 There's quite a few staff members at Bemidji State University who have talents that stretch beyond the classroom. That's why every year they have the Midwinter Interlude exhibit to display their work. Our own Sherelle Moore introduces us to a few of the artists for this week's in focus. Midwinter Interlude is kind of to give a little bit of brightness and color in the middle of this midwinter blouse. Deb Kruger came up with the idea for the exhibit in 2009 when she discovered there was a lot of artsy people on the BSU campus. It was then brought to the Ramsey Gallery in Bridgeman Hall. The exhibit is now in its ninth year and still going strong. We have painting, woodworking, we have a ceramic tile that was put in repurposed wood. One of our professors does duck decoys. There are several people who do photography. Myself, I do fabric bowls. It's kind of a fabric collage thing. The one that we have on New Zealand right now, that's just a fabulous, that's a storybook. And it definitely tells a story. Father and daughter duo Michael and Mallory Herbert took a spring break trip to New Zealand last March. They had a full Lord of the Rings experience and of course documented the entire thing. For any Lord of the Rings or Hobbit fans, we were able to experience the different scenes and settings that you saw in the films themselves. So we took some pictures and placed them side by side with different scenes in the films. It was fun to see the actual, you know, Frodo and Milwell's home and visit their houses and have a little dance around the party tree at night. Eighteen artists and five musicians are featured in this year's Winter Interlude Exhibit. Most of the ones who are here today told me that their art started out as more of a hobby that grew into something more. I've enjoyed making these for my family members and been doing it for, oh, the table is actually for about ten years now. I've got my drawing here, it's a minimalist that attempts to catch the essence of objects. I do photography and this year I tried a metal photo, so it's a photo on metal and with the lake it's just shimmery and nice and I really love it. Some say the exhibit is a fun way to make a big campus seem a little smaller by bringing you closer to the people you work with. It's a personal thing that we're putting out there for people to see, I mean especially for different faculty and staff members, you don't really get to see the different interests and hobbies that they have. To know that somebody else is a quilter or that somebody else is a painter, it really creates a connection on campus that's outside of your work dynamics. Reporting from Midgee with this week's End Focus, Sheryl Moore, Lakeland News. The Ramsey Gallery has opened seven days a week from eight in the morning to ten at night and the Midwinter Interlude Exhibit will be up until April 9th. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.