By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays Arts Center has three exhibits opening on Friday, featuring five artists, representing five different artistic media.
"We have got three very unique and very different exhibitions for our fall features," Brenda Meder, Hays Arts Council director, said.
The first exhibit, "Bits and Pieces," which will be in the main gallery, will feature Shannon Trevethan and Tracy Hanzlick, both of Russell.
"Shannon loves assemblage work and putting things together," Meder said. "She is also a fabulous painter. That's not what is included in this exhibition, but you can see elements of that incorporated into her assemblages."
"Everybody likes getting a close look and seeing what they're made of," she said. "She's always upcycling, repurposing and finding things. It is wonderful to see what her imagination allows her to put together."
Hanzlick rolls pieces from magazines or brochures to produce the color in her collages. Some are more abstract, but she also has a piece that depicts two feathers.
The exhibit will also feature some of her paintings.
"There are some similarities in color, so I've tried to put things together so that the moods and feelings of these two artists' work come together," Meder said.
"Painting with Sun" watercolors by Margie Hammerschmidt will be displayed in the center's hallway.
Hammerschmidt, of Hays, is a retired nurse and began painting in earnest later in life.
"Life, career and family, although she was always a creative person, kept her from really immersing herself in [painting]. Margie has not been a watercolor painter until the last four to four and half years," Meder said.
"I have just watched her work grow amazingly."
"Sunset Duets" by George Jerkovich of Salina and Debbie Wagner of Bennington will be in the Founder's Gallery.
Each piece of artwork coordinates with a sunset on a set day, although the pieces may portray a different location.
Wagner's media is pastels. Jerkovich is a photographer.
The images are titled with the dates of the sunset depicted.
Jerkovich is a retired psychiatrist.
"Debbie, following on the heels of some very traumatic brain surgery and some brain tumors, decided in gratitude that she wanted to look at the world in a new way," Meder said.
Since 2005, she has painted the sunrise each morning.
Jerkovich, who was not an early riser, proposed the sunset collaboration from late 2012 through 2013.
"It's really wonderful to see that artistic creation from two different perspectives but on the same night very near those same bewitching hours of dusk and sunset," Meder said.
The exhibits' opening reception will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m. today at the Hays Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public. The exhibit will be on display through Nov. 26.
"With diverse as the art that is in here right now," Meder said, "everybody will gravitate toward one of the forms or another and be completely drawn to it."