Introduction

kyoōm’yə-lāt”
intransitive verb

1. to gather or pile in a heap
2. to combine into one unit; merge
3. to build up by addition of new material

Location and Year: Calvin T. Ryan Library, University of Nebraska at Kearney, 2024
Medium: Aluminum sheet metal painted then fabricated
Dimensions: Twenty-nine clouds range from 2’9” to 6’0” in length
Additional media: Artist book with braille translation, website with audio, and painted wall mural
Inventory number: 30A.765.2024

cumulate’s visual language highlights the beauty and role of clouds in the Nebraska landscape and layers it visually, audibly, and tangibly with the work of Nebraska poets, evoking the beauty of the Nebraska landscape and its people. Through this rich gathering of meaning, material, and content, cumulate merges the physical, the digital, and the ephemeral.

cumulate begins with a series of mobiles suspending sculptural clouds. Each cloud is folded and formed from thin aluminum sheet metal painted soft white on the outside with bright colors in the interior reflecting the vibrant spectrum of a Nebraska sunrise. The installation celebrates the timeless beauty of clouds and the important role they play in the Nebraska landscape—amassing and moving moisture, refreshing with rain and snow, filtering sunlight, and provoking our imagination.

Like precipitation from clouds, a poet’s distillation of words can reveal the color and life of a landscape and its people. From Willa Cather to Ted Kooser and Don Welch, Nebraska’s poets do so with refreshing insight and beauty. cumulate houses the poetry—curated for themes of landscape and its relationship to human experience—of nine Nebraska poets, each poet represented by one of cumulate’s sunrise-inspired colors. To enhance the immersive experience, perforations representing the dots and dashes of the Morse code translation of each poem are made in the suspended clouds, revealing the vibrant interior colors and a complex play of light and shadow. Corresponding colored Morse code runs vertically down the walls, reminiscent of rain. By choosing Morse code for the translations, cumulate makes a connection between the analogue beginnings of telecommunication and the digits 1 and 0 of digital communication and overlays this with poetry’s natural brevity of word and phrase.

cumulate also presents the vital role of the library as a multi-faceted and abundant storehouse, by connecting it to “the cloud” as a metaphorical storehouse of data, connection, and interaction. As part of the Great Plains, Nebraska has its own unique landscape, character, and a rich history of creative and intellectual expression.

The Calvin T. Ryan Library has a vital role in stewarding that vastness of expression, both tangible and digital, as well as being a hub for gathering people, generating ideas, and gaining inspiration. cumulate layers and builds on this concept through multiple forms of expression while evoking the curiosity of library visitors and students alike. By creating vistas for the viewer and paths for exploration, cumulate will provide a place of visual rest and curiosity in the context of the Calvin T. Ryan Library.

A QR-code-accessible website provides bios of the poets and more information on the art project, the full poetry from the collection, audio of both the verbal and Morse versions of the poems, and a visual experience of each associated poem. A braille translation of the poems is provided in the Artist book.

Mike McCann, Kearney Sunrise, 2013. Kearney, Nebraska.

Leslie Iwai

Artist Statement

Having grown up in Nebraska, many of my foundational memories of place have been formed by the profound joy of experiencing the brilliant colors of sunrise and sunset that illumine a Nebraska sky through every season. These memories were the conceptual seed for cumulate and I began to think about how this idea would work itself out in material and content. One of my favorite things in my art practice is finding and forming connections as a design unfolds. I had been dreaming about creating cloud mobiles since 2019. In 2022, I had the opportunity to create The Shape of Silver, a series of paper cloud mobiles at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. When I went to develop the mobile sculptures for cumulate, I took design cues from this piece and wanted to add and reveal color in a meaningful way. For me, one of the most meaningful expressions of culture is poetry. I love the way a story can be packed into a few rich words. It was a natural fit to see how poetry could bring a depth and breadth to this project as only it could.

In 2003, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Matt Mason for At the Corner of Art and Poetry, a gallery exhibit in Omaha, pairing poets and artists. I drew Matt’s name and the body of work I created was formational for my artistic voice. So, naturally, I reached out to Matt, now the State Poet of Nebraska (2019–2024), to see if he would curate the poetry collection for cumulate. I am overjoyed that he enthusiastically agreed!

I hope you enjoy discovering how visual art and poetry give voice to each other as you look to find the shapes in the clouds, see words revealed through dots and dashes of Morse code, listen to the sound of telegraphy and the cadence of poets, and touch the embossed braille text.

 

Matt Mason

Poetry Curator Statement

Poetry is a great accompanist. It’s an art form that has been part of human culture as long as there has been human culture. It goes beautifully with music but also has accompanied art, film, dance, and more. So when Leslie described cumulate and asked if I thought poetry could be a part of it, I was excited by the possibilities. And with an art installation at UNK? I’d just been working on a collaborative poem about Kearney titled “City of Poets.” Kearney is the home of Don Welch, one of Nebraska’s poetry treasures; a home to so many great poetry events at UNK, the public library, and around the community; and home to many other great Nebraska poets. Yes, poetry not only can go with this exhibit, it must! As a city and campus that are deeply steeped in Nebraska’s literary poetry tradition, I looked to that tradition radiating out from Kearney across the state to find poets and poems. That includes Don Welch, of course; a United States Poet Laureate; Nebraska’s Poet Laureate; a few State Poets; and a writer who we know from her novels but whose first book was a book of poetry. I found voices from across the state and ages of Nebraska poetry. It’s an honor to have been able to help with this project and to see Leslie illuminate Nebraska’s poetry tradition and shine a light toward its future.

Bios

Artist

Leslie Iwai is an installation artist and sculptor whose studies in mathematics, chemistry (Wayne State College, Nebraska), and architecture (Master of Architecture, Virginia Tech) inform her passion to bring unusual connections found in her research and artistic process to the surface for others’ ruminations and inspiration. The first recipient of the Bemis Community Arts Fellowship (2005), Leslie has had many additional awards, solo exhibits, and art residencies. Her work is in private and public collections, including Duncan Aviation and the Omaha Public Art Commission collection. Leslie has taught in both academic and community settings in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois, and New Mexico. Leslie was born in Stuttgart, Germany, and was raised in Bellevue, Nebraska. She now enjoys living in and exploring Wisconsin where she creates art, collaborates, and connects with her community. When not in her studio, Leslie can often be found hunting for treasures at thrift stores or walking on trails with her husband near their home in Middleton, Wisconsin. See more of Leslie’s work at leslieiwai.com.

Poetry Curator

Matt Mason is the 2019–24 Nebraska State Poet and has run poetry workshops in Botswana, Romania, Nepal, and Belarus for the US State Department. His poetry has appeared in The New York Times, and he has received a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska Arts Council. His work can be found in Rattle, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and in hundreds of other publications. Mason’s fifth book, Rock Stars, was published by Button Poetry in 2023.

Morse Code Translator

Don Mahoney taught himself to telegraph using the local telegraph installation at a railroad depot in North Dakota at the age of fourteen. At age fifteen, he went to work for the railroad, sending and receiving telegrams for the Western Union during the Second World War. He sees a great renewed public interest in telegraphy and is passionate about educating and sharing about this formative communication technology. Don generously tapped out all the American Morse Code translations for cumulate on a telegraph key from 1903.

Acknowledgements

Leslie Iwai would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to cumulate.

  • Douglas A. Kristensen, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Chancellor
  • Evan E. Boyd, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Dean of the Library

Art Selection Committee

  • Meagan Dion, Nebraska Arts Council, Public Art and Artist Programs Specialist
  • David Arredondo, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Collections Services Librarian
  • Derrick Burbul, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Department of Art and Design Chair
  • Gregory Christen, University of Nebraska System, Project Manager
  • Gale Warren, University of Nebraska System, Interior Designer
  • Karissa Johnson, Museum of Nebraska Art, Curator
  • Adam Post, DLR Group, Architect and Senior Associate

Creative Team

  • Matt Mason, Poetry Curator
  • Jill Rizzo, Rizzo Creative, Book and Website Design
  • Cameron Ramaekers, Open Caret, Web Development
  • Marcia Bosscher, Copyeditor
  • Don Mahoney, American Morse Code Translator
  • Steven Rikkers, Mural Design Development
  • Calvin Roberts, Studio Assistant
  • Seth Boggs, Bogzilla Inc., Mural Consultant
  • Samuel Foulkes, Clovernook Center, Director of Braille Production & Accessible Innovation
  • Brian Anderson, Clovernook Center, Arts & Accessibility Coordinator

Permissions for all poetry not in the public domain have been granted by the poet or the poet’s estate.

Leslie Iwai, The Shape of Silver, pen on paper, 2022. Artist’s sketchbook.