The Nerman Museum continues its The Salon for Possible Futures programming in November with a Nov. 20 Storytelling Night from 6-8 PM with poet Glenn North.
THANKSGIVING BREAK:
The Nerman Museum will be closed Wednesday, Nov. 26, through Sunday, Nov. 30 for JCCC’s Thanksgiving break. Café Tempo will be closed for that same time frame, as well as Tuesday, Nov. 25.
Save the date!
October is going to be another month full of activities here at the Nerman Museum, including an extra special weekend with big events on Oct. 25 and 26.
You can learn more about all events, and RSVP for the events that require registration, on our calendar page.
Diedrick Brackens, shadows spell my name, 2024, cotton and acrylic yarn, 102 x 134 in. Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Gift of Sue and Lewis Nerman, Leawood, KS.
Our major events this month include the Jerome Nerman Lecture Series, featuring Diedrick Brackens, on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 4-5 PM, at the Museum’s Hudson Auditorium, with a reception to follow.
Brackens will discuss his large-scale weavings that incorporate myth and storytelling to highlight Black and Queer histories and bodies. Brackens is best known for his tapestries that explore allegory and narrative through autobiography, along with broader themes in American history.
Brackens employs techniques from West African weaving, European tapestry-making, and quilting from the American South to create both abstract and figurative artworks. Often depicting moments of male tenderness, Brackens draws inspiration from African and African American literature, poetry and folklore.
Jeremy Scott and Katherine Bernhardt. Photo: Wil Driscoll
On Sunday, Oct. 26, 2-5 PM, we’ll celebrate the end of A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott with a Closing Countdown alongside the artists.
Young Artists Retreat 2024. Photo: Susan McSpadden, JCCC Photographer
Earlier that same week, on Friday, Oct. 24, 8 AM-2 PM, we’ll also be hosting the 2025 Young Artists Retreat. While nominations for the in-person portion of the event is already closed, teachers and students can still register for the livestream option through October 22.
The Salon for Possible Futures
Our Salon events continue, with:
Students creating art projects in a Nerman Museum Youth Art Class
Lastly, our Youth Art Classes are back for the fall semester, with an all-new line up of topics and art projects. We’ll be kicking off the season with the following classes:
Another eventful month coming up at the Nerman Museum!
You can learn more about all events, and RSVP for the events that require registration, on our calendar page.
Visitors enjoying their time in The Salon for Possible Futures
Our The Salon for Possible Futures events continue, with the September programming being as follows (please note, all Salon events are free, but due to limited capacity, RSVP is requested):
Left: Linda Lighton, Nude Descending a Staircase, 2007, glazed earthenware with china paint and luster, 18 x 11 ½ x 5 ½ in. Collection Shook, Hardy, & Bacon L.L.P. Right: Linda Lighton, Tinkerbelle, 2007, glazed earthenware with china paint and luster, 14 ½ x 13 x 12 in. Courtesy the Artist
In anticipation of one of our Fall/Winter exhibitions, Linda Lighton: Love & War, A Fifty-Year Survey, 1975-2025, the Nerman Museum is excited to announce the publication of its accompanying publication, a 208-page book of the same name, published and internationally distributed by Hirmer. Attendees will be able to purchase their own copy of the book, priced at $50. This richly illustrated monograph gives a comprehensive overview of Lighton’s pioneering body of work, which pushes the boundaries of ceramic sculpture. We’ll be celebration this book on Sep. 17, from 5-8 PM, with a book signing event with the artist.
Students creating art projects in a Nerman Museum Youth Art Class
Lastly, our Youth Art Classes are back for the fall semester, with an all-new line up of topics and art projects. We’ll be kicking off the season with the following classes:
Another month full of interesting activities here at the Nerman Museum!
The Elders, Beth Watts Nelson & Kelly Hunt, and Back Alley Brass Band
Light Up the Lawn, a collaboration between the Midwest Trust Center, bringing free concerts to the Nerman Museum lawn is back again! Join us on the following Fridays, starting at 8:30 PM to enjoy the bands below:
The Salon for Possible Futures is also hosting a couple more events (these events are also free, but due to limited space, RSVP is required):
Learn more and RSVP at our calendar.
It’s summertime and we’re seeing a lot of families visiting the museum. The littlest visitors have been really enjoying the exhibitions, especially The Salon for Possible Futures!
We welcome visitors of all ages, and for our preschool visitors, here are some things we provide to enrich their visits:
Games! The Salon has games already in it, and the one pictured here is a game that was made custom for the exhibition by Sally Paul. The large wooden blocks with simple shapes on each side are perfect for open-ended play.
Tip: keep in mind that kids 3 and under often are still in the parallel play stage of development and not yet ready to play interactively, which means they’ll each want their own blocks and won’t want to build something together. With this group, I had one child who was in parallel play mode and other children who played interactively. It works fine as long as you remind everyone that we need to share the blocks, even if we don’t want to build something together.
We have touchable objects that relate to specific works (note how the children are seated in the galleries) such as dog tags, jingle beads, beaded canvas and examples of different paint textures. Kids LOVE having these opportunities to touch materials.
Storybooks are a great way to get kids engaged and focused on the art! Stopping at several works and having everyone seated on the floor listening to a storybook can help the group calm down in an exciting environment (being at the museum is exciting!)
Mouse Paint is fun for kids 3-5years old to talk about colors and color mixing. We also have color-mixing tubes which the kids love shaking up to see what colors are created. It’s important that everyone gets a turn.
Note how the reader in this video is supplementing the text by asking questions and encouraging interaction. It helps to practice reading the book several times, and to remember that the kids all want to see the pictures, so taking time to show every illustration to everyone is essential!
We can also be color investigators, using colored lenses to see how artworks look different through different colors and overlapping them. 
And at the end of the tour, when everyone has had plenty of time to look and play, we can spend some time making art! We have finger crayons and crayons that can be used with a palm grip, and coloring pages and stickers featuring works by Dyani White Hawk and others.
Finally we have some goodies visitors can take home at the end, including postcards and bookmarks featuring artworks from the exhibitions, as well as zines and some of the other fun things in the cabinet drawers of The Salon.
We are delighted to continue working with our colleagues in healthcare fields to host students in the JCCC Nursing, Respiratory Care and Neurodiagnostic Tech programs here at the museum as part of their coursework. For these “Art Vision” tours we ask students to do a series of in-depth looking exercises to hone their observation and assessment skills.
Students start by doing a full 15-minute formal analysis of an artwork, followed by a comparison of two works and then some sketching. Most visitors don’t spend 15 seconds looking at each work, so this is a challenging and rewarding exercise! As educators facilitating the activities, it is crucial that we spend time with the artwork ourselves, looking and then looking more.
For the formal analysis portion we select works that have figuration and other recognizable imagery. It’s important to start with a representational work (rather than a totally abstract, non-representational work) for this first activity so that folks that have some accessible entry-points into the discussion – it’s easier for many folks to observe that there’s a group of girls in a painting than it is to launch right into a discussion about color and line, for example.
Dana Schutz (b. 1976), Surgery, 2004, Oil on canvas
From there we can move on to abstract works for the comparison portion, if desired. These two works are an example of a set we compare:
Jordan Ann Craig (b. 1992), We Don’t Have to Talk About It, 2020, Acrylic on canvas
Karin Davie (b. 1965), Lover, 1998, Oil on canvas
Karin Davie, Artist: Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Interview
And for the sketching we always select a sculpture, as it is more interesting to compare folks’ sketches from different perspectives and observe how the work appears from different points of view/angles. BUT we try to select a sculpture that is not TOO difficult to sketch (not too many complex shapes or textures). For the students visiting this summer we couldn’t resist having them sketch one of Jeremy Scott’s designs.
There is a lot going on in July here at the Nerman Museum!
We still have some spots available in the last few summer camps we’re hosting this month.
Amy Kligman’s Salon will also be hosting more events this month!
Check out the video of Amy and Basil speaking about their work at the opening of the exhibitions.
Transcript is available Video Transcript – AK The Salon_Positive Obsession BK
Our A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott Mini-Documentary is ready! We are so excited to be able to share this with everyone! This video was created by Jeremy Eichenbaum of the Los Angeles Video Club, in collaboration with JCCC’s Video Services team.
Amy Kligman’s Salon
Amy Kligman’s Salon will be hosting a variety of events through the end of December, reinforcing its purpose as a gathering space, a portal for a better collective future, and the fostering of relationships and community.
In the month of June, Nerman Museum docents, educators, and the community are invited to participate in the following activities in The Salon:
These events are all free and open to the public, but due to limited capacity, RSVPs are required. Learn more about these events and register to participate.