Art produces an immediate reaction that one can’t get from reading a 500-page novel.
     Shawn Fisher believes it – she’s a graduate student of English at North Dakota State University. She also volunteers as a docent at the Plains Art Museum in downtown Fargo because of that belief. The museum opened five years ago and continues to grow as a community center, bringing together people of all backgrounds with art of all mediums.
     The Plains Art Museum in Fargo brings to the area an eclectic, open forum for all different kinds of art, from musicianship to photography to theatrical performance to the culinary arts. The purpose: to house, inspire and nurture the acknowledgment and understanding of the grand scale of art.
     The Plains Art Museum itself strikes an immediate reaction from its visitors. The building is, from the outside, a traditional, boxy brick building with seemingly no really interesting qualities. However, the simple architecture ties in with the roots of the people in the Fargo area nearly 100 years ago. It was a time when farming was a booming industry. The building was a branch house for International Harvester Company – a retailer of farm industry equipment.
      “It’s a kind of ‘working man’s’ building – I like that,” Fisher said. “It’s a building for the people.”
     Signs of that “working man’s” life can still be seen and felt today in the partially re-constructed building. Scars in the hard wood floors bleed of metal machinery being hauled across the room. Large timber pillars stand strong, held together by sturdy black metal clamps and large bolts.
     But the building has a softer side that makes it perfect for welcoming outsiders.
     Surrounding, expansive picture windows welcome light to dive and expand, creating a rare feeling that can’t be found in many major art centers throughout the world.
      “The light makes it a friendly building,” said Sandy Ben-Haim, curator of education at the museum. “The wood makes it a friendly building, too. I’ve been in museums that are all dark and like mausoleums – it has a whole different feeling,”

Art on the Plains Continued..........

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