Falls City painter hopes exhibit will convey ‘sense of place’

She has lived in the Rocky Mountains and near the Pacific Ocean, but it’s only in the southeast Nebraska town of Falls City that artist Sandy Appleoff feels a “sense of place.”

It’s where she was born and raised. Where her father owned the local appliance store and drive-in. Where she had what she describes as a idyllic, “Leave it to Beaver” childhood.

Appleoff decided art was her calling while she was in high school, with a nudge from former Falls City resident and Saturday Evening Post illustrator John Falter. Falter, in town when Appleoff won her first art-related award, sent her a note suggesting she pursue a career in art.

After college, Appleoff landed a job as an illustrator for Hallmark. It was there, she said, she developed as an artist, working alongside people she admired.

“It was inspirational to have that level of ability around,” she said. “I learned more in two years than in the six prior to that.”

Her career took different directions after Hallmark. She worked in commercial art for a time, spent eight years as an instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, then moved to Colorado to do freelance work. She is currently the chairwoman of the Game Art Department at Laguna College of Art + Design in Laguna Beach, Calif.

But Falls City is a place she’s never gotten past.

“It’s my home,” she said. “The rest of my life has been a big commute.”

So each summer she returns to “Appleoff Acres” to spend time with old memories and old friends.

On the heels of returning from riding in the bicycle ride across Iowa, she geared up for her first solo art show, which has an opening reception Friday at the Falls City Library and Arts Center. Several of the paintings give a peek inside her “sense of place.”

“I really wanted to have a bulk of work that gave a feeling of the joy of people coming together in a place that is special,” she said. “People make home home.”

Contact the writer:

444-1264, kenton.krueger@owh.com