Arts & Humanities

By Julie Hagemeier and Ian Borden

Have you ever been sitting in the audience of a play or film and wondered about how the actors can get kicked, take punches, swordfight and fall down stairs without getting injured? The answer to that is one word: training!

Click through to read the poem and see the photograph.

Click through to read the poem and see the photograph.

By Kirsten Drennon

This December, thousands of children will experience the “Nutcracker” for the first time either as audience members or performers in the cast. This trip to see the “Nutcracker” is often a child’s first experience with the performing arts and can provide an introduction that inspires them to want to see more and, in time, become a supporter and donor to the arts.

 Click through to read the poem and see the photograph.

By Suzanne Smith Arney

Plants and art have intertwined throughout history, all over the world; it’s a natural and ancient marriage. Earliest people, whose lives were dominated by the rigors of survival, still required the beauty, expressive potential and inspiration found in nature’s colors and textures. Dye recipes and references have been written in Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese characters; they’re found on Egyptian papyri, in the Hebrew Bible and Indian texts, all predating the Common Era. Colorful cave paintings date from 15,000 BCE. Basket making dates from about 10,000 BCE; Swiss Lake Dwellers and Peruvians were skilled weavers by 5,000 BCE and the very earliest quilted textiles have been found in Mongolian tombs.

By Virginia Smith

It’s interesting how we develop and grow our personal interests and how, as a result, they turn around and guide us in sometimes unexpected ways. I grew up in northern Minnesota, spent time in Wisconsin, Indiana and 16 years in Chicago before I moved to Nebraska. Among other things, I have developed lasting interests in the place that I’m living and, more specifically, the people who inhabit that place with me. I have also developed a keen appreciation for a good eye, the careful observation and a well-calculated conclusion.

By Eleanor Burns

Through the years we have seen fads and trends come and go. Remember tie-dyed T-shirts, macramé plant hangers, tole painting, cross-stitch/embroidery, memory crafts and so many more? Did you know that through the years, the art of quilting has never died? It has never been a fad or a trend. It is as fresh and new as when your grandmothers and great-grandmothers stitched beautiful heirlooms to be passed down through the family for generations.

By Toby Jurovics

Landscape photography is thought to be easily done. In its most literal form, it is an art of topography, an objective description of a particular site. The subject is usually expected to be a place notable for both dramatic scenery and the absence of people and their endeavors. This last belief, however, has also led to the assumption that “landscape” equals “wilderness.” This position was established by photographers like Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, who were central to the growth and success of the conservation movement in the 1960s.

By Tom Lynch

Imagine this place:

—A river network flows in intricate braids through the rolling terrain of a semiarid grassland.

—An amazing diversity of interesting and unique animals and plants resides here.

By Christopher Marks

What are all of those buttons for?” This is a question that you might expect to hear in the cockpit of a 747, but those of us who play the pipe organ hear it more often than any other question—except, perhaps, “How can you play with your hands and feet at the same time?” Both questions point to the complexity of the King of Instruments and the incredible artistry that goes into performing an organ recital.

By George Tuck

Wow! Outstanding images, beautiful printing, clever titles, dramatic scenery, spectacular wildlife, electrifying weather, peaceful landscapes and, well, you get the idea.

For many of us Jorn Olsen is an unknown. After this, his first book, he will join the ranks of Nebraskans whose photos about the state are legendary: Joel Sartore, Michael Forsberg, Bill Ganzel, Margaret MacKichan, Fr. Don Doll, Georg Joutras and others.

By Ron Hull

Mari Sandoz, our great chronicler of High Plains history, was fascinated by “will-to-power individuals” and her books are populated by these people. You’ll meet them in “Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglala’s,” “The Cattlemen,” “The Buffalo Hunters” and others found in her books.

By Robert Hanna

Watercolor is an adventure. It is a painting medium based on the overlayering of colors resulting in new colors and transparency. The technique is fraught with danger due to accidental happenings that result in abstract paint formations. It requires years of practice to tame these surprises. With some luck a water colorist might one day claim, “I planned it that way.” Richard Schilling’s new book, “Portrait of the Prairie: The Land That inspired Willa Cather,” shows an abundance of these qualities. It is quite obvious that he has paid his dues. This handsome volume containing 71 paintings and dozens of black-and-white illustrations is now available from the University of Nebraska Press.

By Amanda Mobley Guenther

In a time of political upheaval around the world, in a time of economic downturn in this country, in a time of major social change, America sits at a precipice. In many ways the heritage of our country is under attack and in some ways it is being revived. Let’s consider for a moment one area that is seeing change for the better.

By Mary K. Stillwell

Nebraska State Poet since 1982, Bill Kloefkorn was a big man with a warm welcome, a resonant baritone and an easy laugh. He died Thursday, May 19, 2011, in Lincoln, Neb., at the age of 78 and will be mourned and missed by family, friends, students and neighbors who looked forward to his next visit, plus thousands of readers and listeners who looked forward to each new book and to the Friday morning NET “Poetry of the Plains” broadcast. Fortunately, he left behind a treasure trove of writings, including 31 collections of poems, four volumes of memoirs and numerous works of fiction.

By Christine Humphrey

During the 1970s, quilt makers, dealers and collectors began to ask questions about the origins of quilt making and how women contributed to the history of their families, communities and nation through their quilts. By 1980, increased interest in quilts had created a growing market for antique quilts. Unfortunately, once quilts left family hands, their unique history was lost.

By Amanda Mobley Guenther

One of Nebraska’s most famous artists, Dale Nichols (1904–1995) is the cornerstone artist of the collection of Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art. Almost since its inception the museum has sought to examine and explain the deviations in Nichols’ art from his formal associations with regionalism, an art movement of the 1930s that sought to portray the unique culture of America. Early on it became clear to Mark L. Moseman, chief curator of the museum, that there was more to Dale Nichols than nostalgic pictures.

By Linda Crandall

The Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival’s roots stem from 1987 when Frank Popper, chairman of the urban studies department at Rutgers University, and his geographer wife Deborah concluded that the arid Great Plains will lose almost all of their people within the coming quarter-century. By 1990 these land-use experts had refined their theory. Using measurements that included population loss, scant population to begin with, poverty and a paucity of economic activity, they identified 109 at-risk counties in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. These counties make up about one-fourth of the Great Plains, cover 139,000 square miles and contain 413,000 people. This area, said the New Jersey professors, should become a massive ecological reserve, which they would call “Buffalo Commons.”

By Nora Tallmon

I remember myself at 8 years old, reading with a flashlight in the Victorian home we lived in on Tennyson Street in Denver. Across the street was Elitch Gardens amusement park, carnival lights flashed through our stained-glass windows while I read “Pippi Longstocking”—Astrid Lindgren’s books meant so much to me, a little nearsighted girl in a bustling family, in a burgeoning city. Pippi gave me courage; she was my bravest and strongest childhood friend; it was she who started me on my lifelong journey with my most stalwart and true ally, the book.