Local photographer hits the road

* Omaha photographer Dana Damewood hit the road last weekend as part of her latest project: two weeks on the road with a long-haul truck driver. Damewood has been planning the project for months; she is on the road with a female truck driver, sending updates via social networks and taking photographs along the way. “Driving a truck is a job that offers freedom, independence and adventure,” she wrote on her blog, “but at the same time yields isolation, monotony and latency.” Damewood’s most recent work dove into the relationship of the worker and the office, and her desolate images of urban landscapes are haunting and uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has spent a day in a cubicle or behind a cash register. Damewood plans to not just make photographs, but also videos of her experience, which she said she will write about. She’s accepting donations to fund the project through her Web site, where she’s blogging about the experience. A $25 or larger donation promises the giver a postcard from the road. Find her at DanaDamewood.com and follow her adventure at Twitter.com/damewoodphoto. * The votes are in for the annual Visiting Nurse Association Art and Soup contest. Adam Weiss took home the people’s choice for best art exhibit, and the judges chose Herm Rauth, Curt Norman and Valerie Light Anderson as the top three artists in the Best Artist competition. Bread Oven, Noodle Zoo, 7M Grill, Vivace and Taste, were restaurant winners in various categories. * Lincoln’s 815 Gallery is partnering with Open Studio’s Artists on the Edge to show around 50 new pieces by artists living with mental health problems. Open Studio allows such artists to express themselves and is a collaborative effort between the Lancaster County Community Mental Health Center; Lincoln Parks Association and CentrePointe, an organization specializing in helping people with substance abuse and mental health disorders. More than 200 artists are part of Artists on the Edge. The group gathers each month to work on healing through artistic expression. The 815 is located at 815 O St. in Lincoln’s Haymarket district. * This First Friday in Lincoln, Omaha artist Jun Kaneko will sit down in conversation with Sheldon Museum of Art Director Jorge Daniel Veneciano to talk about Kaneko’s new book, Plays the Thing: Reading the Art of Jun Kaneko . as well as his work on operas, including Madama Butterfly. Kaneko will sign copies of the book in the Sheldon Great Hall and the free event is slated for Friday from 5-7 p.m. and the book is available for purchase in the Sheldon Museum Store. (Full disclosure: I work at Sheldon.)