‘Fresh Faces’ helping build up local arts scene

The short film is appropriately titled “Fresh Faces.”

Featuring Tyson Schultz and Levi Sternburg, it’s a nearly 20-minute look at Untitled.10, the effort the two college friends began last year to curate and showcase artwork in pop-up locations throughout Sioux Falls.

Schultz graduated from USD in the spring of 2020 as the pandemic was beginning and opportunities to gather around art nearly evaporated. Sternburg followed a year later.

“Levi and I look at it as kind of a blank canvas,” Schultz said. “There are artists here, there are opportunities, but it’s still pretty fresh and budding, and that’s why we started Untitled.10.”

Photos by Jordan Cushman

Working out of venues from Railyard Flats to Remedy Brewing Co. and most recently Epicosity, where Schultz works as a graphic designer, the two have produced four pop-up shows since September 2021.

“We wanted to just create more opportunities for artists, especially people going straight out of school,” he said. “The first year or so is so critical to whether or not someone decides to truly keep pursuing work. It can be disheartening to go to school and have all this great work and it doesn’t get shown anywhere.”

They began by inviting 50 artists they knew to show their work. But with the past two shows, they’ve done a call for art online and seen a strong response.

With one show, the theme for the art was birds, and “we were blown away with how many people participated and submitted artwork,” Schultz said. “They’ll attach their names and where they’re from, and we’ll see new names we don’t recognize at all, but they’ll be from the area. They’ll put ‘Sioux Falls,’ and it’s amazing each time to unearth more and more local creatives I’ve never heard of, and the work is amazing. It’s very exciting in that regard.”

The number of creatives does appear to be increasing in Sioux Falls — as does the number of grassroots efforts to highlight their work.

“Quite a few groups are popping up,” said Kellen Boice, executive director of the Sioux Falls Arts Council. “We’re really interested in those ground-level movements and underground stuff that’s happening and how we can promote that and help those artists with what they need to thrive and create community.”

Schultz’s co-worker at Epicosity, Max Hofer, is a writer and filmmaker who decided to make a short documentary about Untitled.10. It will be screened Tuesday as part of the Nosebleeds Film Fest — another way creatives are helping shape the local arts scene.

Co-founder Zeke Hanson began by producing an online magazine with his siblings about artists that evolved into a film fest.

“I do independent film, my sister used to run film festivals all over the world, and my brother is a photographer, so we wanted to do something where we could talk to people who don’t typically do interviews about their art,” he said.

They began a film festival at the Verne Drive-In Theater in Luverne, Minnesota, but “COVID killed that off,” he said.

Instead of one large festival, they shifted to shorter monthly screenings and got connected to Last Stop CD Shop and South Dakota Public Broadcasting, both of which have hosted events. Tuesday’s screening is at Last Stop CD Shop, 2121 E. 10th St., and starts at 6 p.m.

“This will be the third film Max has screened with us this year,” Hanson said. “We want to support anybody like that who is curious and they want to grow through it. There’s a very visceral reality you get moving from the edit to watching it with a group of people for the first time.”

Hanson moved to Denver after graduating from SDSU and then to Los Angeles to work in film before returning to Sioux Falls in 2010 to start his film company, Lights Out Productions.

Samuel Hanson Photography

“I’ve definitely seen a change in Sioux Falls, not only as a filmmaker but as someone trying to showcase other people’s work,” he said. “It’s slowly getting easier.”

Sternburg, is a sculptor who works as a metal fabricator at Sticks & Steel. He says in the film that he immediately connected with the idea behind Untitled.10.

“That was part of the whole reason I got into art and got my degree in art,” he said. “I’ve always loved making it myself, but I wanted to take a more active role in community-building. Since the beginning, I wanted to make Sioux Falls a better place for artists.”

So does Hannah Van Steenwyk, founder and president of ARSA, a new nonprofit focused on connecting and mentoring creatives. “Ars” is the Latin word for “art” and the “A” on the end stands for “Americana.”

Van Steenwyk, 24, has been selling professionally for a decade and helping connect businesses with art.

“It just kept coming back, this feeling I need to do something a bit more to have an encouraging art option out there,” she said. “I’ve seen a big change in the arts. I’ve seen it positively grow and change. There’s just more, physically speaking, a lot more than 10 or 20 years ago. It’s blooming, and like a flower when you take care of it while it’s blooming, you can’t forget to water, or it’s going to die. So that’s kind of what I’ve seen, and I want to add fertilizer.”

She plans to use ARSA to organize art contests, support reduced fees for booths for artists and bring art to events where it might not be expected. She held a community doodle event over the weekend and has another planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the downtown library.

Doodlers are prompted to draw representation of what they want to see in art in Sioux Falls.

“We want to bring together all the different kinds of art,” Van Steenwyk said. “And why I want to focus on mentorship and connection is because there were several years when I got stuck in a rut and wasn’t asking for advice. Collaboration is really, really wonderful, and I want to see our community be the absolute best it can be.”

Unlike larger metro areas, Sioux Falls still has room to grow its arts scene in many ways, those involved said.

“I’ve worked on projects all over the world, and in big cities you’re kind of a cog in the wheel,” Hanson said. “I’m happy (in Sioux Falls) there’s room to grow. If it was just full, tip to tail, right now, it would be hard to jump in and create. But collaboration is easy now. There’s always someone willing to bring you on so you can learn a craft no matter what your medium. And that’s what we want to cultivate is that creative drive.”

Schultz agreed.

“If somebody just graduated and moved to Denver or Minneapolis, those markets are more saturated, which might make it seem easy, but it might be just as hard to find your way in because those things are set in place,” he said. “Galleries have their artists on rotation. So it might be easier to be here on the ground floor and just help build up the art community here.”