inspirations and partial explanations

Artists write statements about particular work or shows to provide context, backstories and sometimes a little bit of insight into their process. I admit to wrestling with this one a bit. The work in this show, while abstract, feels personal in a way that many previous paintings or projects are not. The hope is that personal details connect viewers to something larger and more universal.

“Weirder, Wilder, Witchier”

Last summer, I proposed making a large-scale accordion book for a new library. The large hinged wood panels would expand on ideas I’d been playing with on a smaller scale for several years. My proposal — to combine visual elements inspired by prairie plants and landscapes with text from written works by Great Plains authors — was rejected, but I held onto the idea and considered it from other angles.

I’ve been making small accordion books filled paintings and collages. One series is called “Incantations without words.” Each page reads like a visual spell, wish or poem. I’ve always felt connected to nature’s rhythms, and that connection has deepened by hosting more native plants and animals in my small urban yard. I read stories about ancient women’s knowledge and rituals. And when I make these small art books as meditations, I can contemplate multiple connections.

I’ve scaled up those ideas, raising my visual voice with the linked panels. As I worked on layering the pigments, composing shapes and sculpting texture, the ideas bubbling up were looser, less literary, less literal and much weirder, wilder, and witchier than those presented in last summer’s proposal.

The pieces on view reflect my current state of mind — references to prairie, to seasonal cycles, to finding direction and purpose, to defining and referencing sources of power and deciding about how best to move through days ahead. These pieces are filled with personal symbols, colors that I find restful and reassuring. Sunflower seeds become marks of India ink; feeling a little lost has me appreciating the visual reference of a compass and helps me remember the internal one that can guide me. Circles or rings refer to the moon, the earth, seasons, travel and returns home. Cairns of imaginary rocks represent people and places I love. And each page or panel includes the vibrations of my wishes for peace, harmony, protection and justice — wishes whispered, sung or shouted as I paint.

It’s all storytelling of a kind, an effort to connect with others and to share something of myself that might last.
“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned,” writes Susan Orlean in The Library Book. “When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it — with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited — it takes on a life of its own.”

Enjoy exploring part of my library.

Lori Elliott-Bartle, Omaha, Nebraska, October  2025

a so-called "solo" show

“Weirder, Wilder, Witchier” fits the definition of a solo show, but it hardly feels like that when so much collaboration occurs to make it all happen. I’ve spent the past year working on a dozen large mixed-media paintings. Ten of them have made the cut to share with visitors at Ming Toy Gallery, 6066 Maple St., Omaha, in November.

Gallerist Teresa Gleason is a joy to work with. We share a communications background and have many interests in common. She is a dedicated arts advocate who strives to make art accessible and available to everyone. Her gallery space in the Benson neighborhood is cozy and welcoming with exposed brick walls inside and south-facing windows looking out over Maple Street.

Among Brad Marr’s interests are painting and carpentry. He designed, built and installed the elegant shelves that hold my collection of small artist books from the “Incantations without words” series. I’ve followed the work of Holly Lukasiewicz and District 2 Floral for a few years and was delighted when she accepted the assignment to create the arrangements of prairie plants to fill the pots I bought from ceramicist Dan Toberer. When I first saw these tall vases outside the pottery studio at Hot Shops, I thought they looked like he made them to go with my paintings. After the show, they’ll frame our fireplace at home.

It may be a solo show, but I’m very grateful for all the support and collaboration it takes to share it. Please join us for the opening celebration 6-9pm Nov. 7, 2025 or see the show during its run through Nov. 29. Ming Toy Gallery is at 6066 Maple St. right between Au Courant and Legends Comics and Coffee in the heart of the Benson neighborhood. Hope to see you there!

“Incantations without words #2,” a mixed media accordion book, displayed on a mirrored floating shelf designed and built by Brad Marr

Dried plants arranged by Holly Lukaseiwicz of District 2 Floral Studio in a ceramic vessel by Dan Toberer

the flops, aka shitty first drafts

In her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott refers often to the “shitty first draft” as she encourages writers to get something, anything on paper as a way to begin. It rarely is anything worth keeping.

The lesson applies to painting, too, and when I’m working on paper, the shitty first drafts get tossed onto a shelf or cut up to use as gift tags or to collage into other pieces. Paintings on panels get multiple layers, so there is a long process of adding and taking away until I’m pleased with what’s appearing on the surface. I started those cloud paintings during my recent artist residency at Cedar Point Biological Station as a way to get started with something. I also played around pressing leaves into paint, using dried stalks as tools for making marks and sprinkling sand into wet paint. None of these experiments yielded anything worth sharing, but were part of my exploring the place in my work. The puffy clouds will either get cut into pieces or covered with additional layers until they are unrecognizable as these particular works.

I did make two paintings explicitly based on the shapes and colors of the landscape at Cedar Point and share images below. While they’ll both get signed and probably framed, I’m really only happy with one of them. The second painting has an ease about it while the first one feels overworked. It’s also true that what I see as overworked may actually appeal to a particular viewer because it’s a bit more literal and does have some whimsy about it.

one of two paintings on paper based explicitly on the Cedar Point landscape.

Another painting on paper based on Cedar Point. I prefer this painting for the flow of the composition, the variety of textures and the sense of ease it conveys.

Shared spaces

One of the great things about participating in an artist residency is meeting other artists. Learning how they approach their subjects, what questions drive them, how they manipulate their materials to tell their stories help me examine my own methods, materials and media.

During my two weeks at the Cedar Point Biological Station, I spent time with three other artists who are doing really interesting work.
Jennifer Bockerman and I shared studio space for several days. She worked on large mixed media pieces on paper as I painted. After leaving Cedar Point, she spent a week in New York City with the Art21 Summer Institute for educators and then went back to Cedar Point for another week. She teaches art to middle-school students in Lincoln, Neb., and helps lead international trips through EFTours.
Sophia Ruppert created a table-top sculpture using parts of yucca plants and also cast plaster figures during her time at Cedar Point. We spent a foggy morning gathering fringed sage, also called prairie sagewort, (artemisia frigida) to tie into fragrant bundles. She’s completing her MFA at University of Nebraska-Lincoln next year and expects her thesis show to examine gender roles and family narratives.
Anne Yoncha worked on a large pencil drawing of prairie plants highlighted with ink she made from red cedar needles, and we spent several evenings watching sunsets and storms move across the open landscape. After recently completing her MFA at the University of Montana, she’s off to spend a year in Finland on a Fulbright grant.

I’m looking forward to following all these young women as they further their careers!

Connections and intersections

After several days working in the studio during my residency at Cedar Point Biological Station, I was eager to pedal a few miles. I loaded my trusty commuter, Sage, onto the rack on the back of my van and drove over the Kingsley Dam into the state recreation area around Lake McConaughy. I pedaled along the lake road, grateful that much of the Independence Day crowd had left the area. It was a warm, windy morning and the route offered a few small climbs on the way to the LeMoyne entrance into the park. I enjoyed seeing blooming wildflowers, waving grasses and a single mule deer watching me from under a canopy of trees. After my ride, I drove around the Lake Ogallala state park, seeing a girl running to launch a rainbow-fish kite and watching the spray at the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District facility.

As I drove back toward Cedar Point, I turned to look around the Hilltop Inn property. As I was reading the marker noting the dates of the dam’s construction, I realized the view was very close to that of the Ogallala camera taking photos for the Platte Basin Timelapse project. As a longtime admirer of Michael Forsberg and Michael Farrell’s photography, videography and prairie advocacy, I was excited to know I was near a camera that was gathering images for this interesting compilation. I looked for the camera and found it. It felt like a celebrity sighting! I suppose it just shows what a geek I can be about the Great Plains.

Plaque at Kingsley Dam noting it was completed as a public works project in 1941 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. The view was familiar.

and there’s the camera, mounted on this tower, taking images for the Platte River Basin Timelapse project

On Saturday, I left Cedar Point and stopped in Kearney for lunch at Tru Cafe, strolled down a few blocks downtown and into the Museum of Nebraska Art to see the exhibit “A River Runs Through It.” For so many reasons, including my ongoing collaboration around river themes with Marcia Joffe-Bouska and Tom Quest, I was interested in seeing the exhibit. And what a treat it was to see photos by Michael Farrell as part of the main exhibit and an entire adjoining gallery devoted to the Platte Basin Timelapse project.

During a storm earlier in the week, Kearney saw intense rainfalls and resulting flooding. This year has been filled with stories of rivers overflowing their banks in Nebraska, and those images and ideas will certainly affect future art-making, although I’m not quite sure yet what shapes they will take. Look for some of those explorations in an expanded exhibit of “Rivers,” which will travel to Norfolk Arts Center in December and will be on display through February 2020.