February 2012
16 posts
2 tags
Megan Siebe, musician
Cellist Megan Siebe will play with her band, Anniversaire, Saturday Feb. 25 alongside The Sleepover and All Young Girls Are Machine Guns at Slowdown (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about going from playing her Fisher-Price Xylophone when she was young to playing in various ensembles in high school, adapting to various styles of music, feminism and more…
Background/from...
2 tags
Mary Kelly, actress
Mary Kelly stars in In the Next Room (Or the Vibrator Play) at Blue Barn Theatre thru March 10 (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about getting into theatre at a young age, the relevance of In the Next Room today, being a woman in the arts in Omaha and more…
Tell me about your background/from Omaha?
My family moved to Omaha from a suburb on the northwest...
2 tags
Wendy Jane Bantam, artist/musician
“The Magician’s Nemesis” (oil on canvas) 24inches x 24 inches
There is a poignant memory in Wendy Jane Bantam’s life that affirmed her decision to become a living-working artist.
From the start, growing up in rural Hay Springs, Nebraska, she spent countless hours outdoors exploring and her parents recognized her creative ability and encouraged her with art supplies to...
3 tags
Anna McClellan, singer/songwriter
Anna McClellan of Howard is getting amped for two upcoming Omaha performances—tonight at 21&Over’s Encyclopedia Show, and the upcoming LADY ROUNDTABLE and PERFORMANCE brought to you by Les Femmes Folles and X-Rated: Women in Music at House of Loom Feb. 29 (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about being a foreign exchange student in Denmark, opening up...
2 tags
Haili Copas-Starke, Director, UNO Women's Resource...
Haili Copas-Starke, Director of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Women’s Resource Center shares with Les Femmes Folles about coming from a Mexican-American background and growing up watching her mother take-on double roles, being a role model for young women, sexism in media and society, the UNO Women’s and Gender Studies’ No Limits Conference in March, the issues of female and...
3 tags
M. Michele Phillips, theatre
M. Michele Phillips is directing The Paris Letter, with Snap! Productions, opening at Shelterbelt Theatre March 9 (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about the easily accessible environment of theatre in Omaha, writing shows at age 6, being inspired by people watching, the universal themes in The Paris Letter and more…
Tell me about your background.
I ...
2 tags
Heather Sticka, writer/aritst/musician
Heather Sticka is creator of The Dirty Haiku Project, writing risque Haiku poetry on her friends’ and volunteers’ bodies and having them photographed. She’s also rhythm guitarist and vocalist in Tsumi, an indie-rock band out of Lincoln. She is speaking at Pecha Kucha Lincoln May 1 about Dirty Haiku and generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about how it came about, her...
2 tags
Joye Trimmell, musician
Cellist Joye Trimmell and her band Midwest Dilemma are playing Thursday night along with Caroline Smith & The Good Night Sleeps w/AYGAMG at O’Leaver’s (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about playing the cello at age 5, bouncing around styles and experimenting, how feminism does and doesn’t play a role in her work and more…
Tell me about your...
4 tags
Patricia Regan, caterer
Patricia Regan of Patricia Catering is generously providing soup for two of the films in March’s House of Loom’s Soup n Cinema Celebrates Women’s History Month (details below). She shares a little with Les Femmes Folles about how she got into cooking, catering for the casts of Lovely Still and Super Nanny, what feminism means to her and more…
Are you from Omaha?
I am...
3 tags
Teri Fender, actress
Teri Fender stars in Blue Barn Theatre’s In the Next Room (Or the Vibrator Play) opening Thursday Feb. 16 running through Mar. 10 (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her role as the sad and emotionally stifled Sabrina Daldry, being a woman in Omaha and more…
Tell me about your background; from NE?
Yes, I was born in Omaha, grew up in CB and moved back to Omaha...
1 tag
Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards, 2012, from my...
(*This is a story from my POV; do not read this if you want a complete listing or objective overview of the event; see winners listed here.)
(Not the OEAAs)
I had never been to an Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards event, and I think my expectations were a little fantastical and Hollywood. Maybe it was all the Grammy hype, maybe its from years of watching the red carpet on TV and in magazines,...
1 tag
Taylor Melone, model/performer
Taylor in a method acting shoot with photographer Philip J Walter
Omaha-based Model Taylor Melone is fresh off her gig with Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School and onto many more projects. She shares with Les Femmes Folles about growing up with a creative and encouraging mother, doing comedy and Improv, raising a child while chasing her dreams, the Omaha community and more…
Tell me...
2 tags
Caroline Smith, singer/songwriter
Minnesotan Caroline Smith is performing along with her band, The Good Night Sleeps Feb. 16 at O’Leavers (details below). She generously takes the time to share with Les Femmes Folles about growing up in a musical family, how feminism plays a major role in her creative work, and more…
Tell me about your background.
I’m from a small town in northern Minnesota right up der by...
2 tags
Susan Payne, artist/writer
Susan Payne is one of the organizers of the upcoming CAMP OMAHA X THE UNCOOL Presents: TRASH CAN KIDS THE ZINE Release Party Friday Feb. 10 at Camp Omaha, 1111 N. 13th St. (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her involvement with journalism at Benson High School and in college, her current writing projects, the impact of a friend lost, her supportive father and journalism...
3 tags
Lora Kaup, theatre
Lora Kaup is designing costumes for the upcoming Snap! production of The Paris Letter opening March 9 in Shelterbelt Theatre (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about getting into theatre in high school in Fremont, her varied inspirations from blog posts to Renoir, her thoughts on feminism and the Omaha community and more…
Tell me about your background, are you from Omaha?
...
3 tags
Katrina Methot-Swanson, artist
“I Want to be a Ballerina,” 48” x 48” painting by Katrina Methot-Swanson, 2012
Painter Katrina Methot-Swanson is exhibiting alongside painter Ken Heimbuch and sculptor Tom Sitzman in Art: The World Through Our Eyes, opening Feb. 3 at Artists’ Cooperative Gallery downtown (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about being absorbed by the process of painting, her current...
January 2012
23 posts
2 tags
Julia Hinson, theatre
Julia Hinson is busy directing four of the nine short plays in Shelterbelt with Love 11, running through Feb. 12 at Shelterbelt Theatre (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about drawing her inspiration from art and her peers, how feminism is frequently on her mind, how Omaha is a great place to be a woman in theatre right now and more…
Tell me about your background. I am...
2 tags
Jenn Tritz, theatre
Jenn Tritz will be performing in the Omaha Community Playhouse production of The Fantasticks opening February 10 (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about getting the performing bug at age 5, her first show with her husband (The Fantasticks!), what feminism means to her and more…
Tell me about your background/from Omaha?
I am an Omaha girl; I was born and raised...
4 tags
Brook Hudson, Omaha Fashion Week
Brook Hudson waving to the crowd at Omaha Fashion Week 2011
Brook Hudson, producer of Omaha Fashion Week (March 21-24, details below), has her hands in many creative projects. She runs La Fleur Academy, a self-development workshop for girls and has her own marketing consultancy. February 7, she’s speaking on a panel discussing Miss Representation, film shown at Film Streams co-sponsored...
3 tags
Letha Wilson, artist
Part of Letha’s installation in PLACEMAKERS at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Letha Wilson is one of the artists participating in PLACEMAKERS a collaborative show at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (details below) through March. She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her interest in an intersection between nature and architecture, the outdoors and the urban, the faraway landscape...
4 tags
Veronica Smash
Veronica Smash models for October Faction; image by g thompson higgins.
Performer/model Veronica Smash gets real with Les Femmes Folles about the impact of traveling around to big cities growing up, the first performance she wrote and directed at age 16, her artistry from drawing and make-up to writing and styling, the collaborative projects she’s proud to be a part of, her thoughts on...
2 tags
Megan Gannon, poet
Megan in New York, 2011
Poet Megan Gannon is reading at the Strange Machine Poetry Reading February 10, 7pm (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about writing about magical animals in second grade, writing constantly throughout grad school, holding Dickinson in the cupped palms of her heart as a model of artistic integrity, her new chapbook, The Witch’s Index, how...
2 tags
Jessica McKay, Interior Design
Jessica McKay is one of the presenters at this Thursday’s Pecha Kucha Night Omaha #14 (details below). The Birdhouse Interior Design founder/owner/designer shares with Les Femmes Folles about how she went from an art/sociology graduate to an interior designer, her thoughts on feminism, how Birdhouse began and more…
Tell me about your background.
I’m not originally from Omaha....
3 tags
Sonia Keffer, theatre
Sonia in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women at the Blue Barn Theatre, March 2011
2012 Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award nominee (for acting in Three Tall Women, above) Sonia Keffer is currently directing three of the short plays in From Shelterbelt With Love 11 running through February 12 at Shelterbelt Theatre (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about studying...
3 tags
Tiffany Headley, fashion design
photo by g thompson higgins of Donna Faye Couture from Omaha Fashion Week 2010
Tiffany Headley will be premiering her couture line of her clothing company, Donna Faye Couture, at Omaha Fashion Week March 24. But first she is launching Fashion Predator, her ready-to-wear line, an affordable, unique and original line of clothing designed by Headley, on March 9 at Bar 415 (details below). She...
4 tags
Melissa Amstutz, performer/songwriter
photo by Lindsay Trapnell
Melissa Amstutz is performing with The Wayward Little Satan Daughters band-mate Rachel Tomlinson Dick alongside Howard and & UUVVWWZ next Saturday, January 28, at DP Muller Photography (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about listening to her Annie record on end, acting in Seafarer, meeting Rachel at age 4, her daily Picture & a Poem project,...
4 tags
Dr. Kwakiutl L. Dreher, Professor, Performance...
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher, Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, presents an original one-woman show In a Smoke-filled Room… Color Matters in Sheldon Museum of Art’s Ethel S. Abbott Auditorium Tuesday, January 24, 6pm (details below). She generously takes the time to share with Les Femmes Folles about getting put on stage at age 4, the inspiration and...
4 tags
Ellie Archer, Executive Director, Women's Fund of...
Ellie Archer, Executive Director, Women’s Fund of Omaha
Being screened one-night only at Film Streams February 7, the documentary Miss Representation (2011), by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, explores how the media’s misrepresentations of women have led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence. Omaha viewers will also have the opportunity to discuss the film and...
2 tags
Eileen Klein, artist
Artist Eileen Klein is exhibiting for the first time at Bellevue Little Theatre, January 20-February 5 (details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about watching her father draw, how color inspires her, what feminism means to her and more…
Tell me about your background.
I was originally born in California. Our family migrated to Minnesota and then I eventually moved...
3 tags
Cybele Lyle, artist
(Untitled), Shifting Space 2
Cybele Lyle is one of the artists exhibiting in PLACEMAKERS a collaborative show opening at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts through March 31 (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about growing up in Southern California, the moment at age 25 when her art took on a new meaning for her, how her work is a way to archive her own experiences, what...
3 tags
Julie Green, artist
“The Last Supper ,” 2006, Installation view with Julie Green, Living Arts, Tulsa, Oklahoma Photo: Deborah Brackenbury
Julie Green’s exhibit, The Last Supper, opens at the University of Nebraska-Omaha Art Gallery January 13 (details below). The exhibition, including 467 painted plates, each of which depict a unique last meal request of a former prisoner on death row, marks...
3 tags
Anne Lindberg, artist
“vapor,” 2009, rayon thread and pins, 24 by 8 by 14 feet shown in H2O Film on Water exhibition at The Newport Mill, Newport, NH photo by Derek Porter
Anne Lindberg is one of the artists participating in PLACEMAKERS a collaborative show opening January 13 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about growing up around artists, how she...
2 tags
Sara Richwine, artist
Sara Richwine with her art at Village Shoppe in Carson
Sara Richwine is one of the artists kindly taking part in the PotLuck: Teacher/Student Art Show at Hot Shops this Saturday, January 14 (details below). She kindly shares with Les Femmes Folles about growing up with theatrical parents, exploring her grandparent’s farm, her artistic process of the piece “Seems” Like...
3 tags
Isabelle Hayeur, artist
Innerland 4
Isabelle Hayeur is one of the artists participating in PLACEMAKERS a collaborative show opening January 13 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about growing up in Montreal, how her work deals with environment, urban development and to social conditions, how she came about installing a site-specific piece in an industrial building...
2 tags
Lauren Jeffrey aka DJ Hypoxik
Lauren Jeffrey, aka DJ Hypoxik, playing at Dames Hit the Decks at House of Loom
Les Femmes Folles posted an interview of Lauren Jeffrey and her sister last summer who used to DJ together as Polari Step. Lauren now DJs solo as Hypoxik and played last weekend at House of Loom’s first all-female DJ line-up “Dames Hit the Decks” and is playing this Friday at Sokol with...
1 tag
Allison Claire Jeppensen, photographer
Self-portrait of Allison Claire Jeppensen
Last month, UNO art senior Allison Claire Jeppensen took her art to the people—for one week (December 8 – 15), Jeppesen’s photographs traveled through the city inside Omaha Metro bus No. 1105. Jeppesen, a trained photographer whose work explores the contemplative power of natural imagery, called the project “Portable Prints,” bringing art ...
2 tags
Amy Cerra, artist
Amy with her ceramic cupcakes
Amy Cerra exhibits alongside Laurie Mason and Dalhia Cavazos at the Joyce Wilson Art Gallery on Bellevue University’s campus opening January 10. She shares with Les Femmes Folles about finding her artistic soul in the woods of Virgina, expressing her sense of shelter, the simple joy of cupcakes, the sometimes small-town views of womanhood and the strong...
2 tags
Karen Kunc, artist
Karen printing large scale woodcut at Venice Printmaking Studio, April, 2011
Avoca, Nebraska-based printmaker Karen Kunc opens her exhibit The Immeasurable at Anderson O’Brien Fine Art Old Market this Friday January 6 (details below). The multiple award, grant and fellowship recipient and UNL Willa Cather Professor and Professor of Art shares with Les Femmes Folles about the influence of...
2 tags
Charlene Potter, artist
Omaha based artist Charlene Potter is showing her work in Lincoln for the first time in January alongside eleven other artists at Noyes Art Gallery opening January 6 (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about designing drapery valance, her artistic epiphany in Paris, her love of the artistic process, how women play a major role in the end of exploitation of minorities and...
December 2011
23 posts
3 tags
Lois Weber: Choosing to Name Your 2012 Year
The Remembering Place owner Lois Weber and Daphne Eck of Peerless are offering a creative retreat for women only hosted at Peerless (Naming the Year: A Retreat for Women Only, January 7 session booked, January 11 open, details below). Lois generously writes about how the workshop came about and how naming a year can help us give clarity for the days to come and more…
Lois Weber:
At the...
1 tag
Cheryl Dyer, artist/calligrapher
Cheryl Dyer shares with Les Femmes Folles about how she got into calligraphy and started Cheryl Dyer Calligraphy & Hand-lettering, what inspires her, how she balances mothering and her craft, a few examples of her work and more…
Tell me about your background.
I’m from southeast Iowa, with a degree from Iowa State University and I studied lettering with Cheryl Jacobsen of Iowa...
2 tags
Amanda Huckins, poet
Poet Amanda Huckins will be reading December 29 at the Strange Machine Poetry Reading at Gallery 72, 2709 Leavenworth (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her transition from an arty kid to writing meaningful poetry, typing made-up cool-sounding words into a dictionary.com, loosening her internalized definitions of men and women, the amazing benefits for women artists...
2 tags
Mary Day, artist
Space, drawing by Mary Day
Artist’s Mary Day’s exhibit, Process, is on view at The Moving Gallery downtown thru January 8. The artist shares with Les Femmes Folles about learning to draw from her mother, how meditation is a major influence in her work, how her nature is a greater influence than gender when it comes to her work and more…
Tell me about your background.
I was born...
2 tags
Teresa Prince, photography
Teresa Prince, photo by Lane Hickenbottom
Teresa Prince makes money as a pharmacy tech, but her passion is photography— enchanting wedding and portrait shots, and also loaded social justice projects, like “Bitch - it’s our word now” and her current, “Survivor Stories.” She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about falling in love with...
2 tags
Rachael Wolfe, poet
Poet Rachael Wolfe will be reading at Strange Machine Poetry Reading December 29, 7-10p.m. at Gallery 72 (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her collaborative writing process, what she’ll be reading next week, how she loves how big the sky seems in Nebraska and more…
Tell me about your background, where are you from? Born and raised in Nebraska. I grew up in...
2 tags
Jessica Sophir, poet
Jessica Sophir will be reading Monday at The Post Holiday Spoken Word Throwdown at the Pizza Shoppe Collective (details below). She generously (and hilariously) shares with Les Femmes Folles about her bat mitzfa, majoring in East Asian Studies, her teenage years of “whiny, angsty” writing, how her blog, “Eyes of the Hurricane,” got started, how being a woman plays into her...
2 tags
Kate Sommer, writer/editor/teacher
MAKE Issue #11: “Neither/Nor”
MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine is holding a Release Party for Issue #11: “Neither/Nor” at Jake’s Cigar’s and Spirits Thursday night (details below). MAKE Associate Editor and Duchesne Academy English teacher Kate Sommer will be reading at the event. She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about how she got into writing,...
3 tags
Ariel Ibsen, actress, director, model
Multi-talent Ariel Ibsen performs in “Skull Sketches” a monthly sketch-comedy/short-play show at the Pizza Shoppe Collective in Benson (second Tuesdays, details below). She generously shares with Les Femmes Folles about getting into theatre at age seven and not looking back, her involvement with Skull Sketches, the strong competition being a woman in theatre, the wonderful...
2 tags
Reflections from the first LFF forum
Me (Sally) at House of Loom, photo by Greg Higgins
(This image was taken at the last Drink n Draw. We didn’t get any good images from the forum so I’m using this one—because it is relevant to our discussion which touched on using the female form in art.)
About thirty women—and men!—came to the first Les Femmes Folles discussion forum to talk feminism and art with us Wednesday...
2 tags
Wendy Summers, artist
Wendy teaching at Rhythm and Hues
Wendy Summers, artist and co-owner of Rhythm and Hues Studio in Omaha, shares with Les Femmes Folles about her love of art at a young age, painting for herself and her commission work, starting the Studio with her mother and sister, her inspiration from children and more…
Tell me about your background.
I was born in Omaha, as were my parents and...