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Hanging By A Thread In 1976, MONA acquired its first fiber art piece by artist Leoda Davis given as a gift from the Association of Nebraska Art Clubs. This was the beginning of collecting a field of work that, until the 1960s, had not been recognized as a serious art form. Today, MONA’s collection of fiber art has grown to over 20 pieces and includes those that have great regional and international significance. This exhibition is comprised of fiber pieces that range from the traditional to the contemporary including those from both MONA’s collection and four invited artists.
The artwork of internationally known fiber artist Sheila Hicks can be described as magical, dream-like, deep, restful and “alive.” In artworks such as Menhir II, taking center stage in Hanging by a Thread, long strands of natural fiber bound by bright yellow-gold thread hang in bunches from floor to ceiling directly under MONA’s East Gallery skylight. What is created is almost a forest of fiber for viewers to walk around and experience. While playful, Mehnir II yet retains a sense of quiet and almost reverence due to its looming presence. Sheila Hicks was born in Hastings, Nebraska and received both B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Yale University. In 1957, after completing her degrees, she received a Fulbright scholarship to paint in Chile. There she developed her interest in fiber and went on to fulfill a vastly successful career centering on that medium. She has founded workshops in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa; worked in Morocco and India, and now divides her time between a Paris studio and New York. Her work is included in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; and the Museums of Modern Art, Toyko and Kyoto. One-person exhibitions include those at the Seoul Art Center, Korea; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; as well as the Museum of Nebraska Art. Other artists from MONA’s collection included within this exhibition are: Molly Anderson, Roberta Barnes, Leoda Davis, John Dinsmore, Robert Hillestad, Sammy Lynn, Jean Thiessen, and Mary Zicafoose. Invited artists are: Elizabeth Ingraham, Judith James, Michael James, and Wendy Weiss. The styles and methods that these artists work in range from realism to abstract, quilts to sculptural objects, and installations to on-edge felt “paintings” and wrappings, and are fitting examples of the world of fiber art. Process and Practice IThe act of creation for artists is a process, a process that involves risk, failure, success, and sometimes, if they are diligent, completion of certain thoughts, feelings, efforts, and concepts. Within that process, artists continually practice, be it with new theory and how to translate those ideas to a canvas, paper, three dimensional object, performance, installation, or action; or with new media – a painter exploring printmaking or a sculptor utilizing photographs to investigate form and movement. Drawing from MONA’s permanent collection and utilizing supplemental materials and works, this exhibition exposes the development of an artwork by highlighting rarely viewed works including sketchbooks, maquettes, proofs, printing plates, and paintings that aptly define the artistic process. In 2004, MONA acquired a suite of works by Lincoln artist and retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor of Art Dan Howard titled Soliloquium. These were not only, as the artist stated, a compilation of his vast career, but an excellent example of the artistic process. For each of the completed paintings from the suite, the artist also included preparatory sketches, drawings, and watercolors. In Soliloquium IV, a painting with imagery of a horse in an other worldly setting, there are also a total of four other pieces ranging from a simple pencil sketch to a well rendered watercolor image of the final work. From the first sketch to the final one, it is evident that the artist played with and reconciled composition and color, providing a skillful example of how methodically an artist can work.
Sometimes, the process of practice can be the completed work in and of itself as evident in the newly found ink drawings and paintings by Earl Miller. Miller’s works were collected along with a group of those by fellow artist, Donald Forbes, who is also included in this exhibition. Unlike Forbes, Miller’s series of six automatic and gestural drawings, if plainly described, could be dismissed as random scribbles on pieces of paper. Not so, as there is a definitive intentionality behind the works obvious in the graceful and fluid lines that create both form and texture as well as lead a viewer’s eye around the entire small sheet of paper that each is created on. Forbes’ drawings are quite obvious sketches that the artist might have been working on throughout his day with thoughts of perfecting perspective, composition, or rendering the proportions of the figure correctly. A completed painting by the artist titled Figure With Bell, surreal in style, is coupled with two drawings that appear to be preliminary sketches for that particular painting. Also included in the exhibition are sketchbooks and drawings from Emmy Gifford; printing plates and proofs by Leonard Thiessen; a maquette of a large sculpture by University of Nebraska Kearney Assistant Professor of Art Elizabeth Kronfield; a large drawing and small pages from a sketchbook from recent Nebraska Now featured artist David Harvey; photographs and gestural sketches by John Raimondi in preparation for the Athleta sculpture on the UNK campus; and a page from a sketchbook of Omaha artist Bill Farmer, among others. Each example within the exhibition underscores the importance of an artist’s process and how he or she lives a life of creativity and challenge. Nebraska Now: Vitoria Goro-Rapoport, Prints At the core of the labor intensive etchings and engravings of University of Nebraska Kearney Assistant Professor of Art Victoria Goro-Rapoport are the “topics of illusion and disillusionment.” Russian born and raised, Goro-Rapoport’s experiences in the USSR, love of classic literature, background in theatre-set design, and an eventual immigration to the United States lay the foundation for provoking work. Growing up in the USSR, she comments on what the intent of that society was to be: “the first utopia in the history of mankind. The goals of ultimate justice, equality, and brotherhood were never realized . . . The horrors of repression were over, but the oppression of the freethinking and creativity continued. As a result, the Soviet people learned to live in an atmosphere of ultimate hypocrisy, halfheartedly playing the roles, which were assigned to them by the government.” In 1985, she graduated with a B.F.A. degree in theatre set design from the Moscow Art College. She viewed her country as an “elaborate stage set…where beautifully painted facades were hiding crumbling ruins.” This left an indelible mark on the artist, allowed for a specific perspective, and offered the permission/need to probe what, as societies, we try to represent but may in actuality be living out.  Victoria Goro RapoportImmigrant hand-drawn etching 2005 Collection of the Artist After immigrating to the United States, Goro-Rapoport attended the University of Utah where, in 1998, she received an M.F.A. degree in set design. While pursuing her career in theatre, she states that “I discovered that the most enjoyable part of the set design process for me was drawing.” As much as she loved the totality of an experience of the theatre, it still had its limitations and she longed for the two dimensional plane that gave her the ability to create entire worlds and possibilities that could actually exceed the stage. She began to invest her time fully to drawing and printmaking. Nonetheless, theatre set design had allowed her to be steeped in literature “beginning with ancient Greek literary works and culminating with contemporary American novels. Literature became a preeminent source of inspiration as a fine artist.” The novels of Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and Franz Kafka became important references in her work as their writings “are very theatrical” and “explore a world where nothing is what it seems, and like painted flats on stage, everything has two sides; one, clean and brightly lit for the spectator, and another, dark and hidden, for the back stage manipulators.” This awareness of the duality within a world began to manifest itself in her prints and is evident in many of the 16 works that make up her Nebraska Now exhibition in MONA’s Yanney Skylight Gallery.
Her imagery frequently utilizes scenes from the bible as in Noah’s Ark.
Figures in many of her scenes are often isolated, running or hiding from something,
exerting themselves in a struggle or physical labor, or finding refuge with
others in the middle of chaos or darkness such as in Roots of Rage, Caged,
Sheltered, or a newer etching titled Stepping Out. After receiving both her B.F.A. and M.F.A., Goro-Rapoport went on to earn an additional M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002. She then attended a summer workshop at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in 2004 before coming to the University of Nebraska Kearney. She has received over 61 awards for her work and combined juried, group, and solo exhibitions total over 170 from 2000 to 2005. Audubon Naturally Explore North American wildlife with artist and naturalist John James Audubon and son, John Woodhouse Audubon. Birds of the plains are the featured selections from MONA’s octavo volumes of The Birds of America this season. Two perennial favorites, the double elephant folio prints Whooping Crane and Hooping Crane - Young (Sandhill Crane), are on display as well.
Visitors will rediscover the beauty of Four Striped Ground Squirrel and American Red Fox. These particular works received conservation and have recently returned to MONA in time to be showcased with companion prints from The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Audubon’s later project focusing on mammalian life. The term viviparous refers to animals that give birth to living offspring that develop within the mother. Quadruped describes animals with four legs. Other quadruped images on display include Black Foot Ferret and Grizzly Bear, prints credited to John Woodhouse Audubon.
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