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A&Enterta™t
Page 9Friday, April 16,1999
WctkSlh
Preview
The following is a briefguide to
weekend events. Please call
venues for more information.
CONCERTS:
Duffy's, 14120 St
Sunday: Oil, Broken Crown
Duggan's Pub, 440 S. 11th St
Friday and Saturday: Rockin’
Fossils
Kimball Recital Hall,
12th and R streets
Sunday afternoon: Wind ensemble
Sunday evening: Varsity Chorus,
University Chorale and Oratorio
Chorus
Knickerbockers, 9010 St
Friday: O.X. 45, george zip experi
ence
Saturday: The Mediums, Five Story
Fall
The Royal Grove, 340 W.
Comhusker Hwy.
Friday and Saturday: Decker
Zoo Bar, 136 N. 14th St
Friday arid Saturday: Billy Bacon
and die Forbidden Pigs
THEATER:
Blue Bam Theatre, 614 S. 11th St,
Omaha
All weekend: “Simpatico”
Lied Center for Performing Arts,
12th and R streets
Friday and Saturday: “Spirit of the
Dance”
Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater,
12th and R streets
Sunday: “Affliction”
Star City Dinner Theatre,
803 Q St
All weekend: “Snoopy”
Studio Theater, Temple Building,
12th and R streets
Friday and Saturday: “Unidentified
Human Remains”
GALLERIES:
Burkholder Project, 719 P St
Friday and Saturday:
“Collaborations,” featuring textile
art and photographs by Robert
Hillestad and John Nollendorfs
Gallery 9,124 S. Ninth St
All weekend: Works by Nebraska
Art Council 1998 Artist Fellowship
winners
Hqydon Gallery,
335N. Eighth St, Suite A
Frida/ and Saturday: Abstract paint
ings by Lana Miller
Joslyn Art Museum, 2
200Dodge St, Omaha
All weekend: “Searching for
Ancient Egypt”
Noyes Art Gallery,
119 S. Ninth St
Saturday morning: Portrait demon
stration by Vladimir Sobolev
Friday and Saturday: horse pins and
paintings by Janna Harsch, metal
sculpture by Michael Fluent, oil
landscapes by Keith Lowry and
blown glass by Ray Schultz
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery,
12th and R streets
All weekend: “Fletcher Benton:
' New Constructivism,” “New York
School Installation”
Scott McClurg/DN
MEL KELLEY, a Lincoln artist, has made 36 montages using mostly comic book characters that have been cut out and then mounted in 3-D
displays that cover his basement walls. ^
Collage artist
a superman of
montage pieces
By Christopher Heine
Senior staff writer
Before he had surgery, the cartilage below Mel
Kelley’s right thumb had worn down to fleshy splinters.
Pain comes to mind when you hear about what the
montage artist had done to himself, working a pair of
scissors for 15 years to its functional death by cutting
thousands of comic magazines into millions of pieces.
Kelley said he hasn’t thought about quitting
because of the injury.
“It still gets sore sometimes, but it isn’t enough to
keep me away from doing this,” he said.
He said some kids come back to his house time and
time again to view his work.
It’s easy to see why.
Kelley’s basement is a rainbow-colored celebration
of frozen motion, a plethora of wood-framed
Incredible Hulks and Spidermans leaping to nowhere
as if Mr. Freeze had just chilled solid their heroic, mid
air glides.
Boxes, lined against the wall and stacked thick in a
broom closet, are filled with multiple copies of every
episode of his favorite comic books.
The room is a comics fan’s dream.
Kelley said that some of his mint-condition comics
will survive the wrath of his scissors and ambition
-others won’t.
“I only cut ’em if I have more than one copy,” he
said. “I’m not nuts.”
Art Courtesy of Mel Kelley
IN HIS COLLAGES, Kelley goes by the pseudonym
Amel, which he marks In every work by a Camel
cigarettes wrapper with the “C” cut out.
He said he discovered comic book shops after
moving to Lincoln from Denver in 1984.
Kelley said the only super hero he knew of before
this was the Incredible Hulk
“After that, I went from comic shop to comic shop
like a kid in a candy store,” Kelley said. “A whole
world opened up for me.”
He had dabbled with three montages that mostly
used large magazine images (with a few Incredible
Hulks thrown in) before his discovery of the comic
stores.
Please see AMEL on 10
Scott McClurg/DN
KELLEY spends countless hours cutting out the
characters that he will use for his 3-D mon
tages.
