pauses&clicks

I found a space today that made my heart sing.

The Hot Shops Art Center in Omaha, Nebraska (approximately 92,000 square feet of space) consists of art studios, showrooms and various gallery spaces, catering to the art community in and around the Omaha area.  But it’s so much more than its description.  There’s a vibrating energy that greets you as soon as you walk through the front door, combined with a prevailing sense of peace.  Within minutes a visitor realizes that this place is populated with people who are happy to be there.  Happy to be in the space, happy to be with each other, happy to be creating art.

This week’s photo challenge is about threes.  Telling a story with three pictures…the overall view, an image that gives you a bit more of the story and finally, a detail.  And so I introduce you to three of the artists I encountered today.

Meet Dar.  This is a corner in her studio.

This is her self-portrait.

And this is one element in many of her paintings.

Although Dar wasn’t physically present at the studio today she infused every inch of her studio space.

Now we walk down to Tim’s pottery studio.

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Tim gave us the tour today.  He’s the type of person I’d like to meet for coffee every morning.  He talked eloquently about art in all it’s facets and about the need for the public to witness art, to see artists working in their studios, to touch the art and to use it, to enjoy it, to live with it.

Tim runs the Hot Shops Art Center and it’s apparent that he is it’s nucleus.  When told about an unexpected group of 25 students who showed up for a tour today he calmly gave another artist direction without missing a beat, then claimed it was an example of “management by the seat of my pants.”

Next I’d like you to meet Ed, our third artist.  He used to be a medical researcher, working for a doctor who was such a fine employer that Ed stopped researching when his boss went into private practice.  Now Ed’s a glass artist and this is his his story in three pictures.

Three artists, three images, three methods of presentation.

I’m still smiling about my experience at the Hot Shops Art Center this morning and can’t leave you without a slide show of everything else I observed today.  If you live in the Omaha area I highly encourage you to spend some time within the walls of this inspired place, among it’s inspired artists.

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Okay, that was a lot of pictures.  Does it count in my favor that there were 33 images in that slideshow?  At least I kept to the theme of threes!

To visit the Hot Shops Art Center’s website click here.