Meditations on Nature: Color & Form

KRIS LUBER (Fabric Landscapes) AMANDA WAGNER ( Plant-based Ink on Paper) JENNIFER WEIGEL (Hand-Beaded Jewelry)

KRIS LUBER–A teacher by training, Kris spent many years using her art when she taught in religious education settings. Since 2009 she has been showing her award-winning fabric artwork in galleries and shows throughout the Midwest, often using scripture and hymn verses as inspiration. Although she’s not a native Kansan, Kris is best known for her fabric landscapes of the Flint Hills and amazing Kansas sunsets.

Kris has developed techniques for using cast-off fabric and sewing supplies to whimsically mimic the colors and forms found in nature. “It’s a rare day when I don’t have a needle in hand to ‘sew something.’ I try to use repurposed materials exclusively. They come from my family’s accumulation, thrift stores, and generous friends.”

AMANDA WAGNER— Originally from Salina, KS, Amanda currently resides in Bennington, KS.

In 2005, Wagner studied abroad in England (concentrating in literature, visual art, and theology). After returning, she studied Art History at Baker University and later transferred to Kansas Wesleyan University where she obtained a degree in Visual Arts in 2011. She has since exhibited regionally, both solo and collaboratively.

Wagner’s artistic subject choices have centered around themes like death, sleep & dreams, sex, and spirituality. She also often references ‘place’ in her work. Within the last few years, she has made a conscious effort to move away from resource-intensive mediums. For her current body of work, Wagner crafts plant-based inks that are then applied to paper. The final ink artworks are minimalist, focusing on color interactions while speaking to life cycles, ritual, and the natural world.

JENNIFER WEIGEL is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist.  Weigel utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video and writing.  Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), memory & forgetting, and institutional critique. 

I keep coming back to making jewelry as a form of meditation.  There’s just something soothing about laying out a necklace: sorting and picking out beads, arranging them in patterns that I find aesthetically pleasing, stringing them together.  I also enjoy making jewelry purely for beauty’s sake, without messaging, whose sole purpose is for the wearers to feel good about themselves.

Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and has won numerous awards.  She is honored to share her jewelry in this exhibit at Lincoln Art Center.