Art at the Airport featuring Nancy Lindsay, Marcia Whitmore and specimens from the Fryzell Geology museum

From November 4-January 4, 2021, Quad City Arts Art at the Airport presents Nancy Lindsay’s landscape paintings, Marcia Whitmore’s botanical watercolors and a selection of fossils & minerals from Augustana College’s Fryxell Geology Museum.  

 Nancy Lindsay (Stone City, IA) discovered the beauty of the Iowa landscape when she moved to Iowa in 1998, when her husband introduced her to all the scenic areas. Lindsay states, “Palisades, Pleasant Creek, Pinicon, Wapsipinicon and Backbone Parks are some of my favorite places to paint. As a landscape painter for most of my life, the last few years my paintings have brought me closer into the woods. I have been obsessed with branches, their direction, their movement, their strength, their weakness. The abstract quality of intersecting lines is what I see as I work to build the composition and to the final painting.”

Her paintings can be found in many residential and commercial buildings across the country.

She is a member of the Iowa Plein Air Painters.

 Marcia Whitmore (Coal Valley) is a botanical illustrator with a membership in the American Society of Botanical Artists.  Her paintings are of orchids exclusively.  Her art has been featured at the Chicago Botanical Center, the Clinton Art League, the Quad City Botanical Center, Studios in the Park, Paso Robles, CA and the Fairchild Botanical Center in Florida, and also many displays at orchid shows.  Her Facebook page is entitled “A Brush with Orchids.”  Many of her watercolors are currently appearing in Orchids (the Journal of the American Orchid Society.) 

 Marcia is a retired teacher/fine arts coordinator.  She received a BA from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois and MS from Western Illinois University.

 Both artist’s works can be seen online: https://www.quadcityarts.com/art-at-the-airport.html

 Specimens from Augustana’s Fryxell Geology Museum collections were selected for this exhibit to highlight the beauty of the art and science of landscape, and include fossil leaves preserved in volcanic ash, preserved textures in petrified wood,  minerals as vivid as the colors on a painter’s palette, and fossilized sea animals that resemble botanical illustrations of lilies.

 The Fryxell Geology Museum is one of the largest and finest collections of rocks, minerals, and fossils in the Midwest. Favorite exhibits include a wall of glowing, fluorescent rocks and a complete 22-foot long skeleton of crested and carnivorous Cryolophosaurus, a dinosaur discovered in Antarctica by an Augustana geology professor. The museum serves as a teaching resource for Augustana students and the public for the understanding of Earth’s history, processes and materials, and promotes earth science awareness through displays, free educational programming, teaching kits loaned free-of-charge to schools and organizations, and community outreach.

Due to COVID-19 precautions, the museum currently is open to the public free-of-charge, by appointment only. To make an appointment, call 309-794-7318 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. augustana.edu/fryxellmuseum

Art at the Airport in The Quad City International airport gallery is easy to find. It is just across from the gift shop and restaurant and right before the security checkpoint. The gallery never closes, and you will pay just a dollar for parking.

 Quad City Arts is a nonprofit local arts agency dedicated to enriching the quality of life in the Quad City region through the arts.  Support for art exhibitions is provided by the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Quad City Arts Gallery is located at 1715 Second Avenue in the Arts and Entertainment District of Rock Island.  Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. For more information, contact Dawn Wohlford-Metallo 309-793-1213 X108, or by email at [email protected]