Milan Village Arts School helps one community retain its traditions, cultural identity

Oct. 23—MILAN

— A small town in greater Minnesota has retained its Norwegian roots by teaching others traditional disciplines within folk art.

A repurposed 109-year-old school house that was bought for $50 in 1995 and then moved to its current location serves as the

Milan Village Arts School

, where classes are taught and events are held. The folks arts school has been a part of the community in Milan for about 35 years.

MVAS was initially founded in 1988 in order to employ local artists during a tumultuous time for rural communities like Milan.

According to the school's webpage,

local businesses began closing and people began moving out of small western towns for better economic opportunities as the reality of an agricultural industry that demanded larger scale and fewer farms settled in.

School director Ron Porep said for probably 20 to 50 years before Milan Village Arts School there were always traditional Scandinavian art forms taught and displayed in Milan because many of its people were of Norwegian/Scandinavian heritage.

The art forms of Scandinavian culture are included in the category of "folk art."

As a result of the nationalities of the community's early immigrants, Porep said MVAS was in a good position to begin teaching those artforms.

"We were probably the first school to kick this off," Porep said.

There was, of course, the already established

American Swedish Institute

in the Twin Cities, which also teaches handcrafted folk arts, but for a while Milan was the only school hosting folk art classes in greater Minnesota.

Modeled on folk schools in Denmark and Norway, MVAS brings in masters within the traditional disciplines of folk art, such as flat plane figure carving, rosemaling — a type of floral design that can be painted or carved — and ale bowl carving. The school has also taught more traditional forms of fine art such as painting with watercolors.

Since then, folk schools in Ely, Duluth and other communities have also popped up, but the pandemic hindered their growth, according to Porep.

Porep said, since the pandemic, classes at MVAS have seen a marked increase in demand. Some of the most popular classes, such as silversmithing and jewelry making, fill up quickly.

"We're really the only school in the Midwest that does that," Porep said, "Some schools touch on little bits or pieces of it, but they don't do it to the degree we do it."

People can sign up for a number of different classes throughout the year. A tuition fee for the class is determined based on the number of days an instructor will be at the school and the cost of any additional tools or equipment needed.

The school is a nonprofit organization, and members receive a $15 discount on most classes in addition to having access to studios or equipment.

"One of the things that happened during COVID was that some of the bigger schools started to do a lot of online teaching," Porep said. "They can pick up students from all over the world and run a class for three to four hours," something Milan couldn't do given its smaller size and staff.

Porep said he sat down with instructors and students and simply listened to what they shared. "The instructors didn't want to do that; they like coming to a facility like this where they can sit down and teach a two or three-day class," he said.

The students also didn't wish to go down the online route either.

"Sometimes it's a holiday for them ... I regularly have people coming from Nebraska and other states come for a week ... to come and carve and be around an instructor, and they'll learn a lot more in a two or three day class with an instructor than they would online," he said.

"You can teach anything you want in folk school," Porep said, stating that other schools have begun teaching things such as canning and growing vegetables. "We're kind of unique in what we do," he said.

There are cultural centers and museums in bigger cities like Minneapolis that also teach Scandinavian arts. Porep said it's great that those centers exist, but he explained some of those things are usually nothing more than pieces to a larger exhibit.

"We're very defined in what we do," he said. "Everything we do is about teaching the arts, supporting the artists and supporting the students." He explained Minnesota is changing and the demographics are changing. More people are moving here from more ethnic groups.

"This town used to be called 'Little Norway' ... now half the town are South Pacific Islanders," he said.

Porep, who has been the director for the school for about 15 years, said the shifting demographics is not seen as a bad thing by instructors or residents, but it may in turn present challenges into the future.

"At the moment a lot of what we're teaching... there are only a handful of instructors in the United States who teach these art forms," he said, "but I can't tell how in demand they'll be in the future."

So far, it's worked out well.

Porep said all the artists who had hosted courses last year have each signed on to teach at least one course the next coming year. Classes fill up easily, because not only is MVAS one of the few schools that teaches the artforms but also, as Porep said, the school tries to hire "the finest instructors of their genre" and it attracts people from all over the United States.

He also said the school aims to pay instructors at better rates than similar schools. Future artists will also have living facilities underneath the school during their time as instructors. A bedroom has already been completed, but the basement level is still under the construction stages to put in a bathroom and living space that may also double as an exhibit/meeting space.

"The school catered to the needs of the community," Porep said, and it's only grown over time. "I know the school wasn't taken seriously when we opened by a lot of the community because they told me that. I think they're realizing we're a real integral part of the community, and for a town of this size to have a facility of this quality is really lucky."

Milan has weathered similar challenges to many communities its size, but it has come through without losing pieces of its historical identity such as cafes, libraries, a post office, a supermarket, a community center and MVAS itself.

"For a small town, it's very dense with things that keep a town alive," Porep said. "A lot of towns are just losing that and you can tell. You can drive through these towns and their main streets look terrible, and the buildings look terrible with broken windows and boarded up businesses.

"We're not the poster child for doing it, but you can look at Milan and say there are options for rural communities. We built this, and people come from all over the United States to come here. It was never really planned, it just happened that way," he said.