University of Nebraska Art Alumni reunion

You were in the same sculpture class I took under Thomas Sheffield.  Duane Grosse

Friday night at the closing reception Duane Grosse remembers me. He has a sculpture, a cylinder of carved marble on a large organic section on tree. The bottom of which is gnarly bumps and twists and the table side up orange polished wood. A lamp crowns the marble tower. It looks solid and heavy and I know immediately Grosse approaches his materials with an engineer's mind. 

I remember doing a bronze in Sheffield's sculpture class. The bronze lady bent over with her hands on her knees and her chest hanging down. I shared with Grosse how it took me more than a dozen fitted section of plaster to make that bronze come out so well. Five inches tall by five inches wide - a bald headed female. These years later I have not ground off the unwanted metal. Not knowing what exactly to do with it. It has not seen the light of day - anywhere. Nude subjects are acceptable in college, but not for elementary grade school art.

The names listed on the wall are not familiar to me. Alumni participants my age, the ones who agreed to submit one work for viewing, mill from room to room in the Eisentrager- Howard Gallery wearing name tags, their graduation from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln some thirty-seven years ago. Conversations revolve around the classes we took in 1978 and 1979. Teachers like: Thomas Sheffield, James Eisentrager, Keith Jacobshagen, Michael Nuschawg, and Gail Butt.  

(photo courtesy of Brad Krieger)

Brad Krieger was a teacher aid to Professor Gail Butt. The instructor who had him paint all the still life bottle white. Reflections on glass bottles were a distraction to the students, Krieger recalled. Later Krieger did the same thing in the art classes he taught. It helped students to focus on the forms.

Bradley W. Krieger work (double click to enlarge)

In 2002 when I drizzled glue and paint over oyster shells for a painting I loved the dispersement of pigments. (See next detail.) This is why I REALLY ENJOYED the surface treatment of Brad Krieger's painting, ABOVE. Nuanced. His patience and careful produced an exquisite variety of patterns. The rinsing off of pigment using mineral spirits. Wow.

 More on 2002 painting here 
 And HERE.

Krieger recalled hearing my father speak once on the second floor of Richards Hall in the auditorium. The art professor from Seward spoke on serendipity, he said. Listening to the story just blew me away. Thanks Brad.

Me and the person I am talking to, we have both had Keith Jacobshagen in Illustration and Design classes. Though he painted he never taught a painting class. The oddness of teachers being older people. Can I call them people? Telling us what to do. Never seeming to "have a life." Now as grownups ourselves, look at the amazing artwork these "teachers' have created out there. I told her how I loved observing the passages of color Jacobshagen used in a skyscape at the O Street Kietchel Gallery. 

One gal who had once modeled for art classes - told how the watercolor teacher was kind and gentle to the younger female students in class. But she had seen him bark at older females, telling them how to watercolor by making a scene about it. She was glad that she remained neutral.  She had no troubles in watercolor class.

Matt was a current second year undergrad. He told me about working with resin epoxy. About the dusty free room and the two filter mask he wore to keep the fumes out.

(photo courtesy of Brad Krieger)

One gal had nine small square canvases. I enjoyed the thin white veil over portions of the red. And the mark making she did that tied the sections together. I learned later her name was Cathy Patterson.

Portions writing on notebook paper created ambiance for one work. Tiny hangers with sewn garments in a doll house closet. Two dozen folded notes with bright-colored ribbons on the spine. The details of the crafter exhibit so much care and precision. The name of which I do not recall.

The seven I listened to made remarks about my painting. Calling it "plein air." Noting that it was spatial. How it was done quickly. Michael Villarreal said that the acrylic work had passages that read like oil. Matthew Sontheimer said it was well observed. Soundbites I that appreciate.

Passages read as oil.  Michael Villarreal, MFA grad student at UN-L.

It is well-observed. Matthew Sontheimer, Associate Professor of Art Painting, UN-L.

This encounter was worth driving up for. Though home for me is in Carrollton, Missouri - I have seen that those who submitted artwork - continue to find satisfaction working with materials in 2017. Many live in Lincoln and have their support communities. I am glad to be counted among all of these artists.
 

Alumni from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Art, Art History & Design showed their work this summer in the exhibition “Nebraska Alumni Artists 1979-1982” in the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in Richards Hall.

 

shale wall at bluff creek

Behind Richard Hall with the meter running, a curly headed guy and gal with long hair were trying to load a huge stretched canvas into a much smaller station wagon. An end-of-the-semester dilemma art students can face. Typical. When I passed by next time, the guy had returned with a long cord. Whether he was going to strap the canvas to the outside roof of the vehicle was not clear.

Shale Wall at Bluff Creek 30 by 40 inches, plein air acrylic on canvas. On the back are the notations: "1:00 - 3:00 pm 3:30 - 4:30 pm"


I had driven up to Lincoln in my car to hand deliver my piece. The office had many works still in crates and packed in cardboard. Staff advisor Christy Aggens signed my paperwork. I don't remember who were my classmates when I took ceramics, painting, and printmaking my last year of college. The name Susan Pueltz looked familiar. And I believe Karen Kunc was in the same class I had with Michael Nushawg for printmaking. The Art Department invited art graduates from 1979 to 1982 to take part. The works are currently up in the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery over the summer, June, July. I plan to come up to meet classmates on the final night of the show, Friday, August 4th, three days after my 62nd birthday. The closing reception will be at  5 - 7 pm. 
 
In the meantime, I was going to look around the campus. The flatness had been changed up in a good way. More earth mounds, more leafy canopies, more sculptures.

 

follow the process

One of the things I loved about ceramics in college was the sensation of muddy slip and texture of grog, clay which has been fired then ground up, sitting in an encrusted bucket of liquid grit, oh yeah!!
 

 (above and below) Here are close-ups of a 1978 "floor piece," from my senior year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I had my own 10 by 10 foot studio space on the second floor of Richards Hall. The 24 by 36 inch paper was taped to the floor, and I was dropping bits of texture right into the paint. Look closely and you will see sunflower seed shells. A "whole-other-wonderful" strategy was in place to savor and excite.

 
That "strategy" or "process" was about being physically engaged, reaching over, mindful of the taped edges, precarious steps across the image, looking down, hurling liquid color, drinking in silence that surrounds me, the intermittent cooing of birds from the eaves of Richards Hall outside my window, the sharpness of the temperature in the room, the charged excitement I felt within this Nebraska winter, immersed in the piano and vocals of Billy Joel from my Radio Shack cassette player. Independent, wide open and moving about in my studio space.  The swirl of it all, focused, creating, doing, moving, being intentional, occasionally stopping to assess what the image looked like. An entirely different mindset from "landscape painting." Enriched, hands-on, visceral.

       This morning, sponge in hand, my eyes creep over gridded particles, taking in the general appearance, and hand dabbing liquid pigment on raised grit, my eardrums awash with the jazz music of Spyro Gyra (above). That same "process" is taking place here twenty-two years later. A large heavy support is centered on a stool and rotated as I sponge. There is a balancing act, muscles wrestling the support, and an awareness of my studio space. The underlying grid, made earlier in the gel medium, resurfaces. Selective sponging the grit is key. 

   

 

In this video you can see the "intention" for yourself. I am watching as I dab. Surely my father worked in a similiar manner, that is, experimenting with materials, and expecting to be surprised by something new. Working from a calculated hunch. Setting the work aside. Coming back, drinking the image in, being open minded. Assessing "which results" I like, entertaining what to do next, moving forward with the next hunch.