UNL students set up spooky community art project

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By KEVIN ABOUREZK / Lincoln Journal Star

It didn’t take long for the Bryan Community School students to name the nearly 3-foot-tall foam skull sculpture.

Bertha they called it, after a Bryan student’s grandma.

The students painted the name on the skull with the dates “9.4.1945-9.4.1976” just above it: the dates the grandmother was born and died.

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Abigail George, a 5th-year senior Art Education major from Omaha, positions American Gothic for final touches during the UNL Art in Community class installation. (Robert Becker)

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Nick Knauss, an artist-in-residence at the Sheldon Museum of Art, describes it as just one of many ways the students left their mark on a communitywide art project that took form Monday.

“It just got everyone in the school excited about art,” he said of the project.

A group of University of Nebraska-Lincoln students installed art Monday created by local students as part of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration at the Sheldon Museum of Art. The artwork will remain in the museum’s Great Hall for public viewing until the celebration on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

The 18 UNL students are part of associate professor Sandra Williams’ Art in the Community class, which has put college students in elementary, middle and high school classrooms to teach younger students about art.

The main message the UNL students give to the younger students is how similar cultures are.

“Cultures are more similar than they are different,” Williams said.

The project this semester has produced paper butterflies by West Lincoln and Belmont elementary school students, and papier-mache sculptures by students at Park and Mickle middle schools and Bryan Community.

The papier-mache sculptures included an “American Gothic” replica using skeletons in place of the farmer and wife and three tall skeleton figures of a man with a pitchfork and two women.

Much of the artwork featured skeletons, which are common symbols for the Dia de los Muertos holiday. That holiday is celebrated mainly in Mexico and by Latinos living in the United States.

It’s a day to celebrate those who’ve died, said Nancy Childs, a board member for the Sheldon Art Association.

“It’s not a sad day,” she said. “It’s a very joyful day to remember the people who have gone before them.”

Common traditions for the celebration include building altars to honor the dead using beans, candy and photos and creating catrinas, or skeleton figurines.

Abigail George, an art education major from Omaha, said she worked with middle school students on the papier-mache sculptures and paper banners with cut-out designs.

“For me, it helped me with what I’m learning in class,” she said.

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.