Making the Meaning: Globalization and Labor in Textiles, an exhibition that features new works by eight contemporary artist/designers: Elizabeth Andrews, Andrew Boettger, Karen DeCristoforo, Jennifer Graham, Megan McGhee, Mary Pattavina, Jagdeep Singh, and Stacey Skold. The exhibition opens on Dec. 3 and runs through Jan. 11, 2008. A public reception with the artists providing brief remarks about the work will be Dec. 13, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. All activities are free and open to the public.

Slide Show

Option 2 project of graduate student Sabrina Stapp. This show features eight original designs inspired by the corset, based on biographical and historical study of eight different women.

This exhibition by new faculty member Xia Gao is an exploration of textiles in shaping space. Lengths of fabric sculpt the space, while the surface patterns and layering effects allow viewers to experience concepts of cultural identity (eastern and western) and human growth. The show equally examines cultural transformation from the past to the present and future.

This solo show features the work of Carter Smith. Carter has created a multitude of hand dyed textiles for clothing and wall pieces over the last 40+ years. Sometimes the pieces are too powerful to cut up to make clothes and too large to go on the wall. These treasures have been put aside over the years and are the main content of this show.

Silk, wool and cotton threads are mutated into a dazzling festival of wall pieces, garments, accessories and sculpture through a wide range of interrelated traditional and non-traditional techniques. This joyful pageantry of fiber was created to prompt viewers to look at textiles in a new way.

Robert Hillestad: A Textiles Journey
With essays contributed by Jo Ann C. Stabb and Beverly Gordon and a poem by Mary Logue

Closing reception

Sonya Clark developed this exhibition comprised of over 4000 beaded prayers inspired by African amulet traditions. Each contributed piece is a sealed beaded packet containing the written wishes, hopes, dreams and prayers of the international participants.

Beaded Prayers workshop Sept. 25 with artist Sonya Clark Hands-on workshop to make beaded prayers using beading techniques according to the level of the participants.

This show is presented in recognition of the efforts of youth across Nebraska and exemplifies the artistic and creative fiber arts and textile designs of youth participating at the 2008 Nebrask State Fair.

In Memory of Rose Marie Tondl

Students from Clinton Elementary School tell stories in quilts, featuring their lives and places of their hearts and imaginations: from Clinton school and the neighborhood, families and friends to under the sea and in a garden. Antique Schoolhouse quilts from the collections of the International Quilt Study Center showcase the popularity of the actual schoolhouse pattern in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Jennifer Graham is a candidate for a Master of Arts in the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work illuminates the beauty that can be discovered among the artifacts and heirlooms of a family. Wendy Weiss, Gallery Director and Professor, is Graham’s major advisor.

Family photos and documents inspired Graham to look deeper into the life and work of her paternal grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease, and is no longer able to pass on family history herself.

“My grandmother was a big fish in her little North Dakota pond. She was a city leader in a time when women were supposed to be baking pies and washing dishes. She started the first kindergarten in her town, in the basement of her farmhouse. She lobbied the state legislature to make kindergarten mandatory statewide,” Graham said. “Her strength and perseverance continue to resonate in my own life as an artist, a mother, and a teacher.”

History, emigration, and her ancestral roots in Iceland--where mythology and remembrance hold a prominent place in the culture, inspire Graham’s work. Reconfiguring women’s work – knitting and embroidery – in a grandiose, sculptural form, Graham’s graduate exhibition incorporates wool, silk, linen and paper. The space her soft sculpture creates evokes the ethereal nature of memory, the deterioration of family history, and the beauty that can be discovered through grief.