President's Message
Remind me that spring is here!
The NDPCS board of directors and committee chairs held the Spring Board meeting on Sunday, March 5, 2023 to prepare for our Annual convention and meeting. It will take place at the Holiday Inn, Fargo, ND, June 9-11. We are excited to see everyone and share our interest in pottery and the future of NDPCS.
I want to thank Linda Fiedler with assist from Tara Holt for volunteering to be our convention chairs, and I am sure they would not refuse anyone who wanted to lend a helping hand! They have an exciting agenda planned. Thank you to board members and committee chairs for your dedication and service this year.Commemoratives have been produced and check out this amazing video: https://youtu.be/4_A3DUYJPiA, thank you Commemorative Chair Nate Leben for sticking with this. Thanks to Bonnie Olson for helping with the process. Also, thank you to Linda Bakken, Brad Bird and Sharon Smith and anyone else who is involved with our member auctions. Special thanks to everyone who has volunteered to make our convention a success. Finally, thank you is not nearly enough to recognize the dedication and service of our Treasurer, Rose Ann Goerger! She finally gets to ride off into the sunset and you will get to ratify our new Treasurer Dave Woods at our annual meeting.
We need your help in keeping this organization thriving. Please register and attend the convention. Please consign auction items to our convention member auction and keep ordering those commemoratives. Please visit the website and please submit articles to Deanna Reynolds, our newsletter editor. Please review the Spring Board meeting minutes and contact board members with your feedback. We will be bringing some by-law changes to the membership to be voted on during our annual meeting. Please contact me with any suggestions or concerns.
One of my favorite things about NDPCS is debating those unusual or one-of-a-kind or lunch hour pieces. I have an item in my collection that the self-appointed experts have discussed. “I think it is Rosemeade, look at the colors.” “No it is not, they never made anything like that!” I will let you decide, that is the part of the joy of collecting.
Happy Hunting…
Michael Kaul
Welcome to Fargo
The 34th ANNUAL NDPCS CONVENTION - FARGO, ND
As you may be aware our 2023 convention is fast approaching! Events will take place once again at the Holiday Inn on 13th Avenue in Fargo. They have been great hosts and very easy to work with! That being said....
HOTEL RESERVATIONS @ 701-282-2700
Be sure to mention NDPCS Convention. There will be a block of rooms available. Be sure to specify if you want a room closer to our event rooms when reserving your room.
Remember your membership must be current in order to register and attend our annual convention. As always, we have an exciting line-up of speakers and the annual auction on Saturday.
I am so looking forward to seeing you all June 9-11, 2023!
Linda Fiedler, Convention Chair
2023 Annual NDPCS Convention Tentative Agenda
Holiday Inn
3803 13th Ave S.
Fargo, ND 58103
Friday: June 9, 2023
4:00pm Room Check-in; Holiday Inn Hotel Lobby
3:30 - 5:00pm Registration Check-in; Commemorative Pickup;
West Entrance Atrium Area
5:30 - 7:00pm Welcome; Evening Meal; Open Bar Social; Evening
Meal Buffet; Sterling Room
7:30pm Presentation: Sarah Heitkamp "UND History: The
Past, Present, and Future of Paintings by Paul Barr
and Ceramics by Margarent Cable"
9:00pm Room Visitations
Saturday: June 10, 2023
8:00am Board of Directors Meeting
9:30 - 10:00am "Meet the Potter" Julie Schuster; Sterling Room
10:00 - 11:30am Mark Halvorson "Reflections on your Collections:
Divesting Yourself of Your Collected Items";
Sterling Room
11:30 - 12:30pm Box Lunch; Conference Room
11:30 - 1:30pm Auction Set-up; Auction Items Check-in; Crowne
Room
1:30 - 2:00pm Auction Preview; Crowne Room
2:00pm Auction Begins
5:30pm Social; Silent Auction; Banquet; Sterling Room
6:30 - 7:30pm Evening Meal; Sterling Room
7:30pm Presentation; Todd Hanson "Ya Sure You Betcha
Don'tcha Know": Norwegian Antiques
9:00pm Room Visitations
Sunday: June 11, 2023
8:30am Coffee & Rolls; Sterling Room
9:00am NDPCS Annual Member Meeting; Sterling Room
2023 NDPCS Convention Speakers
Sarah Heitkamp
She is a North Dakota native and has spent the last 17 years on a small farm in rural Petersburg, ND, raising her children with her husband Charles. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Visual Arts from UND and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Art & Technology from the University of Oklahoma. Her studio art background includes mixed media and fibers. Her research interests include the utilization of technology to incorporate storytelling into the digital and immersive presentation of art.
Employed by the University of North Dakota, Sarah is the Curator and Director for UND Art Collections, providing professional oversight for the University's 30,000 works of art. She spends her days mentoring undergraduate and graduate students on methods to research, preserve, prepare, present, catalog, track, and digitize artwork. Together she and her students have digitized thousands of works of art and art objects from the University's collections, making them available in an online database for viewing and research across the globe. Sarah also teaches for the UND Honors Program and enjoys curating exhibitions for UND Art Collections' galleries and campus spaces. She hopes to bring life to the visual arts through teaching, lectures, curatorial work and community partnerships.
Her presentation Friday evening is entitled:'UND History: Past, Present, and Future of Paintings by Paul Barr and Ceramicsby Margaret Cable'
Mark J. Halvorson
He is the Curator of Collections at the State Historical Society of North Dakotain Bismarck, North Dakota. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Dakota and a Masters of Arts from Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. He has been the Curator of Collections for the past 33 years and has a broad knowledge of North Dakota Pottery.
His presentation on Saturday morning is entitled:'Reflections on Collections: Divesting Yourself of Your Collected Items'
Todd Hanson
He currently lives in Bismarck, North Dakota. He has been a collector of manythings over the years. He has been a NDPCS member since 1991. His current interest is collecting items that would have been found in a Norwegian Farm Home circa 1850.
His presentation on Saturday evening is entitled:'Ya Sure You Betcha, Don'tcha Know: Norwegian Antiques'
ND School of Mines Plaques for the University of North Dakota
By Karen Newman Midgarden
For collectors with limited storage space, collecting small, flat roundels, medallions, pendants, and plaques provides the opportunity to amass a collection in a relatively limited space.
The Great Depression negatively affected the ceramics department at the University of North Dakota (UND). Fewer students could afford to attend the university. Local residents didn’t have extra funds to pay fees for community education classes providing hands-on opportunities to produce pottery. The intent of the program when it originated was not to emphasize production for direct sales, according to author Ken Forster in his book University of North Dakota Pottery/A History and Comparative Study. However, as the economy worsened and the future of the department looked bleak, Margaret Cable, Julia Mattson, and Flora Cable Huckfield found themselves adding commercial sales to their already heavy workload as ad-ministrators and instructors.
By 1937, the university hired Austin Spencer as a traveling sales representative covering North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Forster cites department records in-dicating that between 1938 and 1940 a special order from UND for 865 Parents’ Day plaques resulted in a charge of $147.05 or $.17 each.
Pictured are two plaques with the UND seal, the reader should note that the price $.25, written in grease pencil, survives on the back of the tan piece.
The Great Depression negatively affected the ceramics department at the University of North Dakota (UND). Fewer students could afford to attend the university. Local residents didn’t have extra funds to pay fees for community education classes providing hands-on opportunities to produce pottery. The intent of the program when it originated was not to emphasize production for direct sales, according to author Ken Forster in his book University of North Dakota Pottery/A History and Comparative Study. However, as the economy worsened and the future of the department looked bleak, Margaret Cable, Julia Mattson, and Flora Cable Huckfield found themselves adding commercial sales to their already heavy workload as ad-ministrators and instructors.
By 1937, the university hired Austin Spencer as a traveling sales representative covering North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Forster cites department records in-dicating that between 1938 and 1940 a special order from UND for 865 Parents’ Day plaques resulted in a charge of $147.05 or $.17 each.
Pictured are two plaques with the UND seal, the reader should note that the price $.25, written in grease pencil, survives on the back of the tan piece.
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Don Miller’s book, University of North Dakota Pottery/The Cable Years, provides par-tial listings for souvenirs and special orders. During the years of the Great Depression, one imagines parents were incredibly proud of their children who had the privilege of attending the university. What a delight it must have been for them to visit the Grand Forks campus for a cel-ebration to honor ‘the folks’ for the sacrifices they made to send their children to college. In the years 1935-1940, Prairie Rose design Parents’ Day plaques were ordered in the following quantities:
1935…250 1938…2651936…200 1939…3501937…220 1940…250
The pictured Parents’ Day plaques are taken from the author’s collection. She notes finding 1940 medallions in three colors.
1935…250 1938…2651936…200 1939…3501937…220 1940…250
The pictured Parents’ Day plaques are taken from the author’s collection. She notes finding 1940 medallions in three colors.
