Jerri & Dee Haussler
“Flowers, Fowl, Fish, Butterflies, and Bugs! (Can You Find the Bugs?)”
Artist Reception: September 10, 2021 6:00 - 8:00 pm
On Display: September - October
This show is available during business hours (Tuesday – Friday from 10 am – 5 pm) or on weekends by advance appointment only.
ABOUT JERRI
I got my first Brownie Hawkeye Camera when I was eight and in the third grade. By the fifth grade I had read a book about wildlife photography and I was hooked. I have had many cameras since that first Brownie, but for the past almost twenty years, I have taken most of the pictures you see here with a Tamron® AF 70-300mm Tele-Macros Lens attached to my Pentax® K100D Camera Body purchased from the Camera Doctor in Kearney after I retired from my Associate Dean of Students’ position at Hastings College in 2002.
I am mostly a self-taught amateur photographer with an eye for detail, and lots of time to make photo cards, but I have taken classes in high school and from the Camera Doctor at Central Community College. Most notably, I won a Viewer’s Choice Award at the Heritage Highway (U.S. Byway 136) 2008 Photo Contest exhibited at the Opera House in Red Cloud in February 2009. I have also had photos published in the Hastings Tribune, Endless Journeys, Rainmakers: A Photographic Story of Center Pivots, and The Willa Cather Foundation Brochure. In 2005, I wrote the book, Entrepreneurs of Hastings, Short Sketches of Some Nebraska Risktakers, and in 2011, I wrote Simple Faith, Mighty Faith, A 40-Lesson Devotional and Memoir. Both of these contain many of my photos. Having a solo exhibit (or a duo show with my husband such as this one) has been on my bucket list. I thank the Minden Opera House for the privilege of showing my photos and thanks to you, patrons of the arts, for coming to see them! I hope you enjoy!
ABOUT DEE
I have always dabbled in art beginning when I was a lad on my mother’s knee embroidering tea towels with kittens in the corner. I love to doodle and have a swan that I’ve always drawn for kids without raising the pencil. I also tried carving a few little items, but wasn’t seriously pursuing anything too time-consuming. It was only when I retired from thirty-two years as Executive Director for Hastings Economic Development Corporation in Hastings, Nebraska that I was bored—and began pursuing artistic endeavors more seriously.
I began to carve fish only two years ago under the guidance of Martin Petersen. I was going to coffee at the Good Samaritan Coffee Shop and Executive Director, Kerry Davidson, introduced me to her father who had just moved to Hastings. Martin said he started carving fish after he retired after twenty-five years serving as Superintendent of Alliance Public Schools. He wondered if any of the men at our table wanted to learn how? I was the only one that took him up on it. He showed me the basics and provided me with some wood and to start carving. Martin died of leukemia at age 85 on November 6, 2019, only a few months after I began carving fish. Kerry recently e-mailed my wife, saying, “Dee was his first and only student who he was very proud of. Apparently only old farts are good at carving fish.” I dedicate my five fish in this exhibit in his memory.
