Spiva: Binding the Joplin community
June 04, 2016


"I'm Trying to See It Both Ways" in part is composed of kinwashi paper, dowels and a tree branch and most importantly lights that make the object a living and breathing symbol quite suggestive of the firsthand farm life from which artist Matthew Dehaemers says, he is over a generation removed but to which he wants to connect if only in a primal way. This piece is part of a "fusing, grafting and melding" exhibit offered at the Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin.

Artist Matthew Dehaemers has a fantastic talent utilizing light and different textures. His latest exhibit is now in the Main Gallery at the George A. Spiva Center for the Arts until July 3, 2016.

"My work is a confluence of materials that convey a patchwork of my inheritance," Dehaemers says. "...I seek to reconnect and recompose the stories told and untold of the past....."

Much of the exhibit reflects upon his personal world, but the artist also has created pieces that reflect on how the people of Joplin have struggled to rebuild their environment after the May 2011 tornado. The Spiva exhibits, including "Dear World Revisited" which fills the Regional Gallery, are meant to be part of events during a five year anniversary celebration that showcases the spirit of recovery that has sustained the city.

Says Dehaemers, "These works speak to the resiliency and adaptation of people's lives within this community as they continue a delicate dance with the surrounding natural world."


"Coalescing Cadence of Recovery" is Dehaemer's way of honoring those who passed away during the wrath of Joplin's tornado. It also pays tribute to those who have had to cope with physical and mental hardships associated with survival. The artist describes it as a "hopeful struggle to reconnect the community. The rib-like structure surrounds and protects a heart/lung -like delicate paper form that pulses with ever changing color. The varying colors of the light reflect the "cadence of the community growing back together." There are 161 (the unfortunate number of deaths) individual wood reeds that emerge to symbolize the growing rebirth of the community.

About the man

Dehaemers, pictured at left, majoring in fine arts graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in 1996. After that he taught high school art on a Navajo Reservation in St. Michael, Arizona before earning a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His many community projects, including Project Reclamation eventually brought funding for a grant program to benefit artists in Joplin affected by the storm.

In the Regional Gallery


Credited with capturing images of residents after the May 2011 tornado are (L-R) Johnny Rosenbloom (production), Robert X. Fogarty (photography) and Adam Karlin (words).

"The Other Side of the Storm" is an update on the photographs taken during the one-year anniversary in which participants allowed words of "hope and defiance" to be inscribed on parts of their bodies. Now four years later these individuals were revisited allowing a wordy response to how they actually fared.

The exhibit also running until July 3, 2016, includes then and now photographs as well as stories from selected survivors on where they are now and how the tornado affected their lives. It is a very moving exhibit, especially for those with firsthand knowledge of that day in May 2011.

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The George A. Spiva Center for the Arts is located at 222 W. Third St., Joplin. Gallery and gift shop hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays-Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. Also, be sure to take the elevator or stairs to the Upstairs Gallery where local photographers are exhibiting their work. The themes are varied.

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