Three artists and scholars will present Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lectures this month.
The School of Art, Art History & Design’s Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series brings notable artists, scholars and designers to Nebraska each semester to enhance the education of students.
Each of the lectures takes place at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. The lectures and free and open to the public.
• Cassandra Pfeifer, an English instructor at Mid-Plains Community College in McCook, Nebraska, will present “Folklore in Life and Art: The Power of Informal Creativity” on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
The lecture will examine folklore's power, from its use in daily life to its role in the arts. Folklore is a form of creative expression that everyone engages with, which can provide us with a sense of group identity and belonging, give us an outlet to vent our anxieties and frustrations, and provide us with an opportunity to learn why people are the way they are. Folklore has been used by artists for generations and studying folklore in its various forms can provide artists practicing today with an endless source of inspiration.
Pfeifer earned her Ph.D. in folklore and American literature at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and her M.A. in literature at the University of Essex. She received her B.A. in English and philosophy at Northern Illinois University.
She has presented work on folklore at the Fox River Valley and Aurora Public Libraries, the Folklore Podcast Lecture Series, the Digital Folklore Podcast, and the American Folklore Society Annual Conference.
She has works published in Cordella magazine, Noctivagant Press and Sundial magazine. Her research and creative writing specialties are folklore studies, narrative and genre theory and American literature.
• Raymond Thompson, Jr., an interdisciplinary artist, educator and visual journalist, will present his lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 2.
Thompson is assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He explores how race, memory, representation and place combine to shape the Black environmental imagination of the North American landscape.
He received his M.F.A. in photography at West Virginia University, an M.A. in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and a degree in American studies from the University of Mary Washington.
Thompson won the 1619 Aftermath Grant (2023) and the 2021 Lenscratch Student Prize. His recent exhibitions include the Fotofest Biennial-Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He is also the author of “Appalachian Ghost” published in 2024 by the University Press of Kentucky.
His professional experience extends to freelance photography, where he has collaborated with The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, ProPublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell, Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine and the Associated Press.
• Contemporary wildlife painter and UNL alumnus Matt Belk will present his lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 16.
Belk has increasingly become known as a contemporary wildlife painter, bridging the gap between the outdoor country lifestyle and modern contemporary art. His work uses tape and the cutting of shapes with an X-Acto blade and airbrushing with inventive new techniques to create a seemingly digital graphic depiction of nature.
Originally from Omaha, he received his B.F.A. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Last year he had his first solo show in New York City (https://go.unl.edu/jzkr). He recently completed a months-long residency in Sweden at the Carl Kostayal Gallery in Blidö.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
• Nov. 12: Holly Willis (co-sponsored by the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts and The Awareness Lab). Willis is chair of the Media Arts+Practice Division in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where she studies reconfigurations of cinema and experimental media. She also co-directs the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the USC Center for Generative AI and Society.
• Nov. 13: Steve Anderson (co-sponsored by the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, The Awareness Lab and the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. The lecture will be at 5 p.m. at the Ross, followed by a sneak preview of Anderson’s new film, “Reality Friction.” Anderson is a scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, history, technology and culture. He is professor of digital media at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and associate dean for academic affairs in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture and is the author of “Technologies of History.”
Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.