Art Exhibits by Cultural Council Spur Creative Thinking

From oil and watercolor paintings, photography, pen and ink work, to reliefs, the Northwest Cultural Council co-sponsors year' round exhibits at a variety of Northwest suburban locations, with the next shows running from Saturday, Oct. 7 to Saturday, Jan 6.

The exhibits, free and open to the public during business hours, feature the work of longtime area artists: two in Arlington Heights, by Steven Schroeder and Lynnea Semasko, respectively, at the Arlington Green Executive Center, 2101 S. Arlington Heights Rd. and at the Wellness Center of Northwest Community Hospital, 800 W. Central Rd.;

by Tiffany Whisler at the Rolling Meadows Library, 3110 Martin Lane, Rolling Meadows; Nancy Wedow at Fremont Public Library, 1170 N. Midlothian Rd., Mundelein;

John Green at Meet Chicago Northwest, 1375 E. Woodfield Rd., Ste. 120, Schaumburg; and Gary Swiontek and Dean Caminiti, at Moats Gallery, 675 N. Court, Palatine.

Chicago Artist Steven Schroeder will exhibit his oil, acrylic, watercolor, and ink work at Arlington Green Executive Center. Schroeder's work incorporates various techniques with particular attention to fluidity, and painting with light and pigment.

Schroeder, who is also a poet, says, "Emptiness plays an important role in both my painting and my poetry. I often find myself spending as much time on what is not there, as on what is. This usually means focusing on a single image and letting the whole composition spring up around it."

Schroeder, co-founder of the Virtual Artists Collective of musicians, poets, and visual artists, is a professor of Asian Classics and Liberal Education at The University of Chicago.

Arlington Heights artist Lynnea Semasko, who will exhibit at the Wellness Center, finds that her travels around the world are a great inspiration for her oil and watercolor paintings of cities, European landscapes, and landmarks.

"I hope my paintings invite patrons to step into them and travel with me," Semasko says.

Semasko is retired, and taught gifted first graders in Chicago for 43 years.

Tiffany Whisler of Mount Prospect believes that "God gives each of us passions and skills for a purpose," and she is passionate about her photography. In her exhibit at Rolling Meadows Library, she captures nature's beauty, incorporating her deep spirituality.

Nancy Wedow of Palatine will also capture nature's beauty in her watercolor exhibit at Fremont Public Library.

"I delight in being outdoors in any season, and my goal is to express the essence of the day, be it a sunny day with luminous shadows or one of those bright gray winter days when fluffy snowflakes drift down from the sky," Wedow says.

"I hope that viewers experience the beauty I see in the world, and that they will be inspired to take the extra time to experience that sense of wonder in their own everyday lives," Wedow adds.

John Green of Buffalo Grove is a pen and ink artist, when he's not practicing architecture. At Chicago Northwest, he will exhibit some of his work that totals more than 500 pen and ink pieces of Chicago scenes and events and cultural images from around the world.

"A fascination with light and dark, both physically and emotionally, has been a driving motivational force in my form of art, and it inspires me to work almost exclusively with pen and ink," Green says. "Many of my works study the vast differences that exist in and between world cultures."

Gary Swiontek of Arlington Heights and Dean Caminiti of Palatine will exhibit photography and wood and printmaking, respectively, at Moats Gallery. Swiontek believes his photography, that documents life, evokes varied emotions from peace to discomfort.

Caminiti, who has skills as a cabinetmaker, cinematographer, filmmaker, and architectural illustrator/model-maker, has created work inspired by the stone reliefs of the ancient world and also by extraterrestrial crop circle patterns. He carves designs into a blank wood substrate with a router, giving the relief a tactile surface that invites the viewer's touch.

The Northwest Cultural Council serving the Northwest corridor, is a non-profit organization. It supports and promotes the work of area visual artists and poets, offering a variety of programs including corporate gallery exhibitions, co-sponsored by businesses, convention and visitors' bureaus, libraries, and hospitals; art competitions to promote artists; and poetry workshops and readings.

For more information about NWCC exhibits, call 847-382-6922.