North Dakota is calling: It wants you to break up with the notion that high-quality, professional art is only for the coasts—and the cities.
MJ McHugh wants you to, too. They’re the Education and Rural Arts Director at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks.
“When I moved to North Dakota, I wasn’t expecting a crazy amount of arts. But when I got here, I was just absolutely shocked about how passionate the people of North Dakota are about art,” they say.
The museum’s Rural Arts Initiative goes beyond the bigger cities of Fargo or Bismarck and into the in-between spaces. Why?
“Many rural communities don’t have access to something like the Chicago Institute of Art or the Minneapolis Art Institute,” they say. “They just don’t always have that privilege and luxury to go see something.”
So, the something comes to them.
Not Empty, but Open
Poet and photographer Rebecca Norris Webb, along with partner Alex Webb (a photographer with 15 published books), is part of the program’s traveling exhibition across North Dakota.
Alex’s work takes in North Dakota’s urban scenes, while Rebecca’s focuses on the spaces between them. She grew up in South Dakota and found solace in the landscape of the Dakotas when her brother unexpectedly passed.
“It seemed the only place I could breathe was the prairies and Badlands,” Rebecca says.
The Great Open exhibition, now on view at Long X Arts Foundation in Watford City, was inspired by the late poet Tomas Tranströmer’s quote: “I am not empty, I am open.”
Rebecca says anyone who considers the Dakotas as ‘flyover states’ is at a loss. Her work for this project was rooted in the grasslands, the prairie, and the Badlands that stretch across both states.
Sinking into this environment has helped to deepen her attention, she says. It’s mesmerizing.
“Just recently in the dead of winter, I was working near the South Dakota Badlands and was delighted to run across a series of Arctic migrants,” Rebecca says, recalling her experience watching the birds hopping across wintry grasses in search of food.
“All of a sudden, the flock lifted off, as if of one mind—a brown and white flash flitting as it vanished across the prairie.”
The World Comes to North Dakota
The educational outreach program works “to encourage and empower rural school students and their teachers to actively participate in learning through the arts.” It came about as a direct response to feedback from rural educators and families.
“We’re always trying to bring international, global, regional, and local art to our museum,” McHugh says, especially from artists with state ties.
Not only do you have world-class artists displaying that beauty, but it’s accessible. The galleries traverse rural areas of the state; admission and programming are free.
So if you’re searching for that awe-inspiring gallery, perhaps look no further than your Midwest neighbors.
The doors are open—and not just from that North Dakota wind.