* The flooding has the Nebraska Arts Council administration “taking precautions and implementing an emergency plan in the event that we are displaced by floodwaters,” from their lower-level offices in downtown Omaha’s Burlington Building, according to its website. As of last weekend, operations were normal, but essential items have been moved to higher ground.    * Nebraskans for the Arts, also in the same building, is busy doing the same, while trying to solicit support for saving the K-12 art education offering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Board of Regents will vote June 17 on whether to keep the undergraduate certification program for the recent FY2012 Proposed Budget Reductions. The UNL Academic Planning Committee did not recommend the cut. “It is important that the flagship Nebraska university keep this program because they have unparalleled resources to train art teachers — from the Sheldon Art Museum, to the top-tier studio art faculty, etc. — for the art students to be exposed to all of this and not be able to be an art teacher is a sad state of affairs,” said Nebraskans for the Arts Director Marjorie Maas, “The arts are fundamental to the education system.  To not have that option at the largest university in the state is a detriment to the quality of education at UNL.” You can help save the program by emailing the Board of Regents, voicing why art teacher training is important to you at corpsec@nebraska.edu before their meeting Thursday. * Kansas City-transplant artist Leslie Diuguid’s Bemis Underground debut, Power Tower, opens June 17, 6-9p.m. In her thought-provoking installation and collage drawings, she explores her days before right-wing Christian radio’s said end-of-days Rapture on May 21, 2011. * This Saturday another breaking boundaries gallery opens in midtown; Peerless, an “art gallery and project worksite devoted to artistic excellence via collaborative thought and creative action” is located at 3157 Farnam St. in Midtown Crossing. The first exhibit, Boats on Land: Chad Rutter, opens Saturday June 18 from 6-9 p.m.  The Minneapolis-based artist’s installation is said to explore land, history and American landscape via forms from sculpture to drawing to books.  * And one of Omaha’s own — deliriously heartbreaking, staunchly hilarious, humans and creatures in eerie worlds — the work of Mike Loftus reigns at Sirens Loft downtown. From a friendly unicorn inspired by his child’s imaginative drawing, to a haunting mural-sized spread of leering and grinning characters, a darkly humorous, modern musing to Picasso’s Guernica, the body of work spanning his career perhaps provides insight into the swimming, multi-layered brain that is Loftus, or at least enjoy speculating on such. The show runs through July 31 at Sirens, 1105 Howard St.

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