Last September our new gallery, Chisholm Valley Wildlife Art held its grand opening. We held it on the Saturday and Sunday of the first two weekends of that month. My son Eric and his fiancé Marissa were married in Rochester on Friday, so needless to say, it was a very busy weekend. The show itself was a great success, far better than we could have asked for. People began to arrive even before we officially opened the doors. The first Saturday was busy and every following day seemed to bring even more people. We don’t have a good count on how many, but I would guess somewhere over 750. We do know that there were people here from at least 10 different states. Friends and relatives from near and far as well as many people from the local area were there. There were also hunting buddies, gallery owners, a few artist friends, former in-laws but no known outlaws, old classmates and even some of the nuns who were my teachers a lifetime ago. Sales also were far greater than we could have asked for…except for the nuns of course. All in all it was an exhausting couple of weekends, but very successful. Reminiscent of some of the shows from the past when wildlife art was super hot.

Many people helped to make this show a success and we would like to thank them here. They are:

Bill Frutiger
Andy Jasik
Collin and Austin Johnson
Todd Grimes
Chris Knutson
Hannah Sieve
Heather Sieve

And most of all I would like to thank my wife Juli, who did an amazing job of planning, inventory, sales, greeting people with her ever present smile, her constant unwavering support as we planned this show, and for making my life so much easier and better.

Many thanks to all,

Mike