BY CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays Arts Center is hosting four artists with shows celebrated by opening receptions from 7 to 9 p.m. today at the HAC.
The main HAC gallery is hosting a joint exhibition by Shannon Trevethan of Russell and Nicole Thibodeau of Hays titled Montage: The Femme Fatale Speaks through April 16.
Hays artist Cal Mahin's Moments in Time collage will be in the Founders Gallery through April 3.
Matt Miller, Hays artist, will have an open studio Cloudfarm and Others Works in Progress in the HAC Annex through mid-April.
Shannon Trevethan
Trevethan and Thibodeau have been showing in exhibitions together for about 10 years.
Trevethan, 42, has a bachelor of arts in fine arts oil painting and is currently the director of the Deines Cultural Center in Russell.
Both artists are primarily oil painters, but decided to experiment with collage, assemblage and found objects for this exhibit.
"I think I have a sort of fascination with a personal attachment to objects," Trevethan said. "I think about when people hold on to things for so long and they treat them as precious items long beyond their usefulness. The things they discard is at the opposite end of that."
Trevethan spoke on the female themes in the show.
"I think the femme fatale is a archetype, but no one really fits if you try to apply that to a specific person," she said.
"Nobody is just one thing. So when you think about the objects that we are working with, we are taking things that are one thing and turning it into something else. It has this multifaceted quality to it similar to how people are."
Trevethan said she hopes the show will expand visitors' perceptions of what art can be.
"I think people tend to have a narrow view of what art is," she said. "It tends to be a very serious thing. ...
"I hope if I incorporate a little bit of humor and vivid colors and these unusual objects that it will give people the feeling if they want to try to make something that they are not bound to traditional materials either and just about anything they do working with their hands can become art."
Nicole Thibodeau
Thibodeau in her artist statement for the show said, "Femme Fatatle is about trying something new. The show has allowed us to have voices outside the world of plein air painting. Exploration and experimentation have always been at the forefront of what inspires us."
Thibodeau describes the found objects in her art as "puzzle pieces" used to form conversations with works of art.
Thibodeau said there is rebelliousness in both the materials used to make the art and the art pieces themselves.
"The choice of using found objects is an environmental choice," she said. "That could be seen as what would a woman might say to the patriarchy. She would say, 'Hey patriarchy, let's try to repurpose things or use things we have been discarding.' "
Thibodeau, 39, has a bachelor of arts from Bethany College and a master's degrees in painting and English from FHSU. She is a youth services coordinator at the Hays Public Library.
"I would hope in addition to coming to the celebration of [the show] that people could take away a reminder of their own place within the world and the impact of consumerism," she said, "and think about how they can be more conscious in what they do with their trash and what they choose to purchase."
Cal Mahin
Mahin is exhibiting wet-on-wet and touch-glue collage.
"It'll be a story,"Mahin said of his artwork on display. "You'll have to be involved in it and the title may give you a little clue."
Mahin makes his own paper as well as alterting paper. He also has a studio of collected and found objects that are incorporated into his artwork.
"I like to manipulate and with collage and found objects I can move it all around and see it in many different aspects of the composition and then I can finally put it together," he said. "And I don't know if they are ever done."
Although Mahin's theme is capturing moments in time, he said his artwork can also change over time.
"It can change because certain papers fade in the light. So 10 years from now part of it might be almost faded away and those that remain dominant are in the work," he said. "It is kind of alive. It changes, which I find interesting."
Mahin, 77, was an art educator for 46 years at Colby High School and Colby Community College. He has lived in Hays for 10 years and runs the Em N Me Antiques with his wife. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska-Kearny and master's degree from Fort Hays State University.
Mahin said it was hard for him to break away from works that looked like demonstrations after so many years being an educator.
"I think sometimes retirees don't want to do what they did all of their lives and they move on," he said. "I wanted to be able to do and make art."
Matthew Miller
Miller will be having an open studio at the HAC Annex, 1010 Main through mid-April.
Miller, a plein air painter, will be working on multiple larger pieces he says he has not been able to finish in his regular studio space.
"I am always trying to come up with ways to explain my artwork," he said. "I look at what I do painting wise as the same thing the wind turbines do. They are pulling this invisible energy from the wind, from the air, from nothing and creating power, creating something else."
The windfarm is also a reference to the digital cloud where we store our images, images that a plein air painter may work from in the winter and when the weather is unfavorable.
The open studio is a way to farm his cloud for new ideas and images to paint.
Miller compared plein air painting to hunting.
"There is the element of the chase. You're chasing the light, especially early mornings and sunsets — that magic hour that artists refer to where the light is intense."
Miller said he feels most at home when he is outside painting.
"It brings you back to nature and down to earth and lets you take it all in, slows you down. I like that element of it," he said. "It seems like we are moving so fast these days, all of us."
Miller is a graduate of Fort Hays State University with a BFA in painting. He also has a degree in art history from the University of Kansas.
Local band Miles on End will be playing in the annex tonight for the opening reception.