The Back Track to Art

Make no bones about it, the Northfield Arts Guild needs your support. Without the generous support of members, donors, business supporters, institutions, and other funders, we simply cannot continue offering all that we offer to Northfield in the way of arts activities, events, classes, and entertainment.

Before you decide once and for all how much you’re willing to support the arts in Northfield, please consider the following six key reasons that supporting the Northfield Arts Guild is a good thing:

1. History: The Northfield Arts Guild has long been an important part of Northfield’s culture. We’ve been here, in fact, for nearly fifty years–though not always in our current prominent location on Division Street downtown. The Guild was founded in 1959 and presented its first event that year, a successful stage production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah Wilderness.” In the early 1960s, the Guild was able to buy its first building, a church on West 3rd Street (where it still houses the Guild Theater), and in the early 1980s, the Guild was offered the opportunity to purchase its present building, which had formerly been used as a library, as City Hall, and as a YMCA. The Guild has been the place were thousands upon thousands of Northfielders, current and former, got their first taste of art. For instance, a list of Guild members from the mid-1960s included many prominent community members of the time, such as the Schjeldahl family, whose son, Peter Schjeldahl, grew up and moved to New York to become perhaps the most prominent art critic of our time. In 1967, the Minnesota State Arts Council (the precursor to the State Arts Board), in a survey of regional arts centers, held up the Northfield Arts Guild as a model for providing diverse activities to the community on a minimal budget (which, in my opinion, we still do). You can’t think of the culture of Northfield without also thinking of the role the Arts Guild has played and continues to play here. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild helps us continue this history.

2. Artistry: The Northfield Arts Guild has always been all about providing a quality arts experience for the community. This dedication to excellence begins with early-childhood arts classes–in visual art, theater, dance, and so on–and continues into its many programs for artistic adolescents and adult artists. The Northfield Arts Guild theater offers the opportunity for local performers of all ages to get up on stage in high-quality productions of every sort–from comedy to drama, from musicals to kid’s theater. The dance program presents age-appropriate, non-competitive (but highly artistic) classes in dance for both kids and adults. The Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra presents four or five yearly concerts each year, giving regional musicians an opportunity to play together for their communities. And the gallery and shop at the Guild’s Center for the Arts on Division Street offers local and regional artists numerous opportunities each year to display and sell their work. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means you are supporting great arts and artists.

3. Stability and consistency: The Arts Guild has been a centerpiece of arts activity this town for an amazingly long stretch of time, and it will continue to be so for many years to come. This consistency is indeed our strength. While we may not offer the most novel or trendy types of arts activities, you can always know we’ll be here doing what we do year after year after year. We will present six or more regular theater productions each year, as well as a number of smaller, more lively, and more locally created theater events. We will teach hundreds of kids each year the joys of theater, dance, music, and art. We will exhibit more than twenty unique art shows each year in our gallery spaces. We will sell beautiful art objects in our shop and support working artists. We will support the work of a regional community symphony in producing 4-5 concerts each year, and we will have a hand in helping to organize local arts festivals and events that the entire community can enjoy. In our constantly changing, ever mutating world, isn’t it nice to know there’s someone you can always count on? Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild helps us continue providing consistently great arts programs in Northfield.

4. Community: The arts are important to communities—not only for the effect they have on life-quality, but also because they provide economic benefits. A 2006 report, The Arts: A Driving Force in Minnesota’s Economy, provides strong evidence that the nonprofit arts and culture industry are a significant economic incubator across the state. Further, due to the nonprofit and community focus of these organizations, the vast majority of this economic activity filters directly back into the communities—providing pay for working artists, purchasing ads in community publications, buying materials and supplies from community businesses, paying local workers for services, and so on. Supporting nonprofit art organizations epitomizes the economic idea that a “rising tide lifts all boats.” When we support the arts we not only enhance our community’s quality of life, we invest in our own and our neighbors’ overall economic well being. The Northfield Arts Guild is a downtown anchor, providing programs and services, and developing support and appreciation of the arts, and spreading arts-related economic activity throughout the community. For these reasons, the Northfield Arts Guild is a key contributor to the quality of life and economic vitality of the community of Northfield. For nearly fifty years, the Northfield Arts Guild has been a place where community members committed to and interested in the arts come together. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means supporting the community of Northfield.

5. Opportunity(s): With all of the Northfield Arts Guild’s history and its consistent production of quality arts programs, the organization has long had time and space to offer opportunities for artists to try new things, give a project or program a whirl, and get themselves involved in something creative. In recent years, the Guild has supported the production of new programs and projects like the Very Short Play Festival and the Under Construction workshops for playwrights. Guild artists are showing art work in a new venue, the local Allina clinic, and we are always bringing new artists and art into our shop. The Guild is your place to try out new things in the arts. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild supports new arts projects in Northfield.

6. Fun and frivolity: While all of the above reasons make a lot of statistical sense, we can’t forget the idea that, even though there’s no way to quantify it, the arts are fun! In some respects, there’s no other reason to support the arts in Northfield. The arts make people happy, and who can’t use a little extra happiness in their lives? Plays are fun events to watch, symphony concerts are fun events to listen to. It’s fun to walk the town and stop by our gallery during an Art Crawl. It’s fun for children and adults of all ages to dance in our studio. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means you are a supporter of fun and happiness in your town!