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Artist alumna displays faith-inspired work at GCCC
Published 3/25/2011 in Local News
By JEROME P. CURRY
jcurry@gctelegram.com
Kate Dibbern came to Garden City Community College as an athlete and an artist.
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Brad Nading/Telegram Krisha Baker looks over paintings and sculptures, including a mixed media piece entitled ÒOmnipresent Opinions,Ó Thursday in Garden City Community CollegeÕs Mercer Gallery. The work is part of an exhibit by 2008 GCCC alumna Kate Dibbern, now of Lindsborg.
"I was recruited for cross country at Garden City in 2006," Dibbern said. "And I knew I was going into art."
Her works are on display this week at GCCC's Mercer Gallery, where the director is David Kinder.
A reception for the athlete-artist is scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the gallery, which is in the west wing of Pauline Joyce Fine Arts Building.
The native of York, Neb., is scheduled to graduate this Spring from Lindsborg's Bethany College, where she transferred after earning her associates in Garden City. Her major is studio art.
Sometimes she speaks in exclamation points.
"I do painting, ceramics and drawing!" she said. "I run cross country!"
It is difficult for her to separate the two, she acknowledged. One, she said, flows from the other.
"I have time to think when I am running and in art, I have a chance to express those thoughts," Dibbern said.
And there are similarities.
"Both are disciplines," the artist-athlete said. "They are!"
She said art instructor Kinder and cross country coach Dan Delgado were her mentors at GCCC.
"Kinder inspired me in the sense of always pursuing my passion and not giving up," Dibbern said. "Coach Delgado was the hardest kind of love. He always cared about me. He also inspired me to the Word of God."
At Garden City, she was one of three sophomores in 2007 who led the women's cross country team to an 11th-place finish in the NJCAA championships. Her time of 20:06 was her personal best.
Through the freshman and sophomore years, in art and cross country, she kept working, she said, kept getting better.
"I do OK!" Dibbern said of her efforts. "I keep on. I still run! I still paint!"
Does she ever plan to stop running?
"Nope!"
Does she ever plan to stop doing art?
"No! I don't!"
Those, she said: "I am planning to keep. Those two will remain on my agenda."
And above them is God.
She is a devout Lutheran.
"My creativity, my outlook and way I see things are directed through God," Dibbern said. "Some of these pieces (on display at the Mercer) have deep and tender meanings that are close to my heart. These emotions are restless within me. Some of my work is more technical as I search for a gateway where solutions exist. My paintings, drawings and sculptures are ways that I view the world."
Dibbern's murals include a series of eight-by-eight-foot Old Testament scenes at Faith Lutheran Church in York depicting The Flood, David and Goliath, Moses holding the stone tablet on which the 10 Commandments were written by the finger of God, Jonah and the Leviathan.
At St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she painted in the church's gymnasium above a basketball goal an eight-by-27-foot mural of the church on a rock battered by a storm that generated a raging flood. "That," she said, "is to commemorate the Cedar Rapids flood. I was there with my group during my year in Americorp NCCC (National Civilian Community Corp.) rebuilding the resource center for the community."
The flood to which she referred occurred on June 13, 2008, when the Cedar River crested at its highest level, 30.1 feet, in the city's recorded history. Ten square miles were inundated by the usually docile river.
Meanwhile, Dibbern also welds, works with concrete, roofs and would not refuse if you need help to dig a few ditches.
She hopes she never stops learning or improving. Last summer, Dibbern worked with Conrad Snider, an influential ceramic studio artist who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and is now a resident of Newton. His focus is works in clay that range from handmade tile murals to massive sculpture often higher than six feet.
Also last year, she earned Best of Ceramics honors — at the time, the piece was untitled; now it is called Movement — in the 2010 Messiah Festival of the Arts in Lindsborg. She also earned a merit award in painting, "best piece" honors for an additional painting and a number of additional awards. Dibbern also received a Kansas Collegiate Aesthetics Merit Award in the undergraduate division.
She honors God. She runs. She does art.
"I do not surrender," she said.
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