White River Gallery\u00a0<\/a>on Second Street in Crawford and you\u2019ll have your pick of pottery, acrylic and watercolor paintings, photography, handmade jewelry, scrimshaw powder horns and even homemade books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI have a lot of pieces with wildlife and western themes,\u201d said owner Clarice Hynes. \u201cI don\u2019t limit the work to that motif but a lot of it ends up being that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hynes and her husband, John, moved to the region 10 years ago after he retired from the Air National Guard and joined Burlington Northern Santa Fe as a conductor based out of Edgemont, S.D. When BNSF furloughed employees, he went to work at Fort Robinson while she was employed at Head Start in Chadron. Preferring not to commute to Edgemont when BNSF brought its employees back, they chose to settle in Crawford and pursue other endeavors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White River Gallery grew out of a desire to rent a separate space to serve as Hynes\u2019 art studio since their small home limited her ability to focus on her craft. A life-long lover of art and a retired K-12 art teacher, whose own creations often took a backseat to raising children and teaching, Hynes wanted to rededicate herself to her art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow, I\u2019ve got all this time and space and there should be no reason to go great guns.\u201d Hynes said. \u201cMostly I do watercolors, and I tend to paint mostly landscapes.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nInitially, they planned to rent a studio space but eventually decided to purchase a 1940s-era building in downtown Crawford and renovate the space for her studio. Opened as a bakery seven decades ago, the building had also served as a flower shop, a gift shop and, most recently, a pizzeria. The couple did the renovations themselves over the next 18 months and opened in March 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot had to be changed because it wasn\u2019t going to be a restaurant anymore,\u201d Hynes said. \u201cEach occupant added their own flair to the place, and I guess we have done the same, keeping some elements of the building\u2019s history where we could by reusing and repurposing materials while uncovering some of the original features of the structure, including the class block, pigmented structural glass panels (vitrolite or carrara glass), some of which we were able to save,\u201d she adds on her website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the project progressed, the purchase and renovation of the building evolved from creating a studio for Hynes to establishing a full-fledged gallery to capitalize on the available space. Regional artists were excited to have the opportunity to display and sell their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThere are not many places to show your work if you\u2019re an artist in this neck of the woods,\u201d Hynes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to her website, White River Gallery currently exhibits the work of 13 artists, including Hynes\u2019 watercolor and acrylic creations, handmade books and paper. Other work featured at the gallery are J.W. Kelly\u2019s prints and photography, Theresa Young\u2019s photography, Joel Hanlon\u2019s scrimshaw powder horns, Linda Dabbs\u2019 pottery, painting, interior design and outdoor art, Michaela Hynes\u2019 acrylic and phosphorescent paintings and graphic design and John Hynes\u2019 photography and woodworking. But the list doesn\u2019t end there. Lisa Farrington\u2019s watercolor, pen and ink creations and leaf assemblage are showcased, as is Jean Dupree\u2019s handmade jewelry. Photography by Deborah Horst and paintings and bronze sculptures by Vern Friesen can often be found, as can photos, drawings and paintings by Chris Hynes and various media and prints by Jean Norman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hynes said she\u2019s been able to maintain a stable population of artists, providing the opportunity for residents and visitors to purchase unique pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cEveryone who comes in has complimented me on how nice it looks and the variety of the artwork,\u201d Hynes said, adding that beyond selling artwork she\u2019s pleased to offer a place where people can simply come in, enjoy the artwork and take a relaxing break from the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Budding artists of all ages can also practice their skills and get tips by taking one of the gallery\u2019s classes, ranging from booking making for adults to the subtleties of shades and tints for kids. Hynes even offers art birthday parties for kids and adults, and makes the gallery available as a meeting space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is primarily a place for me to work and show my art, but also we hoped it would be a good addition to the community. None of it would have happened without John\u2019s vision and craftsmanship. He loved to design, and build and work out problems. Thinking back on it, the gallery was simply another in a long line of projects, though certainly much larger in scale, it was what he always did, and I\u2019m forever grateful to him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Kerri Rempp, Discover Northwest Nebraska Director Northwest Nebraska may not be the art mecca of the world, but there are plenty of talented regional artists creating unique pieces of work, and with the opening of the White River Gallery a few years ago, those artists now have a space to display and sell their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_8599-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1264&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgf0HI-Cr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3098,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions\/3098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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