BSU Graduate Receives Grant to Help Fund Art Show

Wild Hare Bistro & Coffee House hosts show

By Taylor Klinke

Word Count: 522

When college graduation nears, many students wonder what they’ll be doing in the future. Some people decide to travel after college, some decide to go into graduate school, while others take different paths. For recent BSU graduate Cody Bartz – well he’s just enjoying sharing his art with the public.

Bartz started attending Bemidji State University his sophomore year in the fall of 2006, and just recently graduated at the end of last semester (fall 2010) with a bachelor of fine arts and a bachelor of science in graphic design. As a student who had participated in many art and design exhibits during his college career, he decided to apply for an individual artist grant from the Region 2 Arts Council, which serves a five-country region (Beltrami, Clearwater, Hubbard, Lake of the Woods, and Mahnomen) in north central Minnesota. The Arts Council support art opportunities, programs, and services for individual artists, art organizations, schools and communities as it’s mission.

Near the end of November Bartz was notified that he would receive $700 as a part of this grant. With the grant money he purchased paper to print on, frames, postcards to notify the public, and gas money to pick up the frames.

So with a name picked out “People & Places” - the show opened on Friday, January 7^th with a opening reception from 3-5 P.M. “Currently I am a printmaker. I enjoy putting ink of paper,” said Bartz, “Within that area of printmaking, screenprinting is my favorite process.”

One featured piece at the art show was called Below Zero. The imagery was taken from a photograph from the early 1900’s and shows people hanging out on a frozen lake - It shows a real event that actually happened. People from Bemidji and the surrounding areas are able to relate to it even more so because of the fact Bemidji is based around the lake that we have here and it is commonplace to see folks out on the lake in winter months.

A second featured piece was called Flower Face. “It shows the shape of a human head, but is rendered with hair and a face that is all flowers,” said Bartz, “No eyes, mouth, nose, but all flowers topped with a nice hairdo.” Bartz noted the piece was supposed to be comical. This abstraction of a human head and face allows the viewer to use their own imagination.

With the show being in such a public area like a restaurant/coffee shop it was estimated that anywhere between 500-1000 people viewed Bartz’s work. “I received a number of comments throughout the show,” said Bartz, “And the fact so many people bought my work to have in their home was a great compliment.”

With another show finished, and asked what there was to look forward to in the future, Bartz sees himself continuing to make, display, and sell artwork. Outside of that, he recently got a touring bicycle and plans to see more of our world by route of a bicycle.

Bartz's screenprint called "Below Zero"

Bartz's screenprint called "Flower Face"