Local artists' exhibit at the Red Cloud Opera House

The 61st annual Willa Cather Spring Conference, “‘Both Bitter and Sweet’: Cather, Literature, and the Great War,” will focus on World War I and its effects on American life and culture. Summer Snow: A Celebration of Landscape features the work well-known regional artists and will be on display in our Red Cloud Opera House auditorium from May 1 to July 31, 2016.

Her fiction, nonfiction, and interviews from roughly 1914-1919 demonstrate Cather’s interest in the landscape—both in Nebraska and in war torn Europe. She writes of the decimated European landscape and the emotional connection people have to their land in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, One of Ours. Protagonist Claude Wheeler, a farm boy from Nebraska, faced with the destruction of the war, observed just how important these connections were. The title of the exhibit comes from a 1921 interview, in which Cather describes the French “summer snow” celebration, held in the early summer as the silky tufts of cottonwood seeds drift down. “Unless you can see the beauty all around you everywhere, and enjoy it, you can never comprehend art,” Cather told the reporter. This exhibit celebrates those small details in the landscape around us.

Artists participating in Summer Snow include: Jeremy Daniels, Ben Darling, Mike and Mary Dixon, Susan Drey, Deb Kubik, Barb Kudrna, Christi Lewis, Gwen Lewis, Jane Marie, David McCleery, Jorn Olsen, Amy Springer, Gregory Summers, Tracy Tucker, Jenine Wilhelms, and Linda Woodward. The exhibition boasts glass pieces, oils, acrylics, pastels, mixed media, and photography. The beautifully depicted prairie landscapes lure viewers into the exhibit and creates an appreciation for the Nebraska countryside.

This exhibit will be on display from now until July 31, 2016. For more information please call the Red Cloud Opera House at 402-746-2641 or visit www.WillaCather.org. Programming at the Willa Cather Foundation’s Red Cloud Opera House is made possible with support of the Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and the National Endowment for the Arts.