Willow Bend, Karen Kunc, Woodcut, 1999

Wind, Water, Land: Five Artists' Conceptions

Great Plains Exhibition Runs Through Dec. 12

Rushing streams of water, chiseled canyons, quiet wetlands, wind and rain lashing plains or bluffs - these and other manifestations of natural forces have inspired imagery in the new exhibition Wind and Water on the Land: Works by Karen Dienstbier, Karen Kunc, Christina McPhee, Linda Meigs and Susan Puelz.

The exhibition runs until Dec. 12 at the Great Plains Art Collection, 215 Love Library. The Friends of the Center for Great Plains Studies will sponsor an opening reception and program from 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 18, with talks by the artists beginning at 7:30 p.m., in the gallery.

The exhibition presents 33 works of art by five women artists whose work reflects an ongoing engagement with the theme of wind and water as shaping forces on the land. All of the artists have roots in the Great Plains and each also often creates her art in series. The artists' stylistic approaches range widely, from naturalistic to impressionistic and expressionist, as well as abstract and symbolic. Individualistic use of vivid color also distinguishes each artist's work. Media encompass oil painting, acrylic, watercolor, woodcut, pastel, and distinctive combinations, such as watercolor and pastel.

Equally important, a strong sense of place also characterizes the landscapes by each artist. Using her experiences in the Rocky Mountains and Glacier National Park as points of departure, Dienstbier has completed two remarkable series of work. She builds up layers of vividly hued watercolors into subtly patterned compositions which capture the complex play of light on and through surfaces of water as it flows or rushes. In contrast, Meigs focuses upon quiet bodies of water such as lakes and wetland environments in the Nebraska Sandhills in her scenes executed in pastel, or monotype and pastel, which are filled with lush color and detailed rendering of grasses.

Kunc draws upon ongoing experience of her native plains environment as she creates her beautifully executed woodcuts. Using forms evocative of wind, water and topography of the plains and American West, she flattens and arranges these forms in complex relationships within vibrant fields of color. Her two series of prints capture or allude to greatly varied kinds of movement by wind and water, and their manifold effects upon the land.

Some of Kunc's, McPhee's and Puelz's work also contain references to human activity in the landscape, suggesting its shaping effects as well as those of wind and water on the land. McPhee incorporates imagery of stockyards by means of digital collage in one of her expansive landscape vistas. Like McPhee, Puelz also employs strong color and bold brushwork in her large watercolor and pastel paintings, several of which incorporate signs of human alteration of the land in the forms of cultivated fields or city skyline.

Viewers will find some similarities as well as striking contrasts between the various artists' works - in choice of landscape motifs, traits of style and artistic effects. Most compelling is the emergence of each artist's highly individualized response to the common theme. Works of art were loaned for the exhibition from the artists; private collections in Lincoln, Nebraska and Kansas City, Mo.; the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.; the Anderson O'Brien Fine Art Gallery, Omaha, Neb.; the Haydon Gallery/Nebraska Art Association, Lincoln, Neb.

The exhibition was curated by Martha H. Kennedy, curator of the Great Plains Art Collection.

Normal gallery hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 1:30 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The gallery will be closed during Thanksgiving holiday break, Nov. 25-28.

Bad Boys of A Cappella Incite Musical Mayhem

Four classically trained singers with a penchant for humor make The Edlos ­ The Bad Boys of A Cappella a unique musical experience. The Edlos will bring their combination of musical skill and zaniness to the Lied Center for Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Nov. 19. This performance is part of the Lied Center's Family series.

The Edlos - Ed Cohn, Eric Morris, Larry Venza and Craig Knudsen - offer a distinctive show that is a guaranteed original. With a cappella renditions of everything from Gregorian chants to 1970s rock hits, The Edlos use their masterful voices to great effect. But powerful singing is only the beginning of this performance. An Edlos show also includes a large dose of humor mixed with arena-style lighting, wacky costumes, silly wigs, funny hats and all sorts of mayhem. The result is an inventive performance that will tickle the funny bone of every member of the family.

So where does the name come from? The members say that Edlos stands for Excessive Decibels from Outer Space and that they are aliens exiled from the planet "A" (in the system of "Cappella") for singing too loudly. Another story has it that after meeting at a cast party, the group banded together to recapture the joy of performing that had been lost in years of professional opera work.

Whatever their origin, The Edlos are on a mission to break new ground in a cappella performances through diversity and originality.

The Edlos is a group of skilled performers that knows how to deliver a versatile and entertaining show.

Tickets for this performance are $10; half-price for students. Call the Lied box office at 472-4747 or toll free, (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability.

CHRISTIAN CAMPBELL as Gabriel, and J.P. Pitoc as Mark, in Trick, showing through Nov. 20 at the Mary Riepma Ross Theater.

Film Trick Comes to Ross Theater

Jim Fall's delightfully charming Trick, opening at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on Nov. 11, is perhaps the most appealing gay date movie ever made. Trick belongs to a new cycle of gay movies that are not about AIDS or social issues, but simply deal with situations, such as dating and first love, relevant to everybody, regardless of sexual orientation.

Also showing is a short feature, 1919 by Noam Gonick, showing the Winnipeg General Strike (Canada, 1919) as seen through the window of a gay bathhouse/barbershop.

A trash-talking drag queen, an estranged couple, a horny roommate and a resume-wielding actress - these are a few of the people complicating matters for two young men desperately searching for a place to be alone together in Trick. As sweet as it is hilarious, Trick affirms the possibility of love in the most unlikely of circumstances as it follows its two appealing heroes on their perambulations through the gay demimonde of downtown Manhattan.

An aspiring musical theatre writer, Gabriel (Christian Campbell) is talented, dedicated and ambitious. But there's one problem with his songs: he's detached from the big emotions he's writing about. He needs some excitement in his life, something better than running lines with his crazy actress friend Katherine (Tori Spelling) over a chicken Caesar.

So Gabriel tries out a local cruise bar, where he briefly exchanges looks with a go-go boy Mark (J.P. Pitoc), the male ideal in a red thong. Later, the two men find themselves on the same subway train. Mark's approach is no-frills, and his delivery is irresistible, as he picks up the bashful songwriter as nonchalantly as a handkerchief. Thus begins an all-night odyssey that finds Mark and Gabriel bouncing all over downtown Manhattan as fate, friends, and misunderstandings conspire to keep them from consummating their passion. But as the sun rises over Greenwich Village, the would-be lovers are left with the feeling that the evening has yielded something far more gratifying than a one-night stand.

Trick and 1919 are showing on Nov. 11 through 14 and on Nov. 18 through 20. Screenings are at 7 and 9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, at 1, 3, 7 and 9 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $6.50 for adults and $4.50 for students, senior citizens, children, and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.

Judith Burton: Visual Nuances

Solo Exhibition Runs Through January at Sheldon

A solo exhibition by artist Judith Burton runs through Jan. 16 at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden.

Judith Burton: Visual Nuances features 20 works by an important Nebraska artist whose aesthetic expression succeeds in celebrating the many formal tensions and subtleties inherent to the visual arts.

The exhibition is part of the Gallery's "Sheldon Solo" series, which features nationally recognized contemporary artists and also assesses the work of an artist who has contributed to the spectrum of American art. Visual Nuances also demonstrates Sheldon's commitment to the exhibition of local and regional artists whose work transcends the local community.

A life-long Lincoln resident, Burton earned an undergraduate degree in art from the University of Nebraska in 1955 and completed an M.F.A. at UNL in 1989. Burton's work celebrates the "visual nuances" that lie at the core of the unique act of artmaking. They are at once representations of objects that often escape our notice and join the world of objects as well. They celebrate art as a mimetic as well as an expressive endeavor, art as representation of the world and manifestation of the creativity of the artist. Burton's sensitive portrayals of a ceramic egg, a cheese grater, a jug, and a host of other banal objects that escape our attention, reinvest those objects with dignity and significance. And the intensely worked-over painting surface as well as the subtle but expressively powerful lines reveal and celebrate a strong artistic presence as well.

Visual Nuances presents an aesthetic that is a radical departure from loud and raucous visual culture that saturates our lives. Burton's pictures thus require active and sustained attention on the part of the viewer, an active interaction with the work rather than passive reception. For just as these "visual nuances" are a personal undertaking for Burton, so too do they deserve personal viewing as well.

An opening reception hosted by the Nebraska Art Association will take place on from 5-7 p.m. Nov. 23 in the Great Hall of the Sheldon Art Gallery. The exhibition will be the subject of a "Wednesday Walks" lecture at 12:15 p.m. Dec. 15, when Burton and Sheldon Curator Daniel Siedell will present a gallery talk.

Mid-Western ARchitecTs 3 Exhibit

A traveling exhibit entitled "Mid-Western ARchitecTs 3" will be on display until Nov. 20 in the Architecture Hall gallery. The exhibition presents the architectural drawings, models and photographs of three national award-winning projects produced by three mid-western architectural firms. Those firms are Randy Brown Architects, Elliott and Associates and Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck. The curator is Tom Prinz. Architecture gallery hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Marjorie Saiser Poetry Reading Tonight

Local poet Marjorie Saiser, whose book, Bones of a Very Fine Hand, was recently published by Backwaters Press in Omaha, will be reading at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11 in the Dudley Bailey Library, 228 Andrews Hall.

Saiser earned her M.A. from UNL and taught for many years in the Lincoln Public Schools. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Georgia Review, Crazy Horse and many other journals, and have been awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize and the 1999 Literary Heritage Award from the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association.

Saiser's reading is sponsored by the UNL English department. It is free and open to the public.

Statewide Examines Indian Claim to Whiteclay

A group of Sioux Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation have served eviction notices on liquor stores in neighboring Whiteclay, Neb., but is there any validity to the Indians' claim that they own the town? Century-old treaty issues, still being debated today, will be examined on a "Perspective" segment airing at 7 p.m. Nov. 20 on Statewide, the Nebraska ETV Network's weekly magazine series. The series, which includes up-to-the-minute news reports from across the state and other features of interest, repeats at 1:30 p.m. Sunday and also airs at 3 p.m. Nov. 20 on EduCable.

Statewide correspondent Bill Kelly travels to Whiteclay, a community adjacent to the Nebraska-South Dakota border and the southern edge of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Some members of the Ogalala Lakota Sioux nation believe a series of treaties and presidential decrees puts the land under their control. The argument is being tested in a Sheridan County, Neb., courtroom by Native American activists.

Q+A Series Features Denny's Diversity Officer

Making the leap "from worst to first" is always impressive, but the achievement is particularly laudable when change occurs in the arena of civil rights

Learn how Denny's Restaurants changed its reputation as one of the nation's most discriminatory businesses to one of its most inclusive when Rachelle Hood-Phillips, the chief diversity officer for the restaurant chain's parent company, appears on Q+A, the statewide Nebraska ETV Network's weekly interview series, at 7 p.m. Nov. 18. This episode of Q+A will also air at 10:30 p.m. Nov. 19; 3:30 p.m. Nov. 21 and 8 a.m. Nov. 23 on EduCable.

Omaha television news anchor Byron Wood will interview Hood-Phillips.

Denny's became saddled with a reputation for racial discrimination after several highly publicized incidents, including one where Denny's employees refused to serve African Americans who were U.S. Secret Service agents. The incidents resulted in class action lawsuits that eventually cost the company $46 million to settle. To rehabilitate its reputation and reform its business practices, Denny's parent company - Advantica - formed reciprocal trade partnerships with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility. Today, three African Americans and a Hispanic American serve on Advantica's 12-member board of directors. Forty-six percent of Advantica's more than 60,000 employees are minorities and 35 percent of Denny's franchise restaurants are minority-owned. In June 1997, Advantica received the NAACP's Fair Share Corporate Award. In 1998, a Fortune magazine survey rated Advantica second among "The 50 Best Companies for Asians, Blacks and Hispanics."

Hood-Phillips was the key person responsible for transforming Denny's corporate culture. She is expected to discuss how Denny's made the turn-around and describe the skills that make a workplace both diverse and effective.