This will serve to keep and share memories of Kenny Walton and his art, and selections of his beautiful glass pieces will be available for purchase as supply allows. The store will be refreshed at times, so please keep checking back.
April 8 – 25, 2020
Artist Kenny Walton (1947-2019) was an integral part of the dream of Constellation Studios, as husband and helpmate to owner/director Karen Kunc. He worked hard on their acreage near Avoca, Nebraska, building his studio, working intensely to blow glass, landscaping the gardens and arbors of fruit trees, and cooking exotic meals.
Kenny studied at Ohio State University, and Columbus College of Art & Design. Through 1990 to 2007, Kenny exhibited his hand-blown glass at juried arts and craft fairs around the country and region, winning many awards. His work was included in New Glass Review at the Corning Museum of Glass in 1995. He had solo exhibitions of his glass in Nagoya, Japan, Ohio Craft Museum, and the Haydon Art Center in Lincoln. He received two Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships in 1994 & 1995, and a Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1995. He lectured on his glass in Finland, Poland, Hawaii and throughout the Midwest.
“He is very aware of living things and living cycles – the undercurrent of his work. He is steadily and quietly entranced by nature, its intricacies and fullness, and his work exudes this….. He has the ability (and innate desire) to successfully have his head, his eye, and his heart work together and then flow outwards from his hand to work and tool glass until it reflects, in its abstracted form, the beauty of life, essentially.”
Teliza V. Rodriguez, Curator, Museum of Nebraska Art. 2007
It is with immense pride that we show his amazing hand blown glass as a legacy of beauty, craftsmanship, and inspiration. This exhibition honors his indomitable spirit, humor, intellect, energy and skills with “field expediency” (fixes with duct tape & wire!). His glass art brings solace for us all.
Visit KennyWaltonGlass.com https://www.kennywaltonglass.com/ for information, memorial, and store.
Nine artists from the region were invited to design and carve their own large woodblock for printing impressions at Constellation Studios, which took place in May with one-by-one printing sessions at the studio. The 9 large 24” x 36” black and white prints will make a composite Artwork that will be wheat-pasted around Lincoln. The presentation will be 108” tall x 72” wide. Sites include: Lux Art Center, Constellation Studios, The Hub Cafe, The Mill Haymarket, Bennett Martin Library, Bethany Library, Woods Park Bath House, Joyo Theater, Goldenrod Pastries. #NineNebraskaArtists
Artists include:
Byron Anway, Lincoln
Ryan Crotty, Auburn
Nancy Friedemann- -Sánchez, Lincoln
Gerardo Meza, Lincoln
Nathan Murray, Lincoln
Kyle Nobles, Lincoln
Sarah Rowe, Omaha
Bart Vargas, Omaha
Kat Wiese, Lincoln
The Artwork is a temporary installation, with the paper prints attached with wheat starch (wallpaper) paste to the wall surface. The installation will be affected by weather and moisture, lasting for approximately 2 months, and will be allowed to change, as part of the ephemeral nature of the materials, the climate conditions, and time.
Nine different sites are planned, and will present engagement for different viewing audiences and experiences, plus create a recurrent connection throughout the city.
These woodblock prints are unusually striking for the strong contrast of dark and light, the captured energy of the carving marks, and the variety of images and symbols that convey timely messages and layers of meaning.
A culminating event will be steamroller printing of these blocks for the Lux Art Center Festival in August. Other artists are invited to join with additional carved woodblocks for the steamroller printing activity. Watch for more info.
This community-wide print event is a facet of this summer’s collaborative exhibition Surface Impressions: International Print Exhibition, and highlights the relief printing process. The exhibition is held jointly at Constellation Studios and Lux Art Center.
https://www.surfaceimpressions.art/
June 5th – August 28th 2020
Juror: Mark Pascale
Janet and Craig Duchossois Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Art Institute of Chicago
co-organized by Constellation Studios and Lux Art Center
• First Friday August 7, 5 – 8pm
• Upcoming! Steamroller printing of Nine Nebraskans woodblocks, August 15, 1-4pm, Lux Art Center
Surface Impressions intends to connect artists and audiences to the 21st century language of relief printmaking as a viable engagement for today.
The exhibition includes 75 works from 67 national and international artists, with a selection at both Constellation Studios and Lux Art Center galleries. All the prints use relief-printing processes of woodcut, linoleum block, wood engraving, letterpress, and new technologies including laser cutting.
There is a distinctive graphic nature to prints made from carved surfaces as the energy of carving with gouges and burins is readily apparent. This action is transformed by pressure and ink onto paper which reveals light “opened up” from the solid surface. Artists are endlessly inventive with how the surface is changed, as well as with their innovations for printing from blocks, from essential black and white, to multiple layers of color and carving stages, to how the printing happens with presses or by hand. Relief prints use available materials for protest and actions, exist on large scale for impact, capture impressions of wood growth, and show intimate carved details on the end-grain of wood.
This inaugural biennial of relief prints here in the center of America showcases artists from around the country and abroad, all selected from an open call for entries. The works on exhibition focus on the role of the relief print as a means of cultural critique and exploration, of this ancient process but newly invigorated discipline as it is practiced and defined by today’s artists.
https://www.surfaceimpressions.art/exhibition
2055 'O' Street
Lincoln, NE 68510
hello@constellation-studios.net
(402) 438-0049
