By Glenda Winders
Most people in the United States might not consider Omaha, Neb., a center of culture and art, but people in London and Paris do, Holly McAdams told me while she showed me through the innovative Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts. And she said much of the credit goes to that very center, where she manages the community arts program.
Located in a refurbished warehouse in Omaha's Old Market area, the center was founded by established artists (among them Jun Kaneko, whose studio is just down the street) to support the exceptional talent of those who come for its residency program. For the 36 available spots, the center receives between 1,200 and 1,400 applications every year from around the world.
The winners receive three months of uninterrupted, self-directed work time. They live and work in one of 13 available studios, furnishing it from a pool of beds, dressers, easels and tables stored on an upper floor. The artists also receive the loan of a bicycle and $750 per month for living expenses. In return, they agree to donate one of their pieces for the center to sell.
While I was there, one of the residents was Michael Jones McKean, who employed the services of a plumber and some artful pipes to pump water that coincided with the angle of the sun to create a rainbow — "an object-based poem about our human narrative," McAdams explained.
Omaha residents and visitors benefit from the free talks the artists are required to give on the first Thursday of each month and from access to high-quality art for sale in the gallery. A second gallery offers art from emerging artists at more easily affordable prices.
The real centerpiece of Omaha's cultural scene is the Joslyn Art Museum — an impressive art deco building made of pink Georgia marble with Native American thunderbirds built into the design. A new, more modern addition was designed by Sir Norman Foster and has 34-foot-tall glass sculptures designed by Dale Chihuly in the windows at either end of the building.
"People say, 'What's it doing in Omaha?'" said docent Judy Schafer.
The museum was built by Sarah Joslyn, widow of Nebraska newspaperman George Joslyn, as a living memorial to her husband. Originally she intended for it to be a concert hall flanked by galleries, and while the hall is still there and frequently used, the art is what has put the complex on the map.
Surprises abound in every gallery — from French academic paintings to Western American art, Greek, Roman and Egyptian pottery to frescoes from Spain. "Bonfire of the Vanities" by Savonarola is here, as are portraits by English painters Henry Raeburn and Joshua Reynolds, along with a mobile by Alexander Calder and Thomas Hart Benton's "The Hailstorm." There's a Remington sculpture and a tinted wax ballerina by Edgar Degas, one of only 17 in the world, that was a prototype for his bronzes.
Schafer said the crown jewels in the museum's collection, however, are Karl Bodmer's watercolors of the American West, done while he accompanied Prince Maximilian zu Wied across the North American continent during the years 1832-34. Also in the collection is "Battle With a Cheyenne Chief" created by Four Bears (Mato-Tope), a Plains warrior who used Bodmer's supplies to celebrate his own defeat of a party of attacking Assiniboines.
The sizable sculpture garden at the Joslyn is definitely worth a visit. Here are artfully installed pieces that run the gamut from very serious and somber works, such as Leonard Baskin's "Oedipus at Colonnus" and Rodin's "Burghers of Calais" to the more playful "Large Covered Wagon" by Tom Otterness and Betty Woodman's "Bronze Bench No. 5."
Another must-see for art-lovers is a conglomeration of studios called the Hot Shops Art Center. Here an old mattress factory has been converted into 56 spaces for 70 artists. The group took its name from its founders, who all used fire in their creative endeavors — bronze-casting, glass-blowing and blacksmithing.
Manager Tim Berry explained that the best part of working and exhibiting in this center is the camaraderie shared by the occupants.
"The artists influence one another," he said. "There isn't a tool we don't have among us. We share customers and help each other."
Today the blacksmiths and glass-blowers are still there, but so are painters and fiber artists, furniture- and jewelry-makers, photographers and many more.
"It's like a home," said potter Dan Toberer, whose pieces are so large he had to custom-build a kiln to accommodate them. "I like getting engaged in all parts of the process. You can take control of your art."
The art is, of course, for sale, and visitors are usually welcome to watch the artists create. During the first weekends of May and December the center holds an open house.
Not far away is the Artists' Cooperative Gallery, a lively mix of oil, water and mixed media paintings along with pottery and textiles created by local artists. The gallery is manned by members who are happy to answer questions, and it's in the Old Market area near other galleries, import shops and antique emporiums.
The Seldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, the state capital, is an hour's drive away but well worth the effort. Billed as "Nebraska's national treasure," it, too, is a repository for pieces no one would expect to find out here on the prairie. Among its collection of 12,000 items are objects and art by Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Willem deKooning, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock and Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner.
The building, created by Phillip Johnson in 1963, is situated on the University of Nebraska campus and surrounded by outdoor sculptures, such as Claes Oldenburg's sculpture of "The Notebook," which contains words actually taken from his notebook and his wife's. Another Tom Otterness sculpture, "Fallen Dreamer," takes the form of a giant head that catches visitors' attention as they ascend the building's steps.
WHEN YOU GO
The Bemis Center: www.bemiscenter.org
Joslyn Art Museum: www.joslyn.org
Hot Shops: www.hotshopsartcenter.org
Artist's Cooperative Gallery: www.artistsco-opgallery.com
Sheldon Museum of Art: www.sheldonartmuseum.org
Glenda Winders is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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