New Job...

So as posted on my MySpace, I got a new job. Quite a few people have asked me about what the new job is, so for those who might be interested, here's some info: I'm now the PR coordinator for the state of Nebraska's Department of Travel & Tourism. This is my third week on the job. I'm working with all sorts of media people, both in and out of the state, and doing what I can to encourage them to write stories about our lovely state. I'll also be doing quite a bit of traveling, both in and out of the state.

I will still be doing all my freelance writing, so this site will continue to exist and hopefully, as things calm down and settle into a rhythm, I'll have time not only to regularly update but also to finally create some web-only content.

As for the freelancing, I have some non-art related assignments I'm working on as well as a review for Sculpture magazine, and hopefully one or two more for Review Magazine. Also, I'm doing some short story writing. I may or may not post that here; we'll see how it goes.

Thanks, as always, for reading, and please do feel free to leave comments or feedback.

A personal post...

I won't normally do such things on this site, but I want to do what I can to support a local organization.

I'm raising money for the MDA by "going to jail" at the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Wild Wild West Lock Up on April 24. (If you want to see me go to jail, you can do so at noon on that day at Jobber's Canyon in the Old Market.)

My bail has been set at $2,600, but whatever I can raise will be a great help. My "Bail Money" will go toward helping people with Muscular Dystrophy in Nebraska and southwest Iowa by providing them with clinic services, support groups an research grants. It will also help send a number of kids to a MD summer camp in Cozad, NE. MDA also funds research grants to help find treatments and cures for some 43 neuromuscular diseases that affect people of all ages in our community.

Any donation is tax deductible.

Thanks again for reading and for anything you can do to help me raise some money!

Click here to visit my Participant Page.

8 March 2007

-- The University of Nebraska at Omaha Gallery’s largest show of the year — the 2007 UNO Art Student Exhibition — runs through March 26. The juried show is open to any UNO student; submitted works include two and three-dimensional work and inter-media pieces. This year’s juror is Amy Nelson, a Sioux City, Iowa native, Creighton University graduate and concept-driven artist whose work manifests itself through installation, community involvement and ideas of political change. UNO also will unveil the Hexagon Installation Program, which will allow UNO art students to create a site-specific installation in the space each spring semester. This year’s work is Meander by Jason Pierce. He built a wall of light that winds through the gallery that interacts with viewers. For more information, call 554.2796.

-- The latest show at Lincoln’s Great Plains Art Museum focuses on Native American Art. The Journey Home: Native American Art Show features about 30 pieces that explore the spirit of Nebraska tribes — Winnebago, Omaha, Santee Sioux, Northern Ponca and Otoe-Missouria — as well as the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma. The show is part of the Nebraska Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission’s official commemoration of The Journey Home. Ernest Ricehill, a member of the Winnebago and Omaha tribes, curated the show. The exhibit also celebrates the reopening of the gallery, which closed after it was water damaged in January. The show continues through March 25 at the museum, 1155 Q St., in Lincoln. For more information, call 402.472.6220.

-- The latest show from Vera Mercer’s Moving Gallery features contemporary photography and video art from Berlin, Germany. Curated by Matthias Harder, who is also chief curator at the Helmut Newtown Foundation in Berlin, the show explores the change in Berlin pre- and post-fall of the Berlin Wall nearly two decades ago. The show runs through April 26 and is being held at the Old Market’s Artists Cooperative Gallery, 405 S. 11th St. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-7 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-8 p.m.

— Sarah Baker

Sketchbook is about artistry in the Omaha-Lincoln area. Email information to sketchbook@thereader.com.

Art Scene Iowa Cover Story

I co-wrote the cover story for the March issue of Art Scene Iowa about comic art. My third focuses on Chris Ware. Enjoy.

A superhero of his own kind

By Meghan Hackett

Batman has his utility belt, Superman’s chest is emblazoned with his stylized ‘S,’ and Captain America bears homage to the American flag. Whatever their iconic trait may be, superheroes are instantly recognizable, and have kept America feeling safe and protected since the introduction of Superman in 1938.

At the age of 11, Phil Hester, a nationally published comic book artist, realized that even superheroes need help. “As a kid, I always liked drawing and I was a big reader, especially of comics,” he says. “When I was 11, it finally dawned on me that there were actual people doing this. Comic books weren’t made in factories.”

His first introduction as a comic artist came as a sophomore at the University of Iowa. Besides working for nearly every comic book publisher in the last 20 years, Hester has created art for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, two of the country’s largest comic publishers. His art is featured in over 300 published works, and he’s experienced the iconic worlds of Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, the Hulk, the Creeper, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, and many more. His original character ‘The Wretch’ was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best New Series in 1997.

His first major assignment with DC Comics was the comic book ‘Swamp Thing.’ “I’ve read ‘Swamp Thing’ since I was a kid. It’s my favorite character to draw,” says Hester. “I was so excited to get that offer, but also completely petrified. I never thought I’d live up to my expectations.”

A stay at home dad, Hester resides in North English with his wife and two children. He says the best part about his work is that he got to stay home with his kids when they were little. The second best part is being able to bring to life America’s favorite superheroes.

“I get to draw Captain America and Spider-Man. These are things that I’ve been dreaming about since the age of 12,” he says.

Creating characters that have supernatural strength or extrasensory perception is all part of his job, but for kids that read these comics, Hester’s a superhero of his own kind. “At a comic book convention, I’m relatively famous,” said Hester. “But once I take my name tag off and open the door to the street, I’m no one.”

“One of the greatest things about comic books to me is the personal relationship they create with the reader,” he says. “It’s different than watching TV or a movie; you have to read a comic book, actively creating that intimacy with the prose. But at the same time, they come out every month and you share them with thousands of other people who read them. Comics establish a personal relationship between the story and the reader and yet can still create a community, since it is mass media.”

Hester has also has made the occasional jump over from comic artist to writer. Going from drawing the character’s rippling muscles and toppling towers, to telling the inner conflict of the comic’s central character, seems like a daunting task.

“It keeps everything fresh for me,” he says. “Right now, I’m in a comfort zone as a penciler and I’m maybe at my peak in that aspect of the industry. If I ever need a recharge, I go back to writing and it starts up again.”

Hester says he never really knows when an idea will become the next great idea. “I’ll see a kernel of what would be a neat scene in an exchange of dialogue at Arby’s and I’ll take notes, and eventually it’ll become a full-fledged idea.”

If you’re ever passing through the town of North English, take a glance around, for your red high-heels or your fight with your little brother just may be the inspiration for Hester’s next comic.

Graphic novelist and art museum team up

By Sarah Baker

Omaha native and comic artist Chris Ware’s solo show at Lincoln’s Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery is one of the most engaging of this year, and for those who see it, will certainly hold that title throughout 2007.

Ware, who is alternately described as a cartoonist, a novelist, and sometimes just as an artist, is best known for his graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000) and Quimby the Mouse (2002). This show explores his newest graphic novel, set in Omaha. The installation offers insight into Ware’s creative process and the multi-layered way in which he creates and thinks about his work.

His solo effort runs in tandem with Comic Art, a show focusing on the place that comics hold in today’s American art world and within American culture, and includes work from Enrique Chagoya, Jon E. Gierlich and S. Clay Wilson, Howard Finster, Red Grooms, Philip Guston, George Herriman, Roger Shimomura, Saul Steinberg, Art Spiegelman, and Walt Kelly.

Ware has been creating comics for many years, and says it’s a genre he continues to pursue through difficult times, both financially and critically.

“I truly believe comics, with their mixture of writing, art, and a kind of visual music, is a really powerful way of recreating human experience on paper, with all of its layers of meaning and contradiction,” he says. “I essentially worked for little or no pay for many years. I’ve now found myself able to support myself with what I do, and consequently, I find myself one of the luckiest people in the world.”

Ware wrote an essay for the Comic Art show catalog, and created a special gallery guide for his solo show.

“The gallery guide tries to differentiate between the original drawings and the actual printed work, since the printed page is where the real art of it — if there’s any at all — resides,” he said. “I guess it’s sort of like the difference between a manuscript of a musical composition, its published version, and then hearing a performance of the piece; in comics, the manuscript is the original drawing and the performance is the reader’s experience of reading the published book.”

More than 300 people attended the opening night, both to see the work and to hear Ware’s live discussion with Sheldon curator Dan Siedell, and more than 1,000 have checked out the event via the museum’s Web site. Posting the talk online is something new for Sheldon, and is part of its new initiative to take its programming to a global audience. So far, it’s a clear success: normally, the site draws about 400 unique visits a day. Ware said he is continually surprised — and pleased — by the ever-growing audience for comic art.

“I’m more than a little incredulous at what appears to be a genuine popularity of comics among more and more thoughtful readers,” he says. “But I have to think that’s partly due to my generation having grown up reading them and partly due to more talented and serious cartoonists working and writing now than ever before.”

Chris Ware and Comic Art will be on view through April 29 at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, 12th and R Streets. A few events surrounding the shows remain: At 2 p.m., Sunday, March 11, Sheldon’s Second Sunday Gallery walk will feature a discussion on comic art with artists Paul Fell and Bob Hall. At 10:30 a.m. on March 10 and 24, Sheldon will hold comic art workshops for 6th graders. For more information on these events, visit www.sheldon.unl.edu.

To view the webcast, visit www.unl.edu/unlpub/podcasts/videofiles/chrisware.mp4.

Conquering and saving the world
By Cathy Wilkie

Imagine you have a great tree house, and your friends come over everyday to talk comics, movies, music, and video games. Now, imagine that same tree house as ‘electronic,’ your friends are scattered throughout the Midwest, and your discussions lead to jobs with DC and Marvel Comics. That, in a nutshell, is Shocktrauma Studios — a loose collective of comic artists and writers who network with one another over the internet for ideas, job leads, and to collaborate on projects.

They came together gradually; it all started when The Des Moines Register ran an article about artist Phil Hester of North English. “A bunch of us Iowa artists were astonished to find that there were other folks doing this sort of thing, so eventually we all sought out each other and became brothers,” says Fredd Gorham, an Iowa native who now resides in Omaha, Nebraska.

They occasionally meet in real life for collaborations and ‘comic-cons’ (conventions), sharing not only the group name, but the exposure it’s brought them. “Those are grand times for us,” says Gorham, “we get to spend a weekend surrounded by the things we love and share the company of our friends.”

Over the years the ‘Shocktraumanauts’ (as they refer to themselves) have spread their influence in books like The Holy Terror, Swamp Thing, Clerks: The Lost Scene, Superman, The Simpsons, and gaming projects such as Society of Shadows. They proclaim that inking, drawing, or writing comics was what they were born to do.

“I think the fact that having grown up in rural Iowa during the 70s and 80s and finding little to do in a small town lead many of us to gravitate to comic books, which lead us to want to create stories and art in the medium we grew up loving,” says Jason Caskey of Milo, south of Indianola.

Caskey says it’s easy to make a living in the Midwest drawing comics. “In the age of the internet, Fed Ex, and multiple comic-cons nationwide, it’s no easier or harder to be from Iowa and to make it in comics than anywhere else.”

The internet has indeed helped them tremendously: they’re often contacted for pro assignments and fan commissions through their Web site (www.shocktraumastudios.com), and it proves an invaluable tool for networking. “In a career sense, most artists need networking in order to be in the loop when a project arises,” says Gorham. “Publishers are more likely to work with people they know (and trust to get things done) than to just hire someone unknown. It pays to be out there and have your name passed around.”

One case where ‘names were passed’ was the Iowa episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The show came to Gladbrook to build the Kibe family a new home; the producers discovered one of the boys lost his comic collection in a house fire. Producers contacted the Iowa Comic Book Club for donations; the ICBC went one better: they told the show there was a pro comic artist nearby, and Hester found himself painting a mural for the boy’s room featuring a custom superhero. “It was exhausting and stressful, but worth it,” says Hester, who called in fellow Shocktraumanauts Aaron Gillespie and Brook Turner to help finish in time.

The Shocktraumanauts frequently celebrate their victories and mourn their losses via their chat room, and they know how lucky they are that fans can access them via their Web site.

“The internet has vastly changed the comic book industry as a whole,” Caskey says. “I can’t think of any other entertainment industry where the big names are so accessible to the average fan. You can be into the most obscure characters or genres, yet instantly connect with countless people who share your passion.”

Hester agrees. “It’s a worldwide tree house for people to sit in and argue about Thor being tougher than Superman. It’s really quite beautiful.”

Boilin' Boots

by Sarah Baker

Nic Bartlett doesn’t want the shirt off your back. He wants the shoes off your feet. Bartlett, along with fellow artist and curator Rachel Ziegler, are kicking off their shoes, eh, their exhibition with a dance party before the art show even starts.

The Black Shoe Bash and Dance Party is a precursor to the duo’s show, Remainder, which opens in the Bemis Underground March 23.

The artists are asking dance party guests to bring a pair of black shoes as admission, and if you don’t want to give up those old black Doc Marten boots just yet, you can also get in for $5.
This is the second time Bartlett and Ziegler have showed their work together — the first was at a show in 2004 in Seward, Neb.’s Marxhausen Gallery. That show included works vastly different than what will show at the Underground, Bartlett said.

“The show included two very different installation pieces that came from two very different people employing two unique concepts,” he said. “That show was a success and laid the groundwork for a Bemis Underground curatorial collaboration.”

The duo decided to kick off their second collaboration with not just a party, but a dance soiree with live music from Brimstone Howl, The Terminals and Denver-based band The Machine Gun Blues.

Ziegler said she’ll be creating two-dimensional work which will hang on the walls, while Bartlett is doing a site specific, centralized floor installation that will fill a portion of the gallery. He plans to use variations in surface texture, color and lighting to separate his work from Ziegler’s.

“The show won’t fill the Bemis Underground to maximum capacity, but will utilize the space it does use while keeping in mind the peripheral space,” Ziegler said.

And what of the shoes? They’re the main ingredient for Bartlett’s piece. He plans to collect at least 100 pairs of shoes, then will boil them and use the remaining liquid in what he calls a “saline installation.”

“I am using a process of saline evaporation to create works that focus on my own memories,” Bartlett said. “My site-specific installations are part sculpture and part ephemeral interactive performance.”

The two bodies of work will be separated in the space, but there is a tie between the distinctive artistic styles: Both Bartlett and Ziegler plan to use the reductive evaporative process in their pieces.

“We are very different, but we work well as a pair,” Ziegler said. “Personally, I couldn’t think of anyone else that I felt more comfortable showing my work with.”

The Black Shoe Bash & Dance Party is Friday, March 9 at the Bemis Underground, 12th and Leavenworth. The music starts at 9 p.m. Guests can either bring a black pair of shoes to donate or pay $5. For more information, visit bemiscenter.org.