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Give Your Heart To the Arts!

When was the last time you were touched by art?  What was it about that experience that moved your heart? How often do you ponder how art in all its forms enriches your life, your capacity to feel, and how you express yourself?
 
The Lincoln Arts Council's website www.artscene.org is the conduit to our arts community.  By uniting artists and arts organizations, we connect everyone to inspiring, creative opportunities that enrich our lives. Through our Web site and an up to date events calendar, we enable everyone to have access to these essential, rich and imaginative forces.
 
As a patron to the arts, your support helps the Lincoln Arts Council touch the community directly.  We also develop after school programming for underserved kids, assist in collaborations with human services organizations and artists, and provide resources for both artists and community.  Your heartfelt donation makes it possible.
 
Please express your heart for the arts and donate today.   Give online or mail your donation to The Lincoln Arts Council, 920 O Street, Lincoln, Nebraska  68508.


Website headerSave the Date For Our New Website Launch

We are excited to officially announce that we will be launching our new website the evening of Friday, May 7th 2010.  The new artscene.org isn't just a new look (though a great new look at that).  We will have some great new functionality to connect artists, arts organizations, and the public to each other and to news about the arts in Lincoln.

We have big plans for getting everyone in our community involved who lives for art or just loves it!  You can help us make those plans a reality by taking a quick survey that will help us determine what you want to get out of a new artscene.org.  And stay tuned for more details about our website launch event.

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Issue #26
February 2010


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In This Issue
Have a Heart, Give To the Arts!
Save the Date - Website Launch
New Artist Residencies
Artist Spotlight
Focus on Visual Arts
Focus on Performing Arts
Moment of Artistic Zen

New Website Survey

We need your feedback for our NEW website!
Click here for a quick survey.

New Artist Residencies

Nebraska Arts CouncilThe Lincoln Arts Council is pleased to announce that the Nebraska Arts Council has awarded two artist residencies to be conducted in February and March 2010.  Margaret Berry will be the resident artist at the Arts & Humanities High School and Ann Gradwohl will be at Norwood Park Elementary School.  The Lincoln Arts Council is excited to continue to offer more art education to students in the Lincoln community.  The first residency will be held later this month so be sure look for updates on this project at www.artscene.org!

Artist Spotlight

Dick BudigLincoln Artist Honors Fallen Soldiers

Dick Budig's studio in the basement of the Burkholder Project is filled with faces. A woman on a horse, a baby in a red dress, a man holding a violin. However, there is a face that stands out in an unfinished sketch on an easel -the face of a soldier. This isn't just any soldier, but a fallen soldier who called Nebraska home. 

Dick Budig set out five years ago to paint portraits of service men and women from Nebraska who lost their lives fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. He paints them free of charge and gives them to the mothers or immediate family members of fallen Nebraska soldiers. To date, he has completed 28 portraits of fallen soldiers.  More...


Brian WattBrian Watt featured at Pleasant View Gallery and UNL Bookstore

Lincoln is home to many outstanding young artists, but few have achieved national success as swiftly as Brian Watt. Brian Watt is the youngest in the nation to have received the degrees of Certified Professional Photographer and Master of Photography.  He is the only Certified Professional Photographer in Lincoln and is the recipient of many Kodak Gallery Awards and Fuji Masterpiece Awards.  Lincolnites have the opportunity to view Watt's work as part of First Friday events on February 5th at Pleasant View Gallery and at the UNL Bookstore.

Watt began his journey in photography when his father bought into a photography business sixteen years ago. He grew up in the business and at the age of 12 was recognized as one of the top ten non-masters in the state.  He went on to be recognized as a top ten photographer for the Professional Photographers of Nebraska from 2001 to 2006, and has been published several times in Professional Photographer magazine. Last year, Arizona's state photography association recognized Watt as one of their top ten photographers.  More...


Focus on Visual Arts
  North Lincoln Art Crawl
North Lincoln can claim one more reason to call itself a home for artists and art enthusiasts. On North 48th St. between Madison and Cleveland Avenues in the neighborhood of University Place, The Lichen has opened its doors. This building bears many faces - a design studio, an art gallery and an event space. The lichen is the creation of Ella Durham and Samuel Rapien, both graphic designers, instructors and Nebraska natives.

Samuel and Ella are working with other galleries to promote the North Lincoln Art Crawl. On Friday, February 5, Against the Wall Gallery, Heart of Gold Jewelers, LUX Center for the Arts, Mo Java Café, and the lichen will participate in the North Lincoln Art Crawl.

Crawl organizer and LUX Center staff member, Carlos Guerrero says, "As a group of galleries, we are excited to be showing some of the best art in Lincoln.  We hope to become a destination for people who want to explore this side of town on First Friday."  Gallery maps will be provided at each of the galleries.  More...


Bowls for Backpacks
On Saturday, February 27, Nebraska Wesleyan University will host Bowls For Backpacks: An Empty Bowls Event. All proceeds will benefit the Food Bank of Lincoln's BackPack Program, which sends backpacks filled with food home with students on Fridays to make sure they don't go hungry over the weekend.

Guests at the event will have their choice of nearly 500 homemade ceramic bowls crafted by Lincoln area school students, after-school program participants, college students, civic organizations, teachers and trauma patients.

Tickets for Bowls For Backpacks are $15 and will purchase soup, bread, drink and a ceramic bowl. Last year's inaugural event was attended by 400 people and raised nearly $7,000 for the Food Bank of Lincoln.  More...


Be sure to visit our Gallery Happenings page and First Friday gallery crawl for additional gallery events.

Focus on Performing Arts
 Rigoletto
A tragic tale of love, lust, vengeance, and death, Giuseppe Verdi's "Rigoletto" features some of opera's most unforgettable music and thrilling ensembles.

An opening night critic in 1851 Venice proclaimed: "Rigoletto speaks to you, cries out to you; it instills passion in you ... it strikes you with sweet, ingenious passages ... There was never such powerful eloquence in sound." Nearly 160 years later, Rigoletto remains one of the most beloved operas in the repertoire today. When Verdi composed Rigoletto. Every theatre in Italy clamored for the composer's operas.

UNL Opera's production will feature guest artist Todd Thomas in the title role. Thomas is recognized with operatic companies and journalists as one of those scarce true Verdi baritones. He has appeared throughout the U.S. in several roles. This past fall he was seen portraying Toni in Opera Omaha's production of I Pagliacci. Thomas joins the forces of UNL music students for what is sure to be an impressive production.

Rigoletto will be performed in Kimball Recital Hall on Thursday, February 25 at 12:00 pm; Friday, February 26 at 7:30 pm; and Sunday, February 28, at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available through the Lied Center Box office at (402) 472-4747 or (800) 432-3231.


Capital Jazz Society
The Capital Jazz Society brings you great music, food, and fun twice a week at Brewsky's Jazz Underground! Monday nights host the Monday Night Big Band, and Wednesday nights bring the Lincoln Jazz Series. It's a great way to spend an evening, reminiscent of a New York jazz club!

Brewsky's Jazz Underground takes place in the Lower level of Brewsky's Food & Spirits on 201 North 8th Street in Lincoln's Historic Haymarket from 7:30 - 10:00 PM on Monday and Wednesday nights.

Admission is $6 for adults and $5 for students with valid I.D. Admission is only $3 if you bring your instrument and sit in with the band!


Working
The hopes, dreams, joys and concerns of the average working American are the focus of this unique, extraordinary musical. The everyday lives of "common" men and women are so compelling and moving they surprise and inspire anyone who has ever punched a time clock. Based on Studs Terkel's best-selling book of interviews with American workers, Working paints a vivid portrait of the men and women the world so often takes for granted: the schoolteacher, the parking lot attendant, the waitress, the millworker, the mason, the trucker, the fireman, the housewife, just to name a few. It's a highly original look at the American landscape that's simply impossible to forget.

"Working" can be seen at the Lincoln Community Playhosue on 2500 S 56th Street from February 12-28. Tickets can be purchased by calling (402) 489-7529 or online at www.lincolnplayhouse.com

And Now, Your Moment of Artistic Zen.

Momment of Zen February

Published by the Lincoln Arts CouncilMasthead graphic
Located in Old City Hall

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Phone 402-434-2787
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