual. There are no room for slackers at the Museum Center!

For more information about these programs, or to volunteer to help our exhausted staff (we'll be the one's sleeping on cots in the storage room)--please call us at 701-456-6225 or e-mail info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org.

Of Women, and Cooking, and... Beauty

2009-02-26T15:03:00.003-07:00

*Early American Cookery: Ye Gentlewoman's Housewifery* by Margaret Huntington Hooker is a wonderfully little book I purchased at a museum gift shop last fall. This is a fantastic resource for recipies circa 1900 and earlier. While predominately focused on cooking and household chores such as soap and candle making, it does include various recipes to concoct beauty elixers. Some of the recommendations include using real pearls, properly pulverized, for a fine face powder; a recipe to dye your hair black in case you are misfortunate enough to have been born a red-head; an ointment of boar's grease to induce hair growth; and wearing a flattened square of lead on the forhead to keep skin smooth and youthful looking.

One of my favorite (?) recipies is a musk made from a muskrat "cod," or scrotum, that is quite easy to replicate. You simply wrap the cod in cotton wool and lay it among your clothing for a "handsome scent."

In honor of the upcoming Women's History month in March, I suggest we all get our boar's grease and muskrat cod prepared for an exciting celebration of women everywhere. I will, however, refuse to crush any pearls.

Prairie Roses

2009-02-17T14:03:00.002-07:00

The Center for Heritage Renewal at NDSU in Fargo is promoting a new initiative to recognize heritage tourism hosts in the region. Visit their website at www.ndsu.nodak.edu/heritage/roses for more information on this program, or download their factsheet here.

Book Club

2009-02-08T13:26:00.005-07:00

My favorite comic strip, Unshelved, is about ups and downs of a reference librarian, Dewey. Unshelved features a comic-strip bookreview each week titled "Book Club." For some time now, I've wanted to do something similar here at the museum with a book club that related to the history, art, and culture of Southwest North Dakota--and more generally to the Great Plains and American West. So, to get the ball rolling, I'm officially calling for members for a book club. If we could get a group of 8 to 12 people interested in meeting every other month to discuss books, we'd be off to a very good start. Call or e-mail Danielle at the museum for more information and to get involved: 701-456-6225 or info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org. As soon as we've got a few people signed up, I'll schedule our first Book Club meeting. We can be pretty flexible with our reading selections, so come prepared with book suggestions related to the art and history of the Great Plains and the American West.

The future of Collection Catalogues

2009-02-05T10:58:00.003-07:00

The Modern Art Notes blog has a couple of interesting postings about how museums are trying to change how they manage printed and on-line collection catalogues. The posts are titled The collection catalogue is dead, long live the catalogue and The collection catalogue re-born Both posts are very intriguing and worth thinking about. The postings are geared for art museums, but it isn't a very big leap to connect this to museum collections at large. Imagine a website that contains links to most of the scholarly work related to an object, all available at the click of a finger. Similar to a wiki page, only more academic in nature. What a wonderful way to be able to use museum collections, especially things that might be too fragile to display frequently.

More Garden Planning News

2009-01-29T11:49:00.002-07:00

Our Heritage Garden planning is really starting to shape up. We have some space designated north of the Museum for a garden, and the City's Buildings and Grounds staff is going to help us get some nice soil prepared this spring. Right now we've got an outline of the garden that will give us a pretty good size to work with, so it is a start. Now we've got to get ready for spring planting! We'll be organizing a volunteer meeting sometime in February to decide what seeds should be ordered. We're really looking forward to this exciting new program here at the Museum. Please contact Danielle if you are interested in participating.

Black History/Baseball History

2009-01-28T13:44:00.004-07:00

African American history is often overlooked here in North Dakota. In recognition of the approach of Black History Month (February), I'd like to post the following links:

www.pitchblackbaseball.com/northdakotabaseball.html

http://www.minotmallards.com/

The first link is a site developed by a gentleman working on a movie about black baseball players in North Dakota. The second link is about the Minot Mallards, another integrated team in the state with a lot of information online.

There have been organized baseball teams playing in Dickinson since 1883. Interesting to note is that two African American ball players, Solomon Otto and Barney Brown, played for Dickinson.

Individuals or organiztions with information about African Americans in southwest North Daktoa, or baseball in southwest North Dakota are encouraged to share it with the Dickinson Museum Center. It would be nice to have a collection of this history for our region.

Party at the Museum

2009-01-22T11:26:00.003-07:00

Friday, May 15th the Museum Center will be hosting a reception for artists and supporters of the 2009 summer exhibition, Great Plains/Great Art. This special event is open to all members, donors, and volunteers who have contributed to the museum in the last fiscal year. Thank you for all you do to support the programs and events at the Dickinson Museum Center. For more information about the summer exhibition, and to view the call to artists and prospectus, visit http://www.dickinsonmuseumcenter.org/.

Facebook

2009-01-22T11:04:00.003-07:00

We are experimenting with social networking technology, and have created a page on Facebook. Please check it out and sign up to become a fan of the page. We are trying it out to see how popular it is, and if it turns out to be a good method of communication, we'll be sure to keep it up. Let us know what you think!

Great Plains/Great Art Exhibition

2009-01-06T15:57:00.002-07:00

Announcing a call to artists for the "Great Plains/Great Art Exhibition," to be held May 18 - September 18, 2009 at the Dickinson Museum Center in Dickinson, North Dakota. The theme is a reflection, celebration, and analysis of life on the Great Plains. This non-juried exhibition is open to all interpretations on the theme. All media accepted. Deadline: April 24, 2009. Early submissions encouraged. For more information visit dickinsonmuseumcenter.org, contact Danielle Stuckle at danielle.stuckle@dickinsongov.com, or call 701.456.6225.

Telling Stories

2008-12-15T11:46:00.005-07:00

An anecdote I recently read relates the following interaction: a grandfather asked his grandson while visiting a history museum, "Can you imagine having to butcher a chicken everytime you wanted a McNugget?" In one sentence the grandfather evoked a multitude of emotion, and probably a small amount of fear, in his grandson. This is what modern museums wish to achieve --telling an accurate story that means something, making a real, tangible, connection with a visitor. As we continue to develop art and history programs here at the museum we also wish to present engaging stories and make connections with our visitors.

The number of programs and activities offered by the museum continues to increase. With the combined support of the City of Dickinson, and the Joachim Museum Board, we are achieving exciting new levels of activity that have recently included a pumpkin carving contest and a holiday event featuring a variety of activies and entertainment. We hope to add both events to our permanent roster of annual events, along with a few new ideas we are floating around. We are working on plans for a heritage garden, along with a variety of other new programing ideas. Subscribe to our blog today to keep up with all of our news and upcoming events.

Subscription is easy, simply type your e-mail into the subscription box on our blogsite: www.dickinsonmuseumcenter.org/blog it has an opt-in features so that you can control your own subscription. After subscribing, you recieve an e-mail to respond to before you recieve any mail from the site. If you do subscribe and later change your mind, each e-mail you recieve provides an easy unsubscribe option. Contact Danielle at info@dickinsonmuseumcenter.org if you have any problems or questions about the blog and your subscription.

First Annual Holiday Event at the Dickinson Museum Center

2008-12-04T10:16:00.003-07:00

Saturday, December 6, 2008

1:00 pm Make a Victorian Christmas Decoration (activity for school-aged children)
A String Quartet will provide music in the museum
2:00 pm Visit from Saint Nicholas
A Barber Shop Quartet and a String Ensemble will provide music in the museum
3:00 pm Learn about Local Holiday Traditions.
Speakers: Agnes Palaniuk, Muriel Neverdahl, Susie Kapelovitz, LeRoy Oberlander
A choir will be performing in the museum
5:00 pm Stroll through Prairie Outpost Park and see the Christmas Lights

Music, Caroling, Hot Cocoa and Cider
All events free and open to the general public.

Wanted

2008-12-04T10:12:00.001-07:00