Mystery Box

For his current art exhibition, Felix Morelo started small, creating intricate painted boxes that can fit in one's hands. One wall of the Peanut Gallery is covered with them. But as intriguing as these works are, Morelo was unhappy with them.
Connie Gibbons' office at DavenportOne is small to begin with, but it's positively cramped now, with boards and papers showing layouts, logos, and artist renderings of the River Music Experience, set to open June 11 next year across the street, in the Redstone building on Second Street between Main and Brady in downtown Davenport.
The Illinois Arts Council, along with teachers and artists from around the state, celebrated the completion of the second year of the Illinois Mississippi River Valley Project with a festival weekend August 15 through 17 in Galena, Illinois.
The steel that's rising from the ground along River Driver between Harrison and Main streets in Davenport is the physical skeleton of the $34.4-million Figge Arts Center, but it also stands as a symbol of a new framework for doing business for the Davenport Museum of Art (DMA).
Artist Les Bell has a document from September 1999 that lists artists' complaints about the Davenport Museum of Art (DMA). They include the museum not publishing its mission statement, not welcoming local artists, and not making studio visits.
Ghostlight Theatre can thank World War II, at least in part, for the patronage of Dr. Walter E. Neiswanger. The theatre company's upcoming production of Das Barbecü will happen largely because of Neiswanger.
What had been MidCoast's Pastel Exhibition & Competition has been transformed through addition into something altogether different: a multifaceted arts-in-education event for teens that creates a link to workforce development and retention.
Photos by Brian Barkley Seven new sculptures have popped up in downtown Davenport, the result of the second Sculpture on Second project of DavenportOne. The organization is also developing a brochure for a walking tour.
Davenport Museum of Art Director Linda Downs envisions the Figge Arts Center as a vibrant gathering place for the general public and artistic types. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City used to be "a meeting place for young people," she said, and the "incubation place" for artists, critics, and art-lovers alike.
Nancy Senn-Kerbs, program director of the Family Museum of Arts & Sciences in Bettendorf and past president of the group Iowans for the Arts, might sound wishy-washy on the status of state support for the arts. "It is discouraging in some ways but encouraging in others," she said.

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