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Good for Business

Omaha is more than good for artists’ creative minds, it’s good for their business.

Jun Kaneko, whose massive ceramic sculptures find buyers around the world, says the city’s proximity to the center of the country saves money.

“It’s the art dealer’s responsibility to pay for shipping,” he says. “Being in Omaha, that issue doesn’t come up. All major highways are close and trucking is so easy, it’s almost effortless.”

Artistic Economic Development

Founded by a group that included artist Jun Kaneko and Omahan Ree Schonlau, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts occupies two huge warehouses that once were home to the Bemis Bag Co.

The Bemis Center has many successful graduates including the late Kent Bellows. An artist-in-residence in 1988, Bellows’ work is now part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sculptor Mark Masuoka came to the Bemis in 1989 as an artist-in-residence and returned in 2003 as the center’s executive director. He applauds Omaha for its “artistic economic development.”

“To create a strong artists’ community, it all comes back to opportunity,” he says. “If they find work, if they find ways to exhibit, they’ll stay. There has always been a strong, young contemporary arts scene here, and that became the foundation of today’s incredible art scene.”

More Than Applause

Through the years, the city’s most successful leaders have provided great philanthropic support, evidenced by the many facilities and programs that bear their family names.

The $94 million Holland Performing Arts Center benefited from the generosity of Richard and Mary Holland. It features the Suzanne and Walter Scott Recital Hall and the 2,000-seat Peter Kiewit Concert Hall.

Walter Scott Jr., chairman emeritus of Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc., says his generosity to the community is sparked in part “because it’s a puzzle and a challenge.”

“As a CEO, one of my roles was that of allocating stockholders’ capital to its most productive use,” Scott says. “You could perhaps say that I’m still allocating capital, but this time around the task is to try and find causes that produce a high return on investment for the community.

“Making those judgments is not easy, and I often recall Peter Kiewit’s comment that it was almost more difficult to give it away intelligently than it was to make it in the first place,” he says. “And, at a certain point in life, I think you realize that success in business isn’t as meaningful as the lives you’ve touched.”

Corporate sponsors abound, from the backing First National Bank lends to Opera Omaha to Alegent Health’s $150,000 commitment to the O! Public Art Project.

Even the artists share in the philanthropic spirit, as when the prominent indie bands Simon Joyner and the Fallen Men, the Bruces and Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes performed to benefit the artist- and musician-in-residency programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.