Charles City Arts Center goes to the birds for July exhibit

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Arts Center is displaying a collaborative work spanning the globe as this month’s featured exhibit presents art from Angela Waseskuk and Minako Shirakura.

Waseskuk, a librarian from Cedar Falls who also operates her own art studio, became friends with Shirakura in grad school and though the latter now lives in Japan, the two have maintained that long-distance friendship through their shared love of art.

In planning a collaboration for the arts center, the pair were inspired by the building’s history as a Carnegie Library, which included a specimen room for a collective of native Iowan birds.

This resulted in their art project, “From One Generation To Another.”

“We decided to experiment with an idea based on the telephone game,” said Waseskuk.

The project began with a drawing of a simple bird from each artist’s area, which they would send to each other, examine for one minute, and then try to recreate from memory. Then they would repeat the process, with each iteration adding or losing detail with every exchange.

“It’s interesting to think about how our memories work,” said Waseskuk.

The results of their project, along with individual works, can be enjoyed at the arts center this month. Visitors can even contribute their own drawings to the display by sketching out a bird themselves.