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Anytime you get to be the first one to do something, it’s an exciting event. Van Minsel will always have the honor of being the first artist to have his work displayed in the Trout Museum of Art‘s new Great Northern Regional Artist Gallery.

The new space brings local and regional artists back into the Fox Cities Building for the Arts, a component that has been missing since the building’s most recent reincarnation.

“It’s an opportunity for us to enahnce the work of regional artists more than we have been able to in the past,” says Pamela Williams-Lime, executive director of the Trout. “it mazimizes the opportunities in the building for us to meet our mission in the community.”

Van Minsel’s work, a collection of photographs taken and edited solely using an i-phone, was installed in the new gallery space on the third floor in late March. The exhibit, iPhoneography: A New Look at Familiar Things, runs through June 8.

In addition to the exhibit, Van Minsel will also be teaching classes at the Building for the Arts while his work is on display. No all the artists whose work is selected for the gallery will teach, but some will, says Williams-Lime.

The selection process for the new gallery will be juried, she says.

The regional artist gallery is the latest addition to the third floor of the Building for the arts, which is still a work in progress. The Trout occupies the first and second floors, and several local art groups have their offices on the fourth and fifth floors.

The third floor is developing as a community space within the building, which made the Great Northern Regional Artist Gallery a natural fit.

Van Minsel will teach his class April 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. A reception for the exhibit, the artist and to celebrate the regional art community will take place that same day from 4:30-6:30 p.m.