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COLLEEN FLORES makes sculptures from alabaster such as this Calais Lily to her left and The Omahan Singing the Midnight Water Song (right), which is
a work in progress. Flores does most of her work, which is inspired from her Omaha Ttibe upbringing, at her home in Lincoln.
UNL senior celebrates
heritage through art
66
You get so involved
with (sculpting), you
forget You smash
your fingers. You
scrape your fingers”
Colleen Flores
j senior art major
/'
Standing in his sculpture garden
in Albuquerque, N.M., Allan Houser
drew a line in the sand. He asked the
art students in front of him who of
them was going to make a living at
sculpting.
Colleen Flores was the only one
to cross over the line.
Impressed by her conviction,
Houser led Flores through his gar
den.
“He showed me. He asked me
what I saw,” said Flores, a senior art
major at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln.
Flores, a member of the Omaha
tribe, says she was destined to be a
sculptor.
In the early ’90s, when she was
accepted into the Institute of
American Indian Art in Santa Fe,
N.M., she asked Wakonda, or God,
for guidance.
“I asked him to show me what I
would do,” Flores said. “And then I
knew I was going to be a sculptor.”
That adamant faith impressed
people like Houser, another
American Indian sculptor and one of
Flores’ greatest artistic influences.
“Once, after seeing my sculpture
of a lily, he closed his eyes and said,
‘You’re going to be a great sculptor.
Take care of your health,”’ Flores
said.
With encouragement such as this,
Flores has continued to explore and
refine her artistic skills. All the
while, she has used her talent to cele
brate her Omaha heritage.
“She uses traditional Omaha
symbols, but she also has modem -
day images of American Indians to
represent a concept or an issue or a
message,” said Cynthia Willis
Esqueda, a UNL associate professor
of psychology and ethnic studies.
The combination of the tradition
al with the modern gives Flores’
work a contemporary feel that
emphasizes the issues of American
Indians today.
Willis-Esqueda, who is the coor
dinator for Native American studies
at UNL, said Flores also emphasized
her Omaha spirituality in her work.
In Flores’ newest work in
progress, “Omahan Midnight
Singer,” that spirituality is the main
focus. The piece was inspired by the
faces of Flores’ tribal elders when
they sing.
“When they’re singing, I wonder
what they are thinking about because
tears will fell,” Flores said. “They’re
really into the singing. They’re
sweating. It’s the most beautiful
sight.”
/
Flores achieves these powerful
emotions by combining meticulous
technique with kinetic energy, said
Juanita Barry, Flores’ former acade
mic advisor at the Institute.
“I would probably compare her to
a Georgia O’Keeffe in sculpture,”
Barry said.
When sculpting, Flores prefers to
create in stone.
“When I’m chiseling, it just
comes naturally to me,” she said. “Of
course, you have to do your drawing.
You have to do your model. But then
it just comes.”
The most important thing she has
to remember, she said, is the stone’s
heaviness. ,
“You get so involved with it, you
forget You smash vour fingers. You
scrape your fingers, she said, laugh
ing.
These qualities of the medium
Please see FLORES on 8