Kenny Walton Hand Blown Glass Exhibition

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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.

LJS Kenny Walton

Visit KennyWaltonGlass.com https://www.kennywaltonglass.com/ for information, memorial, and store.

Nine Nebraskans Public Art Installation

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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/

  • Sarah Rowe
  • Ryan Crotty
  • Nathan Murray
  • Kyle Nobles
  • Kat Wiese
  • Gerardo Meza
  • Byron Anway
  • Bart Vargas

   

Surface Impressions: International Print Show

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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

Josh Winkler: The Big Trees

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March 6 – 28, 2020

First Friday Reception March 6, 6:00-8:00pm

Using prints and adventure, Josh Winkler sparks content and connections that address environmental and cultural tragedies of the past and to engage the high stakes of the present.   This exhibition features a remnant of the great redwood trees of Calaveras county created with “endurance-level” hand printing on site.  Winkler has hiked the Chilkoot Trail, infamous during the Klondike Gold Rush at the turn of the century, and was an artist-in-resident in Dawson City in the Yukon, influencing panoramic print series of forest fires, highway travel, and reflections on the “collective path”.  Winkler is Assistant Professor of printmaking at Minnesota State University Mankato.   He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, and BFA from Ball State University.  


Paper Pulp & Beyond

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January 24 – February 28, 2020

Special Reception Thursday, January 23, 7-8pm

Papermaking demos – First Friday Feb 7, 6-8pm

Artists:

Kathy Cartier, Lincoln, NE

Melissa Harshman, Athens, Georgia

Nancy Mintz, Berkeley, CA

Bridget O’Malley, Minneapolis. MN

Amy Sands, Minneapolis. MN

Considering the special properties of humble paper fibers, artists explore cotton, abaca (banana leaf), flax, kozo and gampi (inner bark fibers) creating works beyond typical handmade sheets.     This exhibition celebrates the many qualities of various fibers – translucency, fluidity, lightweight, strength, malleability, as these natural materials transform into delicate veils, fantastic dimensional structures, pulp drawings and layered constructions.  Through the processes of hydration, beating, forming, and drying these fibers create unusual effects and interactions.

Artist in Residence Aleksander Wozniak

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Aleksander (Olek) was here through all of September 2019. Olek comes from Szczytno, Poland, and he is head of printmaking at the Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. While at Constellation Studios he was a guest at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Art, Art History & Design, lecturing on his work, and teaching a mokuhanga workshop to students. He presented his work in a solo exhibition at Constellation Studios. While in residence he carved and printed two large woodblock prints, and created hundreds of sketches of the people and environs of Lincoln. His obsessive stream-of-conscious drawing practice prepares his memory and hand for the translation that happens with carving the block and capturing the spontaneous gesture.

Here are images of his process, and exhibition, and with students.


Light Prints: Cyanotypes by Erin Cross, Matel Rokke, Toan Vuong

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October 4 – November 9, 2019

First Friday Reception October 4, 6-8pm

Closing Gallery Event Tuesday November 5,  7-8pm

Light Prints explores the natural intersection of prints and photography as a means to record “outside” information onto paper.   Light-sensitive coatings onto paper are exposed with objects or transparencies blocking ultraviolet light leaving a silhouette image that seems to “capture” the moment and the ghost of the object.   These artists have used this historic process to record collected objects, the shift of time, and the nostalgia of memorabilia.    Cyanotypes are known for the rich Prussian blue of the iron-based inorganic colorant, the first synthetic pigment, and used for blueprints, and in Japanese woodblock prints, suggesting mystery and transience.

Erin Cross is Professor of Art at Doane University in Crete, Nebraska.   She received her MFA in Visual Studies from Norfolk State University and her BFA from Old Dominion University.    She focuses on the visual intrigue of shape and the memory of its movements in mixed media compositions incorporating found objects as a narrative agent, gathered in the Canadian Maritime while in residence.

Toan Vuong is an adjunct lecturer at UNL and Nebraska Wesleyan University.   He earned his MFA from Tyler School of Art Temple University, studying in Rome and Philadelphia.    He received his BFA in Studio Art and a BA in French Modern Language from UNL.   His works are an accumulation of parts, marks, particles and repetitions, until an image emerges.  In this way a record is held, through incremental interventions, as a way to make sense of the world.

Matel Rokke is co-owner of Tsuru Boutique in Lincoln.   She earned her MFA in Photography from Harford Art School, and her BFA at UNL.   She has also taught at Metro Community College Omaha, Southeast Community College Lincoln, Dana College, Lux Art Center and UNL.  Personal experiences and items from generations past have recurring roles in her art, and pose questions about identity, importance, desire, and worthiness of a memory.

Artist in Residence Taryn Zust, Cincinnati,Ohio

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Taryn is a senior art student at University of Cincinnati, and had research funding for her residency in August. At Constellation Studios she created 8 etchings, made handmade paper for the title page, with a letterpress printed text, and put all together in a hand-bound book, all in 2 1/2 weeks of intense concentration. Great project! Here are a few highlights.

Marking the Distance: A Retrospective of Books, Prints, and Assemblages by Bonnie O’Connell

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August 2 – September 25, 2019

An exhibition on the life and works of veteran artist and teacher Bonnie O’Connell, professor emeritus of University of Nebraska Omaha School of the Arts will be presented at Constellation Studios, Lincoln, Nebraska.   Curated by Karen Kunc, the retrospective will take viewers through her artistic journey spanning over forty years.

O’Connell produces work in the media of book arts, letterpress and relief printmaking, collage and assemblage, that address the material culture of prints and books, often deconstructing and celebrating printed ephemera, the book as object, and the charged images of the past and present.

She taught courses in book arts (letterpress printing, typography, book design, bookbinding, and papermaking), alternative media and color theory. She has directed and produced fine press limited editions of contemporary poetry for Abattoir Editions, the literary imprint of the Fine Arts Press at UNO. She also maintains The Penumbra Press, her own private press established in Lisbon, Iowa, with a 40-year history in literary fine printing.

O’Connell is a celebrated book artist, known for her teaching, wit, and vast knowledge of the fine press book field.  Her mentors include: Walter Hamady who introduced her to letterpress through his Perishable Press Ltd. and his legendary teaching at the University of Wisconsin Madison; Kim Merker who founded the Windhover Press at the University of Iowa; and printer-publisher Harry Duncan of the Cummington Press and Abattoir Editions at UNO.     She has collaborated with noted writers, poets and artists, including Poet Laureates Rita Dove and Ted Kooser, Norman Dubie, Tess Galleger, Lynn Emanuel, Brenda Hillman, and David St. John, Louise LaFond and Karen Kunc. 

In the Details: Woodcut Print Invitational exhibition

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June 7 – July 27, 2019

Artists:  

Alexa Goetzinger, Oklahoma City, OK

Liz Menard, Toronto, Canada

Barbara Putnam, Deer Island, ME

Kasey Ramierz, Fayetteville, AR

Mark Sisson, Stillwater, OK

Laura Smith, Honolulu, HI

These invited artists are attracted to the woodcut process for the extensive carving effort and handwork that goes into the wood itself, that affects the quality of detail in their printed impressions.   These artists share skills that are expressive or methodical, intimate, illusionary, layered, for the characteristic graphic impact that we love in the woodcut print.

Barbara Putnam carves shina wood, from drawings made onsite at dumps and recycling centers….mounds of metal, plastics, throw-aways including toys
Liz Menard’s migration of printed monarchs across vignetts of distant landscapes
Mark Sisson’s magical portraits, with color woodcut layers, and the key layer from lithography for tone and details
Large prints by Alexa Goetzinger, with variations of inking enlivening the massive orchid
Kasey Ramirez creates wood-grain atmosphere around haunting ruins or constructions
Laura Smith plays with her carved blocks to create printed variations of iconic dress silhouettes


Color Woodcut Workshop June 2019

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This annual workshop drew 12 artists from across the USA…coming from San Francisco, Virginia, New York, Illinois, Idaho, South Dakota, Massachusetts, and Nebraska. Intense work and comradarie of the group enabled sharing and a fun spirit, as we got to know each other across the ink and while carving blocks. Beautiful prints were accomplished by all, as we enjoyed the studio set up, and the nice spring atmosphere. Thanks all for a great workshop!