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SDAM Guild

2023-2024 Guild Programs: ART IS...

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Art is practice, art is mastery. Art is fierce, art is tender. Art is rendered, art is stitched.” Because there are no absolute explanations, South Dakota Art Museum Guild members are encouraged to observe, to debate, and to develop their own definitions of art. Join us for these engaging programs!

  • Sept. 26, 9:30-11 a.m. | Lanniko Lee | ART IS Becoming a Good Relative
  • Oct. 24, 9:30-11 a.m. | Madeline Scott | ART IS the Universal Language of Dance
  • Nov. 28, 9:30-11 a.m. | Nancy Lyons | ART IS Fashion
  • Jan. 23, 9:30-11 a.m. | Carol Rogers | ART IS Medicine for the Soul: Arts in Healthcare
  • Feb. 27, 9:30-11 a.m. | Corey Shelsta | ART IS Filling the Empty Space
  • March 26, 9:30-11 a.m. | Angela Behrends | ART IS Fugi (Bird)
  • April 23, 9:30-11 a.m. | Jennifer Stone | ART IS Your Passport to Creativity
  • May 28, 9:30-11 a.m. | Patricia Duncan | ART IS is Plein Air Painter Pursuing Her Passion to Heal
  • June 4, 9:30-11 a.m. | Volunteer Appreciation Party

Guild Officers - 2023-2024

  • Co-Presidents: Cari Killefer and John Rychtarik
  • Co-Vice President: Jeanne Manzer and Marsha Klein (Programs)
  • Secretary: Marsha Klein
  • Treasurer: Debbie Lengkeek
  • Historian: Ann Eichinger
  • Members at Large: Rea McKeown and Paula Platz 
  • Family Day/Excursions: Prudence DeBates

Join us!

The South Dakota Art Museum Guild provides invaluable volunteer support to the museum and hosts regular programs and excursions, open to the public. Please join us for these informative and fun events!

This year's programs will take place in person at the museum with coffee and social time at 9:30 a.m., program at 10 a.m., followed by a brief meeting as needed. Most programs will be videoed and available to view later on our YouTube channel:

watch past programs

Email reminders will also be sent to everyone on our Guild email list, so make sure we have your email by contacting Guild co-president, John Rychtarik.

Guild membership is encouraged but not required to attend. Dues of $20 per year support Guild programs and contribute to the museum's Art Acquisitions Fund.

2022-2023 Guild Programs

  • Sept. 27, 9:30-11 a.m. | Abigail Ramsbottom | Newcomer to the Prairie | REPLAY
  • Oct. 25, 9:30-11 a.m. | Jason Pfitzer | South Dakota and More in Photographs | REPLAY
  • Nov. 8 | Museum Store Tree Decorating and Early Holiday Shopping
  • Nov. 29, 9:30-11 a.m. | Lindsay Twa | Printmaker, Curator and Art Historian | REPLAY
  • Dec. 13, 9:30-11 a.m. | Holiday Party
  • Jan. 24, 9:30-11 a.m. | Eileen Binkley | Conjuring Joy with Watercolor
  • Feb. 28, 9:30-11 a.m. | Don Burger Jr. | Italian Architecture
  • March 14, 4-6 p.m. | Guild Appreciation Tea
  • April 25, 9:30-11 a.m. | Sue Thelan | The Eyes of Wildlife
  • May 23, 9:30-11 a.m. | Barbara Sparks | Putting Together an Experiential Collection of Watercolors

2021-2022 Guild Programs

NO REPLAY

The South Dakota Art Museum Guild invites you to join us in-person or via Zoom for the first program of the 2021-2022 Guild Program Series - open to the public and Guild members - featuring South Dakota Art Museum Director, Donna Merkt in a lively talk entitled, Off and Running! Donna will share her insights and leadership vision in her new role as the museum's director.

WATCH THE REPLAY

The South Dakota Art Museum Guild invites you to join us in-person or via Zoom for the second program of the 2021-2022 Guild Program Series - open to the public and Guild members - featuring Vermillion, SD artist, Klaire Lockheart, in a lively talk entitled, Miss Art World South Dakota.

Lockheart is a feisty artist who uses traditional oil painting techniques to critique historical injustices in the traditional Western art world. She has lived in South Dakota since she earned her MFA from the University of South Dakota, and she earned her BS degree from South Dakota State University. She is currently Miss Art World South Dakota and the Artist in Residence at the Vermillion Area Arts Council. Lockheart enjoys using the human form as a vehicle to communicate the agency of her subjects with viewers, especially since women artists were historically prohibited from studying live models and making historic paintings. In addition to addressing femininity and feminism within her artwork, Lockheart incorporates humor to make serious subjects approachable. She also celebrates the accomplishments of women, and she is the South Dakota artist for the national Her Flag collaborative artwork. Her recent solo exhibitions include Feminine Attempts at the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, IA; A is for Apron at the Ritz Gallery in Brookings, SD; and Ladylike Representations at Gallery 120 in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Join us for the annual Guild tree trimming party. Help us decorate the Museum Store and get some early holiday shopping in!

WATCH THE REPLAY

The South Dakota Art Museum Guild invites you to join us in-person or via Zoom for the third program of the 2021-2022 Guild Program Series - open to the public and Guild members - featuring Nakota artist, Jerry Fogg speaking about the framed assemblages in his exhibition, Jerry Fogg | 11 Degrees of Tatanka: Native Soul Art.

Let's gather to celebrate the holidays and each other at our annual holiday party featuring music by The Windy Jacks.

WATCH REPLAY

Speaker: Allyson Sheumaker, Executive Director of the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art in Trinidad, Colorado. 

9:45 a.m. | Zoom waiting room opens for chat and Zoom setup help
10:00 a.m. | Allyson Sheumaker | A.R. Mitchell and Harvey Dunn
11:00 a.m. | Brief Guild meeting

Allyson will discuss the relationship of Trinidad, Colorado artist A. R. Mitchell and native South Dakota artist Harvey Dunn. She will also share excerpts from Dunn’s letters to Mitchell in their archives and show examples of Dunn’s paintings in their collection.

The A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art features work by illustrator and artist, Arthur Roy Mitchell, who created over 160 Western pulp magazine covers during the 1920s through the 1940s. More than 350 paintings and illustrations by Mitchell and his contemporaries comprise the Museum’s main collection.

A.R. Mitchell (Mitch) was a great admirer of Harvey Dunn. After WWI, Mitch decided it was time to go to art school and he found out noted illustrator Harvey Dunn was teaching at the Grand Central Art School in New York City. He sold everything and took a train from Seattle, Washington to NYC. He and Dunn became very close friends. This friendship lasted through the years.

WATCH THE REPLAY

The South Dakota Art Museum Guild invites you to join us via Zoom for the fifth program of the 2021-2022 Guild Program Series - open to the public and Guild members - featuring Pat Crawford, Director of the South Dakota State University School of Design. 

WATCH the REPLAY

Thomas Fluharty’s work has been featured on covers for Mad magazine, Der Spiegel, and Time Magazine, who gave the cover to the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. His work is notably featured for The Weekly Standard, for whom he has painted over 100 covers. Other clients have included People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, Coca-Cola, and The New York Times and Disney.

Fluharty’s work has received national recognition from the Society of Illustrators in New York and Los Angeles and Communication Arts Illustration annuals. He won a gold medal from Spectrum Fantastic Art for his depiction of Hillary Clinton, and a bronze medal for the cover painting of Max Lucado’s book, The Boy and the Ocean for 3x3  Magazine of Contemporary Illustration under his children’s book alias T. Lively Fluharty.

His work is also in the personal collections of Astronaut and Senator John Glenn, Pat Boone, Naomi Judd, the late movie director Robert Altman.

Fluharty loves working with students all over the world teaching online with Schoolism.com where he teaches drawing and painting.

He is happily married to the love of his life Kristi, has five amazing daughters, and one cute little cavalier spaniel named Biddy.

watch the replay

Ginny Freitag is an artist and teacher living in Madison, South Dakota. She primarily works in mixed media ceramic, sculpting the female figure and its relationships with nature and ritual. She also incorporates found objects into her works. Some of them she discovers while hiking in the outdoors, and others while wandering through flea markets. Ginny tries to create a narrative in her work that the viewer can translate into their own experience.

She graduated from Dakota State University in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree and a major in art. She retired from teaching art in the Madison Central School District in 2018, and currently creates her art from a studio in her home. Ginny received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1996, and an artist project grant from the South Dakota Arts Council in 2012. She has been in one- and two-person shows at the Oscar Howe Art Gallery at The University of South Dakota, the South Dakota Art Museum, the Firehouse Gallery, the Eastbank Art Gallery, and the Karl Mundt Library, as well as many group-shows. Ginny is also a founding member of Journey Women, a group of female artists who have had three exhibitions at the Washington Pavilion. Ginny has taken numerous graduate classes, also spending time in Grand Marais each summer in a mentored workshop with noted artist and women activist Hazel Belvo. Ginny lists artists Connie Herring and Hazel Belvo as the major influences in the development of her work.

WATCH the REPLAY

Gerald Cournoyer is an artist and educator and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. He followed in the footsteps of prominent Dakota painter Oscar Howe to the University of Oklahoma to pursue and eventually achieve his Masters of Fine Arts in painting. He previously attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM where he received an Associate Degree in Fine Arts in painting. He received his BFA and Master’s Degree from the University of South Dakota in interdisciplinary studies. After receiving his MFA from the University of Oklahoma, he was employed as a professor of painting. Cournoyer also holds a Master’s of Arts in Arts Management utilizing his expertise in networking and developing relationships among artists and the funding agencies who support artist philanthropy. He recently returned to school to earn another Master’s degree in Philanthropy and Fundraising from Central Michigan University.

Cournoyer came from a skilled background of stylized ledger art and figurative Indian portraits. Over time, his work expanded into vibrant abstract watercolors and acrylics. This eventually led him into patterns of Lakota quillwork, and rawhide parfleche, beadwork on canvas, including large nonfigurative expanses of color and form that offer the viewer an opportunity to explore the depth of scintillating color combined with Native patterns. These intricate patterns are based on the early geometric patterns of the Northern Plans quill designs and are prominent in the Lakota iconography. Gerald Cournoyer states: “As an artist, I strive to bridge the gap between traditional Lakota art and contemporary movements by incorporating traditional symbols in a contemporary fashion.” His work is shown in regional, national and international venues.

Gather with us on Anderson Plaza for our annual Guild Appreciation Party!