1% for Art, University of NE Lincoln, Westbrook Music Building
Glenn Korff School of Music
Art Concepts for both Atrium & Lobby
by Christopher James Kull on January 5th 2025
[All content was also submitted on Nebraska Arts Council‘s SlideRoom]

Atrium

As a creative person that went to Art School three decades ago, I try to envision if me, as a student, were to walk through this space, what would make a positive impact on me. Whether directly or indirectly. Seeing other successful creative people that I can in some way identify with, would help motivate me. For Music and Dance students, the visual of successful creative people might work most days as inspiration, but other days it might be sources of movement or subtle sounds, like a Honey Bee, or a Bicycle in motion. If coming up with creative ideas has a student staring at blank thoughts, the goal is for these paintings to be a launching point to finding their own path. Read more about the Atrium artworks, & See all 12 Concepts

In addition to my 12 original painting Ideas, are visual pieces for the Atrium to carry through as sculptural elements. So a Sailboat mobile might appear after the Sailboat painting or the Honey Bee or the Origami-like shape from the Lobby painting. These would be sort of mobiles extending out from the wall among the paintings.

ATRIUM Art — Westbrook Music Building — cjKull

ATRIUM 12 Concepts — Westbrook Music Building — cjKull

Lobby

This artwork should be bold, interesting, inviting and fun. The goal would be for the building and the artwork within it, to help develop the student’s own artistic creations. For the content, I think this painting should be a little more abstract in content and meaning, as opposed to the Atrium artwork. I could see this painting having more of an architectural feel. Shapes, angles and colors complimenting the lobby space it is in. One non-abstract element I think is important to include within this Lobby painting is the name of the school, Glenn Korff School of Music. To help give the students, faculty and staff a sense of place. A sense of belonging. This school and painting are theirs. The origami-like shape in the center is created by lines connecting the 5 words, Glenn Korff School of Music. This origami shape becomes a sort of canopy or extended building structure. Or even a giant hanging mobile, as implied with the connecting line shape repeated in the top of the blue sky. The visual is meant to tell a story of a welcoming place to learn, but the details of the story are to be filled in by each person’s own adventure.

LOBBY Art — Westbrook Music Building — cjKull

LOBBY Art close-up — Westbrook Music Building — cjKull

atrium pAinting ideAs

There are 12 concept ideas with the actual photo as the art for each. The final created piece for each concept would be an Oil Painting, painted in an Fauvist or Impressionistic style. So the realism that exists in these currently with photos, would be replaced with a creative piece that lets the viewer’s mind wander and imagine for themselves what is happening in each scene. My initial thought now is that each of the paintings with people will be made up of mostly one color. So one painting is variations of orange, while another is variations of blue. The thinking is to be bold and cohesive whether viewing looking up from the ground floor, or from the hallway across from the paintings.

There are 2 main themes for these paintings. Paintings with successful Creative People that can influence and inspire us. And Paintings with Flora & Fauna with Mechanisms powered by renewable energy like Wind energy and Kinetic energy created from human movements. For the Creative People theme, I tried to include a connection to Nebraska where possible. For the Flora & Fauna all the sourced content is from Nebraska. Howard Harold Hanson from Nebraska was a Composer, Conductor, Educator, Music Theorist and Director of the Eastman School of Music. Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz) also from Nebraska was a Dancer, Actor, Singer, Musician and Choreographer. Other Creative People I have in mind are Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Yo-Yo Ma, Hildegard von Bingen and Martha Graham. For some of the Creative People I hope to include visual aspects of their creativity, like John Coltrane’s drawing, Circle of Fifths.