Join us for an in-person event on the afternoon of November 11, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Birthday and Veteran’s Day, from 4-6pm to view two new exhibits and the opportunity to meet some of the artists. To encourage social distancing, we will limit the numbers of visits to 25 per hour time slot. Masks are required and temperatures will be taken at the door. Refreshments will be served.

“Doodley Do Unto Others” is an exhibition and exchange portfolio curated by Jolynn Reigeluth. In conjunction with the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library’s 2020 programming, this exhibition celebrates the life, work, and legacy of Kurt Vonnegut through the medium of printmaking. In January, the KVML launched its Year of Civic Engagement. From the politically charged to the highly personal, Vonnegut had much to say throughout his career on the topic of civic engagement. Through his writing, which could be simultaneously defiant and searching, scathing and heartfelt, Vonnegut was ever advocating for common human decency. The title of this exhibition comes from one of Vonnegut’s final works, A Man Without A Country, a series of mini-memoirs in which he writes about many topics, not the least of which is civic engagement. In this book he documents his ideas about common decency with reference to everyone from Confucius to Jesus Christ, and even his own son, Mark. The artists in this exhibition were invited to create an image, be it political, social, or personal inspired by these themes. This exhibit will be on display in the Freedom of Expression room at KVML through November 19, 2020. Prints from the exhibit can be purchased here: https://kvml.square.site/

The collection of photos by Jack Wickes gives us a unique opportunity to see the world through another’s eyes. Mr. Wickes is a Vietnam veteran who has contributed work to So It Goes, the art and literary journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. We are fortunate to be able to display his work on the second floor of Kurt’s Forever Home to honor Kurt on his birthday and all veterans on their day of remembrance. Mr. Wickes’s photos will be displayed on the third floor through the end of November, 2020.

Jolynn Reigeluth’s current body of work earnestly and humorously reflects on the emotional and physical aspects of the human condition and its twisted ironies. She combines an array of printmaking processes with drawing techniques to create print and mixed media hybrids that are inspired by personal experiences and everyday observations. Reigeluth’s artistic practice is driven by her love for the physical act of drawing, and a fascination with the most “unmentionable” yet ubiquitous human experiences. She considers her recent works as introspective self-portraits that aim to shed light on those untold internal monologues with which we are so often preoccupied. Her work has long been influenced by a wide range of art, music, TV, movies, etcetera emerging from the 1920s to 1960s, despite being born in the late 80s. She grew up watching cartoons from Fleishcer Studios including Betty Boop, Bimbo, Felix the Cat, Popeye and others. She also draws inspiration from a range of blues and jazz artists from the 1920s to 40s like Lil’ Johnson and Cats and the Fiddle, who produced songs with titles such as Hot Nuts and Sam, the Hot Dog Man. These influences play an important role in her work which has been described as evocative of “the atomic and plastics age of the mid-century.” (Michaela Mullin, Moberg Gallery.) Reigeluth has a distinct affinity for the absurd and scatological that manifests in these introspective images. The imagery is fueled by humor and spontaneity, and is filled with an inventiveness and ambiguity of subject that ranges from cheekily adolescent to darkly absurd.

Jack Wickes and his wife Julia lived in Indianapolis in the early years of their marriage, leaving for a few years for Washington DC. Jack, a Vietnam veteran, attended Indiana University and its law school on the GI Bill. After four years working on Capitol Hill as Counsel for the US Senate Veteran’s Affairs and the Labor and Human Resources Committees, Julia and Jack returned to Indiana in 1979 and he started a private practice. “A few months after our oldest child was born, many years ago, my wife and I purchased a high quality camera, which we really could not afford. We had the camera for many years and used it to take wonderful photos as our daughters grew up. As I captured their growing up on film, I became more interested and attentive to lighting and composition. And when photographing people, I became more attuned to and interested in making them look good, the way I saw them. Contrast, color and composition-generally, each of my photos will have a strength in one of these if not all three.” Julia and Jack have 3 daughters——all of whom grew up in Indianapolis ——and 6 grandchildren. During his 35 years of law practice, Jack was named a Sagamore of the Wabash and Trial Lawyer of the Year among other honors. He began photography in earnest before his oldest child was born. Over the years, he became more “obsessed” with subject matter, composition, color and contrast. See his breathtaking images of Indianapolis in the City Gallery through June 30.