art Archives - StoryHook

Anne Burkholder

By Asha Timperley

If you peek your head into Anne Burkholder’s studio, you’ll most likely see her hunched over her latest rural Nebraska landscape.

Inspiration for her paintings is derived from her childhood spent in the Sandhills, as well as frequent trips to remote locations across the great plains.

When I’m painting the skies, I’m just basically in that space. You know, if I’m painting a landscape I’m standing there in that field of grass or on that hill looking across the valley – it’s a really peaceful feeling for me,” Burkholder said.

But if you’re starting to get the idea that Ms. Burkholder is a soft-spoken wallflower then you’ve got it all wrong.

Anne’s life is marked by international backpacking trips, whimsical folk art and efforts to cultivate a thriving art culture in Lincoln.

In 1987 Anne sold nearly everything she owned to buy a run-down building in the Haymarket.

“It was really important for me that there be a community of artists, because as I was talking to other artists they needed to also get out of their kitchens and attics and garages, and have a space where they could do their art,” she said.

At the time, this area was dingy – to put it mildly – but Anne was determined to establish a space where artists from every background could work and display their art.

She was one of the major players in establishing Lincoln’s First Friday art walks in 1988 after visiting similar events in Minneapolis and Kansas City.

After almost 40 years, Anne still mingles among the guests that filter in and out of her gallery every First Friday. She smiles and nods at old friends, artists and patrons as she sits back and watches her once dreamed-up gallery come to life.

“Oh I have no plans to stop. Why would somebody retire if you’re doing exactly what you want to do?
You should still being doing it,” she said. “A nd making art, what a wonderful existence.”

Anne Burkholder is a lady with grit and a really good story, and it’s not over yet.

November 15, 2018

Love7

Albert Maxey

By Asha Timperley

Albert Maxey is thinking about writing a book about his life, a memoir of sorts.

In it he’d talk about his childhood, basketball career, moving to Lincoln, his education, raising his family and being an artist. There’s a lot to include in a book like that, he said with a laugh, so for now he’s content with telling bits and pieces of his story as it comes up.

Albert said that while he was raised in Indianapolis, he “grew up” when he came to Lincoln in 1957.

“It was a very big transition to come here,” he said. “It’s like having a bowl of milk in front of you and you’re the fly that landed in that bowl of milk.”

The analogy might sound a little strange, but Albert said mostly he just felt out of place. He’d attended an all-black high school in Indiana and there were very few white families in his neighborhood. But he decided to come to Nebraska because of their reputation of strong academics, plus they’d offered him a basketball scholarship.

In high school, Albert’s basketball team was the first all-black team to ever win a state basketball championship – and they did this two years in a row. This got him and his teammates noticed by colleges across the country, and Albert received dozens of athletic scholarship offers during his senior year.

One of his offers was from Nebraska. Despite his early confidence in his decision to leave Indiana, the transition was difficult. There was a definite culture shock, his classes were challenging and it was hard to make new friends.

However, where Albert really excelled was on the basketball court. He played with other talented athletes and soon earned a reputation at UNL and in Lincoln for being a standout player.

After he played his final year of basketball, Albert focused his gaze on his degree in art and education. He’d grown up watching his mother sketch and knew that his passion and talent came from her. Albert had put art on the back burner while he played basketball, but now he was ready to dig in to art… or so he thought.

Albert soon realized that he needed a job to sustain him during school, so after scoping out his options, he started working at the Lincoln Police Department – mostly because it was within walking distance of his school and home.

At first, the job was just to off-set his bills, but he quickly progressed from a part-time employee to a beat cop, sergeant, criminal investigator, lieutenant and commanding officer. Albert was even part of the security team that guarded Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he came to Lincoln. Although working in law enforcement was vastly different than art, Albert said he really enjoyed getting to know his community.

He spent 34 years working for the police department before retiring. Albert again set his sights on using his degree and began to help Lincoln Public Schools adopt better security in their schools. He did this job for 14 years before officially retiring in 2008.

During his working years Albert got married, raised four children and became an active member of his community. Lincoln was slowly but surely becoming his home and he was proud to be a part of the city.

But Albert said he wasn’t the only one who was finding his place in Lincoln, his wife, JoAnn was carving out a place for herself as well. She was an amazing mother, Albert said, but she was also very ambitious when it came to caring for others.

She was appointed as a Nebraska state senator, becoming the first African American female to hold such an office. JoAnn was also the first black woman to serve on the Lincoln Board of Education.

Albert was incredibly proud of his wife and the way she cared for both their family and the community. She suddenly passed away from cancer when she was just 54, leaving a void in both Albert’s life as well as the city she loved so dearly.

There’s a senior center and an elementary school named after his wife, reminders of the person she was and the woman he married.

Life began to settle down for Albert after he retired. He was done with basketball, his kids were grown, his career goals had been met… but there was still his art.

These days Albert spends most of his time in his Haymarket art studio. He likes to sketch his designs with pencil before he starts in with the paint. His favorite thing to paint are portraits, he just loves the way faces tell stories.

He said even though art and his work in law enforcement were so different, being such a visual person helped him identify people when he was a police officer. He recognized different facial features, clothing and even body language, all of which are part of his art now.

Albert said he’s grateful he gets to spend his retirement in an art studio, he’s happy that this season is part of his story. He wasn’t also so sure that he’d get back to art, but today he has.

His story has been about pushing forward, despite the difficulties. It’s been about drive, he said, a drive he saw in himself, his wife, his children and one he hopes to witness in his grandchildren.

Maybe someday he’ll get around to writing down all the exact details of his story, but for now, he’s starting on his next painting.

May 24, 2017

Love8

Alex Kolbo

By Asha Timperley

Alex Kolbo is one of those ‘cool’ teachers. He’s young, fun and he teaches high school art.

Most days there are a few students who hang out in his art room before or after school to work on projects or just to talk with Mr. Kolbo about whatever is on their mind.

Being an art teacher is a job that feels natural to Alex. It tracks well with this own love of all things artistic, plus, it’s relational, which is something he didn’t know would quickly become the best part of his job.

But Alex never saw himself as an art teacher. In fact, ever since first grade all he really wanted to be was an architect.

As a kid, Alex was always drawing. It was a hobby that was encouraged by his parents, teachers and nearly anyone who saw his work. He had talent, but he was a little shy to admit it. He remembers refusing to take compliments when people would look at his artwork. Then his dad sat him down and had a conversation about being grateful for his abilities and taught him how to accept encouragement from others.

But even though he was talented, Alex said he never thought about being an artist. He thought the more practical route would be architecture, because it combined his artistic skills with his math abilities… and he’d heard that architects earn a good living.

Architecture wasn’t just what Alex planned to do, it’s what he told everyone he would do – it was his identity. So when he went to college at UNL as an architecture major, nobody was surprised.

After two years of having a love-hate relationship with architecture – which Alex now fondly refers to as ‘archi-torture’ – he hit a major roadblock. While he enjoyed his classes, the math portion of his degree was proving extremely challenging, specifically his calculus class. He needed to pass calculus with a C or higher and after taking the class three times he was 1 percentage point away from passing the class.

He had two choices: take the class a fourth time and hopefully pass so that he could continue with his architecture degree, or change his major.

Alex went home for the weekend to think over his decision. He said it felt heavy and even a little sad to have his once certain future suddenly full of question marks. Alex met with friends and a handful of trusted mentors who listened to his dilemma and offered advice. He said the most common question everyone asked was, ‘Have you ever thought about teaching art?”

Teaching? Interesting, he thought.

But then came the list of questions and hesitations, the main one centering on if he could provide for his future family on a teacher’s salary. Plus, being a teacher didn’t seem nearly as glamorous as his architecture aspirations.

He was shocked by the fact that so many people had suggested the same career shift, but now the decision was up to him. Within a week Alex changed his major, ending his time at the architecture school and starting down the teaching path.

It’s been nearly seven years since Alex made the decision to become a teacher and he’s currently finishing up his fourth year at Lincoln East High School. He landed the job shortly after he graduated, and quickly found that teaching felt like such a natural use of his passions and skills.

“I love making art, it’s fun, but that alone hasn’t been the most meaningful part of my job,” he said. “It’s the building relationships, and I didn’t realize that would make me feel like this is where I’m meant to be.”

Whether he’s teaching pottery, photography, graphic design or even jewelry making, Alex said his goal is to connect with students and help them think creatively. He said creative thinking isn’t just for art, it’s for life, and art is the tool he’s using to teach his students these skills.

Alex knows that not every kid who walks into his classroom is thrilled about taking an art class. They don’t all have to love or even appreciate art, he said, but he wants them to know that he’s a teacher they can trust and learn from, whether it’s art or something from his own story.

Alex said teaching is something he can see himself doing for a long time. It gives him his own time and space to think creatively, plus it pairs well with his endeavors outside of the classroom. On weekends and during the summer he likes to take wedding and engagement photos, help his wife, Machelle, with her graphic design business, think up art-inspired Instagram posts, go on walks with their golden retriever and hang out with kids in his church’s youth group.

Nearly everything Alex does turns into some sort of exercise in creative thinking. It’s what he loves, what he’s passionate about and what naturally rises to the surface of both his work and hobbies.

It’s seems funny to think of Alex as being anything other than an art teacher at Lincoln East. It’s where he’s invested his skills and his time. And even though Alex is at the front of the classroom, it’s really his students who have shaped his story and encourage him to test his own creativity every day.

May 3, 2017

Love7

Peggy Gomez

By Asha Timperley

Peggy Gomez said that Mondays are typically her busiest day at the shop. She does inventory and helps the customers who come in looking for various art supplies.

Running and owning Gomez Art Supply has become her life. It wasn’t what she set out to do, but somehow it’s become her story.

As a kid, Peggy said she was always interested in art. She grew up in Omaha as the daughter of a father with Mexican heritage and a mother with Irish blood. They were supportive of her love for art and encouraged her to pursue it during school. She earned a Bachelors in Fine Arts at UNL and her Master’s in Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota, before returning to Lincoln to teach.

Peggy taught at the University for nearly 10 years, specializing in drawing and printmaking, and while she enjoyed working with the students, she said she knew she didn’t want teaching to be her full-time gig.

She remembers overhearing students talk about how they wished there was a local place to buy art supplies in Lincoln. The big stores were either not helpful or many were located far from campus. Back when Peggy was in school, there were small art shops in town, but they’d since closed, giving her the idea that just maybe she could open an art supply shop.

The idea slowly grew over the years and eventually she quit her job at the University with the hopes of starting her own business.

But in 2002, time stood still for Peggy. Her father passed away, leaving a big void in her life, and causing her to take some time off to figure out her next step.

Her father was the kind of dad everyone hopes they have, she said. He was always showering her and her two sisters with encouraging words, often looking them in the eyes and saying, ‘Did I tell you how much I love you today?’

“In life, if you’re lucky, you get what you need in a family,” Peggy said. “And my dad was the one we were all closest to.”

She still wishes he could have been around when she opened the doors to Gomez Art Supply in the fall of 2003. Her father was a businessman himself, who would have loved to see Peggy settle on a career, she said, but she always knew he was proud of her.

She intentionally named the shop ‘Gomez’ as a tribute to her father. It’s a good name, she said, and he was a good man – she keeps an old picture of him hanging on a wall behind the register in the shop.

Most days, Peggy said, she’s proud of how she’s kept her shop open and thriving for 13 years – and she knows her dad would be proud too. She’s got grit and lots of staying power, she’s not easily swayed and isn’t fussy about the little things.

When a big name art supply shop moved in just blocks from her shop, she thought maybe her days were numbered, but they weren’t. Peggy’s connection and support from the University, along with her integration into the Lincoln small business community have made her and her shop a well-known and loved part of downtown Lincoln.

But there are bad days too, she said. Her heart still sinks when a customer leaves a bad online review or when she overhears people in the shop complain.

It feels personal, she said, and the hardest part is learning how to develop a thick skin. Sure, her business isn’t all of who she is, but there is so much about Peggy that’s tied to her work.

When Peggy isn’t in the shop, she’s running the Tugboat art gallery in collaboration with other local artists. The gallery is a place where artists of all kinds can show their work and engage with the community. She doesn’t financially benefit from this kind of work, she just does it. It’s her way of giving back to Lincoln and supporting something she values.

Being a supportive part of the community was always in her rough sketch of a business plan. It’s something her dad did, and something she knew she wanted to be part of her legacy as well.

Gomez Art Supply is where Peggy saw her hazy future clear up. It’s where her love of art, community and quality converged. It’s a place that bears her family name, and one that she’s proud to own and operate even on the days when it’s stressful and overwhelming.

It isn’t a big art superstore and it never will be. It has hand-drawn murals and signs, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. It’s got character, spunk and it has weathered its fair share of uncertainty, but it’s Peggy’s shop and when she shuts off the lights and locks the door, that’s what matters.

November 23, 2016

Love5

Dick Budig

By Asha Timperley

“Today we received a beautiful gift from you… we cannot find the words to describe it…”

Dick Budig gets cards in the mail with these kinds of sentiments on a fairly consistent basis. He doesn’t really know the woman who sent him this letter, in fact, he’s never even met her… but he recently painted a portrait of her deceased son.

Over the past 16 years, painting portraits of men and women killed in war has become Dick’s hobby. He does his work completely free of charge, seeking to honor the families of these heroes and thank them for their sacrifice.

It’s work that satisfies his soul, and it’s a job he created because he saw a need that was unmet – both in the community and in his own heart.

“I’ll be 80 this month,” Dick said, looking over his glasses. “I’ve been around a while.”

He’s seen a lot, done a lot and all of it, he said, has shaped why he’s painting portraits of fallen heroes.

As a child of the ’40s, Dick said he remembers the big events of World War 2. He remembers hearing about Hitler marching into Poland, saying goodbye to his relatives who went off to fight and the look on his parents’ faces when they opened a telegram telling them their family members weren’t coming home.

He and his friends played ‘war’ endlessly, making up creative skits and scenarios that mimicked what they heard war was like overseas. But the reality of war was also very apparent to Dick, even at the age of 10. He said he missed his relatives who died in the war, and not getting a chance to say goodbye seemed wrong.

When Dick got older, he went into the military as well. Serving as a member of the Air Force, his days were spent on a SAC base where his unit guarded planes between the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

It wasn’t as bad as other wars, he said. However, there was no guarantee that he or his buddies would be coming back from war – but he did.

Dick came home to his wife and two young children and they settled in his hometown of McCook, Nebraska. Here, he attended a community college where he was a pre-med student, until he realized he couldn’t hack chemistry. He changed his degree to journalism and worked for the McCook newspaper for a few years.

But after a while, Dick said he couldn’t sit at his desk and pound on his typewriter anymore. He moved his family to Lincoln, where he transitioned from journalism to advertising. From there, his work history gets complicated.

“I did a thousand little things,” Dick said with a laugh.

He was a hairdresser, journalist, owned an advertising agency, gold refinery, jewelry design shop, an ice cream shop and eventually a pawn shop.

At one point, he looked into buying a bank, but couldn’t afford it, and soon realized a pawn shop functioned a lot like a “poor man’s bank.”

Dick spent his days tinkering with broken electronics, fixing them up and selling them for a profit. He did so well, in fact, that he was able to pursue one of his long-term passions that he’d since put on the back burner – painting.

As a kid, Dick was always drawing. He would spend hours sitting and sketching, and one day he added color to his work, opening his eyes to the world of painting.

But with a family, there was little time to paint professionally or even pursue it as a hobby. He needed to make money, and art wasn’t a viable option for feeding his family.

After Dick retired in 2000, he circled back to painting. He’d always loved portraits and began to make time to pursue his art. He realized that he needed people to paint, and who better to paint than fallen heroes, he thought.

When he started out, families were a little skeptical of his work, and understandably so. He said oftentimes families were still mourning their loved ones and couldn’t fathom someone offering to paint a portrait free of charge, but Dick’s offer was truly that simple and sincere.

He’s starting to lose track, but Dick said he’s painted somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 portraits of fallen war heroes. He started out painting just Nebraska soldiers, but said he can’t say ‘no’ to families.

When parents contact him they often share a lot about their child with him – their likes, dislikes, character traits and personality and even how they passed away.

“They tell you these stories and it’s difficult,” he said. “These kids are gone, just gone. But there’s still something magic about an oil painting I think…”

When he paints, he doesn’t think about the soldier’s story or even their family, he thinks about the mechanics of what he’s doing. The colors he’s using, the detail and shading – every detail needs to be just right. Dick said when he paints, it’s like times stops and it’s wonderful.

Some portraits take him a few days, others can take up to a month to complete, and when a painting is done the family either comes to pick it up from his studio or Dick sends them the portrait in the mail.

“People come in here to see the portrait and they just stand here and weep,” he said. “And I get some really nice cards.”

He pulled a few pieces of paper out of a stack, “These are some of my favorites.”

Written in pencil on lined notebook paper were notes from two young girls whose father was killed in the Middle East. They dotted their ‘I’s’ with hearts and told Mr. Dick how he was their favorite artist because of the portrait he’d painted of their father.

‘This is better than money,” he said, holding up the letters. “You can’t buy this.”

Dick’s story has become about giving stories back to families. He knows that a big reason he paints portraits is because it’s his own way of mourning the loss of his family members. But it’s also allowed him to step into the lives of families from across the country. To sit with them in their pain, hear their story and give them something to remember.

He may just be painting portraits, but to the families who receive his work, Dick is their hero.

November 9, 2016

Love5

Alicia Reisinger

By Asha Timperley

There are at least three candles burning in Alicia Reisinger’s house at any given time. The smells vary from day to day, but today it smells like oranges, the holidays and fresh air all rolled into one.

It’s luxurious and inviting, homey and relaxing. And it’s exactly what you’d expect to experience when you walk into someone’s home who makes candles.

Alicia is the proud owner of Wax Buffalo Candle Company. A business she runs out of her kitchen with toddlers in tow, three assistants and a whole lot of yummy smells.

But to Alicia the smells are just part of her everyday life, they came out of necessity – she has babies and bulldogs – but they also came to life after a season of transition.

Alicia calls this season “the quiet season.”

She didn’t have a job and her days were spent caring for her baby and spending time with her feisty, 80-year-old grandmother, Ferne. This season was slow and simple, rich and meaningful. It was also hard and confusing because it was so different than what Alicia was used to.

The years prior to this season were anything but quiet. Alicia and her husband, Jonathan, were videographers who lived in Chicago – a city that perfectly matched their love of all things artistic and creative. Alicia describes it as the season when she and Jonathan became “them.” They lived in an apartment over a funky soap shop, worked hard, stayed up late and learned how to love each other.

But like all seasons, this one ended after Alicia found out her grandmother was battling her third bout of cancer. So, she and Jonathan packed their bags and moved to Nebraska to spend time with a woman who had shaped so much of Alicia’s life.

Making the transition to Nebraska was challenging, but it was also a new adventure for Alicia and Jonathan. They originally planned to stay for just a year, but as they grew their family and got more connected to the community it just made sense to stay.

When Alicia’s grandmother died in 2013 things felt quieter than they ever had. She’d lost her grandmother, but also one of her best friends, and she wasn’t sure what to do next.

As she grieved, Alicia started making candles, something she and her grandma would frequently do together and the first scent she poured was cinnamon – their favorite scent. She dug in deeper, researching the benefits of soy candles and buying the best oils to create clean and crisp smells.

Then Alicia started to think about how to associate smells with stories, starting with her grandma and then creating other scents that told the stories of different seasons in her own life.

She has a candle called Armitage Street, named after the street in Chicago where she and Jonathan lived after getting married.

As she developed her scents, Alicia slowly started giving away her candles as gifts to friends. Eventually, they asked her if she’d consider selling her candles in stores.

“No way!” she said. “I could never sell these! If no one buys them I’ll be embarrassed.”

Well, let’s just say, Alicia wasn’t embarrassed.

She made 12 candles to sell in a local shop in Lincoln and a few weeks later the shop called and asked for more – they’d run out. So, she poured 12 more.

Things went on like that for a while as Alicia slowly grew her company into what’s now a Midwest brand being sold in 35 stores across 11 states.

It’s astounding and overwhelming, Alicia said, because she never imagined that pouring candles in her kitchen would turn into a full-fledged business.

Some days, all of her countertops are filled with freshly poured candles and Alicia and her 5-year-old, Navy, and 3-year-old, Satchel, spend the day packing up boxes to be shipped to customers.

And while Wax Buffalo was started by Alicia, it’s really a family business.

Alicia said Jonathan really spoke into the brand and handles even the smallest details like packing up the car with candles before a big market trip.

“We’ve always been a team,” Alicia said. “We work better together… and a big part of who we are is being a part of the other person.”

The couple also still tackles video projects together, sometimes taking their kiddos with them to wherever their next adventure awaits.

But that’s really the core of Alicia’s story – learning to be ready for the next adventure, whether it’s a quiet season or a chaotic one.

That’s the thing about seasons, they change, and Alicia is getting ready for a whole new adventure. At the end of October, she’ll be having their third baby, just in time for the busy holiday season.

But she’s not too worried about it. There doesn’t seem to be much that slows Alicia down these days, and the baby, well, she said she’ll just strap him on and wear him around as she pours candles or sells them at the markets.

“Everything becomes this magical family adventure,” she said. “It’s better that way.”

August 24, 2016

Love3

Tamara Kaye

By Asha Timperley

Tamara Kaye runs her business out of her garage, but it’s no ordinary garage.

The floors are white with bright-colored splatter paint, the shelves are lined with bins full of feathers and googly eyes and rainbow-colored storage closets line the back wall.

Tamara actually doesn’t call the space her garage, she calls it Art Planet.

It’s a place she dreamed up five years ago, and offers art classes, events and activities geared toward encouraging imagination and growth for everyone who participates.

But it’s not just a place for kids. Tamara created Art Planet just as much for adults as for kids, and it really started as a way to rebuild her own life.

In 2011, Tamara felt stuck. She had a Fine Arts degree and a Master’s degree in special education, but her creativity had dried up and she didn’t feel like herself anymore.

Her mind was full of questions – What now? What’s next? Will I make it?

Tamara was navigating a painful divorce, homeschooling her three kids and trying to figure out a way to support herself.

She had a friend ask her if she’d ever thought of combining her two degrees to form a hybrid job, and that’s when Art Planet was born.

Tamara had always been a creative kid. She grew up doing art projects at a little table in the family room and her mom encouraged her to pursue art when she got to college.

But after college, life sped up. She had kids, life was busy and she started to question if doing art was even a good use of her time. Maybe she wasn’t an artist after all? Maybe it didn’t matter. Art is just for fun anyway, right?

Lies, lies lies.

Tamara knows those thoughts were lies because of the fact that when she’s creating art she feels free and uninhibited, she feels alive and like herself.

“Art is not an end unto itself,” Tamara said. “It’s not meant to just hang on the wall and look pretty, art touches the human spirit in a way that other things cannot.”

For Tamara, art has been a way to restore herself, but it’s also been about helping others do the same.

Over the years, Tamara has grown Art Planet into a space that hosts birthday parties, family events, after school art classes and even dates. She mentors young artists and hosts summer art camps.

Her business has grown, and she’s proud of what she’s cultivated – both for her family and her customers. But something was missing. After four years of building Art Planet, Tamara wanted to do more.

Sure, people were coming to Art Planet and it was great, but what about the people who couldn’t get to her garage?

So, Tamara started The ArtReach Project, a non-profit that works to integrate art into the community. It’s been less than a year since she’s started this project, but it’s already taking off in ways she never imagined.

Tamara explained that each ArtReach project looks different. So far she’s helped organize a traveling art installation of a 3D Van Gogh painting that’s toured LPS. She’s worked with City Impact to design and create a student-made mosaic art for their new building. She’s inspired shoppers at Gateway Mall to create ornaments by painting on wood slices while they were spinning on record players. She’s even set up at coffee shops asking people to make pinwheels for a student-led organization, Fork in the Road, at Lincoln High. Currently she’s collaborating with Lincoln Parks and Recreation to make a 200+ foot banner of drawings made by people playing in parks to celebrate Lincoln’s nationally recognized status as a ‘Playful City’.

Her goal is to get anyone she can involved in her latest project, despite their age and skill level.

Sometimes people timidly walk past her booth or shy away because they say they’re not ‘creative’ or ‘artistic’ enough.

Tamara can totally relate.

Her story is about questioning her creativity, and coming to the realization that everyone is created to be creative. She’s learned that art can simply be fun and expressive, it doesn’t need to be intimidating or overly complicated.

To say that art has been a major player in Tamara’s story would be an understatement. It’s given her courage, a career, joy, confidence and compassion.

Art is Tamara’s constant. It’s her way of reaching in and reaching out, it’s how she found her story again and it’s how she’s giving back to the community.

June 1, 2016

Love8

Nancy Teague

By Asha Timperley

When Nancy Teague paints she comes to life. Her hand moves quickly, then slowly, intentionally and then spontaneously.

She smiles, steps back to get a better view and then moves back toward her painting.

Nancy is an abstract artist. She describes her work as emotional and free but also ordered and on-purpose.

But Nancy’s expressive abstracts are somewhat new to her – she’s only been painting in this style for three years – and yet her career as an artist started long before she ever painted an abstract.

Nancy’s style shifted to accommodate her physical and emotional changes over the past few years, and it’s a shift that’s impacted more than just her art.

Nancy said she never dreamed of being a ‘professional’ artist. Sure, she was an artistic kid who loved sketching, building and tinkering, but how could that ever be a career, she thought.

In college, Nancy graduated with a degree in education and found a job in Lincoln as an art teacher. She loved watching her students learn and create, it was the perfect fit for her.

But it was only after she quit teaching, due to budget cuts, that Nancy started to pursue her own art. She used her colors and technique to bring photographed images to life with light and texture. As a realism artist her paintings were exact, every stroke had a place and there was little room for error.

Nancy would often drive to small towns and then walk around with her camera in-hand, looking for objects to photograph and then paint in her studio. She loved the way she could bring a painting to life with shading, layers and shadows, this was her art and she was proud of it.

Over time Nancy competed in nationally ranked art fairs. She won a few notable awards and her career seemed to be off and running.

But in the late ‘90s Nancy developed a tremor in her left hand – the hand she paints with. She could no longer write her name and even something as simple as drinking water became an annoyance. Her work as a realist painter was intricate, and working with a tremor was impossible.

So, she closed up shop. She sold her materials, packed up her canvases and gave up painting.

The next ten years of Nancy’s life were quiet but impactful. They were full of thinking and evaluating, figuring out what she believed, and why her beliefs mattered. It was also frustrating. Nancy taught herself how to write with her right hand and she felt like a first-grader as she practiced rows and rows of single letters. It was hard, but Nancy was managing.

In 2008 an artist friend encouraged Nancy to explore painting again. They discussed making prints of Nancy’s former work and that got Nancy thinking… ‘I wonder if I can paint at all…’

Late one night she picked up a paintbrush and started in – she was doing it. Her tremor was there but she was painting like she used to, and to her surprise she was noticing finer details than before.

For the next five years, Nancy delighted in her realism painting and began to slowly experiment with painting styles beyond realism.

She said she felt like a child again, playing with paint, enjoying the fluid movement and testing out new methods. She found that she could paint with her left hand and right hand together, it didn’t matter, because there was so much less structure.

But something else was happening too. As Nancy shifted her art from realism to abstract, a similar shift happened inside of her, she said.

She found joy, a deep, deep inner joy that suddenly spilled out onto her canvas.

It’s a joy that came from her long-time faith in God, and a new realization of different truths about God and her own identity and purpose. Nancy said it was this inner freedom that propelled her shift to abstract painting.

“It’s hard to not do something that brings you joy,” she said.

So that’s what she’s done.

Not many artists can switch from one style to another, but to Nancy, her shift was unexpected but intentional. It was an outpouring of what she longed to experience, while still factoring in her limitations.

Nancy’s story is about learning from her doing, and growing from her learning. It’s about finding joy in a place that seemed unwanted and but turned out to be more rewarding than she could have imagined.

Her story is about realizing that there’s more to her story than she ever expected, and that was the real surprise.

May 18, 2016

Love2

Joe Horacek

By Asha Timperley

When Joe Horacek sees someone wearing one of his hand-printed shirts he oftentimes just smiles and nods. If the opportunity presents itself he might ask about the shirt to see what the wearer says, but he’s not fishing for a certain response.

He’d rather lay low, make his art and share it with others, that’s really what his story is about – sharing art.

The soulful melody of Louis Armstrong plays in the background of the little house turned print shop. Tucked between a few other local storefronts on the corner of 33rd and A streets, Little Mountain Print Shoppe is Joe’s own little cabin on the mountain. It’s where his sketches and designs make their debut in the form of shirts and sweatshirts.

Joe is humble and soft-spoken about his shop. One day he’s printing shirts for Sanborn Canoe Company in Minnesota, the next he’s working on a custom local order or doing the bills, but in some ways screen printing is just a front.

For Joe, having a shop allows him to continue to create and design while having a tangible way to see his art come to life.

He opened Little Mountain back in 2011 after working at a screen printing shop in Iowa where he sat behind a desk every day. It exhausted him without ever tapping into his artistic roots, so he knew Little Mountain had to be different.

After buying his first screen printing press there was a lot of trial-and-error work. It was often one step forward and two-steps back during that first year, but it’s how he honed his craft. Joe said he also spent a lot of time learning and researching the best materials for making his screens and ink. Even the angle, speed and pressure he applies to his squeegee is an intentional part of his printing.

But all of those pieces circle back to Joe’s desire to simply create art that matters. He draws inspiration from nature, viewing it as one big garden from which he can create. He loves mountains, because they’re part of nature, but also part of his name.

In Czech, Horacek translates to ‘little mountain’ and Joe said when he learned that he knew it needed to be the name for his shop. It’s his way of paying homage to his family roots – his artistic father who helped him build the racks where his shirts are displayed, his accountant mother who taught him the finer points of QuickBooks and his brother and sister who support his business by simply wearing his designs.

Little Mountain is bigger than just Joe. It’s bigger than screen printing, and that’s the way Joe wants to keep it.

November 11, 2015

Love1