Evelyn Katz Arboretum

Metro area artist, Evelyn Katz has been selected to participate in An Enchanted Arboretum, a community driven public art project promoting “Nebraska City as Arbor Day’s Hometown — Where Great Ideas Grow.” Katz’s painted sculpture “Tree Dreaming”, along with paper and canvas works inspired by the original piece, will be on view one night only, Thursday, March 28, 6 – 9 pm, at Tom and Jean Sitzman’s Connect Gallery & Studio, 3901 Leavenworth Street, Omaha, NE. “It has been so nice to be renting a studio at Connect Gallery,” Katz said. ”I’ve made connections I wouldn’t have made otherwise.” Katz’s day job, as a low vision occupational therapist at the Weigel Williamson Center for Visual Rehabilitation at UNMC “can fill life up,” she said. “This opportunity forced me to discipline myself, and set up a schedule. ‘Tree Dreaming’ is inspired by Australian Aboriginal design and painting. The elements of pattern, rhythm, and movement are inter-related on the four sides of the sculpture. I enjoyed the process so much I did a series of works on paper to push the colors and images used in the tree. I hope the series shows the same growth, and reaching to explore, that the tree does.” The tree will be transported to Nebraska City on April 6. An Enchanted Arboretum includes 46 four-foot trees and 25 six-foot trees, and will be publicly unveiled April 20, 2013 on the Otoe County Courthouse lawn in Nebraska City. Details about the project can be found at www.enchantedarboretum.org, on the An Enchanted Arboretum Facebook page, or by contacting Project Coordinator Liz Shea-McCoy at info@enchantedarboretum.org or Tom Farrell at tommillermonroe@windstream.net.