The posters that Tina Bartels created for M State’s Fine Arts events are not just ads, but art.
So it’s fitting that the upcoming art show on the Fergus Falls campus features those posters, designed by Bartels for the Fine Arts Department during the years she worked as the graphic designer for the college.
From Nov. 9 through Dec. 14, visitors to the college’s Beck Gallery can enjoy “Graphic Inspiration: M State Posters 2010-2022,” a visual history of theatre performances, concerts and events told through many of Bartels’ nearly 130 posters.
After Bartels left the college in 2022, M State ceramics instructor Lori Charest – who curates art shows at the college – asked Bartels if she’d be interested in exhibiting the artwork she’s done. Talk turned to the posters Bartels had created for Fine Arts events, and the two joked that the posters themselves could comprise an exhibit.
“The more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded, especially since we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary at M State this year,” Charest says. “Tina’s posters are examples of another area of art, with a focus on graphic design. She has always had such a good eye for attractive, eye-catching images.”
Promoting M State was always more than just a job for Bartels: After high school in New York Mills, she attended the Fergus Falls campus and worked in the library, served as a College Ambassador, hand-drew posters for the marketing department and joined student trips to Europe and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
“My two years at Fergus were my best two years of college,” Bartels says.
Transferring to St. Cloud State University, she intended to major in Fine Arts but was warned that “you’ll never make any money.” She instead majored in English and graphic design and, following graduation, worked in graphic design for the Nash Finch grocery chain and her hometown newspaper.
She returned to M State in 2007 as an account clerk and director of M State’s Wadena campus foundation, but her design talents led quickly to a collegewide position in the communications department.
Bartels says creating posters for Fine Arts events was the best part of her job.
“I love the Fine Arts Department,” she says. “It was like doing something for my family. It gave me the opportunity to be creative and step outside the routine.”
She recalls the first poster she did for the department, for “Hamlet,” the set of four posters featuring each of the four main characters in “Steel Magnolias,” the ethereal set of pipe organs with angel wings for a choral concert and the men and women who danced across a poster for a Jazz Band concert.
M State theatre instructor Stefanie Gerhardson says many of Bartels’ theatre posters still hang in her office and in the theatre makeup room.
“Every poster was beautiful and radiated energy and vitality,” Gerhardson says. “Tina always went out of her way to make the posters unique. She was not satisfied using a stock image and turning it into a poster. Her enthusiasm and willingness to work with the directors was a joy, and what she created was always vibrant and professional.”
Charest says she suspects it was Bartels’ creative posters that helped draw many people in the community to events at the college.
Since she’s left M State, Bartels is “experimenting with what I want to do with life.” That has meant enjoying more time spent with family, connecting with the community through part-time work at Karvonen Funeral Home, planning to be a short-term substitute for the schools and freelancing as a graphic artist.
Bartels also enjoys making wine, painting (her goal is one painting a month) and exploring opportunities “with my love of art stuff that I was never going to make any money at,” she says with a laugh.
“Graphic Inspiration” is open to the public, and admission is free. The Beck Gallery is open during regular M State campus hours.