With a goal to continue expanding the art-buying community in Grand Forks, the North Dakota Museum of Art held its 15th annual Autumn Art Auction on November 8, 2013. The pieces ranged from Armando Ramos’ clay sculpture of a neon red dog, to Helen Otterson’s small ceramic sculpture of a cactus, to Vivienne Morgan’s large-scale digital print of a nurse stump. The largest piece of work in the show was Albert Belleveau’s “Outcropping house,” which is7 feet tall by 42 inches wide and 56 inches deep.

Laurel Reuter, Director of the North Dakota Museum of Art, started the event in 1999 to help artists sell their artwork and connect artists with more potential buyers. Wayne Zimmerman, president of the museum's board of trustees, says “the whole purpose (of the live auction) was to find a bigger audience for the artists,” he said. “It didn’t have all the formality of a sit-down dinner. It created a fun and lively … event that younger people can enjoy, and because of that we’ve developed a larger group of people that collect art.”

In the first couple of years, Reuter said it was very difficult. People looked at the art auction as a way to buy art at or close to wholesale prices. “We would reach minimum, and the museum wouldn’t make much,” she said. “Fortunately, the artists have stayed with us and gradually the prices have come up.”