(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in this show we are here music from Gary Timbs.

But first joining me now is our guest Janelle Stoneking from Dickinson, here to discuss plans for the Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center which we'll be in Dickinson.

Janelle, thanks for joining us today.

- Absolutely.

- As we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Well, I am an educator by heart.

I went to school for elementary education but actually I ended up working at ABLE Inc. supporting folks with disabilities for the last 25 years I've been there and held a lot of different roles.

I'm currently the agency trainer and I also do a lot of work with the state of North Dakota for their curriculum, for their education materials, for people who need to get developmental disability certified.

And I really, my heart is in that field so that is something that I'm very passionate about but kind of on the side I have to have creative space and so I have developed a love for art.

I'm a mixed media artist, which I hide out in my basement most nights, creating things on canvas.

And I use a lot of newspapers and paint and different materials to tell stories with my art.

- Well, interesting, interesting, but you're here today to talk about something maybe a little bit different than that.

Talk about the nonprofit that I understand you've helped get started.

- Absolutely, this is an exciting project for us.

The Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center really is the brainchild of just a group of passionate community members who recognize that we need more for the arts in Southwest North Dakota.

We see that there are art centers all across the state and opportunities for artists to come together and build community, but we haven't had that in Dickinson.

When I became affiliated with the Badlands Art Association and started to get to know the arts community in Dickinson probably about 10, 15 years ago I found great friendship and camaraderie, but most of us are in our basements.

We don't have a place to come together.

And truly it was Senator Rich Wardner and his wife Kayleen, myself and an artist Cheri Roshau and Todd Winter, a retired art teacher and artist as well, who we sat together at Rich and Kayleen's kitchen table and said, it's time, we need to develop a vision for an art center for our region.

- So where are you on the journey right now?

- We have registered as a non-profit in North Dakota, we are working on our 501c3, that application has been submitted.

We have developed a vision for what this center would bring to our region, we have built a beautiful board of directors who are very passionate about this project and they range from artists to educators to just parents and community members who wanna see it happen, so that's really great.

We have rounding out our phase one fundraising, which is exciting and we're just starting to keep the project rolling.

- So do you have a timetable of when the center might be open?

- We were shooting for summer of 2023, it just depends on the support of the community and securing a property for us to be located at.

- So what locations might you be looking at?

- Well, we originally, we wanna be downtown, we know the arts oftentimes is associated with the downtown region and Dickinson is really developing their downtown area.

We have a brand new square project that's going in, that's beautifying our downtown area, there is an open building that we have had our eye on.

It's the old city hall building.

We did have that secured actually but the property the owner that has it can't hold it for us, hasn't sold yet, but we are looking at a lot of options around the community of where we could be located.

For us, we need at least 15,000 square feet, so that's a challenge when you're looking at properties that's available and also really assessing what kind of renovation we would need to put into that and making smart decisions.

- So a couple of questions here, talk about the need a little bit and expand on that, for an arts facility in Dickinson you said for y'all to come together but talk about that a little more.

why the need for it?

- We have a beautiful community in Dickinson and we've invested a lot in sports and recreation.

We have one of the best recreation facilities around I mean, this is something that our community takes pride in but there is a whole community of people who just wanna be creative and want to have that escape and that space.

I think that most people believe that the arts is important, they just don't know how it fits in for them if they're not an artist.

But if you don't have a gallery to go to, to expose your children, to take your family a place to escape, to get to explore that you just don't have those experiences.

And so we have to provide those experiences for our area of the state.

The other piece of this is we have a large community of people who need to heal.

We want art therapy classes and this Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center will have classroom space with regular programming.

So we can provide classes for people that just want to come together and learn for the education piece of it but also just have therapy.

We have entities around our community who are saying, when can we start our therapy?

We need this.

That's a huge component.

We have a large homeschool community and those homeschool families need to supplement their education, and so they are very excited about this center and for the art side, for one, just to be able to have better programming for their children.

But also the science center side of it is very intriguing to them to be able to expose children to different experiences.

- And I'm gonna ask you about that a little bit later on but you talked about 15,000 square feet, so what do you envision it's gonna look like then?

- We know we'll have a large gallery space that's important to us.

That was really the first thing that we knew we needed.

We intend to have two larger classrooms that could open into one, depending on what property we can secure, that is what our desire is.

For the artists in our region we also need the ability to purchase art supplies.

Because many of us have to travel just to buy supply, so we will have a small store, that will have typical products that most of us artists need to use.

For me, I use matte medium, you can't ship it in December, it comes frozen, it doesn't work, and so we need to be able to buy that without having to travel.

So we'll have that store that will also have the ability for artisans to have their own handmade products in there and some locally made things, so that will be really fabulous.

And then the rest of the center will be for the science center.

- Okay, but you know, the arts, we've been talking about it you talk about what it means to a community but do you feel like the arts are sometimes given sort of short shrift in comparison to other endeavors?

- Absolutely, I know that people know they're important but it seems as though we really have invested a lot of our money, our energy and even our education to the other areas.

One of our board members, Lydia Jesus said it best, she had moved from New York City about 20 years ago and she had shared that she felt living in rural North Dakota that it was just gonna have to be a trade off.

She was gonna have to lose her experiences with the arts and to be able to have exposure to arts and culture.

And she speaks so beautifully about this project and she realized there's a whole arts community, we just had to come together, and now that this project is happening we are forming a beautiful, beautiful group of people that love the arts and wanna have that exposure for everybody so it's really exciting.

- Well you mentioned the science component, so let's talk about it, how does the science component come into this and how will that look?

- Well, when we were looking at the art center, we knew that that piece was gonna be important, but also being aware that we are a rural community and we have to think wisely about space and what the vision could be for the project, we had looked at partnering with other entities in town and people kept saying how great this is gonna be for the children, oh, the kids just really need this, and in my gut it just wasn't resonating, I was thinking about this and I have children a variety of ages, I have one that's graduating this year from high school and I have a two year old that I'm potty training.

and a seven year old in the middle, so whenever our family has traveled we seek out children's museums, interactive science centers, these beautiful places where kids can go and just experience joy and hands on learning.

This is also something that our region of the state doesn't have.

And so as we're meeting and talking about the vision, it came to me, I thought, we need to look at this differently, if we wanna have a creative center let's take the right brain and the left brain and bring them together and a space where we can just have creativity and learning and joy all under one roof.

And that's really used, I mean, it's so funny, as soon as I said that everyone all of us in the room, I looked over at Rich Wardner and I said, "do we need it?"

And he goes, "absolutely we need it!"

The families that need it aren't gonna travel to Bismarck, they're not gonna travel to Minot.

We need to have this for the children in this region.

So that's how the vision kind of was born, and we knew that we could create something beautiful.

- Okay, well do you happen to have science or STEM experts who are gonna help build and install this component and be a part of it?

- We have a lot of great educators in Dickinson and a lot of schools that are focusing on STEM, and when we were even thinking about this summer public exposure and what can we do to spread awareness we are pondering what, we need something to take with us to events, to get excitement to build, excitement around the project, and Todd Selle one of our middle school instructors he built us a wind tube and it's a beautiful portable wind tube that we can take and children can put scarves in it and watch 'em blow into the air and catch 'em, and even just that simple project all it took was one ask for a sponsor and Todd built it.

And we have great minds in our community who can help design different displays, design different things for the center.

We have boy scout troops who have stepped in to help with things.

We have so many folks that are interested in this and science lovers and even our manufacturing centers, a lot of our businesses are like, what can we do?

What can we build?

Can we do something like this?

Hey, could your center have something like this?

And we're like, yes, it could.

We just have to see how much space we have.

So there's a lot of joy around that.

- Well, with that said, can you explain maybe how other areas of North Dakota have helped inspire this idea for you?

and because there are different regions of North Dakota that maybe have these types things so anything there you can talk about?

- Well, we looked across the state at what other regions are offering and to be able to see other midsize communities like Jamestown having a wonderful art center.

Williston has had the James Memorial Arts Center for decades, and we knew that we had to do better.

What was interesting was when we shared this and we popped up pictures on the screen during presentations we had all these community members, business owners and even our city county commissioners going, "they have that?

We don't, yeah, we don't!"

And so we realize that for quality of life if we want to recruit the workforce that we need in Southwest North Dakota, if we wanna have people bring their families to play and then stay in our region of the state we have to do this.

- Yeah, can you talk about maybe some of the artists you anticipate we'll be working with you or who will contribute to the Arts Center?

Cause I assume there's a lot of great artists out South western North Dakota.

- We are like the hidden gem, I'm telling you.

I knew that we were a rich arts community because I've been involved in the Badlands Art Association for quite some time and I was president of that board for a while, and we have one annual show every November, and with that show we have hundreds of artists and enter that children as well as adults professional, division and amateur, what we didn't realize was how many working artists we have and just trying to explore and pull the names together.

We had over 80 working artists in our region that once we started compiling that we thought, wow, you know myself and my good dear friend Cheri Roshau she's a well known artist in the Dickinson area and she's a retired art teacher of over 40 years.

When we looked at even for ourselves to exhibit our own art this spring we did a show, it was a beautiful show.

It was at the WaterWorks Museum in Montana.

It wasn't in our region, when we are gonna exhibit our work we have to take it elsewhere oftentimes.

So there is a large amount of artists ready, ready to show their work ready to be inspired to create more work, they just need space.

- Hey, what about the idea of a ceramic pottery studio?

- Oh, this is the thing that I get stopped, I can't go through Walmart without somebody stopping and saying, "Janelle, you're gonna have pottery, right?"

(Janelle chuckles) Yes.

And I mean, for me, it's really dear to my heart cause I help with the Empty Bowls event, which is an annual event that helps raise funds for United Way.

We have a group of potters who hustle every year to make bowls but there are hundreds of community members who want this skill and wanna have that ability to just put their hands and get it dirty and create.

And they haven't had that opportunity cause there's no place for them to do that.

So we are excited, that is, I think one of the things more people stop me to ask about, they want confirmation that's really happening.

- Speaking of all that how has the fundraising been going this far?

- You know, it's been good.

Our phase one, our main focus was just awareness, we had to make sure that the community understood the need and knew why we were doing what we were doing.

We put out a community needs survey, asking for public input because we wanted to ensure that the vision we were developing was really in alignment with what they wanted.

And we were pretty close, we were surprised that some of the other things we thought would be on the list of community desires didn't make the cut.

We were pretty close to what we people were needing.

So we did that needs survey.

We've been spreading awareness since July.

We went public with publicity and sharing.

We've been speaking to all of our community groups and been to all kinds of public events to share the news of what we're doing.

We have basically just sought out donations just from our close friends and family, we have not begun any support from city, the counties in our region, businesses, corporations, we haven't even went that far.

We have sought out grants for specific things that we know we're gonna need, so we're just beginning that second push for phase two where we're looking for the higher dollars.

- Don't have a lot of time left but I guess you understand you have an online survey where residents can submit their suggestions?

- Yes, that survey is still live and it can be found on our Facebook page, we have a page the Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center.

This shares all the information such as our upcoming gala which will have one of the best live art auctions, our side of the state will see is November 18th, so coming up pretty quick.

And so all the information on what we're doing is on that Facebook page.

- So how can donations be made?

- We have an account set up through North Dakota Community Foundation.

Our local representative John Haines on our board actually, and so we can take any donations and they'll be tax deductible through that North Dakota Community Foundation fund, and that information is available on our Facebook page as well.

- You know, you sound like you're not having any fun but what's so exciting about this for you?

I mean, you're an artist so that, maybe that's it.

- For me, it's about community.

And not only are we bringing the community together but we're giving the community a voice they didn't have before.

And in the art that I do, it's all about storytelling.

All of my life I have supported people and I think this journey we're in together as people, the key is that we can share our stories and learn and experience life through each other.

This is what's happening through this center and that brings me a lot of joy.

- Well, we wish you the best with that but if people want more information, where can they go?

- They'll go to our Facebook page, Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center, we have an email as well they can contact us if they have questions or if they have anything that information's all there available to them.

- Janelle, good luck to you and thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) Southern born piano man Gary Timbs performs a blend of gospel, country and spiritual music.

Today Gary calls Staples, Minnesota his home and performs throughout the Midwest.

(piano playing) ♪ Mischievously lady ♪ ♪ Lay your love on me ♪ ♪ Mischievous baby ♪ ♪ I love the way you love to be ♪ ♪ A mischievous woman ♪ ♪ A mischievous lady won't you lay you mischievous on me ♪ ♪ Miss Tennessee ♪ ♪ Miss Alabama ♪ ♪ Miss Arkansas ♪ ♪ They all know who I am ♪ ♪ All there's only one miss ♪ ♪ Who's been for me.

♪ ♪ Mischievous lady won't lay mischievous love on me ♪ ♪ She's a classy lover ♪ ♪ An angel in disguise ♪ ♪ She gets at what she wants each and every time with her ♪ ♪ Come here ♪ ♪ She don't want my hot love ♪ (piano playing) ♪ Mischievous lady I want your love ♪ ♪ Don't want no alibis ♪ ♪ Oh mischievous lady ♪ ♪ Lay your love on me ♪ ♪ Mischievous baby ♪ ♪ I love the way you love to be ♪ ♪ A mischievous woman ♪ ♪ Mischievous lady ♪ ♪ Won't lay your mischievous love on me.

♪ ♪ Mischievous lady won't you lay your mischievous love on me ♪ - Hi, I'm Gary Timbs from Staples, Minnesota.

I was raised in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains deep in East Tennessee outside of Tennessee, a little community are called Cedar Hill.

And I first started on radio about five years of age.

My folks did the gospel portion back then, they call it Family Hillbilly Billy Music, now it's Country Americana, we would do radio major shows, major stars.

I remember seeing The Everly Brothers when it was The Everly family doing hardcore hillbilly.

And Dolly Parton and I a couple of years apart, we're from the same area basically.

And she and her uncle they had a band and they'd do early morning radio home and farm hour 6, 630, something like that, maybe earlier.

Hillbilly music and string music, Mountain music in those types shows back then in the format they always had a sacred portion, Gospel portion, maybe 10 minutes, sometimes 15 but usually 10, so I'd get up on the same stool she was on, I just wouldn't climb as tall and get in between my mother and father, and we would do the gospel portion.

Later on television came in, same thing repeated, except this time we were brought on by the Reverend J Basil with the singing convention of the air.

So that's how I started in the music.

The music that I'm a small part of, means a lot to me, it came out of the gospel and it both black and white, it came out of the early Appalachian especially Southern Appalachian Mountain music mostly known as Bluegrass now, and it came out of the deep delta blues and the early Dixieland swing.

Put it all together in what I call Southern fried gospel and country blues music (piano playing) ♪ Hey baby your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Has got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Oh darling your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Sure enough got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Can't you see ♪ ♪ Love me now ♪ ♪ Love me alone ♪ ♪ Love me quick baby ♪ ♪ Baby your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Has got a hold on me ♪ ♪ From the early morning ♪ ♪ Till late late at night ♪ ♪ I'll keep doing what you doing girl ♪ ♪ You know you do it right ♪ ♪ You can love me while I'm young ♪ ♪ Love me when I'm old ♪ ♪ Every time you love girl ♪ ♪ I wanna give you of my a lot of love ♪ ♪ Do your sweet love ♪ ♪ Is got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Girl on your love ♪ ♪ Your sweet is got a hold on me ♪ ♪ Oh love me quick ♪ ♪ Love me long ♪ ♪ Love me now baby ♪ ♪ Your sweet love ♪ ♪ Don't get a hold on me ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ A hold on your love ♪ ♪ Baby your sweet love ♪ ♪ It's gotta a hold on me ♪ ♪ Oh oh ♪ - Well that's all we have on Prairie Post for this week, and as always, thanks for watching (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th 2008 and by the members of Prairie Public.