Meadowlark Visual Artists
Each year the Meadowlark Music Festival commissions a Nebraska visual artist to create a unique piece inspired by the Festival and its offerings. The work is displayed at the majority of the concert venues, and then joins The Meadowlark Collection at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, Nebraska.
Meadowlark is proud to announce MIKE EDHOLM as it's 2011 Visual Artist of the Year! Mike's piece will be the newest addition to "The Meadowlark Collection".
2011 Artist ~ Mike Edholm, Cartoonist
"Music in the Air"
MIKE EDHOLM is a Nebraska-native who has been drawing since the age of two, taking every art course the public school system had to offer, and working at his father’s commercial photography studio from the age of ten, learning the intricacies of photography, graphic arts, and darkroom techniques. During his high school years, Mike began developing his cartoon skills with contributions to the high school paper as well as cartoon illustrations in area art competitions. After graduating from high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, he was off to Northeast Iowa to study commercial art and photography at the Hawkeye Institute of Technology. He is finishing a graphic novel with two Hollywood writers, Shea E. Butler and Cheryl Cain entitled, Undercover Cockroach, Secret Agent 69 which is being developed for animation and is being considered by creator of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee. www.mikedholm.com
2010 Artist ~ Karen Kunc, Printmaker
"Song of the Lark"
KAREN KUNC grew up in Nebraska and attended the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, where she has been teaching since 1983. Her works have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the SNAP Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; the Ball State University Atrium Gallery, Muncie, Indiana; and Gallery APA, Nagoya, Japan. Her work has also been exhibited internationally at the State Museum at Majdanek, Lublin, Poland; the 6th Triennale Mondiale D'Estampes Petit Format, Chamalieres, France; Invitational, Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan; Intergrafia, Poland; and the International Print and Drawing Exhibition, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Kunc has taught numerous workshops around the world and served as a visiting artist in over 100 institutions. http://www.karen-kunc.com
2009 Artists ~ Michael Forsberg, Photographer & Ted Kooser, Poet
"In the Corner of the Fields"
The poem reads:
In the Corners of Fields
Something is calling to me
from the corners of fields,
where the leftover fence wire
suns its loose coils, and stones
thrown out of the furrow
sleep in warm litters;
where gray faces
of old No Hunting signs
mutter into the wind,
and dry horse tanks
spout fountains of sunflowers;
where a moth
flutters in from the pasture,
harried by sparrows,
and alights on posts,
so sure of its life
that it peacefully opens its wings.
TED KOOSER is a poet and essayist, a
Presidential Professor of English at The
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He served as
the U. S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and
his book Delights & Shadows won the 2005
Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His writing is
known for its clarity, precision and
accessibility. http://www.tedkooser.net/
MICHAEL FORSBERG grew up in Nebraska
and is dedicated to working extensively in the
prairies of the Great Plains. Michael's work
has appeared in publications including
National Geographic, Audubon, Natural
History, & National Wildlife and in books
published by National Geographic and
Smithsonian, among others. His books are: On Ancient Wings - The Sandhill Cranes of North America, which was published in 2004, and Great Plains - America's Lingering Wild - publication date of September 2009. His image of
Nine-Mile Prairie titled October in the
Tallgrass was selected for an USPS Postage
Stamp, released spring 2001. http://www.michaelforsberg.com
The Meadowlark Collection at the Museum of Nebraska Art.
Photography: John Nollendorfs
2008 Artist ~ Michael James, Quiltmaker
"A Narrative of Space, of Time"
MICHAEL JAMES is a quiltmaker and artist whose approach to quiltmaking has been influenced as much by his training as a painter as by his study of the history and development of American quiltmaking and quiltmaking techniques. Michael exhibits his work widely in solo and group exhibitions. He was honored in 1999 with a 25-year retrospective at the Museum of the American Quilter's Society in Kentucky, and his work has been included in six Quilt National competitions as well as in invitational shows at the Museum of Arts and Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) in New York City. He has also had exhibitions internationally. His studio is located in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he serves as the Department Chair and Ardis James Professor of Textiles, Clothing and Design in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
2007 Artist ~ Robert Hillestad, Textile Artist
"Meadowlark in Fiber "
ROBERT HILLESTAD has participated in more than 150 juried and invitational shows in the United States and abroad. In addition to being recognized for excellence numerous times, Dr. Hillestad has also been the recipient of awards including being designated a "Fellow" of the International Textile and Apparel Association. Images of his work have appeared in more than sixty publications. In 1997, "The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery" on the University of Nebraska campus was named in his honor.
2006 Artist ~ Cliff Hollestelle, sculptor of wildlife
"Meadowlark"
CLIFF HOLLESTELLE was raised in Omaha, Nebraska. His interest in wildlife began when he spent time on an uncle's farm where they hunted upland birds and waterfowl. Also seeing the movie "Bambi" sent both an anti-hunting message and a sense of animal artwork. He earned a degree from the University of Omaha and had a dual career as wildlife sculptor and illustrator-administrator for 32 years at the Barkely Speech Language and Hearing Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 1996, he became a full time carver and has won numerous awards including "Best of Show" at the Ward Foundation World Championship in Ocean City, Maryland.
2005 Artist ~ Stephen Dinsmore, Painter
"This Entire Sky"
STEPHEN DINSMORE's paintings can be found in public and private collections both nationally and internationally. Dinsmore, a Nebraska-born artist, presents paintings that testify to the vitality of representational art as a means of communicating visual poetry. His paintings may border on the abstract being a synthesis from several sources; in other instances they may convey a more specific sense of place and time. http://www.stephendinsmore.com
2004 Artist ~ Gail Kendall, Ceramicist
"Tureen"
GAIL KENDALL was raised in a small lumber town on Green Bay in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She spent ten years working as an independent studio artist in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1987 she accepted a position in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kendall's research interests include Mediterranean Basin earthenware ceramics, Christian and Islamic illuminated manuscripts, and English pottery and porcelain. In 2003 Kendall was a participant in the Attingham Trust Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses in England. Her work has been shown in countless exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad and is the subject of articles in periodicals and books. Most recently, her pottery is featured in Emmanuel Cooper's new book International Ceramics, published by A & C Black, London, 2008.
2003 Artist ~ Keith Jacobshagen, Painter
"Salt Valley, Late Spring"
KEITH JACOBSHAGEN is one of Nebraska's best-known living painters. He does vast panoramic views, primarily of the Nebraska landscape. His goal is to obscure or abstract the reality with fragments or suggestions of shapes and places. Currently a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Jacobshagen received the Outstanding Research and Creativity Award for his extraordinary contributions. His work is featured on the cover of the Smithsonian Press/University of Iowa publication Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie and recently exhibited in the retrospective "Beyond the Horizon: Paintings by Keith Jacobshagen, 1990-2005" at the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
2002 Artist ~ Nadine McHenry, Painter
"Meadowlark"
NADINE MCHENRY's paintings hang in corporate and private collections, also at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney and at the Center for Great Plains Studies in Lincoln.
Twelve of her paintings are permanently displayed at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. Eight are in the prayer room at First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln NE. Four are at the University of Nebraska College of Law. She was the recipient of the 2002 Lincoln Mayor's Arts Award for Artistic Achievement. http://www.nadinemchenry.com/
2001 Artist ~ Robert Weaver
"Meadowlark"
ROBERT WEAVER was born in Pittsburgh on July 5, 1924. He was a natural draftsman who drew from childhood. He completed a year of study at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. After 1970, Mr. Weaver's work was increasingly curtailed because he suffered from glaucoma, but he continued his classes at the School of Visual Arts. Retrospectives of his work were held at the S.V.A. Gallery in 1985 and 1992. In 1982, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Society of Illustrators.
Meadowlark would like to thank our dedicated sponsors!
