Kellie Murnan: Artist, teacher, student

Talent is defined as natural ability or skill.  Some people seem to be born or destined to pursue different activities.  For art teacher Kellie Murnan, her passion, her talent, and her lively hood is art.  Henry David Thoreau has been quoted to saying, “This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”  For Kellie, her imagination is literally brought to life on a canvas, in a sculpting, or anything else that is inspiring her that day.

An alum from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Kellie received her Bachelor’s Degree (BSA) in Studio Arts.  After graduating from UNO in May 2011, Kellie was immediantly hired to work as an art teacher at St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Elkhorn.  Kellie teaches grades K-8.  Kellie is currently working on her Masters in Art Education online at University of Nebraska at Kearney. In addition to working full time as an art teacher and being a student, Kellie will also give private art lessons to kids and create art herself.  And finally, Kellie sells her paintings to hopeful buyers, and will even donate her paintings at auctions for charity.  Scroll down to see Kellie’s work.

Artist Kellie Murnan melted wax in tin canisters on a skillet to create this piece.  She added oil paint to the wax to make whatever color  she wants. And then she painted the colors on and used a heat gun to make it drip down the canvas.

This melted wax piece lives in Kellie’s basement.  She also made a similar painting to this located in Mammel Hall at UNO.

As many artists can attest to, an artists’ work is never fully done.  Kellie began creating this piece by adding color into the design of the natural wood.  She doesn’t think this piece is done, but is not sure what to do with it next.

“Sometimes artist’s have to put things away and think about them for a while and then bring them back,” Kellie said.

“This is actually a picture of a poppy flower that I liked,” Kellie said.  “When I painted it I applied a lot of thick layers of paint, making it look more abstract.”

Located in the basement, Kellie likes when she has guests over to show some of her art and explain where her inspiration came from.

Susan Ely looks on at Kellie’s pieces in her basement.  Susan enjoys Kellie’s paintings and has a few of them throughout her house.

Kellie with her work that Susan displays in her house.  From left:  A prairie painting, Kellie with her drawing of robots in descending size, and a painting of Ben, Susan’s son.

Little Ben, Kellie’s inspiration for the paintings above, plays around while Kellie explains her work.

On the 3rd Floor at Mammel Hall here at UNO, you can find one of Kellie’s paintings.  This one is called “Untitled” and is an oil paint and acrylic medium painted in 2010.

 

 

Kellie’s signature at the bottom of a painting.

Chris Machian: How Do Photographers Tell Stories?

On Monday February 18, 2013, the students of Media Storytelling were graced with the presence of photographer Chris Machian of the Omaha World Herald.  A Gross Catholic High School graduate like yours truly, Chris’ fascination with the news started at a young age.  Upon graduating from UNO, Chris received a job as a staff photographer at the Omaha World Herald.  Hearing him talk about photography was a joy for our class, because we knew we were getting information from an expert and an artist.

 

First we learned, there are three types of photos:

 

1. Tight/Detail shot
2. Medium shot
   1. Where you generally don’t want your subject right on center.
3. Wide shot

 

From there, Chris proceeded to talk about backgrounds.  In a perfect world, photographers would have clear backgrounds.  But we don’t live in a perfect world, and sometimes a photographer will have to move or adjust to make the picture work.  Chris told us that you can’t move things around or tell a subject what to do, the photographer needs to shift to create a good picture.  

 

Next, Chris talked about lens size.  The longer the lens, the more out of focus the background is.  Also, the longer the lens, the more compressed things are.  Chris moved on to layers.  We don’t have to think of photos as one dimensional.  Photographers are encouraged to create layers, to show scale.  For instance, if you want to show off how large something is, put it next to something small.  That is a very basic example, but it’s a suitable way to show off layers.

 

Chris finished his lecture talking about captions and how they always have to be AP style.  When identifying people, you mention them from left to right.  And always include location, day of the week, and date.  From there, Chris talked about the best lighting when shooting outside.  Before 10:30 a.m. or after 4:00 p.m. is the best time for a photographer to take pictures outside.  If it’s during the day, go in the shade.

 

Finally, Chris talked about how people read newspapers, people look at photos.  Take pictures of people dealing with whatever is going on.  That is what people want to see, and that is how photographers tell stories.  

To check out some of Chris’ photos click below 🙂

http://www.machianphoto.com/

Danny Schreiber: “Capturing people with words is still really important”

Silicon Prairie News managing editor Danny Schreiber spoke to our Media Storytelling class last Monday, February 11th, 2013.  A Creighton University graduate with his degree in Journalism/Public Relations, Schreiber writes, edits, and manages this internet start up company.  According to the Silicon Prairie News website, “Silicon Prairie News interviews the region’s leading entrepreneurs and creatives, reports on startups and established companies and announces events.”  

 

Different than the typical guest lecturer (though, what IS the typical guest lecturer in this class?) Schreiber is a part of a more non-traditional company.  Journalism students may aspire to write for a newspaper, magazine, or work in radio.  Not many students think about working for an internet start up company.  However, companies like these may be the wave of the future.  More and more people are wanting to start their own companies, and internet companies are more frequent than ever before.  

 

So what does Silicon Prairie News consist of?  Schreiber broke it down in four main points:

 

1).  News.  It’s another medium for us to consume our news.

2).  Events “Big Omaha”

-This is where Silicon Prairie News make their money.  They sponsor events, such as “Big Omaha” to encourage people to follow their passion and become entrepreneurs.

3).  Community.  It’s a place for people to connect.

4).  Exposure. 

 

Schreiber then continued on by explaining who tells the stories in start up companies.  News outlets tell stories (such as SPN and the Des Moines Register).  People tell stories (through blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn). And finally, companies tell stories through their blogs, Twitter and Facebook.  

 

Full of fun facts about the Midwest and the internet (for example, did you know one of the co-creators of Pinterest is from Iowa?) and educating the class on what a start up company is, Schreiber opened the eyes of the students of different jobs they could get upon graduation.  Journalism is more diverse than ever, and Schreiber is the perfect example of that.  

Sarah Mckinstry-Brown: Omaha’s Poet

Saturday nights for a college student can be spent many different ways.  Seeing a local band play, go to a sporting event, or head to a bar (if the college student is of age, of course).  What many college students don’t usually do is spend their Saturday nights listening to poems.  The Omaha Healing Arts Center in downtown Omaha provides such a night of poetry with their annual Omaha Poetry Slam.

A poetry slam is similar to, but not exactly like a poetry reading.  First of all, you’re not surrounded by artsy posers who snap their fingers instead of clapping or play bongos as background music. A true melting pot of people gathered for this night of entertainment.  America is diverse after all, and this poetry slam brought all different types of people together.  Men who looked like Santa Claus, women in their 40’s, girls at the age of 16, twenty-something college kids, all were gathered for one simple reason:  To hear the good, the bad, and the ugly of Omaha’s poets.

Many poets stood in front of the microphone, with hundreds of eyeballs watching them.  All the poets did a fantastic job baring their soul.  But none were as confident as Sarah Mckinstry-Brown.

  

Sarah opened the night, she was the first poet to read.  She had a natural ease on the stage, and her words painted a clear picture of the emotions she was trying to convey.  The thing about poetry is that it can really be up to the audience’s interpretation as to how the poem is received.  When Sarah finished reading her poems, however, the audience paused for just a breath to take in what she had just said.  And then the audience broke out in applause.

Perhaps one of the most well-known poets in the Omaha area, Sarah remembers that she enjoyed writing from a very early age.  In her late teens, she became more serious about her writing.

“I think my first serious poem was when I was 19 years old,” Sarah said.  “And it had something to do with heartbreak, I’m sure.”

She took her love of writing and graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Creative Writing degree.  She earned her MFA in Poetry from UNO and she’s even taught Creative Writing at UNO.  Sarah continues to teach performing and writing workshops in libraries, schools, and universities around the country.  And she encourages aspiring writers to write as much as they can.

“Go to as many readings as you can, read as much as you can, write as much as you can,” Sarah said.  “There are poetry readings as coffee shops, at universities.  Listen to other people’s work and find out what inspired them.”

Sarah read two poems at the poetry slam.  One was called “Genealogy.”

“‘Genealogy’ is about my beliefs and attitudes that I want to pass down to my children,” Sarah said.  “It’s the legacy that I’ll pass down.  We think of heirlooms as physical objects, but there are other abstract things you pass down.”

The other poem she read was titled, “What You (the Tall, Blond-Haired, Blue-Eyed, Smart, Talented Woman Who Keeps Hitting on My Husband) Don’t Know.”

In this poem, her frustration is put into words.

“It was a poem in a place of anger, that actually turned into a love poem,” Sarah said.  “Poetry has a way of evolving like that.”

For Sarah, poetry is her release, her passion, her profession.  And she was kind enough to share part of her final poem in this article:

“You’re stunning, but there are
thousands of people who drive
out of their way to find
our kind of beauty.  So when you look deep

into his eyes, smile and talk out of the corner
of your mouth,

I won’t put my arm around him
and drag him away.  I won’t kiss his cheek
lovingly.  What you don’t know
is that, when I walk away,
it’s just my way
of staying.”

For more information on Sarah Mckinstry-Brown and to read her full poems, visit her website:

http://sarah.midverse.com/

To see the Omaha Healing Arts Center, visit:

http://www.omahahealingarts.com/

Recap: Dr. Lipschultz, Ph.D.

The semester is moving forward progressively, as is our knowledge of online media.  We’ve learned the best ways to conduct interviews, how to make a blog and how to tweet.  But how do we measure our impact on social media sites?  That is where Dr. Jeremy Lipschultz, Ph.D., came in.  

Dr. Lipschultz obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, his masters from University of Illinois-Springfield, and finally, his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University.  All of his education has brought him to his current post as a professor and director of the UNO School of Communication.  

Dr. Lipschultz targeted his speech more towards the business side of the social media spectrum.  He talked about the three big business goals for any business:

1. Raise Revenues (sales)

2.  Lower Costs

3. Increase Customer Satisfaction

 

He also shared with us a lot of different websites that we can use to measure how our social media sites are being utilized. Fenton.com was one of the websites he encouraged us to use.  Fenton explores the R.O.I. (Return On Investment) of social media sites.  Fenton provides a resource guide titled “See, Say, Feel, Do:  Social Media Metrics that Matter” that “demystifies social media metrics and provides a simple framework  for planning and measurement” (according to Fenton.com).  

Finally, Dr. Lipschultz shared about S.E.O. or Search Engine Optimization.  S.E.O. is the process affecting the visibility of a particular website.  He talked about how some companies pay search engines extra money to have their website pop up first in a search.  I thought this fact very interesting because it never occurred to me why one website appears over another.  

I enjoyed Dr. Lipschultz’s talk.  I felt he provided a different perspective for our class to think about in regards to social media.  I’m strongly considering taking his class, Social Media Metrics, next semester.  

 

-Beth

Ten Tweets In A Week? No Big Deal!

An amazing aspect of this class, Media Storytelling, is that there are so MANY aspects!  We are writing recaps every week, making us better writers.  We are commenting on our classmates blogs, which makes us interactive and forces us to get to know our peers.  We’re working on our story beats, which makes us good journalists.  And we even get to tweet!  What does Twitter have to do with this class?  What does Twitter have to do with journalism?  It turns out, Twitter and journalism go hand in hand.

The future of journalism seems to be that interaction is key.  People don’t want to just sit on the sidelines and watch the news.  They want to share their opinion, they want their voice to be heard.  And one fast and easy way for people to get their message across is Twitter!  People can tweet to news stations or use hashtags (#) to certain topics and say what they feel.  It is only appropriate, in fact, necessary that college students working on some sort of degree within the journalism field learn how to tweet.

I liked this Twitter assignment.  I’ve had Twitter for a year or so now, and though I’m not a huge tweeter, I like to read it most days just to see what people are talking about.  And I’m learning this semester, it is so important to stay up to date, and tweeting is a really fast and easy way to find out what is happening in the world.  I will continue to tweet this semester, because I think it is a valuable website in terms of keeping current with news around the world.

I found the best time to tweet is when something is going on in our country that the majority of people are watching.  The debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was an extremely entertaining time to be on Twitter.  And lucky for us, last night’s Super Bowl was also a fantastic time to be on Twitter.  I was reading messages from angry football fans, happy football fans, Beyonce fans, etc.

All in all, I found this assignment to be challenging in that I don’t usually tweet about media topics relevant to this class.  And I also found this assignment to be fun, and I liked feeling connected with my fellow classmates over the week.

Check out my twitter at:

https://twitter.com/bethryan11

The Future is Clear: Psychic Andy is Advancing Omaha

Omaha, Nebraska is a city of many wonderful things.  The Old Market, endless corn fields, the College World Series, and an up and coming psychic.  That’s right, here in the good old midwest lives Psychic-medium Andy Myers, whose wonderful abilities have been helping people throughout the city for years.  And with the opening of his new business, Center for Intuitive Advancement, this psychic is about to become even more well-known.

Andy was born and raised here in Nebraska.  At a very early age, he began to have premonitions of images that would then happen in real life a few days later.  As he grew into his 20’s, he realized his dreams were vivid perceptions of the future.

“I had a dream that my aunt Joan would give birth to a baby girl,” Andy said.  “The next day I found out she was pregnant and 8 months later she had my cousin, Rebecca.”

As they would for anyone, these dreams confused Andy.  Could this all be a coincidence?  Or was there more to it?  Continuing to get these premonitions and dreams, Andy finished up his college career and got a degree in Social Work from the University Nebraska at Omaha in 2005.  He delved into social work around Omaha working at after-school programs and mental health facilities.  He used his gift of intuition to help these people, but he couldn’t deny that his intuitive abilities were strong and something special.  To educate himself, he read books on spirituality, metaphysics, and psychic abilities.

“I eventually got to the point where I would admit that I was intuitive,” Andy said.

Andy began to work with Deb Brockmann, an intuitive herself here in the Omaha area.  With her as a mentor, Andy landed a radio gig at Q-98.5.  This gave him the opportunity to reach out to people and let these people know that he wanted to help.

As Andy became more well-known, he built a strong client base.  He met with people giving them private sessions to learn about their future, their past, or about their spirit guides.

“A spirit guide is the same thing as a guardian angel,”  Andy said.

These private sessions with Andy cost $150 for a half an hour.  According to Andy, there is currently a 7 month long wait list for a private appointment.

With the help of Deb, his radio appearances, and his clients, Andy was able to open up the Center for Intuitive Advancement with his sister Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is an intuitive healer, who works along side Andy as the Chief Operating Officer at the center.

Opening up the center has been a dream come true for Andy.

“I mean how do you go from giving intuitive readings for fun to making it a part time job?” Andy said.  “And then a full time job…and then creating this center!  And I think it’s just because whenever a scary opportunity presented itself, even if I was nervous about it, I made myself do it anyway.”

These opportunities paid off for Andy big time.

“Every time I took an opportunity, good results have come from it and we’ve been blessed with more people being involved and more people wanting help,”  Andy said.  “As long as there are people who want help, then my life purpose of helping people and inspiring others will be fulfilled.”

The Center for Intuitive Advancement is located in West Omaha, off of 156th and Fort.  The center offers psychic readings, holistic healings, life coaching sessions, meditation groups, yoga classes, nutritional courses, poetry readings, spiritual book clubs, and more!

For more information on the Center for Intuitive Advancement, go to:

http://www.intuitiveomaha.com/

To learn more about Andy’s sister Elizabeth’s healings, go to:

http://www.HealingsByElizabeth.com/

Recap: Josie Loza

 

 

Before any of us students could settle in our seats for our Monday night lecture, speaker Josie Loza instructed us to grab a Momaha Magazine and look through it.  Right off the bat, I knew I would enjoy her lecture.  Why did I think that?  The second us students walked in the door, Josie was interacting with us.  Interaction is a huge part of journalism today!  We got to know a little bit about her before the class even started, which I thought was a very smart move.

Josie started by telling us a little bit of her background.  Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, she was a UNO grad just like we all hope to be.  She had a more interesting start than others because she was offered a small job at the Omaha World Herald before she even completed her degree.  Working her way up from filing photos, to writing obituaries, to a profile writer, and finally as the “What’s Happening” Entertainment Reporter.   She talked about how she got to interview Lady Gaga and have a beer with Kid Rock, but she didn’t get to be around these famous people by slacking off.  She stressed the importance of making connections, making opportunities for yourself.  Those words really struck a chord with me:  If I want to do something, I need to make it possible.  Not anyone else.

Life brought many changes for Josie as she moved from her 20’s to her 30’s.  She’s been blessed with children, and as such, her priorities shifted from night life to a mother’s life.  And with that, the creation of Momaha was born.  Created three years ago, Momaha.com isway for Omaha moms connect.  It’s a blog that explores the different aspects of motherhood.  From controversial topics like using inappropriate language around children, to informative topics, like houses with enormous amounts of lead and how that affects a family.  

I enjoyed Josie’s lecture very much, and I love how her career distinctively shows how the world of journalism is continually shifting.

 

Thanks for reading my recap!

-Beth