Just what is KANEKO?

Jun Kaneko never liked the idea of naming an institution after himself.

“My business advisers told me it would be easier to raise money if we used my name,” said the world-renowned, Omaha-based ceramist. “I fought them for a long time but finally had to give up.”

It's now been two years since KANEKO — a nonprofit organization that promotes creativity in all of its forms — opened in the Old Market. The center's reclusive founder is still uncomfortable with the name, especially the capital letters that the organization insists on using. But he now believes his bean-counting consultants may have had a good point.

That's because fundraising has proved to be a constant challenge.

The group's most recent tax documents show revenue from contributions and grants declined by more than 50 percent from the prior year, from $2.3 million to just over $1 million.

The economy has obviously been part of the problem, said Suzanne Wise, executive director of the Nebraska Arts Council.

“And because of the economy, I think they've tried to be prudent,” said Wise. “They didn't raise as much because they didn't plan to do as much.”

But Wise says confusion over KANEKO's purpose may be partly to blame. In a nutshell, it's harder to raise money when people don't know exactly what it is you do.

“KANEKO has done a fantastic job connecting with its target audience,” said Wise. “But if you mention KANEKO to the average person at a mall in west Omaha, you'd probably see a lot of blank faces.”

Hal France, KANEKO's executive director, concedes that the center has something of a murky mission. But that's been intentional.

“We're basically an organization that's interested in everything,” said France. “You can't really tell people what ‘everything' is in one or two sentences.”

But you can show them.

And to do that, France said KANEKO has “flipped” the order in which it planned to do things.

The original idea was to complete all of the proposed 64,000-square-foot, $10 million center — at the corner of 11th and Jones Streets — by the end of this year and then launch full swing into its programs.

To support it all, the group had also planned to raise an additional $10 million endowment.

Instead, with just $5 million raised so far, the nonprofit organization has decided to focus on its programming and wait for better days to complete its ambitious construction plans.

This new arrangement has kept the nonprofit busy.

Over the past two years, KANEKO has held 95 events in the three parts of the facility that have been completed — the 9,000-square-foot Bow Truss Presentation Space, a 3,000-square-foot gallery and a 3,000-square-foot library that is a joint venture with the University of Nebraska at Omaha Criss Library.

France estimates that at least 20,000 people have visited the center since it opened.

“People get to see for themselves what we do,” said France.

What they've seen are wide-ranging activities — in such diverse fields as the arts, sciences, business, education, international relations and philosophy — that share only creativity as a common theme.

Like the famed international TED conference, KANEKO has sponsored lectures from some of the world's most creative thinkers and writers, including National Geographic explorer Wade Davis, education guru Sir Ken Robinson and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sonia Nazario.

The group has also hosted a business conference, given guided tours of its high-tech library, presented concerts, engaged in collaborative projects with Omaha Public Schools and theater groups and, of course, exhibited the one-of-a-kind ceramics of Kaneko. Three of the ceramist's greatest works — 8,000-pound painted ceramic heads — are currently on display in the Bow Truss Presentation Space.

Not surprisingly, Kaneko himself is especially interested in collaborative ventures and unusual combinations. His own artistic breakthrough came after he fused together two art forms — abstract painting and large-scale ceramics — that had never been seriously paired before.

Creativity begins with an idea that allows the individual to see things differently, Kaneko says. That kind of fresh perspective often occurs when dissimilar disciplines come together. A perfect example of that will take place at KANEKO in the fall, when neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Levitin, author of the book “This Is Your Brain on Music,” collaborates in a project with singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash.

That kind of collaboration is hard to write about in a grant application, Kaneko says.

“You don't know where a truly original collaboration will lead until it's already started,” he said.

Kaneko found himself in one of those collaborations in 2005, when he agreed to design the sets and costumes for Opera Omaha's production of “Madama Butterfly.”

The ceramist had never even listened to Western opera before, let alone designed one. But he found opera's inherently collaborative nature — the genre is an ambitious mix of symphonic music, virtuoso singing, theater, dance, set, costume and lighting design — to be an inspiration.

He was also impressed with Opera Omaha's conductor at the time — Hal France — who like a master puppeteer was able to keep all of the production's divergent threads moving in beautiful tandem.

The experience led Kaneko to make one of his new nonprofit's first out-of-the-box decisions.

“It came to me in the middle of the night like a dream,” said Kaneko. “We'd been looking all over the country at museum directors to run the new center, but I suddenly realized the best person was already here in Omaha.”

Kaneko says the thing that has pleased him most about the new center is its board and small staff. The group now has four full-time staffers, including France and associate director Jacqueline Scoones, a veteran academic and administrator who has been adept at developing innovative programming for the center. Development director Julie Reilly, the founding director of Omaha's Ford Conservation Center, has helped the group with its strategic planning.

The thing that has displeased Kaneko the most is the amount of time his staff has to spend on fundraising. In fact, Kaneko would like to find a way to combine his nonprofit with some sort of for-profit venture that could support both operations.

Wise says the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh provides a possible model.

That nonprofit art, education and music group runs its own for-profit record label, which has won four Grammy Awards.

“KANEKO just needs to find a business that fits its image and mission,” Wise said.

Kaneko and France have mapped out what they need the money for — completing their capital campaign.

Los Angeles-based architect Mark Mack's design for the completed KANEKO will transform the Old Market between 11th and 12th Streets.

A spectacular glass atrium will connect the facility's current three warehouses. There will be four additional galleries, a video room, education room, a sculpture garden and an additional 20,000-square-foot building designed specifically to house 2,000 original Kaneko sculptures.

“If you're not going to do a project right, then you shouldn't even start,” said Kaneko. “That's why we're going to finish our project.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

« Arts

Share