Archive for November, 2008

Changes Coming for Our Old High School or What 50 Million Will Do!

Friday, November 14th, 2008

In September 2005 the Northfield School board approved the sale of the old middle school at fourth and union streets.  Carleton College offered to buy the middle school and the facility was sold to Carleton College for $452,000.

The building opened its doors in 1911 as the Northfield Central High School.  An auditorium wing was added in 1937 followed by an east wing/gymnasium in 1954.  In 1966 it became the Northfield Junior High School and then Northfield Middle School in 1982.  With construction of a new Middle School the last classes were held in the old school in 2004.

On October 14, 2008 Carleton College unveiled the plans for its proposed $50 million Arts Union facility to the public for the first time at an open house. Updates of Carleton’s vision for this space is for the building to be a workshop where artists are in collaboration with one another.  They see it as a working facility populated by students, faculty, artists and community members.  The site will put studio art, art history, cinema and media studies, English, dance, theater all together in one space.  It will be called the Arts Union.

The following is an animation produced by Carleton College to show what the finished buildings will look like. It is quite impressive:

Construction was set to begin in mid-2009, but the current economic instability has forced Carleton to take a second look at their construction timeline.

Follow the updates, postings on Carleton College Arts Union website.  There are several plans and designs to view.

posted by Pat Nelson & N. Larsen

Jennifer Wolcott gets press!

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

A different perspective: Northfield artist hoping her work with mirrors, windows and steel drives gallery-goers curiosity
By: Pauline Schreiber of the Faribault Daily News
Posted: Sunday, November 2, 2008 12:12 am

FARIBAULT — A castle made of mirrors, metal and glass is ready for the imaginations of those who view it at the Paradise Center for the Arts gallery this month.

And, the artist who created it is just as ready as anyone to walk around it and watch how light glints off its mirrored surfaces and shadows and light play off the walls.

Jennifer Wolcott, a rural Northfield artist, works Thursday to assemble a castle she created out of mirrors, metal and glass.

Jennifer Wolcott, a rural Northfield artist, works Thursday to assemble a castle she created out of mirrors, metal and glass.

“I had a concept for the castle, but wasn’t sure how it would turn out,” said Northfield artist Jennifer Wolcott, as she walked around the assembled work in the Paradise gallery.

“Isn’t it fun?” she said.

A lace-edge table cloth is cut from steel, windows formed with pictures of windows, mirrored walls and layers of images are sandblasted on glass walls trimmed in metal.

Wolcott hopes both young and old who come and see her gallery show, “Black and White: Multiples and Variation,” find it as much fun to view as she had creating it.

Besides the castle, there are bungee jumping birds, book-head dancers and black and white party hats.

“There’s going to be sheets of paper and instructions so kids, or even adults, can make their own party hats,” Wolcott said.

Her hope is that gallery-goers who opt to make a party hat at home, bring them back and put them at the base of her party hat display for more “variation” on black and white.

Wolcott spent 25 years working for Sheldahl Inc. of Northfield as a process engineer before being laid off. She qualified for displaced worker assistance, so she went back to college at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, graduating with honors in 2003.

Since her graduation, she has created sculptures in her rural Northfield studio.

“I am driven by curiosity,” she said. “I respond to the colors and forms of the world and try to figure out how to use them and why they have the effect they do.”

Torches, hammers and kilns are her tools.

A reception at which people can meet Wolcott and view her work will run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7 in the Paradise gallery.

Posted by Norm Larsen and Pat Nelson

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