The Castle & Cathedral District was formally established in 2023, with the Joslyn Castle area included.
The creative district aims to use the arts as a “economic driver to support communities in Nebraska by telling their stories and elevating the value of the arts.”
Molly Hudson, a neighborhood reporter, spoke with the district’s first artist-in residence.
Broadcast transcript:
These are familiar faces in the tree-lined streets that surround Joslyn Castle.
“I’ve got Kim, Tori, and Lauren,” said Watie White, the Castle and Cathedral District’s artist in residence.
And everyone has a tale.
“Lauren here is Lauren Medici, who works at Opera Omaha,” White claimed.
And here, each person’s story contributes to a larger one – about this area.
“Part of the responsibility was to come in, come to this campus, come to this neighborhood, walk around it, be inspired by it, look for ways that my own work is going to build off of my experiences here,” White told me.
Watie White, an artist, has spent the past year recording moments and painting his neighbors.
Guests include drag queens, restaurant owners, and Saint Cecilia’s students.
“What that turned into was doing portraits of all these people I was meeting over the course of the year and we wound up with 100 of them,” White told me.
White relocated to Omaha in 2006.
He has shared the experiences of his neighbors through various pieces of art, such as this one at Gifford Park.
But how does he find these people? He told me that for his Castle & Cathedral District residency project, he met individuals while walking on the sidewalk, visiting neighborhood sites, and participating in events.
“Part of what makes this exhibition and this project as meaningful and as powerful as it is, is that where it is coming from,” White informed us. “This is coming from the castle; this is coming from this district.”
This is one of Omaha’s oldest and most famous neighborhoods. His goal is to harness the area’s rich heritage to help make art more accessible.
“These are real people that you can identify, that look like they are having a particular kind of unguarded moment,” White told the crowd.
White’s ‘One Degree of Separation’ display features more than just pictures.
“These people are now connected then by just this one degree, that they also connected through this neighborhood, through this organization itself and they are very close to all these other people that they didn’t know either,” White told reporters.
Developing strong ties with one another and with art in the area.
“Hopefully these things will go into those spaces, will be part of what they live with that will also be this little connection, that this is a creative way that this community actually supports people who makes these things,” White said me.
People like White. Motivated by experiencing the impact art can have up close.
Molly Hudson, a reporter, mentioned that Saint Cecilia’s students were engaged.
These ten portraits will be transformed into a mural for the school.
There will also be a show at Boys Town featuring the students with whom White worked.
The complete exhibit will be on display until early January.
It’s in the carriage house on the Joslyn Castle grounds.