Sheldon Art Gallery features a variety of new exhibits

Two current docents led four new interns through the galleries of Sheldon Museum of Art late Friday afternoon.

One floor below, Jeff MacDonald, the layout leader, and a small team worked to install the layout of a model train set, putting in wiring, painting backdrops and building models of Nebraska towns around the tracks.

This semester, the Sheldon will not only add on to its docent program, but will also be hosting a variety of exhibitions within the next few months.

The two student docents, Amanda Washburn, an art history graduate student and Shulang Zou, a senior art history major, stopped at various works, asking their peers questions about each piece. Silence answered them, but that's not how it always goes.

"The rewarding part is having those conversations with people and getting to interact with people who are interested in art, as well," said Washburn. "It's no longer a typical tour."

The Sheldon offers interactive tours to those passing through. Docents pick the works they want to discuss. Along with offering information about the works, they are also expected to encourage conversation among the tourists about each piece.

Starting Jan. 28 at 2 p.m., these tours will be offered to the public free of charge. They will be held each consecutive Saturday at the same time.

The Sheldon currently has two docent programs, one for students and one for adults. The adult program is used primarily to give tours to every fourth, fifth and sixth grader in the Lincoln Public Schools system.

Starting in 2011, the student docent program began revision. Students attend a six-week training session on Friday afternoons beginning in September where they practice tour-giving techniques with each other. Once initial training is complete, docents are also required to meet once a month to discuss new exhibitions or programs in the museum.

Student docents give tours to University of Nebraska-Lincoln classes and volunteer for the Sheldon's events. Regina Flowers, a graduate student in art history and the docent coordinator, said the museum strives to have a high number of docents so the students only have to work a few hours every week.

"It's important for us to reach out to the university," she said. "It's giving them an investment into the university."

Anyone can fill out an application to be a docent. The positions are completely voluntary.

With the changing of the semester, the docents will have new exhibits to lead tourists through.They are currently in the process of installing "Railroads and the Making of Modern America," which will open this Friday, 150 years after the founding of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The exhibition will contain several pieces from the Sheldon's collection and the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Some art enthusiasts in Nebraska have also loaned works from their private collection to the museum.

In addition to artwork, the exhibition will also feature between eight and 10 material objects from the UNL library and the Nebraska State Historical Society, including a leather-bound traveler's atlas from 1850.

William G. Thomas III, a history professor and guest curator, organized the exhibition as a continuation of his current research and the publication of his book, "The Iron Way: the Civil War, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America."

Thomas said he likes to incorporate artwork into his work and after talking with the Sheldon's director about including pieces in his digital research project, he decided organize an exhibition.

"Surprisingly the Sheldon has a rich and interesting permanent collection and set of items that deals with the RR system," said Thomas. "It kind of naturally came together, kind of beautifully, I think."

But the railroad theme will not be confined to a solitary gallery.

An operating scale railroad model is being installed in the entryway of the Sheldon. The installation is a two-rail, O scale layout of the Burlington and Union Pacific railroad routes in Nebraska, circa 1950. Model buildings have been built alongside the tracks and signs of towns along the railroad will be painted onto the backdrop.

"It's the era that Jim and I appreciate versus modern railroading," said MacDonald, who has been working on the project since December.

James Seacrest loaned the model trains to the museum.

A timetable of the trains' departure and arrival times will be created in an attempt to add to the allusion of being in a train station. Visitors are encouraged to imagine where they would go if they were about to climb into the tiny trains and to write or sketch that place in a "destination book" beside the railroad model.

Laura Reznicek, the Sheldon director of development, said she hopes this will help to draw a wider variety of people to the display, from children to adults.

"This is for kids, young and old," MacDonald said. "People like to play with trains."

But if trains don't trip the imagination, February will bring variety to the Sheldon's railroad exhibition.

The "All is Pretty: Warhol Portraits" exhibition will open Feb. 3 and will feature 30 photos taken by Andy Warhol in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the displayed works will be Polaroids, but there will be some 8x10 prints, as well.

Photo subjects will vary from celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone and Margaret Hamilton to objects such as lobsters and snowmen.