Museum’s Garden Path Endowment begins

Opp Construction has sunk the first $4,000 into building the North Dakota Museum of Art’s Garden Path. Sales of individual stones, which start at $1,000 and range upward, will create an endowment to underwrite general operating costs for the Museum.

Already trustees have bought the first $10,000 worth of flagstones. As soon as they picked their favorites from among the 200 possibilities, the granite stones went to the engraver to be embellished with family or business names, logos, children’s drawings, slogans, or whatever caught their fancy. It may be a riddle, a quote from literature, a stone for each of the grandchildren, or “anonymous.”

Sally Opp, operations manager of Opp Construction and a Museum trustee, is co-chairing the project along with Bryan Hoime, retired farmer from Edmore and former owner of Columbia Liquor in Grand Forks. Hoime now is a Museum volunteer, working on exhibition installations, permanent collection care, and special projects such as planting stones in the Garden Path.

Hoime was joined by city councilman Tyrone Grandstrand and Museum staff member Justin Dalzell to dig up the newly surfaced plaza and place the stones. The Museum Garden is where peonies grow, summer concerts take place, and sculpture finds a home. The Garden Path flanks the Museum entrance and is anchored by the Museum’s most recent sculptural addition, a granite chair. Sculptor Zoran Mojsilov worked the rock to bring an embedded rose quartz vein to surface. Thus the chair gleams in the rising and sinking sun.

A gift to The Garden Path Endowment is one more step in securing financial stability for the Museum today and the generations that follow. The principal will be invested in perpetuity by the Museum Foundation; only income from the fund’s invested assets will be expended by the Museum. Call the Museum to make arrangements to choose your stone.

The North Dakota Museum of Art is located on Centennial Drive on the University of North Dakota campus. The Museum hours are weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm and weekends from 1 am to 5 pm. The Museum Shop is open during these hours. There is no general admission, however there is a suggested donation of $5 from adults and change from children. Also the Museum Café is open for lunch, weekdays from 11 am – 3 pm. For more information call 701-777-4195 or visit www.ndmoa.com.