Journals of the Days
Jacobshagen Notebooks Tour Nebraska's Arboreta

August / September 2008 Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha
October / November 2008, Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln
December 2008, Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln

Sunday, November 9 at 2pm
Sheldon Museum of Art, 12th and R St.
Gallery Talk with Keith Jacobshagen

Friday, December 5 from 6:30-9pm
Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street in Lincoln
"Staying Close to Home" slide presentation by Keith Jacobshagen
with an introductory poetry reading by Ted Kooser

Previously on a statewide tour:      
August / September 2007 Peru State College
October / November 2007 Hastings College
December 2007 / January 2008 Doane College in Crete
February / March 2008 Chadron State College
April / May 2008 Sallows Arboretum in Alliance
June / July 2008 Midland Lutheran College in Fremont

Purchase Jacobshagen prints/cards
Silent Auction bidding on exhibit pieces through December 12, 2008
A note from Ted Kooser
Exhibit Sponsors

Keith Jacobshagen, April 2007
       "In the autumn of 1964 I faced the disquieting prospects of graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in December, getting married and looking for a job. As I moved through the haze of final portfolios and job interviews I took refuge in those few quiet moments by reading artists' biographies and letters. I was searching for a way to face the mystery of my future, and pursuing a place of calm that might help me to recognize my direction.
       Sometime before the Christmas holiday I found this quote by Plato. “The life unexamined is not worth living.” By the New Year I had bought an office journal and began my first clumsy words of observation and self-examination.
       Over the years, the journals have become a place of refuge, confession and discovery. I am fundamentally a visual person. So it was only natural that the journals would evolve into a partnership between words and images. This habit has continued for some forty years and does not seem to be diminishing. I believe that in many ways writing has become as much a part of who I am, as has painting. And like painting, writing has given back to me a chance for a richer sense of life and identity."

Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate (2004-06) and 2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner...
       "Many years ago, the late Jim Eisentrager was teaching a night class in beginning oil painting at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln , and had set up a still life that the students were to use as a subject. As he walked through the room he discovered that one of the students, a young man, was painting something entirely different, a mountain meadow with a brook rushing through it and a deer browsing in the grass. He tried to explain that the object was to paint what was in front of him, the objects Jim had arranged on the table. But each week, no matter what the class was supposed to be doing, Jim would discover that the student was painting another of his fanciful mountain landscapes. Finally, frustrated, Jim told the student not to come back to class until he had painted something from life, something he actually saw. Several weeks went by and at last the student reappeared, carrying a canvas wrapped in newspaper. 'Mr. Eisentrager,' he said, 'I finally know what you mean. I work construction and a couple of weeks ago we were called out to Wyoming to repair a bridge that had washed out. One morning we had some time off, so I took my paints and went out to see what I could find, and here it is.' He unwrapped the canvas, and there it was, a mountain meadow with a brook rushing through it and a deer browsing in the grass.
       I've always loved that story because it illustrates what I insist on my writing students doing, that is, I want them to pay attention to what's right under their noses. Some of the strongest art comes from close observation of the world. Keith Jacobshagen's notebooks, which are, of course, also journals, are a fine example of an artist who is devoted to paying attention, and what Keith has seen over many years of looking closely at landscapes has informed his studio paintings.
      Not everyone can be a noted landscape painter like Keith Jacobshagen, but everyone can be encouraged to pay attention to the natural world. There's immense pleasure in, well, just stopping to look, in setting aside our daydreams and fantasies and noticing what is under our feet. And it seems to me that part of the work of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum is to arrange before us real, growing, breathing landscapes in which we can all take immense pleasure."

Sponsors for statewide tour of the Jacobshagen Notebooks
Presented by the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council
The Cooper Foundation, Lincoln
Duncan Family Trust, Lincoln
Kiechel Fine Art, www.kiechelart.com, artist representative
Carl and Jane Rohman
Frameworks

Event photos from Brownville Arboretum Opening
Plein-air Workshop, working in the landscape tradition
Artist reception and Gallery Talk
Raffle, Auction & Picnic Supper